Are We Thieves?

Scripture: Romans 2:17-29

¹⁷ What about you? You call yourself a Jew. You trust in the law of Moses and brag that you are close to God. ¹⁸ You know what God wants you to do. And you know the things that are important because you have learned the law. ¹⁹ You think you are a guide for the blind and a light for those who are in darkness. ²⁰ You think you can show foolish people what is right and teach those who know nothing. You have the law; so you think you know everything and have all truth. ²¹ You teach other people. So why don’t you teach yourself? You tell others not to steal. But you yourselves steal. ²² You say that others must not take part in adultery. But you yourselves are guilty of that sin. You hate idols. But you steal from temples. ²³ You brag about having God’s law. But you bring shame to God by breaking his law. ²⁴ It is written in the Scriptures: “The non-Jews speak against God’s name because of you Jews.”

²⁵ If you follow the law, then your circumcision has meaning. But if you break the law, then it is as if you were never circumcised. ²⁶ The non-Jews are not circumcised. But if they do what the law says, then it is as if they were circumcised. ²⁷ You Jews have the written law and circumcision, but you break the law. So those who are not circumcised in their bodies, but still obey the law, will show that you are guilty.

²⁸ A person is not a true Jew if he is only a Jew in his physical body. True circumcision is not only on the outside of the body. ²⁹ A person is a true Jew only if he is a Jew inside. True circumcision is done in the heart by the Spirit, not by the written law. Such a person gets praise from God, not from other people.

Questions

1. Who is Paul referring to by “the Jews” and what is their relationship to the Church in Rome?
2. Why does Paul make the accusations of breaking the Ten Commandments, even though some Jews surely did why call out all?
3. What does it mean that these individuals were guilty of theft, what kinds of theft might they have committed?
4. How do we define stealing and how has the church understood this command throughout the centuries?

Background

Related Scriptures: Exodus 20:1-17; Proverbs 24:12; Isaiah 52; Ezekiel 36; Mark 12:41-44; Luke 12:16-21

Paul’s criticism centers on the idea that the Jews thought themselves genuine teachers of others about God, but they failed to live out what God wanted from the.

The people Paul speaks against here see the outsiders as children who need “grown-ups” to help them, but the grown-ups are just as bad.

Paul is taking Isaiah 52:5 a slightly different direction, by saying that God’s people are pushing people away from God because of the way they fail to live by God’s way.

The vice list Paul uses here is meant to reflect his earlier one reminding us that we all fall short of God’s standard, and we all need to work on ourselves.

Stealing is defined Christians as not simply actively taking something from someone else but in hoarding resources from others.

Reflection

The command in Exodus to not steal is very straightforward, do not steal means exactly what it says, do not take something that belongs to another person. In this sense it is very easy to maintain, understand what is mine, and not mine and only use the things that are mine unless the other person gives me permission to use what is theirs. However, when the early Church started thinking about passages like Luke 12:16-21 and Romans 2:17-29they began to understand that there may be more to this concept of stealing than the simple command in Exodus 20. After all, how could Paul accuse the Jews of stealing; they were not taking belongings from others.

When the Early Church approached these passages, they did not simply look at theft as taking another’s possessions they looked at theft through the lens of “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it,” (Psalm 24:1). If the earth is God’s, then no possessions are truly ours rather we simply hold all of our possessions in trust. Because we believe that the earth is God’s and we hold our possessions in trust, the early church held to a much stricter definition of stealing. Many of the earliest Christian writers understood this meant that it is not simply stealing to take possessions from another person, but it is also theft to hoard possessions and not share with those in need. They understood that when Jesus called out the Temple leaders for not helping the widow (Mark 12) he was calling them out because they who had more than enough to live on did not help the poor widow who was barely sustaining herself. They saw Jesus making the claim that the Temple leaders were stealing from the widow who was in need, which works with what Paul is saying in Romans 2, those who know the law are stealing when they fail to help others when they have the means to do so. Basil The Great put it this way:

Now, someone who takes a man who is clothed and renders him naked would be termed a robber; but when someone fails to clothe the naked, while he is able to do this, is such a man deserving of any other appellation?

Or from St. Ambrose of Milan:

It is not from your own goods that you give to the beggar; it is a portion of his own that you are restoring to him. The Earth belongs to all. So you are paying back a debt and think you are making a gift to which you are not bound.

These are just two of the many comments made by early Christians about how theft goes beyond taking things others have and includes withholding things that people need. Living out this teaching is no easy task and requires us to be constantly aware of how much we have not simply as individuals but as a society. We as individuals may not have wealth, we may not have treasure stored up on earth, however we do live in a society where there is a surplus. We need to recognize this fact and work to ensure that we are not hoarding resources away from those who need them. Developing this mentality requires us to be very intentional about looking around and asking how our decisions impact the larger society. We must take stock of who our structures truly benefit and how. This concept of stealing bring us face to face with our own desire for comfort and how that desire can often lead us to clench tightly what we have and strive to always have more. When what God wants from us is to recognize that we have enough already and that our work can be used to glorify Jesus’ kingdom when we work for others to have more as well. When we look at hoarding as a type of theft we begin to see the need for generosity and how God wants us to have possessions not simply so our needs are meet or that we are comfortable, but also so we have the opportunity to bless others. We are called to remember we are servants and that all we have is God’s first and we simply oversee creation for God and so if we hoard resources and do not help those in need, we are stealing both from them and from God. Instead, may we all consider the needs of others and help ensure they are met.