the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Stealing
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or The Apostolic Church could scarcely have increased in numbers without finding κλέπται within her borders from time to time. The thieving slave had not gained his place in comedy without reason, and now when the slave turned Christian the temptation to cling to an easy and profitable habit must often have been specially strong. If his master also happened to be a Christian, then a perverted notion of the meaning of brotherhood could easily provide an excuse for pilfering. There was no compelling body of public sentiment on the matter in the Graeco-Roman world, so that it was necessary to speak with some emphasis. Thus the exhortation to slaves in the letter to Titus insists that they should not be unworthy of any trust committed to them: ‘Exhort servants to be subject to their masters … not purloining’ (μὴ νοσφιζομένους, Titus 2:9). It is worthy of note that this word is used also in Acts 5:2 concerning the Ananias and Sapphira incident, where the pair ‘set apart’ some of the price obtained, and hoped to gain credit for the gift of the whole. The most natural explanation of St. Paul’s words to Philemon (Acts 5:18-19)-‘if he hath wronged thee at all, or oweth thee aught, put that to mine account … I will repay it’-seems to be that Onesimus had been guilty of some theft, and had fled to escape punishment.
That theft was not confined to the slave class is clear from the language of both St. Peter and St. Paul. St. Peter warns the Christian that he is not to suffer as a thief (1 Peter 4:15). St. Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, mentions among those who cannot inherit the Kingdom of God fornicators and thieves, adding ‘and such were some of you’ (1 Corinthians 6:10). The most important passage in this connexion, however, is Ephesians 4:28, ὁ κλέπτων μηκέτι κλεπτέτω. This must obviously refer to stealing as a fact not of the past but of the present. The thief still existed, and that within the Church, Writing not in the spirit of a legislator, and still less in the manner of one formulating an ‘interim’ ethic, he insists that the habit is to be broken off. They are to cease from actual thefts, and are to learn the high principle which would make thieving impossible-so to work that they may be able to give. Obviously it was more lasting work to state this principle than to have merely advised restitution. On this high ground the atmosphere is such that the thieving desire cannot live. ‘Stealing is the typical form of using the labour of another to supply our wishes, while it is our duty to make our own labour minister to the needs of others’ (Westcott, Ephesians, p. 73).
Literature.-B. F. Westcott, Ep. to Ephesians, London, 1906; S. D. F. Salmond, Expositor’s Greek Testament , ‘Ephesians,’ do., 1903; E. von Dobschütz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church, Eng. translation , do, 1904.
R. Strong.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Stealing'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/stealing.html. 1906-1918.
