SCRIPTURE:
"If you see your neighbor’s ox or sheep or goat wandering away, don’t ignore your responsibility. Take it back to its owner.
If its owner does not live nearby or you don’t know who the owner is, take it to your place and keep it until the owner comes looking for it. Then you must return it.
Do the same if you find your neighbor’s donkey, clothing, or anything else your neighbor loses. Don’t ignore your responsibility."
Deuteronomy 22:1-3 (NLT)
OBSERVATION:
Here we see various laws of many kinds covering many situations, from sexual purity to tassels on clothing.
But here, it begins with a pretty elementary sounding rule of living in community as people of God.
When you see something belonging to someone other than yourself, either return it, or hold on to it until you find out who lost it, and that they are looking for it.
In this instance, it refers to animals wandering away; this would make sense, as in an agrarian society like the people of Israel there would be multitudes of animals.
The "don'ts" in this instance are as follows;
- Don't act like you don't see it, and hence it wanders and is lost...
- And, don't take it and keep it as your own.
Instead, God says you are to hold it and STEWARD it until the person who lost it comes looking for it, then return it gladly, which will bring the owner joy, and prompt the LORD's blessing on you!
But it also mentions inert items like clothing, tractors, etc. (no, not tractors LOL) to make sure we hold and care for property until you "neighbor" comes looking, then return it.
Why all the fuss?
Because a crucial part of a healthy community is to use things and love people. That truly prompts God's favor on His people. It is a defining mark of healthy community.
APPLICATION:
It seems so trivial and easy for us to say, "not me!", when we first read of this and make sense of why it's in here.
But the fact is, we have largely grown up into a "finders keepers" society and culture, a Western American progressive society, where if you left it sitting somewhere too long, it's your fault for forgetting it! Aww too bad so sad, it's MINE now.
To do something like hold, care for, and locate the owner of lost property, which in our case today is more like stuff than animals, is a diminishing rarity...which for the believing Christ-follower, becomes a shining hallmark of the integrity and character of the Christian.
To be a "finders-helpers" person takes giving; of your time, your convenience, and in some ways, our self-servedness as we may have been subliminally trained growing up, but this giving shows a deliberate desire to give of yourself...and that is what distinguishes us from the unbelieving world.
It's still a choice, maybe even a “struggle”, when we "find" something. How we choose, will tell the world whose side we are aligned with.
PRAYER:
So Lord Jesus, you "found" us and kept us in Your care, to return us Home someday.
You model what the law of hold and return means...and while this seems like a sundry law, how we carry it out truly reveals our character.
May we be "finders-helpers" people in our church, our neighborhood, and our in the world...misfits in a "finders keepers" society. Amen!
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