Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Love Justice Podcast, where we share insights behind real impact in the fight against human trafficking. I'm your host, Hannah Munn.
Most of us learned you shall not steal young enough that it sits somewhere between a rule and a reflex, easy to nod at, easy to move past. But the oldest recorded Jewish interpretation of that commandment says it isn't about wallets at all. It says the text speaks directly of one who steals persons.
Today, my guest is John Molineux, founder and CEO of Love justice. And together, we're going to walk this commandment and idea all the way through what the commandment originally meant, what it means to have a life stolen, why God insisted his people never forget their own slavery. And finally, the flip side of you shall not steal the invitation to give.
So let's get into it. John, welcome back to the podcast.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Thank you, Hannah. Glad to be here.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: This is a monumental podcast for me because I am no longer in my office at home, but I am in the Love justice program hq.
And we might, if listeners hear a ding while we're recording this podcast. John, what is that? And maybe just preface, like we might get interrupted and why and what that means?
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Well, it's not so much a dinghy and as a. As a church bell. It's the sound of a church bell, which is the sound that we chose for.
You know, this goes back to the fact that Love justice intercepts hundreds or sometimes around 100 people every day. And that's a huge impact that we get to be a part of, but we don't really see it, you know, like, we get all the info and we can. We can analyze it, but, like, we don't ever have the sense of it happening all around us. And so, but we wanted us to really. Part of our directional statement this year was to press into our sacred impact and ground ourselves in that.
And so we set up something called Impact Stream, where every time an intercept is entered into Searchlight, our human trafficking database, a church bell sounds in the office. And we get a little bit of information about that intercept, where I was, and some basic information. So it's been really encouraging. I mean, it's definitely grounded us, as you say, Hannah, in the sacred impact that we be a part of every day.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah, so that is something we get to invite our listeners into today is whenever you hear that church bell, that is someone who was intercepted.
John, let's. Let's get into the topic that we're going to talk about today. And I want to first talk about the moment that I first approached you about doing an episode on the idea that trafficking is the, the epitome of theft.
What was your first reaction to that?
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, my first reaction was why are we using a lesser wrong to illustrate how bad or to say something about a greater wrong. It was kind of like saying murder, murder is battery.
It didn't really land for me. And as you know, Hannah, I, I, you pushed back a little bit and, and I went and you know, thought about it and did some more research. And as I came back, I, I eventually, you know, I eventually kind of realized what you just said on the, on the, in, in the intro that, you know, not only is, is stealing a person, the stealing everything from that person, but it's even more than that. You're stealing future moments and you're stealing joy and you're still taking away their ability to access and use all their possessions and, and know, have relationships with their family. It is, it is definitely a form of maximal form of stealing. But as you said, I also learned that the oldest recorded Jewish interpretations says that it says, our rabbis taught you shall not steal. The text speaks of one who steals persons. So when I realized that that was potentially the actual original meaning of the commandment, I started to get intrigued. And here we are.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And this episode kind of hinges on your knee jerk reaction to that kind of idea. And this, Jo, that you went down of how this has really shaped what you think about this and how that is really important as we think about just the context of our work and what we're inviting people into. So I would love for you to kind of start breaking down that journey for us a little bit. And can you tell us what does scripture actually say about theft and why did this, or what did this commandment mean in its original world?
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, it says, you know, thou shalt not steal.
And some scholars, as I mentioned, and in fact, the earliest rabbinic interpretation that we have suggests that it was talking about stealing of persons. But you also have Exodus 21:16 that talks about man stealing as a capital crime.
So scholars don't ultimately agree whether the commandment referred primarily to persons or property.
But one thing's for sure, in the context, the law that was given at that time, land was held by kinship groups. People's property was their means of substance, the ox, the seed, the grain, the tools. So stealing a family's ox could push them into debt bondage within a season or two. So property theft even threatened people's freedom. And so today, in today's world, we think of stealing out of someone's excess, someone's overflow, like we think of shoplifting. And I don't think that's necessarily what, how the, what the commandment meant in the original context.
And I also point out Isaiah 60:1 is the scripture from which we come, our name. And it says, I, the Lord love justice. The very next sentence is I hate robbery.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: John, I think that begs the question of, you know, we're talking about theft and we're an anti trafficking organization. It might seem obvious to some, but I would love for you to just make that connection very explicit. How is trafficking the most literal form of theft?
