“A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.”
— Proverbs 22:1
The Eighth Commandment covers more than possessions. You can steal a person’s money. You can also steal their reputation. You can steal their dignity. You can steal their opportunity. And sometimes the damage done by those invisible thefts is greater and longer-lasting than anything a thief could take from a wallet.
Shakespeare understood it: “Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash… but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.” When we pass on a story about someone that may or may not be true, when we insinuate, gossip, whisper, shade the truth about a person’s character, we are committing a theft that no court will prosecute but that God records with perfect clarity.
Here is a useful filter before you pass anything along about another person. Think: Is it True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind? Not every true thing needs to be said. Not every piece of information you have received needs to be passed on. Receiving stolen goods is still a crime. If you allow your ears to become a receptacle for gossip, you are participating in the theft, not just observing it. The simple response, “May I quote you on that?,” has stopped more rumors than almost any other sentence I know.
And then there is the theft of withholding. The Good Samaritan in Jesus’ parable represents the person whose motto is: what is mine is yours, and I will give it. The religious leaders who walked past the wounded man represent those whose motto is: what is mine is mine, and I will keep it. Both are forms of theft, one active, one passive. The God who gave you everything has a word for those who hoard what He gave them: you are not being prudent. You are being a thief.
Give generously. Speak kindly. Protect the reputation of others the way you would want yours protected. That is the Eighth Commandment lived from the inside out.
PROTECT PEOPLE’S REPUTATIONS THE WAY YOU WANT YOURS PROTECTED. GOSSIP IS THEFT.
