Biblical Prosperity

Physical land was central to God’s plan to prosper Abraham. In light of this link between economic development and land ownership, it is important to look at the developing and former Communist nations of the world that are hamstrung from economic growth because of weak or nonexistent property rights. For prosperity to come to the individuals in these nations, one of the first needs is to improve the laws governing property ownership so people can own property free and clear.

Sadly, in many nations of the world, a piece of real estate might have as many as five or ten different people claiming ownership of it, and there is no functioning system to determine who owns the deed to this land. One person claims his uncle gave him the land, another says he bought it for an amount of money from the neighbor; another claims it is theirs because they have been squatting on it for the last few years. As long as it cannot be determined who the actual owner of the land is and that it is free of claims against it, no bank will accept this land as collateral for a loan that might be used to start a business.

Hernando De Soto in his book, The Mystery of Capital, describes this predicament. Imagine a country where nobody can identify who owns what, addresses cannot be easily verified, people cannot be made to pay their debts, resources cannot conveniently be turned into money, ownership cannot be divided into shares, descriptions of assets are not standardized and cannot be easily compared, and the rules that govern property vary from neighborhood to neighborhood or even street to street. You have just put yourself into the life of a developing country or former communist nation. More precisely, you have imagined life for 80 percent of its population … 80 percent of the world is undercapitalized; people cannot draw economic life from their buildings (or any other asset) to generate capital. In Haiti, according to our surveys, 68 percent of city dwellers and 97 percent of people in the countryside live in housing to which nobody has a clear legal title. Legal property empowers individuals in any culture.

Perhaps rather than sending billions of dollars of aid to developing nations, we should provide finances for their young people to get legal training in property law to put these legal structures in place so the people can prosper. Such laws also protect ownership as many people(s) have suffered the taking of their land unjustly as well. This is stealing, and God cannot bless land that is taken from others unjustly. Though some cultures celebrate common ownership of land, in most cases this does not allow for economic prosperity. The idea of private property rights is embedded in the Ten Commandments. “You shall not steal” underlines this principle. God’s plan is individual ownership and stewardship.

There is something about land that is really important to God. The story of Ruth is, of course, a great love story. But it is also the story of God giving a woman physical land. God took her from gleaning leftovers along the edge of the field to the owner of the field. When she married Boaz, who owned the field, she became an owner of the very field she formerly gleaned in as a pauper.

Land is on God’s heart. It is a key to how he prospers his people. Our experience has been one where the most significant increases in our personal net worth have come as the result of real estate transactions. If you do not own land, it is very likely that God wants to help you get some. If you own land, possibly God wants to give you more. Rick Joyner states that the great thing about real estate is that it is “real.” It not a piece of paper related to a stock option purchase in a market somewhere. It is real. You can go there and walk on it. You can grow corn on it if you want.

Research in the United States shows the number one way that people finance new business ventures is by borrowing money against their house, which is of course located on land. So the best preparation for starting a business is to purchase a house and start paying it off. This will eventually build equity that will allow you to finance a business start up. Small business start ups create 70 percent of new jobs. Most of these businesses are family businesses, and as with Abraham and his sons, land is often central to birthing these new businesses.

Fundamental to the value the Biblical Worldview gives the individual is the individual’s right to own private property and have it protected. If someone builds something, then the government should protect the fruit of their initiative and/or innovation. In the Bible, this is considered both the right thing to do and the just thing to do. As we are told in Psalm 89:14, righteousness and justice are the foundations of His throne. These are the foundations of the kingdom of God, which is why in the kingdom of God there will actually be private property. In God’s economy “the righteous will receive the results of their own work” (see Isaiah 3:10).

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.

As He was teaching his children how to live, God made property rights a theme in the Ten Commandments…He wanted this concept to be in the center of life for the children of Israel so they could prosper. It is a basic building block in the Biblical Worldview. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house” is specifically how it is stated in Exodus 20:17. Your neighbor’s house is theirs because they worked for it and built it. It is not yours and also not the government that is to own their house.

The founders of America believed strongly in property rights, because they understood without them people would not be motivated to fight and win a revolution to preserve their land. Jim Morrison talks about this, “The founders of America believed that property was in fact a spiritual thing. It was an extension of who you are. You put your blood, sweat and tears in to securing that property. You also experience profound joys on or in your property-raising kids, children playing and growing on the land and seeing the land yield its produce as you worked it. The property, the home, reflected who you and your family were, and still do today.”

