Are You a Thief?

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.

The Posture of Worship

There is a posture to worship. Physically, the Bible often describes it as bowing down or prostrating oneself. Of greater import, however, is the posture of the soul. It’s not difficult to see why. One can be flat on one’s face in a setting in which worship is being offered and yet remain bolt upright in heart. An unwillingness to yield to the majesty and worth of God is the essence of rebellion and idolatry, and it is an attitude that can creep into any worship service no matter how quiet or how raucous. Worship, true worship, involves the soul of a person acknowledging the worth of God and giving the honor that is due him. This was the worship Mary offered to Jesus.

It is an extraordinary scene. She enters the room where Jesus is dining and breaks open an alabaster flask of expensive perfume. She then begins to anoint the head and feet of Jesus. Then, and this perhaps the most shocking of all given the cultural context in which this act took place, she assumes the posture of a slave at the feet of Jesus, let’s down her hair, and begins to wipe off his feet with it. Time must have stopped in that room. 

Were others embarrassed for her? Perhaps, but she was not, and neither was Jesus. When some (and in particular, Judas) protested, Jesus rebuked the detractors saying she had done something beautiful for him. Whether she realized it or not, she had saved the perfume for his burial, something which was about to take place as he laid down his life “for the nation and . . . to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:51, 52).

Mary’s worship was sacrificial. She held nothing back. The perfume used was costly, her servile behavior considered shameful, the cultural barriers breached, scorned. But Jesus was worth it. Her life had been rescued from futility and she had a foretaste of the eternal life that he promised. She had sat at his feet and pondered the ultimate reality he spoke of, she witnessed his heartache at the brokenness of the world, and she was stunned at the power he possessed to overcome sin and death. When the opportunity came, what else could she do but pour out her life at his feet in adoration and gratitude in the posture of worship?

The Revealer of Hearts

Nearly all of us will pass through life unheralded. Our sojourn, while important to those with whom we have shared life, will likely not make it into the pages of history books. But there are those few who come into the world who go on to play a kind of super-human role in the destiny of their fellow human beings. And among such people there are those whose influence is so significant that they define categories by which we judge not only them but those who agree or disagree with them.  For instance, if Martin Luther King, Jr., is mentioned in a discussion one would likely discover what people think about him and, in turn, a lot about those involved in the discussion. The same could be said about Marx, Hitler, or Mandela. Such people become a benchmark, for good or evil, and their existence demands an opinion. As such, these oversized people have the power to reveal hearts.

To whatever extent this might be said of any particular person, it takes on eternal significance when it comes to Jesus. Simeon prophesied (Luke 2:25) that Jesus “was appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed” so that “thoughts from many hearts maybe revealed”. This is clearly demonstrated in an encounter at the house of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50). Jesus had been invited to dine and from the moment he arrived and took his place at the table a woman, described as “a sinner” (a prostitute?), wiped, kissed, and anointed his feet. This extraordinary display of love and gratitude for Jesus laid bare, as Simeon had prophesied, the hard heart of Simon: “[W]hen the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.’”

Jesus is on a mission to save people. For those who receive him he gives “the right to become children of God” (John 1:12), for those who reject him he becomes “a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense” (1 Peter 2:8). The sinful woman was grateful, the Pharisee, scornful. As a result they were an eternity apart in their understanding of what his presence meant. That staggering consequence is still in play when Jesus is made known to people today.

The Priviledge of Persecution

Our Christian brothers and sisters in the 1st century had a very different perspective on persecution than we 21st century western Christians. For them it was a privilege (see Acts 5:41; Philippians 1:29), for us it is something to be avoided, almost at all costs. But can it be avoided? If Jesus and the apostles are any measure, it cannot. The scriptures clearly attest that persecution follows proclamation.

Why is this so? The message of the Kingdom of God runs smack up against the prevailing powers of the kingdom of this world making conflict inevitable. And because the gospel offers a stern critique of the nature of human beings and the works we produce, when a person embraces the gospel as true it necessarily aligns that one with that assessment, provoking persecution. The demand to the believer in the face of this inevitable enmity, notes Glenn Penner, the late director of Voice of the Martyrs, Canada, “is not so much a willingness to die for Christ but a readiness to die due to one’s unconditional obedience to the Crucified One.” If persecution is part and parcel with proclaiming and living the gospel, we must accept that we are “destined for this” and “not be moved by these afflictions” (1 Thessalonians 3:3).

But suffering for the sake of Christ is not an end in itself. Jesus spoke of his redemptive suffering when he taught, ““The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:23-24). Each disciple of Jesus is a product of the redeeming death to which he alludes. For this we are grateful. The startling news, however, is that he also envisions our own sacrificial fruit bearing when he explains, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (v. 25). Our participation in the redeeming work of Christ through suffering for the sake of his name, has a redemptive purpose, not for ourselves but for others.

The power of the followers of Jesus united in the face of persecution offers a much needed testimony to the truth of the gospel. Ed Clowney notes: "“The very threats to the existence of the church in the twenty-first century show again our need of the church. The courage to stand apart, to be unashamed of Christ’s claims, is nurtured in the community of those who are baptized into his name. The church may not apply for a union card in a pluralistic establishment by signing away its right to proclaim the only Saviour of the world. Together we must make clear that it is to Christ and not to ourselves that we witness. In that witness we are not only individual points of light in the world, but a city set on a hill. In the ethnic hostility that ravages Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the church must show the bond of Christ’s love that unites former enemies as brothers and sisters in the Lord. Only so can the church be a sign of his kingdom: the kingdom that will come when Christ comes, and that is already present through his Spirit” (The Church. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995. 15-16).

