We live in a day where truth is treated as relative. For something to be true, someone just has to believe it’s true, and that can change from person to person. What’s true for you is true for you; what’s true for me is true for me. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
Here's a test. Think about the Ten Commandments in light of relative truth, specifically the eighth commandment in view for us today where God forbids theft. Picture a conversation with someone who insists truth is relative from person to person, that we’re all free to write our own rules about right and wrong. You know how to change their mind in a few seconds? Steal their wallet and watch what happens. The same person who just told you truth is relative will suddenly believe, with great conviction, that it’s very wrong for you to steal from them. At that point you could say, ‘If truth is relative, theft may not be virtuous for you, but it is for me. So who are you to tell me I’m wrong?’
Probably not the best way to go about it, but you see what I mean. Whatever our mouths say we believe about truth, what’s actually true always remains true. God’s law is written on our hearts, because we’re made in His image. So we all know, instinctively, that stealing is wrong. Or as the popular children’s TV show Dora the Explorer so often said to the character Swiper, “Swiper no swiping!”
Today we’re going to see theft firsthand. Two headings to work through together today. See first…
The Negative Command
Exodus 20:15 says, “You shall not steal.” As we’ve seen in the past, we see again today. Two Hebrew words makeup the entirety of the 8th commandment. “No theft.” Short and to the point. Standing alongside the past few commandments we see more of what it means to love our neighbor. Love to neighbor requires: that giving to honor to our authorities is sacred (fifth commandment), that we hold our neighbor’s very life as sacred (sixth commandment), that we hold their marriage as sacred (seventh commandment), and where we’re arrived today, in the eighth commandment, that we hold their property as sacred.
What is thievery? What is it to steal? Most of us immediately think of something like Harry and Marv from Home Alone, right? As humorous as those two are, theft is far from funny, it is a vile sin. Theft can be defined simply as taking something from another without permission. That definition works, but we must also say that theft can take many forms, and the root of any form it takes lies the wicked desire to take away from our neighbor what rightly belongs to him.[1] Sometimes theft occurs because someone desires something they don’t possess, and so they take it from another who does. Other times, theft occurs, not so much because someone desires something they don’t have, but because they desire to have more than their neighbor has. Perhaps more sinister, sometimes theft occurs because someone desires, not to have something, but desires that their neighbor does not have something. Enter the 8th commandment…where we learn it is not God’s will for us to have anything that we obtain by dishonorable means. But rather, that it is God’s will for us to respect the property of others.[2]
Let’s trace this out in the Bible. We first see theft in the Garden. There in Genesis 3 the woman saw, desired, took, and ate. This fruit did not belong to our first parents, it was forbidden fruit, belonging to God alone. He had not given permission to eat from that tree, He had commanded and warned against it. Then the Devil slithered in and promised blessing if they took and ate the forbidden fruit, that they would be like God if they did, and that God was cruel to withhold such a blessing. They were convinced. But when they took the fruit, disobeying God and taking the Devil at his word, sin and death entered in; and in so doing Adam and Eve committed the first act of thievery, and became history’s first thieves. Later on in Genesis 31 Rachel took Laban’s idols while fleeing Laban’s household with Jacob. Not far after we see Joseph stolen away by his brothers and sold into slavery. Soon after that we see it here in the 8th commandment, put into law for Israel. And shortly after we see the consequence of theft stated. One example is Exodus 22:1-4 where the principle of restitution is laid out, that thieves must repay a certain amount based on how much they stole. Fast forward to Joshua 7 where we see Achan’s theft. After the victory at Jericho, Achan stole some of the plunder for himself and buried it in his tent, bringing ruin on himself and his family. Of course we could speak of David not merely committing adultery with Bathsheba but stealing her from her husband Uriah in 2 Sam. 11. But we could also then speak of David’s son Absalom, stealing the hearts of the people away from David in 2 Sam. 15. When Jesus comes He spoke about the sinfulness of thievery in many places, the traveler on the road was beaten and robbed in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the narrative surrounding Zaccheaus, and let’s not forget the horrid example of Judas, who despite being with Jesus and hearing all His teaching, remained a thief among the disciples.
Church, there is much in the Bible about theft. But I suspect, more than a few of you are still feeling pretty good about yourselves, thinking the eighth commandment might just be one you’ve not broken. I mean, you don't break into houses. You don't shoplift. You don’t commit armed robbery. Let’s go deeper. The heart behind theft is present in us all. Truly theft is present in us whenever we think, ‘my gain matters more than your loss.’
