Latest / Reformed Thinking / From Thieves to Givers: Theft, the Eighth Commandment, and the Gospel’s Transforming Power

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From Thieves to Givers: Theft, the Eighth Commandment, and the Gospel’s Transforming Power · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed thinking. We are glad you're here with us
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  as we open up our stack of sources today to look at the
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  world through a distinctively theological lens.
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  And today we are turning our attention to the 8th
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  Commandment. That's right, Exodus 20 verse
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  15. You shall not steal.
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  It's short, it's direct. It is.
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  And I think for a lot of people, maybe even for us before we
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  started digging into these materials, this commandment
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  feels a little bit simple. You know, it's the kind of thing
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  you teach a toddler in the nursery so they don't take
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  another kids toy or it's a law for the prison cell for people
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  robbing banks. It just feels very basic.
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  It does often get relegated to that nursery or prison cell
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  category. We tend to think, you know,
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  well, I've never held up a liquor store and I don't
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  shoplift, so I can safely check this box.
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  Right, move on to the harder stuff.
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  Exactly. Move on to the spiritual issues
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  that feel harder to grasp, but the sources we're looking at
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  today specifically from plunder to Providence and from fees to
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  givers, they argue that this is a massive theological mistake,
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  mistake. They argue that if we really
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  drill down into this one commandment, it acts as a kind
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  of barometer for our entire worldview.
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  The phrase that jumped out at me from the reading was functional
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  atheism. That is a heavy charge to lay at
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  the feet of someone who maybe just fudges an expense report.
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  But the the thesis here is that the 8th commandment exposes
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  whether we actually trust in Providence or if we are in fact
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  acting like God doesn't exist. That is the absolute core of it.
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  We're on a mission today to move past that surface level.
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  Don't rob banks understanding. We need to see the comprehensive
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  view of God's ownership, the what the source is called, the
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  heart roots of greed, and the remedy found only in union with
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  Christ. So let's start with that
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  theological foundation. The sources call this the anchor
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  question. What do we have to believe about
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  God to even begin to understand why stealing is truly wrong?
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  Right, because if we just think it's wrong because it's mean or
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  illegal. We're missing the point.
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  We're totally missing the point. The foundation isn't sociology,
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  it's theology, and we have to start with Psalm 24.1.
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  The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.
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  That one verse changes everything about how we view our
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  stuff. It means that private property,
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  in a biblical sense is not absolute ownership, it's
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  stewardship. So I don't actually own my car
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  or my house in the final ultimate sense.
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  I'm just holding it in trust for the real owner.
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  Precisely. It's delegated to you by the
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  creator. So when theft occurs, it's not
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  just a social transgression against your neighbor's estate,
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  it is a brazen assault on God's sovereignty.
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  You're messing with what the master has distributed.
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  You are. And this is where that concept
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  of the idol of autonomy comes right in.
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  The thief is essentially asserting that they are the
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  ultimate arbiter of ownership. I get to decide who has what.
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  I know better. Yeah.
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  And that brings us right back to that functional atheism idea.
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  Right. Unpack that for us.
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  How is stealing an act of practical atheism?
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  Well, think about what you're actually saying.
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  When you steal, you're implicitly declaring one of two
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  things about God. Either he's blind to your needs,
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  he doesn't know you need this thing, or he's unjust in his
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  provision. He knew you needed it, but for
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  some reason failed to give it to you.
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  So the thief looks at his own lack and his neighbor's
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  abundance and concludes God got it wrong.
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  God messed up, so he has to step in, play God, and redistribute
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  creation according to his own lusts rather than according to
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  God's law. That's terrifying when you put
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  it that way. It's realizing that my desire to
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  just take something is actually a vote of no confidence in God.
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  It is, and this connects directly to the Westminster
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  Confession of Faith, chapter 5 on Providence.
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  Providence teaches that God governs all things from the
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  greatest to the least. When we steal, we are actively
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  rejecting that governance. We're saying we don't like his
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  plan. We're saying we have a better
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  one. The thief wants the end, the
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  provision, the money, the object without the means that God is
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  ordained. Which is honest.
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  Labor, which is honest, diligent labor.
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  The source material made a really interesting comparison
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  here to the prosperity gospel. We usually think of that as, you
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  know, the TV preacher telling you to send money to get rich.