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Well, it's more like the biblical commandment against theft. The most literal reading of it might be that it's talking about human trafficking.
But also even setting that aside, human trafficking is the theft of everything that a person has, or at least their access to it, including the things that belong to them just by right, by the nature of who someone is created in the image of God, their freedom. And there's this long string of future moments that that is stolen from joy, connection, family, everything that they would have done, everything they would have chosen and cherished.
So it is orders of magnitude worse than stealing all of someone's possessions.
There is, of course, Hannah, there is a hope for every survivor of human trafficking. But to speak plainly and to speak truly, enslaving someone is like a life ruining act. And so there's. Slavery is itself notoriously difficult to define.
Honestly, one of the best definitions of it comes from a 1920 League of Nations definition of slavery, which talks about exercising the powers of ownership, the powers attached to ownership over a person. And it's essentially trying to turn a person into property.
So as you know, slavery is illegal in every country on earth today, but there are still 50 million people living under it.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And John, I think what's maybe the most sobering for me as I'm hearing you kind of say, you know, you're stealing a long string of future moments and how that connects to what I have referred to on different episodes as that brokenhearted anointing moment where you're putting yourself in the shoes of someone who is experiencing this great injustice. And how I. Part of my story was hearing about a girl who had lived basically a life of all of my worst fears and sitting there grappling with, you know, I was grappling with the fact that I was in college, that I was getting an education, I was getting to play sports, and how that seemingly was taken from her for no Reason other than just sin in the world. And it, you know, it not being her fault, her. Her being born into poverty. And I want to talk about the brokenhearted anointing really quick, because a lot of people, when they hear thou shall not steal, they might think about the time that something precious to them got stolen. And actually, before I moved to South Africa, my purse got stolen out of our car. We were in Nebraska at a wedding. My husband was at the park with my kids, and someone smashed into our car window, and they took my bag. It had everything. I had my Bible, I had my computer. It had my extra monitor.
I don't think it actually had my wallet in it, but it just had what I would say was like my go bag of, like, my most important things to me. And I remember what I felt when my husband sent me the text message, you know, your bag got stolen. And it was just this, like, pit in my stomach. I felt it, like, ruined the day, right? Like, it's just all the inconvenience of, like, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna have to replace this computer. All these things I'm having to repl. It was like, I want to say maybe a thousand dollars, right? But, like, when you think about that in comparison to someone's life and their future, it so pales in comparison. 1 and 2.
What I felt in that moment, I think as we were getting ready for this conversation, just made me realize that is such a fraction of the heart of God when this happens to his most precious children.
And how, if I feel that way about.
If I. If I feel that way about my computer, if I feel that way about my, you know, nice leather bag? How much more am I called to feel that way about my brothers and sisters in Christ and the globe, you know, the global poor? And so I'm just curious if you have a similar kind of brokenhearted anointing experience or story, specifically with the connection to theft, as I think it's something that, you know, our listeners, that's probably the closest thing that they can do to resonate with this topic. Right?
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
Well, this is actually going to go really well with the next question.
And the way that, like, the way that we do this at Love justice is we intentionally try to get people to try to put themselves in the shoes. Imagine it was you or someone that you love, and that's how you can understand the truth about it and God's heart for it.
And, you know, we have people. We read something called the Greatest Injustice. We have people close their eyes, we walk Through a typical trafficking story, people end up weeping and their heart comes away broken. But honestly, Hannah, I thought of it as you were talking.
As you know, we recently moved to a new house. And then two days before we were planning to move, we ended up the place that we were planning to move in fell through. We ended up, you know, having to put all of our stuff in your garage, you and Austin's garage, for about a week while we were staying in an Airbnb. And I had some thoughts during that time. It felt a little bit like, I don't know if I can keep my family safe. Of course I can. And of course it was fine. And it was just a passing thought, but somehow that passing thought, because I immediately connected it to, I have a friend who is poor and his son died and he wasn't able to keep him safe recently. And then he ended up going into debt because of. To try to pay for the funeral.