God made a covenant with Abraham about a land where Israel would become a great nation. He is serious about ownership and coveting what is not yours. The founders of America understood through the example of ancient Israel the wisdom of not coveting your neighbors’ possessions. The idea of property rights serves as a powerful incentive to prosper; the idea of owning your own land, your house, your car, a place on the beach, or the serenity of a mountain retreat, a place to retire or a place to raise your kids. This is a good and godly desire. What a wonderful reflection on Gods heart to have the opportunity to rise from the depths of poverty and prosper in a land for you and your family.

One of the first things God promised His children was a land flowing with milk and honey. Of course this was a blessing, but God also had a long term plan for his children to prosper.  He knew land owners would think in a different way than wandering nomads.

Land is important to God’s plan for His children. One of the first things God did in establishing a covenant with Abraham was give him land. Previous to this Abraham did not have a homeland. Abraham’s father and his family were pastoral nomads, wandering from place to place for varying periods of time. His father worshiped idols in a city dedicated to wickedness. Abraham was told by God to go out into a place in which he would receive his inheritance. It was later referred to at the Promised “land.” It was land! In Genesis 12:1 it refers to the “land” God had for Abraham.

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”

God gave this nomad a land to call his own and to build in with his descendants. He gave Abraham and his family the Land of Israel as a unique homeland where his descendants were supposed to create the nation that was the model for the world. Physical land was central to God’s plan to prosper Abraham.

It is important to note that this in stark contrast to the economic systems of socialism and communism. In socialism the means of production and distribution are owned, managed and controlled by the government. Karl Marx, the founder of modern day communist philosophy, espoused abolishing all private property. We will continue to see in future blogs that socialism and communism are in contrast to the Biblical worldview where land is intended for private individuals for them to steward and to prosper with their families.

The early dealings God had with the Children of Israel began to develop what we refer to today as the Biblical Worldview. When God said, “I am one God”, it shook the existing pagan world with its hopeless understanding of many gods that could never be known or pleased. When God said mankind was created in His image it raised the standard of human dignity. In the ancient pagan world, no other group of people had an understanding of the nature of humanity that was nearly as positive as the Hebraic veiw. It gave them  a sense of dignity and significant identity.

But then it got better…God said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it…” (Gen. 1:28). Not only were people created by God in his image, but the purpose of their existence was fixed by God. They were to be fruitful and rule over the earth. They were told to work six days a week. Each person was to tend their own garden and take care of their own sustenance and provision. After their own personal care was taken care of then they could steward the earth.

We know that since Adam was later told to dress and keep the garden in Genesis 2;15, that there was work to be done in that great, wonderful creation. In the original Hebrew this word for dress means literally “to work and to till”. Perhaps Adam tilled spots to grow certain things in greater abundance. Perhaps he trimmed or pruned plants to produce them in a greater quantity. Adam’s incentive was that it was a blessing to be fruitful and not unproductive. Also through his obedience Adam could experience the pure joy that comes from relationship with his Creator. He was invited to help manage what God had created and to help establish God’s order on the earth. He was assigned activities like naming the animals.

Many today look at work as a curse or a necessary evil instead of a wonderful gift from God. This is not a Biblical view. Man was created to be productive. Next God taught his children about land ownership….

In our study of God’s initial discipleship of the children of Israel we find he created everything, including his children, to grow and reproduce. In Genesis we find that God created plants that produced after their own kind…plants with seeds in them and fruit with seeds. This is a part of his divine nature that he wants Christians to take part in. This truth was central to the Biblical worldview he was teaching his children. It is his will for Christians to advance. People without an advancing mindset will not innovate and improve their life. Dennis Peacocke has studied this and has some profound thoughts in this area.

Poverty is rooted in the rejection of Christianity, its view of reality, and it discipline. Without the foundations of the biblical worldview, society’s attempts to alleviate poverty are doomed….Poverty is a spiritual problem more than an economic one. Paganism produces poverty; obedience to God’s covenant produces wealth.

