Stealing and Covetousness (Part 2)

The Baptist Catechism (Keach’s Catechism) 

Q. 87. What is forbidden in the tenth commandment? A. The tenth commandment forbids all discontentment with our own estate, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbor, and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his. (1 Cor. 10:10; James 5:9; Gal. 5:26; Col. 3:5)

One way to differentiate between covetousness and theft (besides theft being an action and covetousness being a matter of the heart) is to realize the differing motivations behind the two. To covet is to desire something that isn't one's own possession. And this desire may culminate in theft which is the physical endpoint to one's desire for things that aren't there’s.

Stealing (or theft) does not always involve desire in the same way that covetousness does. To be clear, theft always involves desire but unlike covetousness it does not always desire out of unnecessary greed.

For example, a man has a car––a 1999 Ford Explorer––which runs fine. He may covet his neighbors 2019 Mercedes coupe. He doesn't need his neighbors car, it's simply unnecessary greed (or as the catechism describes it––"envying...the good of our neighbor").

Theft may arise simply out of true necessity. Which does not justify the act but is simply a matter of self preservation that does not necessarily imply ill-will towards the person being violated.

For example, a man is homeless and on the brink of starvation. He sees a man selling food (hotdogs). He runs up, takes the food without paying, runs away, and eats it. There's really no ill-will here, as hard as it is to believe. He could have been equally content buying, had he the money, or not stealing at all, had he not been starving. One way to look at it is this: in theft, one needs and so they desire, and in coveting, one desires and so they need.

Proverbs 6:30-31 (NASB)
30 Men do not despise a thief if he steals
            To satisfy himself when he is hungry;
      31 But when he is found, he must repay sevenfold;
            He must give all the substance of his house.

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