And it was a. A really horrible situation that just was choking joy out of his life. And I just somehow just that, like you said, just like the laptop, it's nothing compared to what it's like to be enslaved. You know, what I was experiencing was nothing.
We were fine.
But just that little bit of identification with it just gave me an incredible sense of brokenhearted compassion for those who are actually suffering under real injustice. And that is plays right into, I think, what we're going to talk about next, which is the Exodus and God desire for us to remember it.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that was probably the most interesting part about your deep dive into this topic was how the Ten Commandments opens up with God reminding Israel that he brought them out of the house of slavery. And I think he mentions it several times in scripture of like, remember when you were enslaved? And this idea of remembering why. You know, do you think, John, that God was so determined that his people remember that they had been slaves?
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's really. It really hits you in the face once you start seeing it over and over. God is like, remember I'm the Lord your God that brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery. And the Exodus is really the founding event for God's people.
And he built this forgetting prevention into their lives and the rhythms that he would build into the Jewish religion. You know, the opening of the Ten Commandments, he states the legal basis for how slaves are treated sojourners and the poor. The Passover itself is a rhythm. It's a ceremony to remember the Exodus.
And the Mishnah says that each person is obligated to see himself as though he personally came out of Egypt. And so you do see this huge emphasis on God wanting Israel to always identify with the Israelites who were enslaved in Egypt and that he, God brought them out through the Exodus. And the question is why?
Why did God build the whole spiritual life that he had planned for mankind around the remembrance of his leading us out of slavery?
And I have a few things here that I want to say. One is, you know, experiencing an injustice makes you uniquely attuned to it.
You know, people who, if their wife dies of cancer, they start an organization to prevent cancer or whatever, that's a really common thing. And God wanted a people specifically dedicated to loosing the chains of injustice and I think particularly slavery, but also just the greatest injustices. Jesus says, whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.
And slavery just happens to be among the worst, if not the worst of those injustices.
But, but not everyone. God doesn't want us to actually all have to suffer through injustice. He loves us.
And so some of us don't actually suffer. Some of us haven't ever been enslaved. But I think he still wants us to remember. And I think there's something in just trying to identify with it, to put yourself in the shoes of those who are suffering, those who were enslaved, whether it's the Israelites that were enslaved before the exodus in Egypt, or whether it is the 50 million people around the world who are enslaved today. But I think there's a second reason because remember remembering that God brought us out of slavery, it's meant to prevent us from becoming oppressors ourselves. Nearly every remember when you were slaves. Scripture, and there's many of them, attaches to a duty towards the weak, the slave, the sojourner, the widow, the laborer. Deuteronomy 8 names the temptation of prosperity. It says, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. That's what we'll be tempted to say, that my power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth.
And Deuteronomy 6 it talks about you will live in cities you did not build, wells you do not dig. Even Isaiah 61 talks about living, you know, plundering the wealth of nations and talks about occupying things that are not your own. So I think remembering slavery is how we remember that freedom and prosperity are gifts that we received ultimately, not things that we made.
And I know many of our listeners, and me too feel kind of like we're self made. We feel like, you know, I worked really hard to have the life that I did, you know, and there's some truth in that.
It's not wrong. You know, we work hard to build our lives and we feel that we ought to have a sense of ownership over it, and it's justified by what we put into it. And again, a lot of truth in that. But there's another thing that's true.
We inherit the place that we were born, the family into which we were born, the culture, the country, the citizenship of the country. And those things play a huge role in determining our law in life. One economy economists estimated that the country and family you're born into determines roughly 80% of your lifetime income.
So today, some people were born in poverty in poor countries, some people were born in slavery.
We were born in the places we were born. The difference between those people who inherited a life under the yoke of the world's greatest injustices and those who inherit the privilege of opportunity that we have as people born in America, America, the difference between us has nothing to do with anything we did or did not do, or that they did and not do. It has nothing to do with anything we deserved. And so just that fact alone just creates a really, in my thinking, a powerful obligation to help those who are less fortunate than us.
