Thou Shalt Not Steal…

I don’t think anyone who reads this will be offended or bothered. This was letter I wrote and gave to a few guys in my dorm who kept taking the dorm furniture out of the lounge and putting it in their own rooms. It also was during a time of a lot of people stealing silverware from the dining hall. That should be all the context you need:

“Thou shalt not steal..” –Exodus 20:15

It’s the eighth commandment. One of those pinnacle commands that not only born-again Christians uphold, but nearly every religion and culture in the world. So then why do we steal? I’m not taking about car heist or bank robberies. I’m not even talking about five finger discounts at Walmart, we are to well off to need to do that, and the consequences of getting caught are worse then we want to deal with. Stealing is taking something that is not yours. Whether it’s food from Saga or a couch from the lounge, it’s stealing. Be for you try and justify the incidents that are beginning to come to your mind, pause for a minute. The fact is it doesn’t matter if they have tons of leftovers anyways, or that nobody would miss that couch; it doesn’t matter if the person never even notices you took it, it’s still stealing. Do you find it interesting that we think ourselves to be pretty good Christians because we don’t do any of the “really bad stuff?” Or is it more interesting that when something is a slight inconvenience for us, or would be a little more to our liking a different way, we justify every slightly immoral thing we do. If you think this is a guilt trip it’s not. This is a rebuke. Be willing to suffer for the cause of Christ. Next time something is not to your liking wait before you bend the rules. It doesn’t matter if it would be more effective (If that’s your concern, talk to the people who make the rules), if you break a rule, if you “borrow” furniture, it’s still wrong.

So for the sake of Christ,

Return furniture, and follow the rules at Saga.

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