We’ve been exploring the Ten Commandments and, by now, I’m hoping you’ve seen a distinct pattern in our meditations on them. We’ve articulated the value of these commandments as agents of legal structure in a blessed society AND explored them as agents of instruction for the covenant heart of the worshipper. Both roles are important.
Even taken at their most exacting literalism, the Ten Commandments prove essential for a stable society. Imagine living in a world where people took one day a week to both rest and give rest to others… where they honored their parents, never murdered, or stole, or defiled their marriages. Imagine a world where everyone could be wholly trusted in legal disputes. This would be like heaven on earth. Of course it is an impossible world if people don’t have a moral foundation for such behaviors… like a commitment to the One Holy Creator of all who laid down such rules, and a decided aversion to pagan and godless thinking.
Then imagine how such things, if kept as a code for society, would bleed into social expectations. Not murdering becomes an anchor for learning to love one’s neighbor and for properly handling anger, envy, or resentment when they arise and not merely when they look to boil over into violence, theft, or vandalism. Denouncing adultery becomes an anchor for general sexual restraint and the common recognition that each is born to be the spouse of another from the start… so that pre-marital chastity is honored as the foundation of marital fidelity that it is. Honesty in court becomes an anchor for truthfulness in all of one’s dealings.
Anything that speaks to the governance of society becomes political. Politics are the ideas involved in establishing and administering the policies of community. Saying that men are happiest when they are as free as possible within the confines of a safe and prosperous community is a political statement. When the Ten Commandments declare “You shall not steal,” in Exodus 20:15 that too is a political statement.
Like the other commands, “You shall not steal,” as we’ve previously noted, becomes an anchor for the covenant heart of the worshipper to give every soul their due as befits image bearers of the One Holy Creator. But it goes further yet. The very idea of stealing rests on a political foundation of property rights; it’s sort of in the definition of “steal.” Just as the creation is the possession of the Creator, so the produce of an image bearer is his or hers.
When you mention property rights today, many scoff, “Yeah, rich people are always worried about property rights!” But the right to own and for what one owns to be left unmolested by others is actually the hope of the poor. It is the great incentive to labor. You work; you earn; you control what you earn and you control what you buy with what you earn. It is also the soul-discipline of the poor, driving them to honest labor and not to seek easy attainment, to emulate and not envy.
Even in the New Testament, we find Jesus addressing divine grace and mercy through the parabolic vineyard owner, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”[1] There are powerful ownership statements here in both the vineyard owner’s claims of rights of possession and his declaration of what is owed and, thus, owned by the workers who made a verbal contract for labor with him.
In the very context of a community that is willingly making what is theirs freely available to help the needy among them, Peter says, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”[2] This man and his wife are cursed because they boasted of giving it all when they had in fact kept some back, NOT because they held some back. The need was great. The pressure for generosity great. But Peter defends property rights to the bitter end.
Ready for this to get tricky?
As a political statement, “You shall not steal,” is a vital foundation stone for a free and prosperous society. As an anchor for the covenant heart, it demands that the worshipper give others their due and curb their own actions to respect the divinely set boundaries of others. But it goes further yet, for our ownership of that which we have produced or earned is an iron spike driven into a wall that is wholly owned by God Himself. We are, therefore, stewards of what we have produced or earned in His world. In this position, as stewards, we are called to reflect the character of God in how He deals with what He owns.
It is in this context that He calls upon His covenant children to defend property rights as a necessary foundation for community, to give every soul their due, and to personally, with a free will and total stewardship control, share His generous heart. Go forth, therefore, and do all three.
~Andrew D. Sargent, Ph.D.
[1] Matthew 20:13-15.
[2] Acts 5:3-4.
