Biblical Jubilee

The Bible teaches “To love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27) and “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord” (Proverbs 9:17).  In our global world today, our neighbor is not just the family that lives next door to us, but includes entire villages of poor people who live an entire continent away.

In the Old Testament (Leviticus 25:8-55), God laid out a radical plan for His people that provided for economic justice, redistribution of resources, and the restoration of all people in order that all men would be able to “be fruitful and increase in number” (Genesis 1:28-31).  This plan centered around the Year of Jubilee (the fiftieth year), a year in which:

God provided the Year of Jubilee to ensure that none would accumulate massive amounts of wealth while others suffered nearby and did not have enough to simply live.  Even though we no longer live under the Levitical Law today, the guiding principles behind the Jubilee commandments are as eternal as the God who created them: that God loves all people and He wants none to be poor and suffering, and even more none of His people to be exploited or oppressed by his fellow man.

Christians have the responsibility to obey God’s Word, and this includes carrying out the modern-day application of Jubilee.  In the Old Testament, the call to practice Jubilee was given to those who had received more than what was needed for the necessities of life.  Today, the call to practice Jubilee is given to these same people.  From a global perspective today, at least 95% of North Americans have received an abundant blessing and the calling to practice Jubilee should speak loudly in their lives.