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
And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? 1 Corinthians 4.7
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 implausible or even 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—and all other possessions—as a trust from the Lord, and must use that land as pleases the Lord, is almost unthinkable.
Despite 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 God intended things in ancient Israel, as we see in His Law. 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 original 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.
All of this which seems so strange and unworkable to us was God’s way of saying to the people that the land He had graciously given He expected them to steward as unto Him.
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-encroaching 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, inheritance laws, property transfer laws and taxes, 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 had 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 recently 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 yet they—we—would balk at the idea of holding property in trust to God. Again, not just land, but all property.
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, marijuana boutiques, and other kinds of moral polluters.
And since all our property comes from the grace of God and is intended for His glory, that requires of us as believers that we understand full well what God expects for us as we use His computers, wardrobes, foodstuffs, and all the rest. We should expect that even here God’s holy and righteous and good Law (Rom. 7.12) can guide us in being good stewards of all His gifts, and not just our homes or lands. Can grace flow through our stewardship of God’s gifts to the people we meet each day? Indeed, it can, but only if we use God’s gifts according to God’s Word for God’s glory.
Grace economics, such as the Law of God prescribes, offers a better approach to the use of land and all property 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; rather, since all property comes from God, it 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—Transformation: Continue praying through the Ten Commandments each day, pausing to listen as God shows you ways of applying His Law. Take an inventory of all your personal property. How might you improve your use of it for the glory of God?
T. M. Moore
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If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
Other columns of interest this week: Our Read Moore podcast begins this week an extended verse meditation on the exaltation and reign of Jesus. In our Crosfigell series on Brendan of Clonfert, the saint arrives at The Promised Land of the Saints. Why not start your day with our worship devotional, The Scriptorium? We’re barely two chapters into this daily guide for the book of Ephesians, so it’s not too late to jump on board. Click here to see all the other columns and writers available to you.
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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter.