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  But the text argues that theft and the prosperity gospel are
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  two sides of the same bad coin. They are.
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  The prosperity gospel treats God like a cosmic vending machine
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  you manipulate to get what you want.
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  You put in your faith feed and get a blessing back.
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  Right. And the thief, on the other
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  hand, treats God as an obstacle to be circumvented.
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  In both cases, the person refuses to submit to God's wise
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  decree. They refuse to wait on God's
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  timing. So true contentment.
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  True contentment is the systematic opposite of theft,
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  because it rests in the assurance that the Father knows
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  what we need before we even ask. OK, so that's that's the
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  theological stage. It's all about ownership and
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  Providence. But I want to get into the nitty
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  gritty of the text itself. The sources go into a bit of a
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  Hebrew lexical analysis regarding the word for steel.
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  Yeah, this is fascinating stuff. In Hebrew there are different
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  words for taking things. You have gazelle.
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  Gazelle, which generally denotes robbery by open force or
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  violence. Think of a mugging on the
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  street. Right.
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  Overt and violent. But the word used in the eighth
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  commandment in Exodus 20.15 is ganav.
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  And Ganav is different. How so?
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  Very different. Ganav implies stealth,
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  deception, secrecy, manipulation.
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  It's the act of the manipulator who is operating in the shadows.
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  So if the commandment specifically uses Ganav, it's
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  targeting the guy who thinks he's getting away with it
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  because nobody sees them. You are spot on.
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  It targets the white collar fraudster.
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  The embezzlement, the person cooking the books just as much,
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  if not more than the highway bandit.
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  It's a crime of deception. And while we're looking at the
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  context, the sources bring up the Ancient Near East,
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  specifically the Code of Hammurabi.
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  Yes, the Babylonian law code. The contrast is stark.
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  If you look at Hammurabi, property offenses could actually
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  result in the death penalty. Wait, so if I stole a sheep in
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  ancient Babylon I could be executed for it?
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  You could. In that system, material goods
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  were elevated to the level of human life.
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  But the Mosaic law is very, very different.
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  In Exodus 21 and 22, the Bible prescribes restitution.
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  You know, paying back double or even fourfold for theft.
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  But not death. It reserves the death penalty
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  for things like kidnapping or murder.
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  So that establishes a clear hierarchy of values.
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  It does. The Bible elevates the imago
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  dei, the image of God in human life far above material goods.
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  You don't kill a man for stealing ATV.
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  But, and this is a key point you raised, it's still strictly
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  upholds justice. Oh, absolutely.
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  You can't just say sorry. You have to restore what you
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  consume. You have to make it right.
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  We are definitely going to get to that restitution part later
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  because that is a huge piece of this puzzle.
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  But before we fix the problem, we have to understand where it
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  comes from. The sources talk about the heart
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  roots of theft. It's not just that my hand
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  reaches out and takes something. Something happens inside me
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  first. Theft is always worship gone
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  wrong. Always.
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  We have to look at the internal causes, and the first route the
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  text identifies is, unsurprisingly, covetousness.
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  Which connects the 8th commandment directly to the
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  10th. Exactly.
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  You shall not covet Micah. Chapter 2 verse 2 makes this
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  connection explicitly. It says they covet fields and
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  seize them. The coveting happens in the
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  heart. And then the seizing happens
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  with the hand. The source material notes that
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  when covetousness takes over, the conscience becomes a lawyer.
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  I love that image. The conscience becomes a lawyer.
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  It starts inventing excuses. I need this.
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  It's not fair that they have it and I don't.
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  I'm actually owed this, right? This is justice for me.
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  Yeah, and that leads right into the second room.
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  Unbelief and anxiety. This goes all the way back to
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  Jesus teaching in Matthew 6. Do not be anxious about
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  tomorrow, right? Theft so often arises when that
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  little voice of fear whispers you will not have enough.
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  It's a refusal to wait for God's provision in due season.
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  We panic and we grab. Then there's the third route,
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  which I think stings a little for a lot of us in the modern
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  world. Sloth and entitlement.
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  This one hits close to home. It's the refusal to labor.
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  As a sub creator we are made to work to create value, but sloth
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  wants the reward without the effort.
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  And entitlement then baptizes that theft as justice.
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  It does. We convince ourselves I am owed
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  this lifestyle or I am owed this recognition.