In general, here are three ways we break this commandment.
Common Theft
This is the obvious one, robbery, pickpocketing, shoplifting, of course those are theft. This is common theft, I think we understand this category. But there’s also…
Transactional Theft
What’s in view in transactional theft is the stealing away of something from another that is usually built into some kind od exchange with another for something done. Slacking off on the clock instead of doing the work you're being paid for, fudging an expense report, borrowing something you never intend to return, treating a rental like dirt because it’s not your responsibility to care for. This theft is all transactional. Leviticus 19:13 forbids withholding a worker’s pay overnight. So if you hire someone for a job at a certain wage, you owe them exactly what you promised, on time, in full. To underpay honest work is to steal, whatever the contract says. Deuteronomy 25 and Proverbs 11 forbid the same thing on the other side of the counter, giving a customer less than they paid for, whether that’s watering down a product, structuring a loan to trap someone who doesn’t understand it, or any deception like that in any sale. This is exactly what turned Jesus over the tables in the Temple, the house of prayer had become a place where the vulnerable were quietly abused.
This same principle of transactional theft goes all the way up to the top. Stealing isn’t only something individuals do to each other, it’s often legislated into law.[3] Long ago the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said fences are capricious things. Karl Marx once said the whole idea of ‘property’ is a bourgeois privilege. Yet without the reality of personal property the 8th commandment would be unintelligible. Many governments have legislated giving away the personal property of others, but ironically and rarely do they ever legislate the redistribution of their own belongings. Whatever name it goes under, capitalism, socialism, Marxism, etc., any economic system that steals from some to give to others breaks the 8th commandment.
At its darkest, transactional theft also brings into view the theft of personhood. Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 24 speaks to this calling the one who steals and sells a human being will face the penalty of death. Seems to be low hanging fruit to say, these Israelites who were former slaves, should realize how wicked stealing other people is.[4] Yet fast forward into more modern history, slavery has been alive and well in far too many cultures. From ancient Rome, to the Aztecs, to Islamic cultures, the Vikings, the Koreans, and we ourselves justified the practice of slavery in various ways. Whether it goes by the name slavery, human trafficking, or kidnapping, or whatever, when a vulnerable person is controlled and exploited for someone else’s gain we must call it what it is, sin.
There is common theft, transactional theft, and now see…
Hidden Theft
There are a few forms of theft most of us never think to call by that name. There is theft of reputation, where we slander someone behind their back, and robbing their good name to inflate your own. There is theft of honor, where we refuse to honor those in our lives to whom honor is due. There is theft by plagiarism, using someone else’s work, in the classroom, the office, or the pulpit, without giving credit. And there is theft that’s spiritual in nature, meaning, every time we sing a song promising to live a certain way on Sunday and walk out those doors and live however we want the rest of the week, or when we keep for ourselves what God has asked us to give cheerfully and sacrificially. All of this is theft, whether or not it’s ever discovered by others.
A few more forms worth naming plainly, because none of us are past them: pirating a movie or a piece of software instead of paying for it, quietly padding your hours on a timesheet, not reporting income you know you owe taxes on. None of it feels like ‘stealing’ in the moment. But that’s exactly the danger. As Martin Luther put it in his larger catechism, “a person steals not only when he robs a man’s safe or his pocket, but also when he takes advantage of his neighbor in the market, in a grocery shop, butcher stall, wine-and-beer cellar, work-shop, and, in short, wherever business is transacted and money is exchanged for goods or labor.” This commandment leaves almost nothing of daily life untouched…from a toddler swiping a toy in the nursery to how a business build, prices, and sells its products.
Whether it’s common, transactional, or the hidden kind of theft, the bottom line remains the same: there is no small version of theft. John Calvin once said, “God will not neglect to judge as a thief anyone who has taken advantage of a simple man…”[5] This is the negative side of the command.
But turn the coin around and see…
The Positive Command
I said it last week, and I say it again. Every commandment has a “thou shall not” and a “thou shall” in it. We’ve seen what the eighth commandment forbids, now see what it calls us to. If theft is the vice to avoid, the virtue to pursue is a glad stewardship. Stewardship to God in abundance or lack, and stewardship to neighbor in every transaction, big or small. Or to put it in other words, if the essence of theft is trying to get as much as possible while giving as little as possible, then the essence of Christian stewardship is a combination of godly frugality, liberality, and generosity.[6] Freely we have received, freely we give. What does this look like? It looks like intentionally guarding against all unnecessary expenses, so that we have the means to cheerfully give to others in need. Others who need our assistance, whether they can pay us back or not.
