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• Exodus 20:15 "Thou shalt not steal."
• Leviticus 19:13 "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him."

  vs.

• Exodus 3:22 "And ye shall spoil the Egyptians."
• Exodus 12:35-36 "And they spoiled [plundered, NRSV] the Egyptians."
• Luke 19:29-34 "[Jesus] sent two of his disciples, Saying, Go ye into the village . . . ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither. And if any man ask you, Why do ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of him. . . . And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt? And they said, The Lord hath need of him."

- http://www.ffrf.org/books/lfif/?t=contra

Should we steal? 

>> WEAK What Jesus said to do in Luke 19:29 was stealing. 

I was taught as a child that when you take something without asking for it, that is stealing.

< STRONG The fact that the owner saw them taking it in broad daylight and didn't resist doesn't constitute stealing.

Rather, this explicitly is a way of getting permission. Thieves and robbers do not take something in front of you in broad daylight and steal without force or deception. The disciples practiced none of these. This is clearly not stealing! 

< STRONG  If Jesus really did steal, then the owner could have used this against Jesus when Jesus was being tried. 

Consider this event after the event of Jesus retrieving the colt: 

Luk 23:1  The whole group rose up and took Jesus before Pilate, 
Luk 23:2  where they began to accuse him: "We caught this man misleading our people, telling them not to pay taxes to the Emperor and claiming that he himself is the Messiah, a king."  

Where do the accusers say "He stole a cult"? No where! He was accused regarding misleading people, taxes, and the Messiah title... nothing about theft. Therefore, the owner didn't feel robbed. 

< STRONG There was no resistance from the part of the owner.

It was for the "Master's" use, and the owner knew that... otherwise the owner would have resisted the taking of the colt. Let's examine the text to see if the owner refused:

Luk 19:33  As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, "Why are you untying it?" 
Luk 19:34  "The Master needs it," they answered, 
Luk 19:35  and they took the colt to Jesus. Then they threw their cloaks over the animal and helped Jesus get on. 

As you can see, right after where it says "they took the colt to Jesus," it says nothing else regarding the owner. Hence this isn't a legitimate contradiction. 

< STRONG No. Just because God told the Israelites to plunder the Egyptians doesn't mean Christians today should steal. 

Two things.

1) We live in the post Christ era. The circumstances then cannot be repeated. There is no SAME Egypt for us to plunder and no same time period. It may have been appropriate in that time and place, but it is not now.

2) To plunder Egypt was a direct order by God. If God directly told you to do something, and you knew it was God, then it is OK. It is His Creation that you're "stealing" from with His consent. If you lied and said that God told you to do something that conflicts with His word, like murder, then you are using God as an excuse to do your own wicked will.

Please click the link on a page related to this discussion: Can moral laws change according to the Bible?

3) The 10 commandments had to do with stealing from your neighbors, NOT from your foreign enemies.

You can say the same thing for killing.