God Protects Our (His) Stuff
Click here to listen to this sermon. Or here. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! The text for today is Exodus 20:15: “You shall not steal.” At first blush, this Seventh Commandment seems quite straightforward: “You shall not steal.” Duhh!!! Everyone, from the youngest child on up, knows it’s wrong to take something that doesn’t belong to you. Protection of private property is fundamental to stability in any society. How can you have any sense of order if everyone’s trying to take stuff from someone else? How can you be productive if you spend all your time trying to protect the stuff you’ve already got? But Luther’s explanation in the Small Catechism once again draws out the deeper implications: “We should fear and love God so that we do not take our neighbor’s money or possessions, or get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and protect his possessions and income.” As with all the commandments, there is a negative side and ...