There are many people alive, as we said, who are born into slavery. And so those of us who are not, let us remember there was God who has rescued us out of it. What we have is not our own. And of those to whom much has been given, much will be required.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Gosh, there's so many things in what you just said that I think are almost bomb drops or like, very countercultural. Right? Even though, like, I earned this, like, and how, you know, you acknowledge, like, that's such an inherent and maybe knee jerk reaction to, like, I worked hard, I earned this, this is, is mine. And there's no shame in that. And, and then, but you kind of countering that a little bit to like, you know, inheritance. And we've talked, I mean, we've talked about this on so many, weaved it into so many different episodes on the Love justice podcast about how, you know, that is not the majority of people's realities and they cannot just work harder to get themselves out of it. Like, there are systems and structures that, like, are built to oppress the poor. And then kind of this idea of, like, what are we going to do about it? And that was so much of going back to even my own story of, like, now that, you know, you can't not know and what am I going to do with this privilege that I've been entrusted with? Especially if you read scripture about, about stewardship?
And I just think those ideas are, gosh, they're worth sitting with. Like, I hope I, as I'm hearing you say them and I'm feeling equally, you know, like, gosh, that's as much as I've heard you talk this. Like, it just hits in a new way every time I hear you, you talk about it. It's like, I hope we can just sit with that reality of there's nothing that we can or cannot do that changes our inheritance and where does that lead us? You know, where does that take us in terms of, okay, what do I, what do I do with that and the life I've been given? And I, I think it's worth exploring to then kind of connected to that, just Jesus's first sermon and how in Luke 4 he. That was his. It's a scripture that kind of talks about him being in the synagogue and it's his first time kind of publicly declaring his ministry. And how does that connect to this theme in the Old Testament of the commandments, the Israelites being rescued out of slavery and then leading them into the wilderness, and then prophets of Jesus coming. Like, how does in your opinion, Luke 4 kind of tie these things together from the Old Testament to the, to the New Testament and then what that calls us into or what that invites us into?
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So Luke 4, the context is that Jesus has just finished being temp tempted in the desert, but he has not yet begun his public ministry. And so he after the desert, before the ministry, he goes into a synagogue and he reads from a scroll, and the scroll he reads from Isaiah 61. And he says at the end of it, he says, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
And what he reads is, he says that for this I have been anointed. Reading from Isaiah 51, he says to proclaim the good news of the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, to proclaim recovery of the sight for the blind.
Then he says to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Now the whole chapter, Isaiah 61 is actually the headline is the year of the Lord's favor. And I've learned something about that that I'm going to share in a minute. But those are the five purposes for which he was anointed. To proclaim good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of the sight for the blind. But when he gives that Fourth one, to set the oppressed free. He is not simply reading from Isaiah 61. He actually is bringing in a scripture from Isaiah 58. Isaiah 58 has been, as you know, Hannah, our organizational theme scripture for a long time. It's about true fasting, sacrifice for the sake of injustice. It says, is not this the kind of fasting I've chosen to loose the chains of injustice, set the captives free, break every yoke. And then there's these Beautiful, amazing Isaiah 58 promises that we have up on the wall of our office. Anyone should and can go in and read them. But for now, I'm talking about Luke 4. Jesus substituting Isaiah 58, set the captives free when he's reading from Isaiah 61.
And it's not a slip of memory.
We have to assume that Jesus knows the Bible.
In his first recorded sermon, he chooses to pull the one kind of fasting that God chooses into the midst of his own purpose statement. And that has incredible significance.
And then he gives the fifth purpose, which is to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Now, I didn't know this, Hannah, until I started studying for this article to, to and that the word. I think I'd heard it, but it just kind of went over my head or one ear out. The other scholars are agreed that the word that Isaiah uses for liberty is the Torah's technical term for the jubilee. The jubilee release of Leviticus 25. That's it. Every 50 years, slaves are supposed to go free, debts are released, and the land returns. And it's kind of a way of stop, you know, reversing or putting an end to entrenched inequality.
But this is a jubilee that there's no record that Israel actually ever practiced it.
And he's proclaiming a time when Israel was under Roman occupation. They no longer could. They didn't have the ability to do that. And so I just want to lead into this and just say that there is this pattern that is what has happened everywhere in the world for all time. It's the same pattern. People acquire things, wealth, power things, and they use those things to acquire more things and then to protect what they have, either implicitly just to keep it, or sometimes it has to be explicitly at the expense of others.
And ultimately, at the end of the day, Hannah, it kind of always has to be that way, that we protect our wealth with first fences, then police forces, then borders and electric fences, and at the back of the whole thing are guys with guns.
