The Biblical Wisdom of Jubilee for Capitalists
Photo by Dan Roizer
by Andy Muhich
Hello faith driven investor community. I’m honored to contribute my voice to this growing movement. About a year ago, I stepped away from being a Missions Pastor to become a business leader and capital steward. At times, I am humbled by the daunting yet joy-filled role of being a capital steward under Jesus. As I've tried to depend on God for wisdom in this calling, I continue to be both struck and comforted by all that God’s word has to say. As faith-driven investors, I believe we must become saturated in the full counsel of God’s word, allowing this grand, unified story to captivate our hearts and minds so that we apply its wisdom to all aspects of capital stewardship. Too often we take snippets of God’s word to justify what we want, rather than submitting to all of God’s story. He wants to deeply form us to embody Jesus’ kingdom in our portfolios for the sake of His world.
We especially ignore the first half of the story (the Old Testament), and it provides a treasury of God’s wisdom relating to capital ownership and economics. I recently came across a podcast from The Bible Project. Their team excellently employs Biblical scholarship and imaginative storytelling to ponder the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25. As I listened, I heard God’s word for myself and other capital stewards within the economic systems of our times. I invite you to reflect on Leviticus 25. Pause and read it before you continue reading this. Use the Bible Project podcast as a guide to deeper imagination. Below, I provide my summary and reflections as I see it relating to our community of faith-driven investors.
Leviticus 25: The Practice of Jubilee for Israel’s Capital Stewards
Did you know that God designed Israel’s laws with capital ownership economics in mind? As Israel looked forward to entering the land Yahweh was giving them, He instructed them in the Jubilee, a radical economic practice designed to continually reorient Israel’s hearts and economic system to worship their Redeemer. It was so radical, in fact, that most scholars agree it never actually occurred within the history of ancient Israel (this serves as a warning to us). It was so disruptive that the prophets used it as a motif for the inauguration of God’s coming kingdom (see Isaiah 61:2). Jesus initiated His own mission (showing and telling the kingdom of God in himself) by announcing the year of Jubilee (Luke 4:19).
What was it? God designed the Year of Jubilee (literally “the Year of Release”) as a once-in-a-generation event (occurring every 50 years) to reapportion the land of Israel to the original allotments He gave each tribe/family, regardless of what land had been sold to whom since the last Jubilee. “The land is not to be permanently sold because it is mine, and you are only aliens and temporary residents on my land” (Lev. 25:23, HCSB, emphasis mine). The original family “owners” were tenant-stewards on God-given land. And in God’s eyes, anyone who “bought” this land was just subletting it from the family to whom Yahweh had given it until the next Jubilee. God fixed land prices to the number of harvests on the land till the next Jubilee (see Lev. 25:14-17). The theological premise behind this economic practice is that Yahweh owns the land, He can give it to whomever He wants, and he chooses to (re)give it equitably amongst the families of Israel every 50 years. Yahweh continually reminds Israel throughout the Law that they were slaves in Egypt, He saved them, and He gave them everything, so they have no individual right to anything.
To a society like ours which emphasizes individual rights and merit, we may have a gut reaction against this kind of practice. But aren’t we in the same position as Israel? “For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift – not from works, so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8-9, HCSB). The Bible never separates the material from the spiritual, economics from faith-practice. God created and owns it all.
Who was this command designed to benefit? “The jubilee would have effectively prevented cycles of intergenerational poverty and create a social and economic parity that would make Israel unique among all nations… Since it occurred usually only once a lifetime, an impoverished Israelite would spend most of his life anticipating this event of restoration” (The Bible Project). Land was the most important and fundamental form of productive capital in the ancient world. God is concerned with “capitally vulnerable” groups within Israel, their inability to freely own and produce for themselves, and ultimately the reputation this gives Israel’s God in the eyes of the nations on the world stage (God’s “missional intent” behind Israel’s laws). So he “frees” the land every 50 years.
If we contextualize this text within the full counsel of God’s word, we also see that this command was designed for those with excess capital, those of us who are faith-driven investors.
Reflections on Jubilee for Faith Driven Investors Today
Scripture upholds many tensions. They cause us to rely upon God in daily life and work (instead of resolving them into a religious formula). One of those tensions for capital stewards is this: God affirms material wealth creation as good on the one hand, and on the other, God warns what wealth accumulation does to hearts and economic systems. God’s word challenges the god of money (Mammon) more than any other idol. This is because the god of mammon grants the illusion of independence from God and thus empowers worship of all other gods.
