Podcast: The Trouble with Taking Stuff

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“You shall not steal.”
-Exodus 20:15

I’m going to be honest with you, I’m having trouble starting this podcast off. There are so many things I can talk about here. We just recently had an armed robbery at our apartment complex. Last year, my car was broken into because someone thought I had a GPS system in there. I didn’t. It was a backup camera hooked up to a camera above my back license plate. Doesn’t really matter – I still had to replace the window. At my work, someone was swiping other people’s lunches for a little while.

So these things would very obviously fall under this commandment. But I have to wonder how far God intends this verse to go. Would committing fraud be an infraction against the command not to steal? Like when a car mechanic tells you that you need a part you don’t really need to get money? What about when you inflate the price excessively because you can a little more money from your customer? Like when a movie theater charges four dollars for popcorn because they know you’re not allowed to bring your own snacks into the show? We just had one company promise us a fifty dollar rebate if we bought this particular item, only to have the rebate request declined on a technicality. Is that stealing?

I think, as with all the commandments, that it does us a disservice if we try to follow the letter of the Law without even understanding the Spirit. We can so easily fall into a legalism here by saying, “I have never robbed anyone, so I’m a good person,” without understanding that all of these commandments are driven by love.

The reason we should not steal is because we should love other people enough that we don’t want to take their things. In addition, we should trust God enough to provide for us. How different things would be if we just had that sort of love for one another. There are things we all want. What if we trusted God to provide what we need rather than to resort to theft to gain these things? What if the person who broke into my car had loved me enough to think about the Saturday I had to spend repairing my window? What if the person at work who was taking lunches had loved other people enough to not want them to go hungry? What if the owners of the movie theater loved their customers enough to settle for a reasonable profit instead of gouging people for popcorn?

Money and things will fade away, often much more quickly than we would hope. But people are made to live forever. How strange it is that we would give up God and others for a little cash, which will probably be gone in the next few months. We give up eternity for something that cannot last.

Jesus promises us that God will provide for our needs. We do not need to worry about our clothing or our food, because our Father in Heaven loves us and will take care of us. Of course we need to work, and work honestly. But use your money to love others, don’t use others to love your money.

Out of love, Jesus gave up everything for us. People were coming to Him all the time, begging Him for blessings and for guidance to everlasting life. He could have so easily asked them for some money for His teaching. When the devil tempted Him, he offered the whole world, and Jesus turned him down. He could have had it all, but in love He gave it all up.

These earthly rewards will pass away, but, if we follow Jesus, we will have eternal rewards in heaven. Jesus had nothing when He was here on earth, but He has returned to the right hand of the Father, and He is preparing a place for us with Him. If we repent of our greed and selfishness and follow Him, we will gain so much more than what this world can possibly offer.

And we will have gained it honorably and honestly.