Grace Economics (1) (5)

“‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me. And in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land.’” Leviticus 25.23, 24

A trust from the Lord
The idea of holding land in trust for the Lord and His purposes seems altogether foreign and iffy, if not downright ridiculous.

The right to private property is so fundamental to the American mindset, that for a property-owner to consider that he only holds his land as a trust from the Lord, and must use that land as pleases the Lord, is almost unthinkable.

In spite of the fact that God is loving, true, gracious, generous, lavish in His good gifts, clear about His moral requirements, and ready to favor all who trust in Him, people today will not countenance the idea that, somehow, at the end of the day, their property is not their own, but belongs to the Lord.

However, that was the way it was in ancient Israel, as we see in the Law of God. God reserved the right to determine what uses property could be put to and what constituted fair and fruitful use of property. And, although properties and land could be bought and sold, the value of each was carefully determined within a fifty-year cycle of harvests and profits, so that it was not the market but a fixed system of valuation that determined the price of land.

Moreover, when land was purchased, the only way one could make money from it was by increasing the productivity of the land so that it generated more harvest than the standard measure. At the end of a fifty-year cycle the land would return to its owner without a fee; so if you planned to make money in Israel from land, you had to work hard, and to work in a way that conformed to the statutes and rules of the Law of God. For all the land belonged to the Lord, and He alone determined what would be the proper uses to which it might be put.

A trust from the state?
The idea of holding property in trust to the Lord seems ludicrous today. We prefer to hold our land as a trust, not to an unchanging, true, and gracious God, but to a self-interested, capricious, and all-powerful state.

While we think we own our property, free and clear, we only own it in accord with the uses which the state allows. Zoning laws, property development and maintenance laws, laws governing access and egress, and the law of eminent domain loom over every one of us.

Should my local government, for example, decide to rezone my neighborhood to allow for business, that would dramatically affect the value of my property – permanently. When we lived in Northern Virginia, a battle concerning eminent domain raged, as neighbors whose family farm went back generations were being threatened with having their land divided in half so that the county government could run a connector road through it. You can guess whose will prevailed.

In one New England community not long ago, people who owned their homes for many years were forced, in the name of eminent domain, to move out, so that a new shopping center could be built for the economic benefit of the entire community – an act of government greed not unlike what the Chinese did in dispossessing and relocating thousands of Beijing residents to make room for Olympics venues.

Whom to trust?
So it strikes me as rather inconsistent that Americans seem only mildly concerned about government being the ultimate trustee of their property – given the changeable and often self-serving ways of politicians – and they would balk at the idea of holding their property in trust to God.

I am not recommending a return to the fifty-year fixed standard of Biblical Law as a way to manage property today. I’m only suggesting that God and His Law are much fairer and much more predictable as ultimate guarantors of the best use of private property than our whimsy-prone, self-serving politicians. If we would look to His Law for guidance in how to make the best use of the property He entrusts to us, grace would obtain and abound in our communities more than it does. Remember the early believers in Jerusalem, and how their practice of grace economics blessed them and their neighbors (Acts 4).

Moreover, God’s Law would not allow the use of private property for certain kinds of businesses that degrade or threaten a community, even though the state, in the name of “freedom of speech” or “free enterprise” is perfectly OK licensing porn shops and other kinds of moral polluters.

Grace economics, such as the Law of God prescribes, offers a better approach to the use of land than the greed economics that tends to obtain in our day.

For reflection
1.  If we really believed that all our property was a trust from the Lord, would this affect the way we used it? Explain.

2.  Scripture does not prohibit private property; it merely prescribes the best and most loving use of it. Can you think of some examples?

3.  How might a Biblical view of property help to alleviate the material needs of people in our communities? To advance the ministries of local churches and the Kingdom?

Next steps: Continue praying through the Ten Commandments each day, pausing to listen as God shows you ways of applying His Law. What would it mean for you to hold all your property as a trust from the Lord?

T. M. Moore

This week’s ReVision study is Part 6 of a 10-part series, “The Kingdom Economy.” You can download “Grace Economics (1)” as a free PDF, prepared for personal or group study. Simply click here. For a background study of Kingdom economics, order the book, The Kingdom Turn,  from our online store, and learn what it means to enter the Kingdom, not just talk about it.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.