Scammers are stealing checks from the mail. Here’s how to protect yours

Biblical Context

The conduct described—stealing checks, altering financial instruments, reproducing signatures, and deceiving banks and payees—falls directly within Scripture’s condemnation of theft and false dealing. Exodus 20:15 prohibits stealing, while the prohibition against bearing false witness in Exodus 20:16 also speaks to deceitful misrepresentation, though its immediate context concerns testimony and should not be reduced solely to financial fraud. Proverbs 11:1 specifically condemns dishonest scales and praises accurate weights. In its original setting, it addresses commercial fraud; the principle applies meaningfully to modern schemes that manipulate payment instruments for unlawful gain. Ephesians 4:28 instructs the thief to stop stealing, work honestly, and use resources to help others. That passage contrasts fraudulent appropriation with productive, truthful labor and generosity. The article also underscores the responsibility of people and institutions to exercise care with property and money. Scripture commends faithful stewardship in passages such as Luke 16:10–12, although that teaching concerns trustworthiness in handling worldly resources rather than prescribing particular payment technologies. The connection is therefore principled rather than predictive. Nothing in the reported increase in check washing identifies a specific biblical prophecy or distinctive prophetic pattern; it is a contemporary example of conduct Scripture plainly treats as dishonest and harmful.