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  The text has something brilliant here.
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  Shortcuts have a theology. Shortcuts have a theology.
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  OK, what does that mean? It means that when we take a
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  shortcut, cheating, stealing, cutting corners at work, we are
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  declaring A theological belief. We're making a statement.
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  We are declaring the God's appointed paths, which usually
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  involve diligence and patience and hard work, are too slow or
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  too hard. We're saying I know a better,
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  faster way than God does. And that slides right into the
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  4th and final route. Idolatry.
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  Colossians 3.5 Greed is idolatry, full stop.
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  We're assigning to created things money, status, security,
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  the weight that belongs only to God.
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  You think if I just had that then I would be safe, then I
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  would be significant? And because we think it will
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  save us, we're willing to send to get it.
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  And that is the very definition of a false God.
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  So we have the theology, we have the grammar, and we have the
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  heart motivations. Now I want to pivot to the
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  modern application because I suspect most people listening
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  right now are still thinking OK, but I really don't steal.
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  Yes. The sources, however, are about
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  to make us all very, very uncomfortable.
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  They talk about respectable sins.
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  We have to talk about the digital age.
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  Technology has made theft frictionless, has sanitized the
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  ACT. You're not smashing a window,
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  you're just clicking a mouse. Intellectual property.
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  That's the big one, isn't it? Downloading pirated movies,
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  Music software. It is, and there's a massive
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  cognitive dissonance here. You have Christians who would
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  never, ever dream of walking into a store and shoplifting a
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  candy bar. No way.
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  Yet they feel absolutely no guilt about pirating $100 piece
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  of software or a new movie. So why is that?
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  Is it just because we can't see the victim?
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  It feels abstract. That's part of it, but
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  theologically it's a direct violation of First Timothy 5
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  point O date. The laborer is worthy of his
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  wages. Yeah, when you pirate content,
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  you are depriving the worker, the artist, the coder, the
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  writer of their just wages. You're enjoying the fruit of
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  their labor without participating in the exchange.
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  God ordained for that labor. Precisely.
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  And then there's workplace theft.
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  This cuts both ways. Let's talk about the employee
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  side first. The sources mentioned quiet
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  quitting. Which has become a huge.
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  Buzzword it has, but it's really just a new name for the old sin
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  of sloth. When you sign an employment
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  contract, you are making a covenant.
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  You're exchanging your time and your ability for wages.
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  OK, if you then spend those covenanted hours scrolling
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  social media or just giving 1/2 hearted effort while accepting
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  your full wages, that is a form of fact.
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  You're taking money for work you didn't actually do.
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  Colossians 3.23 comes to mind. Work heartily As for the Lord,
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  not for men. That's the standard, but we have
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  to look at the employer side too.
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  James 5 verse 4 is absolutely blistering on this.
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  It condemns the withholding of wages.
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  This is something we see a lot in the gig economy.
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  For example, delaying payment, manipulating overtime,
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  misclassifying workers so you don't have to pay benefits.
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  And is using a position of power to shift cost onto the
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  vulnerable. That is theft.
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  It's stealing from the very people you were supposed to be
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  leading and caring for. The sources also bring up
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  financial sins, specifically debt.
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  Psalm 37.21 The wicked borrows, but does not pay back.
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  It's that blunt. It's that blunt borrowing
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  without a realistic plan to repay is essentially funding a
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  lifestyle with another person's resources.
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  It's living a lie on someone else's dime.
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  And in the business world, we have the concept of dishonest
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  scales from Proverbs 11.1 right? Which today looks like hidden
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  fees, confusing terms and conditions, bait and switch
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  marketing tactics. It's selling chaff as wheat.
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  As the profit Amos puts it. If your business model relies on
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  your customer being confused or misled, you are.
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  I'm sorry you're violating the 8th Commandment.
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  There is one more application area that was really
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  interesting, the ecclesiastical context, stealing from the
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  Church. This is a delicate topic, but a
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  necessary one. The sources rightly note the
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  dispensational distinction. We're not under the Levitical
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  pie. There's a civil mandate anymore.
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  Right. It's not a tax.
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  It's not. However, the New Testament
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  standard of grace giving is actually a higher standard.
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  It's more demanding. So what does stealing from the
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  church look like then? It looks like consuming the
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  spiritual care, the facilities, the preaching, the community of
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  a local church without contributing to its sustenance.
