The Biblical view of individual land ownership was different than what the rest of the ancient world knew and practiced. Previous to this promise from God to give his children a (real) promised land, all the world was ruled by a “class” system. Whatever class you were born into was where you were stuck. If you were born as peasant with no land then you would live and die that way. If you were born into noble birth, as a land owner you could live a life of privilege. It was a bit like the class system we still see today in Hinduism with its defeating fatalism. But the Biblical view of individual land onwership allowed an individual to change their state in life if they so desired. God wants the Christian to advance.

Think about it..a person did not have to covet their neighbors land or live in greed and envy, they could take steps to change their status or situation in life. This is a perfect picture of the heart of God we are seeing in these blogs. He is a loving father who wants to see his children blessed, using their gifts, growing and expanding. So to take away individual property rights and give them the property to a ruling class or to the state is to undermine the plan of God to prosper his people.

One of the primary pillars of Marxism and Socialism is the idea that there is no such thing as private property. Under pure Marxism, everything belonged to the state, the collective, including land, your children, your spouse, even your life. They all could be taken from you at any time. Personal initiative was discouraged and often violently crushed. In many basic ways, Marxism and true, biblical Christianity are exactly opposite to one another. Marx realized this, which is why one of his basic goals was the destruction of Christianity. In their pure forms, Christianity and Marxism cannot coexist.

In contrast God gives land to his children so they can prosper. When we say in first person that we “own” land, it is with the understanding that God gave us the ability to acquire the land. We joyfully steward what he has given us, and we are examples to others of how they can rise out of poverty. We will examine more scriptures about land and home ownership in future blogs.