Here’s another way we can work at breaking God’s commandment “thou shalt not steal.” We can work at cross purposes with our employer. Imagine you work for Nike, but you think Adidas makes the best shoes. Now if you work for Nike and you think Adidas makes the nicest shoes is that ok? Of course it’s ok. But it’s not ok to use your time at Nike to forward the purposes of Adidas. Can you say amen to that? It’s not ok if I work for Google to be writing code during office hours for Yahoo. In fact, most companies will ask you to sign a non-compete form. That is saying that I will be honest, I will not steal what this company is investing in me by giving away their trade secrets to another person.
By the way this can happen in the church, if I’m a minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church I should be preaching the message that God has given the Seventh-day Adventist people. When you give your tithes, you’re giving your tithes to support the work of the Seventh-day movement. So if I’m preaching and teaching and living in a way that is inconsistent with what it means to be a Seventh-day Adventist as a minister who is taking tithe then I am breaking the command “thou shalt not steal.”
And if I’m a teacher or a professor that is Seventh-day Adventist run I need to be upholding the values of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Which means no matter what department I work in whether I’m teaching social studies or science I need to be upholding the values of the Seventh-day Adventist movement. And if I’m not doing that I’m breaking the commandment thou shalt not steal. It would be inappropriate for a Seventh-day Adventist minister to be teaching Sunday sacredness or a Seventh-day Adventist teacher to be teaching evolution as fact. We must make sure we are not falling under the condemnation of God.
Nathan Renner
Senior pastor of the Sonora Seventh-day Adventist Church and an instructor of ARISE
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