People who do not live in a covenant with their Creator will not invest in the future, because it is too unpredictable. Instead, they will live in constant fear of the future. That is why free enterprise systems flourish only where the biblical worldview flourishes. Prosperity comes to societies where people invest current resources in the future; and this best happens when people trust the faithfulness (predictability) of a covenant-keeping God who promises to reward your investment if you invest, work hard and obey Him.

God incentivized his children with a good reward.

One of the things that God instilled in his children early on is the idea that they were created in the image of God. This was so different than the pagan idea that they were pawns being pushed around by the gods. It gave them this confidence in their identity. Among other things, this raised a desire in them to prosper. God taught his children incentive and reward. They were inspired to hard work because they know God would consistantly reward them for hard work. It gave them the opportunity to advance. Incentive and reward is a good and godly thing.

If a businessman sells a good product at a fair price to his customer, they will come back to buy more. The customer will also likely tell their friends to come buy as well. If the businessman asks too much for the product (more than market price) or gives a product that is subpar or inferior to other product in the market, the customer will not come back and buy again, and he will tell his friends not to buy from the businessman. So the businessman has the incentive to be honest and he is rewarded with a prosperous growing business. Though most businessmen are honest, the dishonest ones are flushed out over time but the principle of incentive and reward.

The one created in God’s image has a sense of holiness and the fear of God on all their financial affairs and finances, and so they prosper. Some piously think this idea of incentive and reward is not very spiritual, but God in fact created it. It is how he has hard-wired mankind. He used it with Adam and he is still using it today.

As God was teaching his newly adopted children to prosper the first thing he taught them is that He is one God. What is the big deal? It was a big deal because all the peoples in this time believed in many gods. They looked at the sun and thought their must be a sun god, they saw the rain and thought there must be a rain god, etc. Basically everything they could not understand or influence they believed was controlled by invisible spirit beings.

If there are many gods controlling the universe, then the world is unpredictable. The ancient Greeks believed thunder was the gods getting angry and arguing with each other. It really was a part of the ancient pagan worldview. So if there are many gods randomly controlling things then people will spend their lives endlessly trying to please these gods and always be a victim of them.

But if the world is set in order by one God, that is a different story. That one God has laws that govern the world. Can you say “gravity”? Mankind can learn these laws and actually manage the world in a way that allows them to prosper. God revealed himself to Abraham as the only God who had a consistent and unchanging nature.

Harold Eberle says, “We cannot overestimate the significance of this revelation. It was more profound for the advancement of civilization than the discovery of fire or the invention of the wheel.” The revelation that there was only one God allowed the children of Israel to begin to understand and manage this world.

It is true. It allowed them to prosper. It’s a big deal.

I love to hear stories of how God teaches His people to prosper. Here is a true story from my friend Harold Eberle as he tells it:

“About 20 years ago I traveled to a remote region of the Phillipines where I met a native pastor named Eddie. He was training 16 young people. Most of the lived in his home which was a bamboo hut supported on stilts, surrounded by huts and rice fields. It was beautiful but they seemed to own almost nothing by the standards of my own country. 

Through the following years of working with pastor Eddie, we wanted to help him be successful. At first we just provided financial support, but it soon became apparent that his ministry should be self supporting and not forever dependent on gifts. 

One of the first things Pastor Eddie did was purchase a refrigerator. This may sound simple, but being the only refrigerator in the area it soon became a central feature of the village. The pastor divided the inside of the refrigerator into several compartments and rented out the compartments to people living in the area. Hence that refrigerator became a source of income and it was a blessing to families throughout the region. 

Our industrious Filipino pastor experimented with several other businesses, having varying amounts of success. He tried to rent out power tools which he provided but the tools did not last long in these difficult conditions. The pastor and his students were more successful in operating bicycles and motorcycles as taxis serving the locals. Also the ownership and operation of a rice mill provided finances for the pastor and his ministry; plus it provided a necessary service to the people throughout the region.

Other ministries joined us in helping the work in the Philippines but most of the credit belongs to Pastor Eddie. Today he oversees a two story Bible Training Center and owns rice fields, a banana orchard, a shrimp farm, a motorcycle, a pick up type vehicle, and many more things which have helped him helped plant and establish dozens of churches through out the villages. In that region the Christians are the head, and not the tail.” 

God wants to make His Children successful.