Each one of us have been ripped off before. Most of us know what it feels like to have our home broken into by a burglar, or have a purse or wallet stolen. Many of us have been conned before. Perhaps the worst kind of theft is stealing a person. Stealing, robbery, kidnapping, extortion, swindling, cons…it’s all part of the world we live in.
But of course stealing isn’t unique to our generation. In fact, our nation just finished celebrating the life of a person who was one of the most famous victims of theft in history. I’m talking about Saint Patrick, the so called patron saint of Ireland (Skinner vii-xvi). Patrick wasn’t Irish but he was Roman, and he lived in Roman Briton in the fifth century during a time when the Roman empire was crumbling. Patrick was from a wealthy home, and one day when he was 15 years old he was visiting his father’s vacation ranch and Irish bandits burst into the house. Because the Roman government was in a state of decay, these Irish bandits freely roamed the borders of the Roman Empire, and that day they targeted the area where Patrick was staying. Patrick was abducted, and with hundreds of other captives he was shipped off to Ireland, where this 15 year old rich boy was sold as a common slave. Overnight Patrick went from being the son of a wealthy community leader to a piece of property, and he was purchased by an Irish land owner and put in charge of the sheep. For six years Patrick lived in virtual isolation as a slave shepherd, until he finally escaped and made the 200 mile trek home. Although Patrick wasn’t a Christian when he was captured, those long hours in the fields drew Patrick into a deep, transforming encounter with Jesus Christ.
Yes most of us have been victimized by thieves, perhaps not to the extent Patrick was, but we’ve been ripped off before.Yet most of us have also stolen from other people as well. I vividly remember the first time I stole something. I was 11 years old and I shoplifted candy from a liquor store. I got caught that first time, and they called my parents. You’d think that would’ve taught me, but I continued to steal throughout my teenage years. I stole from my parents, my friends, strangers. During my later teenage years my family developed a tradition of stealing our Christmas tree each year.
I suspect I’m not alone but that many of us here today have stolen from other people before. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners each year employees steal a total of $435 billion from their employers (Moriarty 79). Hirsch Goldberg’s "The Complete Book of Greed" reports that 25% of Americans cheat on their taxes each year, costing the government $100 billion annually (Moriarity 79). In 1996 42% of teenage boys and 31% of teenage girls admitted to stealing at least once during the last year.
In this kind of setting the eighth commandment—God’s command against stealing--is particularly appropriate. The first four commands deal with our relationship with God, and the last six commands deal with our relationships with other people. The Ten Commandments help us understand hour our faith addresses issues like our family, our use of time, our sexuality, our children, and so forth. Today we’re going to look at the eighth commandment, God’s prohibition against stealing. The eighth commandment addresses with our attitude toward possessions—-our stuff and other people’s stuff—-and we’re going to find that perhaps some of us need to be dispossessed of possessions today. So today we’re going to try to answer three questions: What is stealing? How can we avoid stealing? And how does God want us to we treat our possessions?
1. What is Stealing?
Let’s look at the commandment together. "You shall not steal" (Deuteronomy 5:19 NIV).
Of course our first question is what is stealing? What exactly is this commandment talking about? Is it just talking about people burglars, car thieves, and embezzlers? Or is this commandment addressing something deeper, something all people struggle with whether they’re a criminal or a law abiding citizen?But before we look at specific examples let’s define what stealing is: We steal whenever we possess something that belongs to someone else. Now this definition presupposes that people possess things, and we find implied in this commandment that the Bible endorses private ownership. So the communist ideal of abolishing all private ownership contradicts the teaching of the Bible. As newly emancipated slaves, God wants to make sure his people doesn’t become enslaved once again, this time to material possessions.
Now the rest of the Bible defines exactly what stealing is, so let me give you several specific examples of what this commandment ddresses. The eighth commandment prohibits kidnapping. Exodus 21:16 says, "Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death." Usually kidnapping back then wasn’t for ransom, like we see in our culture today, but it was usually to sell someone into slavery…like what happened to Saint Patrick. Although the Old Testament permitted slavery in certain circumstances, in Israel slaves were usually either prisoners of war or people who entered into temporary slavery to pay off financial debts. The Bible absolutely condemns capturing people against their will and enslaving them. Yet this kind of kidnapping fueled our nation’s economy before the Civil War. This is also the kind of kidnapping that’s occuring today in places like the Sundan, Asia, and Colombia. But all forms of kidnapping are forbidden by the eighth commandment.