So, God also designed the Jubilee to guard our richest blessing of all – worshipping Him alone. By keeping Israelite families from accumulating more and more land permanently, he makes it harder for Mammon to grip their hearts. Families could grow wealth, but they could only ever “own” land-capital in the original allotment He gave. This guards and promotes the worship of the vulnerable, the wealthy, and the watching nations. The wisdom of Jubilee – a profound spiritual-economic law for God’s people.
Before I apply this to my own capital stewardship, I find I must pause, reflect, and pray. This is a matter of submitting our hearts and spiritual warfare. We are God’s people in God’s story as it challenges the powerful god Mammon in our own time. Like Israel, God has given us both the counsel of His word and His capital to produce an abundance for His kingdom. But unlike Israel, we must not fail to practice Jubilee. Unlike Israel, we have the advantage of transformed hearts in Jesus and His Spirit (c.f. Jer. 31:33, Ez. 36:26). As we allow our imaginations and hearts to be captivated by our Redeemer’s word, how can we then practice it, with the love of Jesus and the help of His Spirit, in our own time?
As I’ve reflected on Jubilee myself and for faith-driven investors, I’ve seen some of these contemporary topics/issues emerge. God’s word has much more to say about each. 1) The real spiritual danger of hoarding (see Deut. 17:17; Mt. 6:19-21); 2) a Biblical framework for value creation in holistic terms: material, social, spiritual, and environmental value; 3) the dignity and provision that capital ownership gives to human persons under God; 4) the increasing inequity of capital ownership within the world and in the global church; 5) the global dependence upon western benevolence; 6) limited capital accessibility and underrepresented entrepreneurship for marginalized groups (domestically and globally); 7) how wealth holders view the rest of God’s people: either wrongly as beggars or (worse) anglers, or rightly as trusted co-stewards of God-given wealth; 8) all the wisdom in God’s word that could be crafted into private practices and public policies encouraging win-win not win-lose capitalistic economies; 9) what healthy and trusting capital partnerships look like between investors and entrepreneurs; 10) the holding and transfer of generational wealth; and 11) “integrative generosity” vs. “philanthropic compartmentalization” - the role generosity and sacrifice have in all of life and work, not just in our convenient “philanthropic” or “service” compartments. There are many others. For which issues has God given you the eyes to see and a heart to serve?
Finally, this whole interaction with the Bible Project’s work helped me realize something else vital to God’s people today. In ancient Israel, God appointed prophets, priests, and kings as leaders of His kingdom. I’m thankful for the Bible Project being faithful and imaginative scholar-priests. We faith-driven investors are like those kings: we have wealth, power, and responsibility before God to build His Kingdom. We must listen to God’s instructions specifically to us. The Deuteronomic law (especially Dt. 17:16-20), the kings of the Old Testament, and Israel’s idolatrous failures serve as (mostly) a warning to us.
The Old Testament especially shows us that kings need prophets and priests. Priests study and form people in God’s ways, and prophets call us back when we stray. Unlike priests and prophets, our wealth and power allow us to co-opt their roles, ignore them, or even oppress them (the OT kings did all of these). As wealth holders, are we in healthy, close relationships with church leaders and community? Do we protect their role to speak truth to our power? Are we too comfortable with a divided, sacred-secular way of practicing business? So then, how can we integrate prophets and priests into our work as kings? What does it look like for business owners, family offices, foundations, and managers to intentionally invite and empower the roles of ministry leaders and Biblical scholars in their most inner circle? (After all, we invite and even pay for all kinds of other advisors).
A wise mentor taught me that whatever captivates the soul of an owner, whatever god is at the center of the story in which they live, this is mirrored in the souls of the enterprises they own. God offers the full story of his word, specifically the jarring model of Jubilee, to re-center our idol-tempted imaginations so that the profound economic potentials of Jesus’ Kingdom will captivate our hearts and portfolio companies. Jesus invites us to let His Kingdom burst into our time by stewarding capital for the flourishing of God’s world, a world whose abundance has been hoarded by idolatrous kings.
“Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them”
John 14:23