My thoughts about Land Expropriation without Compensation

I am taking a brave step here to think about Land Expropriation without Compensation from a Biblical worldview. These are not my final thoughts because this topic is big and complex and need careful thinking to do things according to God's will. What ultimately governs Christian thinking should be the glory of God and His Word ALONE - not man's ideas. You should try to understand my heart and thinking behind this.

Below are some points and steps I would like propose how to deal with Land Expropriation without Compensation.

1. Restitution is a Biblical concept and part of repentance (Luke 19:8).

2. The law of God teaches that if you have stolen something, you must be judged by a court of law and return what you have stolen (Ex. 22:1).

3. God is the ultimate judge through His Word. Earthly judges need to judge according to the Word of God.

4. Land expropriation without compensation from any person without proof that someone stole the land is theft and sin against the law of God.

5. But if someone has stolen land he must repent of his sin and return what he has stolen to the rightful owner.

6. Every case must be tested in a court of law and if it can be proven that a person did steal land from someone without a legal transaction with payment by mutual agreement, it must be returned.

How can we handle the land issue? I propose the following steps in order of priority.

1. The government has many free land. They must with immediate effect begin to identify people and distribute land to them.

2. We must not just give people land, we must give them skills and training to use the land in order to empower them and improve food security of the country. We must help and support them to become self sustaining businesses.

3. In the cases that are clear where it can be proved by a court of law that land was taken illegally and people displaced, it must be returned without compensation. This is theft.

4. The cases where the owner who bought the land from someone without knowing it was stolen, and worked the land successfully, and provided jobs to other people, must not just be taken without compensation. He contributed to the government through taxes and to the community. In this case negotiations must be done with the farmer and farm workers to find the best solution, because this farmer was a positive citizen of SA and never deliberately stole land.

5. The cases where land was taken a few generations ago and the current owner - a few generations down the line - is not even aware of what his great-great grandfathers did, but is now a positive citizen of SA who contributes to food security and provided jobs and housing to people, must not be expropriated without compensation. If land in these cases must be returned, it must first be done through negotiations to see what can be done to protect the current workers and compensate the current owner who made a positive contribution to SA.

6. I am in favour of land expropriation without compensation where it can be clearly proven by law that the land was illegally taken, but we must apply grace in other cases (grey areas) where it is not so clear and where the current farmer is a positive citizen of SA and provide jobs for people.

7. If we are just taking land without thinking with grace and love, we are creating new wrongs - two wrongs does not make a right. Then we also mistreat positive and law abiding citizens of this country who pays taxes - people who are actually contributing to the poor and needy.