“Do not steal.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When you observe babies as they grow and develop, you will notice there are two beliefs about how the world should work that appear at about the same time. The first is the idea that if you have something that belongs to you, no one should be able to take it from you. Related to that is the idea that whatever you happen to have played with…or touched…or had a stray thought cross your mind about in the last year or so…belongs to you. The second idea is that if you see something that belongs to someone else, you should be able to take it because you want it more than they do. These two beliefs about how the world should work don’t go away as we get older, we simply learn that they aren’t perhaps quite so true…or at least quite so convenient to live by…as we would like them to be. As God was laying a foundation for Israel to live in a relationship with HIm, He gave them some help managing this. Let’s talk about what’s going on in commandment number eight.

If you read through the Scriptures starting at the beginning (something I don’t actually recommend for beginners), the very first thing that Moses makes clear as he presents the Hebrew creation story is that God created everything. If there is a thing, God created that thing. Yes, some of that specific creating He has stewarded to us who He put in charge of creation, but the raw materials are all His. Well, because He made everything, it belongs to Him. This principle shouldn’t be too hard to accept. Let’s say you own a piece of land. One day, you cut down a large oak tree on your land. Using your tools and your skills, you create several beautiful pieces of furniture and art from that oak tree. No one would have any problem with you claiming ownership of those things. You made them, they are yours. So, God is the ultimate owner of everything.

In spite of His creating and thus owning everything, though, and in spite of the fact that He is a way better manager of the things He made than we were never going to be owning to the fact that He is God and we are not, He nonetheless gave us the task of stewarding creation on his behalf, as His representatives, as the only creatures created uniquely in His image. As a part of this stewarding, we enjoy the privilege of being able to say that certain things are ours. We can debate just how far those claims of ownership can go, but the privilege exists all the same. Now, we can’t forget that we are stewards and not the ultimate owners which means that if we don’t manage the things over which we declare ownership in a manner that is consistent with His intentions for them there will be consequences for our failure, but again, the limited ownership claims are still there.

We know this in large part because of this command right here. For God to tell the people not to steal from one another rests on one primary assumption: private ownership of specific parts of creation. Indeed, the only way something can be stolen is if it is owned by another person. Stealing is the taking of another person’s property without the intention of returning it. Even if the ownership of that property is rightly seen as subordinate to God’s ultimate ownership of it, the fact that it can be stolen implies at least this kind of limited ownership. To put all of this another way, God lets us declare certain things to be ours and not someone else’s. We can debate another time how those ownership claims come into being, but the ownership itself still remains. Thus stealing is a thing…a thing God doesn’t want us to do.

Now, there’s a whole lot more here that has to be worked out before we can come to a robust understanding of the principles at play. This includes how claims of ownership can justifiably be made in the first place, how conflicting claims of ownership can be resolved, what role government plays in both the granting and the resolution of ownership claims, whether or not the government can claim ownership of things, how far those ownership claims go, how conflicting claims of ownership between private and public entities can be resolved, why stealing is a violation of the character of God in the first place, and so on and so forth. We are not going to try to sort all of those out today.

Instead, I just want to make one point on how the spirit of this command extends to followers of Jesus today when the command itself doesn’t have any authority over us. Let me start here: this command was foundational for the people. This was not intended to be merely a holdover and pointed toward some higher and nobler end (I.e., the communal ownership of all things). We don’t see any kind of a trajectory in the Scriptures leading us in that direction. Yes, Luke describes the early church as holding all things in common, but this wasn’t the result of communal ownership so much as those with resources stewarding those resources generously with those who did not have access to as many resources. It was precisely because of the concept of private ownership that the community could hold all things in common. Communal ownership kills generosity. If I don’t really own anything, I don’t have to worry about sharing it with you. It’s not mine to begin with.

What the members of the first church understood and practiced is the fact that God wants us to use the things we declare (with His permission) to be “ours” in a way that properly reflects His character. This is just what we said before. God allows for us to make ownership claims, but because He is the ultimate owner, our stewardship through ownership must reflect His will for His creation. If we don’t, He will eventually hold us to account for that. But here’s the thing: that accountability is not often immediately delivered. If we choose to be selfish and stingy with our resources, living as if we are the ultimate owners and not Him, He allows us to continue making our claims of ownership in the short term. This speaks to His humility and patience.

But He is also just. If we treat things as ours first and not His first and then ours at His pleasure, there will be consequences for that. The ultimate consequence if we persist in that delusion will be separation from Him. But there will be consequences much sooner than that. God often meets the needs of those without through the generosity of those with much. If we turn away from generosity, needs often go unmet. When we fail to see Him as the ultimate owner and thus start to view the world through a lens of what we can get for ourselves, we will have more conflict with the people around us through increasingly competitive claims of ownership. Ceasing to view God as the first owner of all things can lead to our prioritizing our property over people. That leads to all sorts of unhealthy cultural outcomes.

What all of this means is that our using the things over which we make claims of ownership after the pattern of God’s intention for them really does matter. A lot. And how do we do this? God’s consistent approach to His stuff (that is, creation) is one of generosity. Everything is His, but He makes all of it available for us to enjoy. He directs its use toward the meeting of our needs. He doesn’t just make it available to us in meager amounts either. He is abundantly generous, putting the whole of it at our disposal both to meet needs, but also simply to enjoy. This is our pattern. When we live with generous and open hands with all of the stuff we declare to be ours, God will honor our efforts and make sure we always have enough. Apply this across an entire culture, and you wind up with a very pleasant place to live. Doing life God’s way like this always leads to better outcomes for everybody.

It is vital for the stability and health of a society that private ownership be respected. We are seeing in some of our big cities where stealing has basically been legalized just how devastating ignoring this principle can be. Businesses can’t afford to stay open meaning poor and struggling residents have a harder time getting access to the basic things they need for living. Residents who can afford it move out of those places too leaving behind an impoverished core that is kept poor and made to suffer at this enabled injustice. It is equally vital, though, that we steward our private property after God’s pattern of generosity. When we get these right, we’ll all be better for it.