And that is just the nature of society that we live with. And, but I want to ask you this question, Hannah. And I ask my reader, I'm also gonna ask myself, would you steal from the rich to save your child from starving?
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: I think I would too.
And when people are starving, they will inevitably go to those who are living in excess and say, hey, we deserve to eat. The only way to prevent that is with the violence and the guns. And I wanna be clear. This is the world. This is me.
I don't say this or any of the things that I'm saying. I am falling under, under the.
I don't know what the condemnation is a word that I'm tempted to say. I don't think there is condemnation in Jesus, but the judgment of these scriptures falls on me and on everyone. But then, okay, now back to Luke 4. Jesus declared the year of the Lord's favor, the Jubilee. He proclaimed every captive free, every debt canceled, everything stolen, restored, not as a statute, but in himself.
And so what I think was happening is Jesus was proclaiming the greatest leveling release of justice in history, and he is enrolling us, his followers, to go and make it manifest.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: I love that. I love that. And that was something I also had never made the connection to that year of the Lord's favor, like, getting into.
What does that actually mean? I think it sounds nice as a banner. And you like self. Admittedly, we've been posting that all over our office walls and kind of had this new revelation of like, wow, that's actually what that means. And I would love for the John, for those who are not familiar with our work, tell us how Love justice steps into that calling of bringing these the year of the Lord's favor, especially as it relates to this topic of theft in persons.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So we fight human trafficking through something called transit monitoring. And our model is to intercept people who are in the process of being trafficked but before they have been enslaved. And we have these great staff called monitors in around 20 countries around the world who stand in key transit areas like a train station, a bus station, an airport, a border crossing. They look for signs of trafficking, and when they see those signs, they use a questioning protocol to try to uncover active trafficking cases and to intercept those people by convincing them not to go by involving the police or involving their parents in the case of minors. So, yeah, we feel it's the world's only tangible human trafficking prevention strategy. And we have intercepted over 110,000 people worldwide to prevent them from being trafficked.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it's still hard for me to even wrap my mind around that Number that number of impact.
A little bit of a callback to earlier of just the church bells and that being a little bit of a reminder of like that is someone's child, that is someone's friend, that is someone's brother, someone's sister.
And we've just had the privilege of seeing the teams on the ground break forth that kind of impact in their. In their own countries.
It's just been amazing to see. And what I want to talk about next, John, is this idea of stealing and the commandment that we all grew up hearing at Sunday school or our private schools of do not steal, rattling it off.
What I love about this next part is looking towards the bigger picture and the bigger invitation and that invitation resting in the antithesis of theft.
So John, what is that? What is the antithesis of theft and what's the invitation?
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the antithesis of thou shalt not steal is to give.
Ephesians 4:28 really carries it it so perfectly. It says anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work doing something useful with their own hands that they may have something to share with those in need.
And that last clause is just beautiful. It's not just steal or work with your hands. You don't have to steal. It's you work with your hands so that you may have something to share with those in need.
So, I mean, to my knowledge, few if any of the donors of Love Justice International have ever been enslaved.
But it seems to me that they really did what the Mishnah asked. They saw themselves, identified themselves with those who were enslaved, with people with the Israelites before the Exodus and people who have been brought out of slavery. And they acted so that others would not have that freedom taken away. And so they have for many years prevented the stealing of thousands of people every month, in a sense proclaiming the commandment thou shalt not steal to dozens of of active stealers of human beings every month. And they are still doing so. That bell is going off around 60 to 100 times a day, and I'm just blessed to be able to part of it. And ultimately my prayer is that God will release the jubilee, the year of the Lord's favor over his church, and that we would set more and more of captives free. Not we love justice, we the whole church, and that we would help more people climb out of poverty and injustice and live the blessed flourishing lives that he created us for.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Amen. John, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today to just share what you're learning about this and the insights and the connections that you're making, I think they're really important. I think they're really impactful. And I would just encourage our listeners that, you know, this is stirring something in you to check us out, Check us out on the website. We've got a couple of different ways that you can give, whether that is financially of your time, your talents.
And yeah, we're just so thankful for all of the people that make this impact and this work possible.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: Thank you, Hannah.
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