10 Commandments: Do not steal

Introduction 

Theft takes many forms, but none of us think we are a thief.

Because we don't like this, we are not thieves. What good news!

We conceal things further by renaming what we do. Borrowing, liberating, helping yourself – all these are kinder ways of describing what we get up to. A thief is someone who burgles houses, robs pensioners, breaks into cars. Stealing is what someone else does.

Yet stealing is wider and broader than we like to think. With human sinfulness and ingenuity being what they are, there are countless ways of taking something that does not belong to you.

Direct theft 

The most obvious type of stealing is where something is just taken; what you could call “good old-fashioned theft'. A purse vanishes, a car goes, a suitcase disappears, a till is emptied, a house is burgled. Of course it also occurs at a lower level, where it is somehow more acceptable. How many people take pens or paper from their employers? How many borrow equipment or use a firm's car for their private business? How many people steal from their employers by their misuse of phones, photocopiers or internet access?

What we need here is a ruthless mental honesty. We all need to evaluate before God everything that we do and ask of any remotely dubious practice; is this theft?

Fraud 

Let me move on to the vast area of more subtle, indirect theft. Fraud is theft by deception. It is the unholy marriage of lying and theft; the result of simultaneously breaking the Eighth and Ninth commandments.

We think of fraud as being a modern speciality and it is true that we have more ways of doing it than ever before. We have false accounts, fake documents, inflated budgets, misleading advertisements and so on. But it's as old as we are, and it is plainly condemned in the Old Testament. Moving boundary stones was one way of increasing your estate and is described as stealing in Deuteronomy 19:14

When the land was a family's source of food and wealth, the loss of even a small strip of land could make the difference between life or death.

Another way to defraud people was to have bogus weights, or misleading measuring containers or to water down or dilute what you sold. See what the prophet Amos says: (Amos 8:4–6).

The Old Testament is full of references to robbing the poor, the widows and orphans and those who are defenceless. This reminds us that God cares for such people and he is angry when we cheat them. 
Few people would directly steal hospital equipment but many people would not blink at cheating the Inland Revenue of the money that might be used to buy hospital equipment. The effects are the same.

Again, we need to look at our lives to see if there is anything in them that fits this. Are we involved personally in selling or marketing anything that is not exactly what it says it is? When someone pays us for our work do they get what they paid for? Are we ever guilty of providing a sub-standard service? And, bearing in mind the Old Testament's references to the vulnerable in society, do we have the same standard for the poor and helpless as we do for the rich and influential?

 In God's eyes fraud, however subtle, is still theft.

Exploitation 

Another way of stealing from people that is condemned in the Bible is exploitation. For example, Leviticus 19:13 says that wages are to be paid promptly.

Now in Old Testament times the focus of the prophets was on their own nation and on the people immediately around them. Our modern world has wider horizons. Our government is involved in decisions that affect the whole world; the banks we use and the firms we work for may have enormous influence on people thousands of miles from us.

Much as we would prefer otherwise, we are all linked in with national and global effects. We ourselves may not be directly involved in imposing taxes, setting rents or even making loans. But we are indirectly involved by who we vote into power, by which companies we support, by whose pension funds we subscribe to or even by what we buy at a supermarket. We need to use our power as voters, subscribers, shareholders and consumers to work for justice.

Why is stealing wrong? 

 We have looked at the different types of stealing; but what is it that lies behind them? What is it that is at the core of the whole sin of theft?

Let me give you three reasons why stealing is wrong.

Theft is an offence against God 

The heart of the problem is the belief that things are ours and we can do we want with them. But to think that is to misunderstand the whole nature of this world. In fact nothing is really ours; it is all God's. Psalm 24:1

Just think this through for a minute. Can you imagine everything in the world from plants and birds to houses and banknotes, having invisibly inscribed on it ‘Property of God'. That would mean that everything we have is issued by God on temporary loan to us. We don't own things, we borrow them.
If this is true, then any stealing is ultimately, stealing from God himself. And God sees.

Stealing betrays our relationship to God 

If we have come to faith in Christ then we have become a son or daughter of God and God has become our Heavenly Father.

So, we are to trust our Heavenly Father for what we need. If we need something that we cannot get by working, we are to pray for it. To steal it instead is to reject the idea that God our Father knows best what we really need. It is actually an act of rebellion; it is saying to him that we know best.

Secondly, God expects us, as his children, to reflect his character. We are to bear the family likeness. Time and time again the Old Testament prophets talk about the justice of God; how he is a good, merciful, just and loving God. His children are to be like him. He doesn't turn a blind eye to exploitation or to injustice and neither should we.

To be a thief is to deny that God is our Father or that we are his children.

Stealing is bad for us 

Again, we need to be reminded that the Ten Commandments are not severe rules made by a tough God who wants to put his people through impossible tests. They are instructions made by our Creator so that we can live and prosper.

For one thing, stealing is bad for us as a community. Stealing means lying and it inevitably produces anger, division and mistrust. It is impossible for God's people to live in the way that he expects if there is stealing from each other.

For another thing it is bad for us as individuals. It leads to deception and lies and it starts a vicious circle where we want more so we end up stealing even more. The thief who is caught because he or she gets too greedy is a common phenomenon.

Theft also has eternal consequences. If you or I claim to be a Christian and consistently steal, we must question whether we are indeed born again of God's Spirit or whether we are deluding ourselves. In fact I would go further; if you or I claim to be a Christian and show no spirit of generosity, no desire to give, then we must examine ourselves carefully.

So how do we respond to all this?

Reflection 

We need to think over our attitude to possessions. We need to remember that God is the source of all things; that all we possess is a temporary loan from God and that we have no right to possessions. It is far too easy to get our priorities for our lives from the media rather than from God and his word.

Repentance 

As a result of our reflections, we may easily feel that we have sinned in this area. We need to say sorry to God and to resolve to live lives that are marked by the wise use of God's gifts in the future. We need to set out God's standards in our lives and be determined to live by them.

Restitution 

Linked with repentance comes restitution. Stealing is one of the few sins where we can make amends. If we have committed theft then returning or repaying what was stolen is essential. The passage we read about Zacchaeus makes the point; in his case he was so overjoyed to be accepted by Jesus that he went well beyond what was strictly needed to make restitution. But in making amends it never hurts to err on the generous side.


In situations where revival occurs, widespread restitution can be spectacular. When Rev. W. P. Nicholson preached in Belfast in the 1920s so many shipyard workers were spiritually convicted of the sin of theft that the main firm there had to build a new shed to hold all the returned items.

Realignment 

As elsewhere with the Ten Commandments we need to look hard at our own lives and realign them according to God's word.

• We should be grateful for what we have. One day we will be held accountable for everything we have had, how we got it and how we used it. We must learn to thank God for his gifts rather than to seek what is not ours to have. 
• We need to use wisely what God has given us. The answer to so many of the world's problems, from the environmental crisis to global poverty, lies in applying the concept that we are stewards accountable to God. We are tenants not owners, and as such we need to realise that we have no right to do what we want with God's world. 
• We must give generously. It is clear from the Bible that we steal not only by taking but by withholding. A generous heart is a powerful antidote to the desire to steal. 

Finally, the model for how we are to live is found in Jesus Christ. As we read in Philippians Chapter 2, Jesus' attitude was such that he did not even choose to grasp onto what were his rights as God. Instead, he willingly gave up everything in order to become human and to become one of us.

Let us all live like Christ.