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  It's acting as a consumer, not as a covenant partner.
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  It's expecting all the benefits of the community without sharing
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  in the cost of that community. Yes, at its root, it's a failure
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  of gratitude and a failure of stewardship.
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  Now this brings us to a very reformed concept that helps
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  frame all this the third use of the law.
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  We've talked a lot about how we break the law, but how does the
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  law actually help us as believers?
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  This is so key. We need to clarify the uses of
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  the law. The first use is like a mirror.
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  It shows us our sin and our need for a Savior.
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  It drives us to Christ. That's for the unbeliever or for
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  us when we need to be humbled. Exactly.
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  But the third use is specifically for the believer.
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  It's the didactic use. It teaches us how to live a life
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  that pleases God. WCF Chapter 9 times says the law
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  directs the believer in the way of life.
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  Right. So we don't refrain from
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  stealing in order to be saved. We are framed as stealing
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  because we are saved. And the Westminster Larger
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  Catechism is so helpful here. Question 142 lists the sins
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  forbidden which we've covered Fraud, false weights, usury.
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  But then question 141 lists the duties required.
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  Yes, and this is where the reformed view turns the negative
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  command on its head and makes it a +1.
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  It's not. Just don't steal.
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  It's further the wealth and outward estate of ourselves and
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  others. That is the paradigm shift.
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  You are commanded not just to avoid harming your neighbor's
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  livelihood, but to actively protect and promote it.
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  So if you see your neighbor's property being damaged or their
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  business is failing, you don't just say, well, I didn't 'cause
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  that you. Actively try to help you have a
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  positive duty. It guards against antinomianism,
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  the idea that because we have grace, the law doesn't matter
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  anymore. No, the third use, says Grace,
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  empowers you to actually keep the law the way it was always
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  intended. Precisely.
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  It prevents us from using the glorious doctrine of grace as a
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  license for financial irresponsibility or apathy.
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  So if we've been listening to this and realized, oh, I have
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  broken this commandment, whether through piracy or laziness at
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  work or bad debt, what's the remedy?
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  The sources are clear that it requires more than just
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  stopping. It requires repentance and
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  restitution. And true repentance is more than
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  just feeling bad or getting caught.
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  It bears fruit. The first fruit is confession
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  meaning. Meaning we have to stop using
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  euphemisms. We have to stop calling it
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  borrowing when we have no intention of repaying.
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  Stop calling it strategic default.
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  We have to call it what God calls it, sin.
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  And then after confession, comes restitution.
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  This is the hard part for most people.
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  It's the necessary part. We look at the principles in
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  Leviticus 6 and Exodus 22. If you stole, you pay it back
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  often of interest, but the New Testament example is even more
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  powerful. Zacchaeus in Luke 19.
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  I love the Zacchaeus story. He was a chief tax collector, a
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  respectable thief. He was part of the system.
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  As part of a systemic machine of theft.
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  But when salvation came to his house, what was the immediate,
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  tangible result? He says if I have defrauded
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  anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.
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  He didn't just say a prayer. He opened his checkbook
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  immediately and notice the order right?
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  Restitution didn't earn his salvation.
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  Right, Jesus had already said. Today, salvation has come to
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  this House. Exactly.
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  The restitution was the proof that salvation had already
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  occurred. It flows from a genuinely
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  changed heart. So practically today this means
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  actually returning items, repaying money, correcting the
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  fraud you committed. It has to be tangible.
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  And it involves reformation. You have to cut off the
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  opportunities for that sin in the future.
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  Maybe me budget. You get an accountability
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  partner. You learn the discipline of
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  contentment. You have to actively disciple
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  your desires. Now, we can't talk about any of
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  this without getting to the absolute core of our faith.
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  We have to talk about the gospel.
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  The sources call this the Great Exchange.
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  This is where we see Christ in the 8th commandment.
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  We have to remember the scene of the crucifixion.
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  Matthew 27.38 tells us Jesus was crucified between two robbers.
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  He was numbered with the transgressors.
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  Think about Baravis. He was a robber, an
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  insurrectionist. He was guilty as sin.
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  Jesus was perfectly innocent. And yet in the great exchange.
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  The robber goes free and the innocent one is condemned.
