Ownership vs. Stewardship

I have been curious about the origins of these concepts for a long time but I never took the time to look into it but since this question came up again recently during the writing for my Blog, I thought that this was a good time to find an answer. My sole concern was with land and the question I had was, “Where did the concept of land ownership derive?” Specifically I always thought it was very funny that the European “White Men” wanted to buy land from the “Primitive Red Men” when they came to the “New World”. The American Indian had no concept of land ownership since they lived off the land and moved on as the seasons changed or their food source moved.

In the little reading I’ve done just recently it turns out that there is a biblical perspective to the question of ownership of material things, not just land. According to the following quote, we only “own” what God permits us to have. Society does not seem to have this same view so I wonder is it a form of Heresy to claim ownership? I am also faced with the dilemma of a non-believer owning anything.

“Ownership vs. Stewardship
One of the fundamental concepts to grasp in the area of personal finance from a biblical perspective is the question of true ownership of material things. Do we actually “own” whatever wealth that we accumulate during our lifetime, or are we more like “managers” of the resources that God permits us to have? Society tells us that whatever we purchase belongs to us, but the Bible tells us a very different story. Psalm 24:1 clearly states, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (NIV). The Bible even explains who the source of our wealth really is. In 1 Chronicles 29:11-12 the Bible says, “Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things” (NIV). Knowing that God is the true owner of all things relieves us from the responsibilities of ownership, and places us in the position of manager (or steward) of whatever resources God has entrusted us with. When we view our material possessions from this biblical perspective, we begin to realize that how we handle our wealth here on earth will have eternal significance on the day when we meet our Lord face-to-face.”

Another quote that I found takes a slightly different approach.

Stewardship vs. Ownership. . . “my” district, “my” church, “my” department, even “my” ministry. Private ownership is something we are enculturated into from childhood in our society, not a matter of semantics. We probably need a deliverance service to deal with this epidemic!
Stewardship in leadership implies recognizing accountability, responsibility, and investing wisely of all resources on behalf of the One we serve to whom it all belongs. Entitlement and territorialism are incongruous with biblical stewardship.

I was unable to find any reference to ownership vs. stewardship exclusively for land so I am also including the write-up by Ted Schroder of a C.S. Lewis book, “The Screwtape Letters”. Although the subject of this book goes beyond what I had sought I thought it was interesting enough to share. (It is a bit lengthy) I have yet to find any reference that describes how we came to the modern concept of ownership.

OWNERSHIP VERSUS STEWARDSHIP
Ted Schroder
October 24, 2004

C. S. Lewis, in The Screwtape Letters, has the senior devil advise his
Subordinate to influence his subject. "Let him have the feeling that he
starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him
feel as a generous donation that portion which he allows to religious
duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total
from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious
sense, his own personal birthright."

"You have here a delicate task. The assumption which you want him to go
on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot
find a shred of argument in its defense. The man can neither make, nor
retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift. He is
also, in theory, committed to total service of the Enemy [God]; and if
the Enemy [God] appeared to him in bodily form and demanded that total
service for even one day, he would not refuse. ... The sense of
ownership in general is always to be encouraged. The humans are always
putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and
in Hell and we must keep them doing so. Much of the modern resistance
to chastity comes from men's belief that they 'own' their bodies... It
is as if a royal child whom his father has placed, for love's sake, in
titular command of some great province, under the real rule of wise
counselors, should come to fancy he really owns the cities, the
forests, and the corn, in the same ways as he owns the blocks on the
nursery floor."

"We produce this sense of ownership not only by pride but by confusion.
We teach them not to notice the different sense of the possessive
pronoun - the finely graded differences that run from 'my boots' through
'my dog,' 'my servant,' 'my wife,' 'my father,' 'my master,' and 'my
country,' to 'my God.' They can be taught to reduce all these senses to
that of 'my boots,' the 'my' of ownership. ... We have taught men to say
'my God' in a sense not really very different from 'my boots,' meaning
'The God on whom I have a claim for my distinguished services.'"

"And all the time the joke is that the word 'mine' in its fully
possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything....
They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their
souls, and their bodies really belong - certainly not to them, whatever
happens." (101-104) St. Peter writes: "Each one should use whatever gift
he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in
its various forms." (1 Peter 4:10) St. James writes: "Every good and
perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly
lights." (James 1:17)