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Chapter 1: What are the consequences of stealing in ancient Israel?
Think of a time that you took something that wasn't yours. Maybe it was small. Maybe it was something big. But why did you take it?
The sole purpose for stealing is you want to benefit from something that you are not currently benefiting from. You take something of value that you didn't earn or work for. I want that. I'm going to take it. Dig even deeper. How did you justify taking it? Everything that my neighbor has is God's gift to them.
And one way of thinking about stealing stems from this probably unconscious belief that I think that God should have given that gift to me. That should be mine.
Today, we're going to talk about the eighth command, do not steal, and how actually this command is an opportunity for gratitude.
Deuteronomy 6 says, "...he will give to you large and fine cities that you didn't build, and houses full of all sorts of things that you didn't fill."
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Chapter 2: What underlying beliefs contribute to the act of stealing?
Everything that we have is a gift to us. And so the Eighth Command is a call for contentment, which is cool. But as we're going to see in today's episode, the wisdom of the Eighth Command goes even deeper. Flip over, do not steal, into the positive. And this command becomes profound. It's a call to not take people's stuff, but to help people steward their stuff.
You really have to believe that God has given me what I need and more, and that God has given my neighbor what they need and more. And I'm going to help them be good stewards of what God's given to them.
Today, Tim Mackey and I dig into the eighth commandment, do not steal. Thanks for joining us. Here we go.
Hey, Tim. Hello, Jonathan Collins.
Chapter 3: How can we steward our neighbor's possessions responsibly?
We're talking about 10 commandments. Yeah, we are. And we're cruising. Yeah. We're moving. We're getting to the final few. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to talk about the eighth commandment.
Yeah. First, we had this conversation about that these are the 10 words. And by calling them words, we are allowing ourselves to think of these more as mere instructions. These are instructions. These are commands. but there's something even broader going on, which is that these are like a reorientation to a way of relating to God and others.
Yeah, that's right. Underneath each command,
Chapter 4: What does the Eighth Commandment teach us about community impact?
is a value, is a deeper commitment or a view of God and other people and how I relate to them. Another big thing has been how the Ten Commands are the first ten words of a larger covenant commitment that God invites Israel into on Mount Sinai. That's the story they're found in. And there's 42 more commands given right after the ten.
And those 42 actually pick up the language and often the values and ideas underneath the 10 and will fill them out. And we're going to see this with do not steal. Actually, the laws themselves within the context flip over the eighth command in a way that's really cool.
Chapter 5: How does the command 'do not steal' relate to gratitude?
It forced me to think about a great many things that I'm going to now force you to think about. But yeah, don't steal. First, let's do something real basic. Let's learn the Hebrew word underneath here. The Hebrew word here translated as steel, it's the Hebrew word ganav or gimel nun beit.
It's the letter B, that last bait, the last letter is B. But in Hebrew, if there's a vowel before bait, you soften the B into a V. So you turn the B into a V. Yeah. So there's actually lots of words that are spelled with this letter bait, but they're often transliterated in English letters with a V. With a V. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, so that's what's going on here. Okay.
These three little commands, six, seven, and eight, are the three commands that are just two words in Hebrew. The word lo, not, and then the verb. Lo means not. Lo means not, and then you get the verb. So you will not kill, you will not commit adultery, you will not steal. All three of those are two words in Hebrew. Lo tirzach, lo tirnaf, lo tirgnov.
Those are the only three in all the ten that are like that, and they've been put next to each other. So that's meaningful. They're like a little triad. It's a little package. A little package. We noted this earlier, but these three relate in kind of like a descending scale. All three of these are about you and another person in your community.
Chapter 6: What deeper meanings are associated with God's gifts to us?
You don't have the right to take their life. You don't have the right to take their spouse or have sex with their spouse. You don't have a right to their stuff. So all of them are about things that are valuable or belong to my neighbor. One is their life, one is their spouse, one is their stuff. So it kind of feels like there's a bit of a descending scale.
But what's interesting is if you look at other laws elsewhere in the Torah, and you look at the consequences, like what if you break Command 6, 7, and 8? What's the result? So we talked about this. Murder, killing, especially with intent, is a capital crime. So in Exodus 21, whoever strikes someone so that they die will be put to death. Murder is a capital crime.
Adultery is a capital crime in the Torah.
Chapter 7: How does the concept of stewardship change our perspective on ownership?
The theft is It's not a capital crime.
Okay.
So Exodus 22, if a guy ganavs an ox or a sheep and then let's say he slaughters it, that is like makes it for dinner. Yeah. Or maybe he sells it. Then it doesn't say he will be put to death. It says he will pay five oxen. for the ox and four sheep for the sheep.
That's some weird math.
Yeah. That's interesting. Five times the value. Five times the value of an ox.
Four times for a sheep. For a sheep. Yeah. It's not one to one. And then ox are different than sheep.
Yeah, I guess, you know, sheep are valuable.
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Chapter 8: What final thoughts do the hosts share about the Eighth Commandment?
Yeah.
But yeah, clearly there's, in this cultural context, which is like a... Farming. Yeah. Agricultural community. Hilly, region, farming context. So sheep are what you graze with. You have herds, so they're out munching grass and... You get wool and meat. But oxen, yeah, you could maybe slaughter one for a big feast, but mostly they're workhorses. You're plowing your farm fields with them.
So let's say this. If you take someone's life, you are, hmm. I guess one reason you might is to benefit from it in some way. Like there's stories about murdering someone because you want their stuff. Okay. Like there's a story about King Ahab where he wants this guy Navot's nice vineyard. He arranges false witnesses and then he takes the stuff.
So one reason you might kill somebody is for economic benefit for yourself. To take their stuff. To take their stuff. But sometimes people murder each other because they're mad or they lose their temper or they hate them or they want to get revenge. There's not like economic benefit involved. So I guess maybe what's different about stealing, the sole purpose for stealing...
is, we'll get into this a little more, but you want to benefit from something that you are not currently benefiting from. And my neighbor has that benefit. So I want that. I'm going to take it. You take something of value that you didn't earn or work for. So it makes sense then that the consequence is about restoring value, but like even more so to compensate for the wrong.
Yeah, why are they even more so?
Yeah, okay, let's meditate on that. So you are restoring the thing that you took. I stole one ox, I have to pay back one ox. But then I gotta give you four more. I guess what you're saying is that the relational damage and the damage to like our social fabric also has a value. And that's been ruptured too by that act.
Yeah, because when you steal something, you're also beginning to shape an environment, aren't you? Because my other neighbors looking on will all of a sudden be like, what? Oh, my stuff's not safe. And so you're actually harming your whole community. And you're compensating for that. Let's keep a pin in that one.
Okay.
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