Stealing a Bible is not good. Stealing anything is not good. But it happens all the time.
Much of the Bible is a narrative—especially the Old Testament and first five books of the New Testament—chronicling specific times, places, peoples, and events. These make fascinating reading because we see God working in real-time with real people in real-life situations. As God gave specific instructions and promises to people, and they risked trusting Him, they experienced His faithfulness in powerful ways.
But we can get into a lot of trouble if we go around putting our names on things given to others. God told Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Elijah, and the Apostles some very specific directives that are not for us today. Anything that is repeated in the New Testament for every follower of Jesus, and anything based on the unchanging character of God is as true today as the day it was written. But we can't take things given to others for the part God had for them in His story and claim them as our own.
Jesus instructed Peter to get out of a boat and walk on water—and He lived to tell about it (Matthew 14:22-33). But the story will read much differently in your obituary if you think that’s for you. Daniel’s life was spared in a den of hungry lions (Daniel 6), but that doesn’t mean you can walk into a cage of lions at the local zoo and claim God’s protection. Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water to make a lost ax head float (2 Kings 6:1-7), but that doesn’t mean you can start an ax head recovery business based on throwing sticks into water. This was God's unique plan for specific people at specific times as they played the specific part God had for them in His story.
This kind of Bible theft played a huge part in the historical development of the country of South Africa. Huguenot settlers from France and Holland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were convinced they were the new chosen people of God, which meant like Israel, they had a divine right to the land. Every Old Testament promise and command given to Israel regarding the land of Canaan belonged to them. They'd search its pages when faced with a critical decision, find something God had told the people of Israel, and take it as their own.
They savagely slaughtered thousands of indigenous peoples because God had told the Israelites to kill the Canaanites. They enslaved others and felt good about it because that's what the people of Israel had been told to do. They allowed certain groups to live in communities within defined boundaries, but always as inferior and separate from the chosen. This ultimately led to what became known as Apartheid (apartness): institutional segregation that seemed unjust to many but made perfect sense to those who felt they were the chosen of God.
While God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), He’s not locked into repeating the past to accomplish His present purposes. He’s way more creative than that.
Do not call to mind the former things, Or consider things of the past. Behold, I am going to do something new, Now it will spring up; Will you not be aware of it? (Isaiah 43:18-19)
We can't steal things given to others and claim them as our own. It’s time to experience the newness of His presence in new ways as we live out the part He has for us in His story.