8th Commandment Flashcards
8th Commandment
- “You shall not steal.” (Ex 20:15; Deut 5:19)
8th Commandment: Relationship with the First Commandment
- There is no specific connection but it appeals to the exclusive worship of God and therefore worshiping anything other than God is stealing from him what is rightfully his.
8th Commandment: Theological Justification - Terminology
- גנב (gnb)—to steal
a. Generally understood to mean taking something that belongs to someone else
b. Can be used in relation to kidnapping.
8th Commandment: Theological Justification
- God is the true owner of all things in this world. He has granted people stewardship over his creation. Such stewardship includes the protection and use of property and possessions.
8th Commandment: Results
No specific result or consequence given in the commandment but there are consequences in other OT civil code like restitution.
8th Commandment: Ethical Impact - Theft
- There is a direct prohibition against stealing and theft in this commandment.
- When stealing takes place, it also usually involves other forms of deception.
1. Secretly moving boundary markers (Deut 19:14; 27:17; Job 24:2)
2. Use of false measures and balances (Deut 25:13–16; Prov 11:1)
3. Selling goods of inferior quality (Amos 8:4–6)
4. Charging interest (Ex 22:25) - Punishment for theft included paying back double what was taken. (Ex 22:7)
- In the NT, Paul excludes thieves from those who will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Cor 6:9–10)
8th Commandment: Ethical Impact - Private Property
- The eighth and tenth commandments affirm the idea of Private and personal ownership of property
1. “You shall not steal.” (Ex 20:15)
2. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (Ex 20:17)
3. The implication of these commandments is that to steal another’s property, or even to covet it, is sinful because they have private ownership of it
8th Commandment: Ethical Impact - Private Property - Stewardship under God
- Private property is not an absolute right.
a. God grants us stewardship over what is already his. (ps 24:1, Ps 50:10,12)
b. The Jubilee Year points to temporary stewardship. (Lev 25:10, 23)
2. As stewards, we manage what is God’s as owners.
8th Commandment: Ethical Impact - Private Property - Government and Property - Samuel
- Samuel warned the Israelites that the power of government in the person of a king would take their property.
a. “So Samuel spoke all the words of the LORD to the people who had asked of him a king. He said, ‘This will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you: . . . He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants. He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his servants.” (1 Sam 8:10–11, 14–17)
8th Commandment: Ethical Impact - Private Property - Government and Property - Communism - Central Premise
- Karl Marx claimed that the central premise of Communism was the abolishment of private property so that all things are common
i. “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property.”
8th Commandment: Ethical Impact - Private Property - Government and Property - Communism - Moral Implications
i. God grants individuals, as his image bearers, to be stewards of his creation.
ii. The idea that government controls all property lowers the view of man to less than God’s image bearer.
iii. Government control of property eliminates human freedom.
