The anti-capitalist heart of God – Jubilee, Part 3

Is capitalism good or bad? If you search online, you’ll see that it’s a hot debate. It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest. Whether or not that statement is true (eg. democracy actually many excellent benefits), could we say something similar about capitalist economics. Is capitalism, like democracy, a bad system, but better than any other out there?

Would it surprise you to learn that there are ways God’s heart is anti-capitalist?

In the previous post, I introduced the third sabbath God instructed Israel to keep, the Year of Jubilee. We learn about the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25. There’s more to it than what I mentioned in the previous.

Look at verses 35–38: “If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you. Do not take interest or any profit from them, but fear your God, so that they may continue to live among you. You must not lend them money at interest or sell them food at a profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.”

Do not take any interest or profit?  That’s not very capitalist of God.  And it is not just in lending money.  God tells his people to make no profit when they sell food to each other, when a fellow Israelite was in need. 

Also, God’s Jubilee heart relates to treatment of workers.  Look at verses 39–43, “If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves. They are to be treated as hired workers or temporary residents among you; they are to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then they and their children are to be released, and they will go back to their own clans and to the property of their ancestors. Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God.”

Slavery was a real thing in the ancient near east, and God tells his people that there is to be no slavery among the Israelites.  Meaning, they are not to enslave one another.  But as you see in verse 39, people in poverty could sell themselves to others, to work off their debt.  But that voluntary selling of oneself did not mean that they became permanent slaves.  Instead, once the Year of Jubilee came around, they and their children are to be released.  God says, essentially, that the Israelites are to remember that they were slaves in Egypt, and they are not to enslave each other.  Instead trust in God.

Now of course, all this relates to the land of Israel, and the people of Israel. God is not saying that this is how ownership should work everywhere all the time.  I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Jubilee in the first three posts this week, but I wan to be very clear that the Year of Jubilee is part of God’s covenant with ancient Israel. 

Christians are New Covenant people.  Christians are not bound to the terms of the Old Covenant.  Just as Christians don’t have a sabbath law we follow, we do not have a Year of Jubilee law that we follow.  But just as we do follow the sabbath principle that flows from the heart of God, there is a year of jubilee principle that flows from the heart of God. That jubilee principle we can apply to our lives. 

So let’s dig a bit into the principle of Jubilee, and see how we can apply God’s Jubilee heart to our lives. To do that, we need to go to the New Testament, and there we learn that Jesus himself talked about the year of Jubilee.  We’ll talk about that in the next post.

Photo by Artur Ament on Unsplash