Another violation of the eighth commandment is robbery. Carjackings, muggings, home invasion robberies, and so forth are all violations of the eighth commandment. In Isaiah 61:8 God says, "I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity."
Dishonest Gain is still another way people violate the eighth commandment. Proverbs 1:19 tells us, "Such is the end of all who go after ill-gotten gain; it takes away the lives of those who get it." Dishonest gain is the use of immoral, illegal or deceptive activities to make a profit. For instance, each year medical insurance complanies are charged $100 billion for services that were never given (Russell 79). Schemes, cons, pyramid schemes and so forth are all violations of the eighth commandment. One of the newest ways people are scheeming people out of their money is Internet auction fraud, and according to Thursday’s LA Times last year there was over 10,700 instances of internet auction fraud (3/16/00 B4).
A more subtle violation of the eighth commandment is exploiting the poor. Leviticus 19:13 says, "’Do not defraud your neighbor or rob him. Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight" (NIV). Withholding wages from a person desperate for that money was considered a violation of the eighth commandment. In the Old Testament it was even considered a violation of the eighth commandment to charge someone interest on a personal loan. Exploiting the poor was the single most common way Israel violated this commandment. Israel frequently neglected the helpless and poor within their community, in direct violation of the eighth commandment, and God raised up prophets like Amos, Jeremiah, and Isaiah to speak against Israel’s sin.
The New Testament identifies unmet obligations as a violation of the eighth commandment. In Romans 13:7-8 the apostle Paul tells us, "Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law." In this passage the word "taxes" refers to direct taxation, like property taxes, income taxes, and so forth. The word "revenue" describes indirect taxes like sales tax. This passage is not telling us to never take out a loan, but it’s simply telling us to pay our debts, including our debt to our government. If every person in America paid their taxes honestly we could probably pay off the national debt. Other unmet obligations might include child support payments, registration on our car, and so forth.
Finally, the Bible describes withholding our giving from God a violation of the eighth commandment. Malachi 3:8-10 says, "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, ’How do we rob you?’ "In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse-- the whole nation of you-- because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it" (NIV).
Now I didn’t make this up, it’s a clear application of the eighth commandment to God’s people. When God’s people refuse to honor God by giving, that’s literally trying to con God, trying to rip God off. And we see here that when we rob God, we also rob ourselves by putting ourselves under a curse. This is the only place the Bible challenges us to test God, to have the boldness and courage to take God up on his challenge to honor him with the firstfruits of our income. When we withhold what God has commanded us to give, we’re violating the eighth commandment.
The common thread that ties all of these activities together is that we’re trying to possess something that rightfully belongs to someone else.
2. How can we Avoid Stealing?
The root of stealing is being possessed by possessions. We use sometimes the term "possession" to refer to someone who’s controlled by some outward power. For instance the phrase "demon possession" refers to someone who’s lost control to an unseen demonic source. Perhaps we should coin the phrase "possession possession."
When we don’t accurately distinguish between what belongs to who, it’s easy to justify stealing. We begin to think we have a right to stuff that belongs to someone else, whether it’s money that belongs to a business associate, supplies from our employer, our giving from God. All of this goes back to a flawed concept of ownership.So how can we avoid being possessed by possessions?
The psalmist reminds us, "The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it" (Psalm 24:1).
This simple declaration of praise from one of Israel’s worship songs tells us that everything belongs to God. "Everything" is pretty broad and all inclusive. Everything includes my car, my home, my savings account, my education, my resources, and so forth. This statement is a common affirmation in Israel’s worship, because it’s in worship where we remember who God is and that he owns everything. This affirmation of praise reveals the first step we need to go through to be dispossessed of possessions. As followers of Jesus, we recognize that all we have belongs to God.
