The Seventh Commandment goes like this: 

You shall not steal. What does this mean?

We are to fear and love God, so that we neither take our neighbors’ money or property nor acquire them by using shoddy merchandise or crooked deals, but instead help them to improve and protect their property and income.

You shall not steal, the Bible says. This has to do with how we do business with our neighbors, how we relate to God, and how we steward the resources which God has given us. And there is a gospel story about Jesus in the Temple that gives us a glimpse of how Jesus applies this commandment. I’ll leave you with seven brief takeaways for how we apply this commandment to our lives today. We begin with a reading from the gospel of John, the 2nd chapter, beginning at the 13th verse. This is the gospel reading designated for this, the 3rd Sunday in Lent.

John 2:13-22

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.