Ephesians 4:28 makes this plain. “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” Here we’re not just told to stop stealing; we’re told to work honestly, so that instead of taking from others, we have something to give them. That’s the point of this.
Anyone remember Zacchaeus? In Luke 19, the wee little man was a tax collector. He was rich because he padded every tax he collected so that more went to his own pocket. He was, by profession and by practice, a thief. When Jesus came through town, Zacchaeus climbed a tree just to see Him, and Jesus stopped, looked up, and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” Zacchaeus came down in joy, and before Jesus even asked, he promised to repay everyone he’d cheated four times over.
This is what happens when the gospel comes to a thief. Grace doesn’t just forgive the thief, grace turns the thief into givers. So Church, if we’ve really known and tasted the grace of God in Christ, the Spirit will move us toward the same direction, toward stewarding all we call our own, so that we no longer steal but give. In this we’ll discover the strange, upside-down math of Acts 20:35. That it is really is more blessed to give than to receive.
I love how the Heidelberg Catechism that we read earlier puts it. In questions 110 and 111 it says, “God forbids not only outright theft and robbery but also such wicked schemes and devices as false weights and measures, deceptive merchandising, counterfeit money, and usury; we must not defraud our neighbor in any way, whether by force or by show of right. In addition God forbids all greed and all abuse or squandering of his gifts.” Rather than this, “I must promote my neighbor’s good wherever I can and may, deal with him as I would like others to deal with me, and work faithfully so that I may be able to give to those in need.”
That’s the eighth commandment in a nutshell. Not just a fence around other people’s property, but an invitation into a whole different way of moving through the world, with hands open to give, instead of closed around whatever we can grab for ourselves.
Conclusion
Church, remember Judas. A thief among the disciples, quietly slipping funds from the money bag into his pockets while he walked beside Jesus every day. He’d been stealing privately in small, hidden amounts for who knows how long, until one night, he stopped stealing in secret and sold Jesus outright, for thirty pieces of silver.
That price tag isn’t random. You ever consider that? Why thirty pieces of silver? Long before Judas, that exact price had already been paid once before to the prophet Zechariah, by a people who were, in effect, rejecting God as their shepherd. “So they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver,” Zechariah writes, and God calls it, with open sarcasm, a “handsome price” (Zech. 11:12-13). Why that number? Because thirty pieces of silver was the exact price fixed in the Law for a slave, the compensation demanded if your ox gored someone else’s servant and killed them (Exodus 21:32).
Zechariah’s payment was Israel’s scornful verdict on God Himself: that’s all He’s worth to us, the price of a dead slave. Centuries later, Matthew tells us plainly that Judas’s thirty pieces of silver were that very prophecy, finally fulfilled (Matt. 26:15, 27:9-10). Judas didn’t just betray a friend, he treated Jesus like property, like little more than something which can be bought, sold, and scornfully carried off. The very One who made every human being in His own image was sold for the rate of a stolen slave, the same low price a rebellious nation had already put on Him hundreds of years before.
Here's what makes all this stunning. Jesus let it happen. He let Himself be priced like this, sold like a slave, handed over like property, why? So that people who actually were enslaved to sin could be redeemed, bought back, and set free.
Every one of us has taken what wasn’t ours in one form or another, selfishly grabbing things belonging to someone else. And yet, Jesus let Himself be sold at a slave’s price so that slaves to sin could meet Him and become free men and women.
That’s the whole point of this commandment. God isn’t simply telling us to stop thieving. He is saying that, but He’s saying far more. He’s inviting us to forsake a life turned inward, and to embrace a life turned outward, which is really, a life like His.
So Church, you who were bought with a price, live like it. With hands not tightly closed around possessions, but open, eager to share. Why? Because freely we have received, so freely we give.
[1] Stephen Spinnenweber, Loving the Law: The Law of God in the Life of the Believer (Geanies House, Fearn, Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus, 2025) 47.
[2] J.I. Packer, The Ten Commandments (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1983) 60.
[3] R. Scott Clark, The Heidelberg Catechism: A Historical, Theological, and Pastoral Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2025) 789.
[4] Clark, 790.
[5] John Calvin, quoted in Clark, 791.
[6] Clark, 797.