Do you really believe that? Have you really come to the point that the psalmist was at, in looking at everything under your control--your home, your car, your paycheck, your retirement, your inheritance, your checkbook--everything as belonging to God? The 16th century reformer Martin Luther once said that every Christian needs to experience three conversions to Christ: Conversion of the heart, conversion of the head, and conversion of the wallet (Foster 20). If Luther’s right, many people who claim to follow Jesus today are only two-thirds converted.
I was challenged with the question of who my stuff belongs to about 7 years ago when I was being sued because of a car accident I was in during my last year of seminary. For three years I lived in uncertainty about whether I was going to lose my material possessions. Now I didn’t have a lot back then, no home, no real investments, and so forth. But suddenly I realized just how important my books had become to me--I had about 3,000 books back then, it’s more now. Faced with the possibility of having to sell my books, I realized that I was treating my books as if they belonged to me, not God.
If you’re like me, you need to be reminded of this reality again and again, lest you and I become Luther’s two-thirds converted Christians. In fact, Christian devotional author Richard Foster says that being committed to tithing is the first step in acknowledging that God is the owner of all things (50). Personally, I think he’s right.
So we can avoid being possessed by possessions by acknowledging that all of our resources belong to God.
3. How Should We View our Possessions?
Now recognizing that all we have belongs to God has led some people to think that to follow Jesus means renouncing our material possessions and taking a vow of poverty. Let’s look at what Jesus has to say about this. Matthew 6:19-21 says, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
What Jesus is doing here is putting on the hat of a financial adviser and giving us to some sound financial advice for people who want to live as his followers. The words "store up" and "treasure" are investment terms. To "store up" something is to put it in a safe investment, whether it’s in a bank account, or in a business venture, or so on. Our "treasure" here simply describes the stuff we value, things like our money, our assets, our jewelry, our investments, our home, our car, even our books. As a financial adviser Jesus is saying that we can either invest our treasures--the stuff that matters to us--in conventional investments or we can invest our stuff in his kingdom. No matter how secure a conventional investment is we can lose it. No matter how big the safe, someone can crack it, no matter how stable the investment seems, it can go bad, no matter how strong the stock market appears, it can drop like it did this last week. No conventional investment is totally safe.
So Jesus offers us another way, an entirely different direction of life. Storing our treasure in heaven means investing the stuff that matters to us now--our money, our assets, our homes, our cars, our inheritance, and so forth--into what God is doing in our world. According to Jesus this is not only a good investment but it’s a safe investment.T
his passage was foundation to our Investing In Life campaign back in 1996 when we saw God raise up $1 million to start construction this new facility. We truly saw that as an investment in God’s kingdom, as treasure in heaven.
So how should we treat our possessions? As followers of Jesus, God calls us to manage our financial resources to accomplish His purposes.
Once we recognize that everything we have belongs to God--that our hands are empty--God in turn fills those hands with stuff for us to manage as his stewards.
Christian author Richard Foster offers this analogy to help us understand what Jesus is saying (55). Imagine that the United States is going to change currency from the American dollar over to the British pound. Also imagine that when this change occurs, all U.S. currency would become worthless. The hitch is that you don’t know exactly when this change is going to occur, only that at some point it will happen. How would you live? Foster suggests that you’d probably change over all your assets to British pounds and only keep enough U.S. currency on hand to live day to day. According to Foster, that’s what Jesus is telling us, that the currency of heaven is very different than the currency of earth, and that if we don’t convert our earthly currency to heavenly currency by investing in what God is up to, we’ll find our earthly financial resources useless when the change occurs.
Now this is a difficult principle for us in affluent America to hear. Some of you are mad at me for even bringing it up. You’re wondering what my hidden agenda is, what I’m really trying to get you to do. You figure the church must be having financial problems. But the church is doing well financially--better than we’ve ever done--although there’s always room to grow. I’m bringing this up because it’s the heart of the eighth commandment.Others simply don’t believe Jesus knew what he was talking about when it came to money. Sure Jesus was smart when he talked about God, and loving people, and praying, but some feel that Jesus was naive when it came to talking about money. Until we come to believe that Jesus really knew what he was talking about, we’ll constantly find ways to explain away his teachings about money.
