ABSTRACT
Lutheran preachers in the Reformation era saw God’s law speaking clearly to economic relationships. Preaching on the seventh commandment (“You shall not steal”), found in collections of catechetical sermons, evidences this. Some preachers offered relatively short, general definitions of stealing. Some listed activities qualifying as theft, and some listed professions and associated types of stealing. The preachers made clear that every person violates the seventh commandment. For these preachers, God’s law had real content. It did not simply serve to condemn the sinner, it also served to name injustice and implicitly or explicitly advocate for remedying that injustice. These sermons reveal that the preachers boldly addressed every group and part of society and named theft wherever they saw it. Though no group escaped criticism, condemnations directed toward the economically and politically powerful outweighed those directed toward any other group. Preachers were often sophisticated in their understanding and analysis of economic injustice. They confronted their listeners with the reality that stealing is never abstract but rather takes identifiable forms. These sermons argued that God’s law had contemporary relevance for economic conditions.