As our Savior was persecuted because he stood against the prevailing selfishness and cruelty of a sin-racked, idolatrous world, so will his church. Persecution is something to which we have been called and for which we must give thanks. 

A Paradoxical People

A church is a paradox; a paradox made up of paradoxical people. It is an entity that is at once infinitely indestructible and incredibly fragile. It is strong because an infinitely strong God has brought it into being and is at work in it. It is weak because it is made up of people who are subject to the maladies that attend universal sin. Possessing no inherent power to do what God wants us to do, we must look to God’s power and grace.

That being said, the weakness that can often hobble a church is not to be accommodated. Paul’s letters are full of exhortations that, in one way or the other, enjoin us to walk away from the old self and toward the new. The old “belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,” while the new is “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-23). In the opening sentences of his letter to the Philippians he puts it this way: “it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:9-11).

As his letters readily attest, the local church is the venue in which much of this growth is to take place. For instance, the above prayer ties the ability to approve what is excellent, which leads to a maturing walk “filled with the fruit of righteousness,” to ever-increasing love among the saints at Philippi. Why is this so? If those in a church can discover what it means to love, idolatrous self-interest will give way to God honoring interest for the other. We then begin to look like Jesus who “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” so that we could be saved from our sinful, self-absorbed selves (2:7).

Remarkably, Paul is confident that this will be realized in the church in Philippi because “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (1:6). But it involves embracing the challenge to “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (2:12). It seems that if we will respond with faith, seeking to “approve what is excellent,” we can become a little less paradoxical, possessing a strength that will be “to the glory and praise of God” (1:11).

Covenant Confidence

The love that David and Jonathan had for each other is described in terms that impress the reader with its depth of devotion and loyalty. It’s a type of love prized in human experience. However, their affection for one another was not the basis of their appeals that the other would faithfully extend kindness. They had covenanted together before God, and it was that bond, with its attending promises, that gave them confidence to expect benevolence from the other, even in the face of circumstances that could easily have tempted either of them to serve their own interests.

The covenant between these two friends is a reflection of the covenant God has made with his people. It’s a bond that has as its corollary chesed, the Hebrew term most often translated “loving-kindness” or “steadfast love.” As the writer of Hebrews explains, God desiring “to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose guaranteed it with an oath.”  He made a promise to Abraham and “since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, ‘Surely I will bless you and multiply you’” (Hebrews 6:17; 6:13-14). With that “surely,” God put himself on the line. He would stand by his word to extend chesed to those with whom he is in covenant.

This type of generous pledge making is reflected in the language of traditional marriage vows. The parties to the marriage vow “to have and to hold [the other] from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.” Don’t you long for that kind of love -- for love that is, in the words of Dale Ralph Davis, “not merely love, but loyal love; not merely kindness, but dependable kindness; not merely affection, but affection that has committed itself”? David and Jonathan made good on their vows. Unfortunately, some 50% of those who make such vows at a wedding do not. We can be assured, however, of God’s chesed for he has promised it and sealed his promise with the blood of his Son.

“Peypahz, Peypahz, Peypahz Pleese”

I know - that's a pretty lame attempt at replicating the cliché of a Nazi interrogator expecting some sort of authentication from the protagonist of the movie. But if we've been caught up in the plot, we sense the growing tension. Will his credentials past muster? Will he make it through the checkpoint?

The demand for authentication is at the heart of the confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees. In Mark 8 we learn that they “argue with him” and seek “from him a sign from heaven to test him.” They were not looking for another miracle. Jesus had done miracles in abundance, even before their eyes. What they wanted was proof that what he did, he did with the blessing of heaven and thereby verify that he was who he was purported to be, the Messiah.

“Peypahz, peypahz, peypahz pleese.”

Jesus refuses. He is not going to subjugate the glory of the Covenant of Grace to the self-justifying, man-made, Pharisaical conceptions of the Messiah. There was enough already before their eyes to authenticate who he was: the testimony of Scripture, the fulfillment of prophecy, the anointed teaching, and, in fact, extraordinary, unparalleled miracles. They had seen enough if only they had eyes to see.

The demand for an authenticating sign persists. It manifests itself every time someone asks a Christian why Jesus should be regarded as the “only way.” “Why should I believe that Jesus was God in the flesh? Why should I believe that it is only faith in him that saves me from the torments of hell? What proof do you have that authenticates these claims?”

“Peypahz, peypahz, peypahz pleese.”

Though we are to prepare thoughtful answers for such questions (1 Peter 3:15) and we are to faithfully preach Christ and him crucified (that in and of itself being a sign, 1 Corinthians 1:22-24), the sign we have been given to authenticate that Jesus was who the Bible says he was is our love. This love is to be evident to those watching. It grows out of our being in union with Christ (John 13:31-35, 17:20-23).

Why would the world make the connection between Christians loving each other and his coming? Perhaps Paul’s language in 1 Corinthians helps us to understand: “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:28-31).

Prior to these words Paul acknowledges the world’s demand for authentication. Yet, he says, God has chosen the despised things of the world to expose the motivation of such expectations. He uses sinful human beings who've been redeemed by him; they stand as a testimony to his grace. As this passage attests, there's no room for boasting among Christians for we cannot think of ourselves as deserving such favor. There is only room for humility and love. We cannot put ourselves forward. We can only put Christ forward. As Paul says, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” In fact, Paul writes elsewhere in 1 Corinthians (13:1-3) that if love is lacking in our Christianity all authenticating signs amount to nothing. It is love extended in humility toward all that marks us out as people who understand the need for a heaven sent Savior. It is our answer to the demand for “Peypahz, peypahz, peypahz pleese.”