You see, most of us approach our financial resources the wrong way. Instead of seeing ourselves as managers of God’s resources, we treat our stuff as if it belonged to us, and we come to church as consumers looking for the best deal. Instead of treating Jesus’ church as the community of people accomplishing Jesus Christ’s Great Commission to share the good news of Jesus with people, we treat church like a religious Wal-mart.I ran across a cartoon recently that captured this idea (Moriarity 177). The picture showed a church, and the sign outside said "The Lite Church." On the sign it said, "24% fewer commitments, home of the 7% tithe, 15 minute sermons, 45 minute worship services, we have only 8 commandments--your choice...everything you ever wanted in a church...and less."
This consumer paradigm is probably the reason why for the last 25 years per capita giving has been steadily declining among Bible believing Christians.
Now what are God’s purposes today? It’s summed up in Jesus’ great commission, to reached people who don’t yet have a relationship with Christ and to help people who do know Christ to grow into spiritual maturity. That’s what this church is about, it’s about reaching unchurched people in our community and beyond with the message, and then helping them grow into fully devoted followers of Jesus who wholeheartedly love God and others. Every time we walk into this room, we see that phrase "helping people love God and others" to remind ourselves that we don’t exist for ourselves, but we exist for those we haven’t yet reached.Now I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty. I’m saying this because I love this church, and I don’t want us to miss out on God’s best. Lots of people in heaven are going to look over their lives with regret because they invested their resources in things that don’t really matter. I don’t want your life to be like that. God calls us to live as managers of his stuff, not possessors of our own stuff.
Conclusion
The eighth commandment strikes at the very heart of our attitude toward money and possessions. In the Ten Commandments we find that God’s not only concerned about our worship, our families, our attitude toward human life, and our sexuality, but he’s also concerned about our attitude toward stuff. That’s why he gives us the eighth commandment. The bottom line of the eighth commandment is this: Since everything belongs to God, we honor God with our wealth by using our resources honestly and furthering God’s work generously.
Even though he was a victim of people who broke the eighth commandment, Saint Patrick understood this principle. After escaping his forced slavery in Ireland, he made the 200 mile journey home to Britain. Patrick’s family welcomed him with joy, but Patrick was a changed person. He’d been kidnapped as a 15 year old child, but now--six years later--he was a 21 year old man who was passionate about following Jesus. He wanted to become a pastor, so he enrolled in seminary to get trained for the pastorate. One night Patrick had a dream, where an Irish man begged to him, "Come and live among us once again" (Skinner 23). Patrick saw the dream as God using the voice of the Irish to call him back to the place where he’d been enslaved. So the church commissioned Patrick as a missionary to Ireland, and single-handedly he led literally thousands of the Irish to faith in Jesus Christ Patrick knew that everything he had belonged to God.
Let me read you a few words from Patrick’s Confession to illustrate how much he understood this principle: "I am never weary of giving thanks to my God, who has kept me safe in the day of my trial. Because of this I offer my life as a living sacrifice to Christ my Lord...I do this not merely in good times but also in distress, so that whatever comes my way, whether good or bad, I accept it calmly" (Skinner 53-54).
"I would gladly give my life to the point of death if the Lord wants because I am in God’s debt. For he gave me such great grace that many people through me have been born again" (Skinner 57). Patrick knew that his life belonged to God and that everything within him was to be managed for God’s purposes. The best way we can remember someone like Patrick isn’t by drinking green beer or wearing green leprechauns, but by responding to Jesus’ call just as Patrick did.
Sources
Douma, J. 1996. The Ten Commandments: Manual For the Christian Life. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing.
Foster, Richard J. 1985. The Challenge of The Disciplined Life: Christian Reflections on Money, Sex and Power. Harper & Row.
Hughes, R. Kent. 1993. Disciplines of Grace: God’s Ten Words for a Vital Spiritual Life. Wheaton: Crossway Books.
Louw, J. P. and E. Nida (editors). 1989. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains. New York: United Bible Societies. CD-Rom edition.
Mehl, Ron. 1998. The Ten(der) Commandments. Portland: Multnomah.
Moriarty, Michael G. 1999. The Perfect 10: The Blessings of Following God’s Commandments in a Postmodern World. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Russell, Bob. 1997. Money: A User’s Manual. Portland, OR: Multnomah.
