The Eighth Commandment, “do not steal,” is straightforward. If it does not belong to you, then do not take it. This relates, of course, to other people’s property, their stuff. But the command is not limited to stuff. If we slyly manipulate a situation so that we unjustly favor ourselves while putting others at an economic disadvantage, it can be a form of theft. Theft can also take place when one party is owed something by another and does not receive it: the rent due as stipulated by a lease, or a full day’s work for the agreed upon wages. But not only matters related to money or property are involved. The apostle Paul speaks of owing honor, respect, and obedience (Romans 13). These are due certain people in our lives and if we do not offer them then it is a debt that remains unpaid, and we are thieves.
I would also suggest that we can be thieves of other people’s shalom. Shalom is the Hebrew term for peace, but it means more than absence of conflict. It envisions wholeness, equanimity, serenity, lack of disturbance. God instructed Aaron to bless Israel by pronouncing God’s shalom over them. This is what he desires for them and what would have been enjoyed if they had not rejected his favor. Nevertheless, by his grace, shalom is what we have to look forward to in the New Jerusalem. Between now and then, however, we are called, as his people, to be agents of shalom in this fallen world. But as Paul notes in Ephesians 4, our capacity for disrupting shalom often resides in our tongues. As peacemakers, we are to “let no corrupting talk come out of [our] mouths.” To the contrary, we are to strive to speak “only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”
Lastly, we can be guilty of stealing love. Paul says that love is the one debt from which we will never be released (Romans 13:7). This is not like a business arrangement in which we've agreed to pay someone for their labor. When we’ve handed over the check we have discharged our debt. But not so with love. We are always required to love and if we do not offer to others the love that God desires, we are thieves for we are stealing something that others have a right to possess.
As with the other commandments, there is a broader application than the most obvious. For the Eighth, property is definitely involved, but so is honor, respect, obedience, and love. In seeking to live by the command, we do not want to be found to be in possession of something that belongs to another, no matter what it is.