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  Christ paid the ultimate debt that the 8th Commandment
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  demands, which is death. He stood in our place as the
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  thief. And this leads to our union with
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  Christ. If we are united with him, that
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  completely changes the motivation for why we might
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  steal. It has to the theological root
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  of all theft is a scarcity mindset, the lie that I don't
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  have enough. But in Christ, Ephesians 1.3
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  says we possess every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
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  The source text has a beautiful line here.
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  A pauper steals, a Prince does not.
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  If you realize you are a child of the king joint heir with
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  Christ, stealing a few trinkets just doesn't make sense anymore
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  it. Breaks the power of
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  covetousness. Why would you steal pennies when
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  you've inherited the entire Kingdom?
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  And this brings us to that glorious verse in 2nd
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  Corinthians 8.9. For you know the grace of our
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  Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake
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  he became poor. So that you, by his poverty,
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  might become rich. That's the logic of grace.
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  Christian generosity is just a reflex of the cross.
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  We shift our whole life's question from how much can I get
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  to how much can I give, because that's the pattern Jesus said
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  for us. The sources wrap up this entire
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  study by taking us to one specific verse that outlines
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  this positive vision, Ephesians 4.28.
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  The text calls this the Apostolic pattern.
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  This verse is a master class in sanctification.
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  It really breaks down into three parts. 1st the negative
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  prohibition. But the one who steals steal no
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  longer the Greek grammar. There mochety implies a
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  definitive immediate break. Stop it now.
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  But it doesn't just stop there with the negative, it moves to
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  the positive replacement. Yes, but rather let him labor.
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  The word there is copieto. It means to toil to the point of
• 18:48
  exhaustion, to work hard. The very hands that used to take
• 18:52
  must now become calloused in creating value.
• 18:53
  And finally, there's a goal. A Talos.
• 18:55
  Why should he do this? And this is the part we so often
• 18:58
  miss. So that he may have something to
• 19:00
  share with anyone in need. The goal is not just to stop
• 19:03
  stealing. It's not even just to get a job
• 19:04
  and accumulate private property for yourself.
• 19:06
  Which would be seen as a success by the world.
• 19:09
  Right. The goal is Meta de Dunai to
• 19:11
  share, to impart. So it completely reverses the
• 19:14
  direction of life. Sin is centripetal.
• 19:17
  It pulls everything inward to me.
• 19:19
  And grace is centrifugal and pushes everything outward to
• 19:22
  others, to the needy. The 8th commandment is only
• 19:25
  truly kept by an open hand, not just by an empty one.
• 19:28
  That's it. If you're just not stealing,
• 19:30
  you're only halfway there. You are called by God to become
• 19:33
  a generous giver. This has been such a dense and
• 19:37
  frankly convicting deep dive. As we close, the sources point
• 19:42
  us to the eschatological horizon.
• 19:44
  Where is all of this ultimately going?
• 19:47
  We look forward to the millennial Kingdom like a 4.4
• 19:50
  paints this beautiful picture of everyone sitting under their own
• 19:53
  vine and their own fig tree. It's the final sanctification of
• 19:56
  property rights. No one makes them afraid.
• 19:58
  And then the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21.
• 20:01
  Where the gates of the city are never shut.
• 20:03
  Why? Because there's no threat.
• 20:05
  There is no theft, there is no insecurity, there is total
• 20:07
  provision and total trust. So the sources leave us with a
• 20:11
  final charge. We are called to live now as
• 20:14
  citizens of that future city, to wage war against the idols of
• 20:18
  greed in our own hearts. And here's a provocative thought
• 20:21
  to leave you with as you go about your week, consider all
• 20:25
  the security systems in your life.
• 20:27
  The locks on your doors, the passwords on your accounts, the
• 20:30
  alarm system, all of it. They are all monuments to the
• 20:33
  Fall. They exist because sin exists
• 20:36
  because the 8th commandment is broken every single day.
• 20:39
  So imagine a life where your security is so deeply rooted in
• 20:43
  the Providence of God that your generosity actually looks
• 20:46
  reckless to the watching world. That's the challenge.
• 20:49
  That is the goal. Thank you for joining us on this
• 20:51
  deep dive into the 8th Commandment.
• 20:52
  We hope it challenges you to look at your life, your work,
• 20:55
  and your wallet a little differently this week indeed.
• 20:57
  Until next time, keep thinking.