We’ve all heard about the dangers of credit cards. We all know someone (or are someone) who has gotten in debt a little too deep because of them.  Most debt counselor’s advice is to simply quit using them or cut them up and pay off the balance. Then when you’re out of debt, and can use credit responsibly, you can have your cards back. But my question is; when is it responsible to use credit? Most financial advisors, both Christian and non-Christian seem to agree that credit is a tool and when used responsibly it can help to increase your net worth. But that doesn’t seem to be working for most people. In fact, I think it’s clear that credit has financially bankrupted more people than it has helped.

I think that one of the major problems is that unlike other tools that we use, most people are not taught how to use credit wisely. Sure parents tell their children to beware the dangers of credit cards and warn them about instant gratification but they never teach them what situations it is ok to use credit in. There are plenty of thumb rules that attempt to answer this questions such as, “only use credit cards in an emergency”, or “credit is only ok to use if you’re buying something that will increase in value”. Unfortunately, these are only thumb rules, and pretty unstable at that. What constitutes an emergency? Does someone have to be at risk of losing a limb or is it ok to use financing if the sale on the TV that you really wanted is going to end soon. And how do you know if what you’re buying is going to increase in value? Over the last year we saw foreclosures across the country and people walking away from their houses because they owed more than the house was worth. Were their mortgages a good use of credit?

We see credit or debt discussed several times in the bible. But what we as Christians often forget, is that there are two sides to credit. There is a borrower, and a lender. Our lifestyles and roles as consumers have trained us to be borrowers without reminding us what a blessing it is to be a lender. I don’t mean to be a lender for profit, the way the banks and credit card companies do. But to be a lender to someone in need. Remember that God told Israel that he would bless them and make them lenders to many nations and borrowers from none (Deuteronomy 15:6). How can we reach out to those in need if everything we own is already owned by someone else? The purpose of credit is not to allow us to purchase what we want or when we want it. For Christians, the purpose of credit is to serve as a way to help others. We should be the lenders, not the borrowers. God desires us trust him for our needs and to be lenders or even givers to others in need (Matt 5:42; 6:31-32).

So, I would say that “yes”, credit is a tool. But not a tool like a hammer with which you may bruise your finger if you make a mistake. But more like a chainsaw, in the sense that if you use it incorrectly you may never recover. The sad part is, most people are holding it on the wrong end and will end up hurting themselves.

Supporting Verses about Debt

Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.” Still others were saying, “We have had to borrow Money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards… We have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.”

- Nehemiah 5:3-5

A man lacking in judgment strikes hands in pledge and puts up security for his neighbor.

-Proverbs 17:18

Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

-Matthew 5:42

Do not be a man who strikes hands in pledge or puts up security for debts;

If you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you.

-Proverbs 22:26-27

The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously;

-Psalms 37:21

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

-Proverbs 22:7

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.

-Romans 13:8

In this series we have taken a few small steps towards being stewards of the Lords possessions but they have been just that, small steps. True stewardship is not confined to keeping a budget or maintaining files, these are just tools that will make tracking and managing the assets that the Lord has entrusted to us a little easier and a little more accurate. True stewardship extends beyond the world of finance and into every area of our lives. It requires a change in our world view which will be reflected as a change in our actions. We must learn to see our possessions, our abilities, our time and even the bodies we live in, not as something that we are entitled to but as something we have been entrusted with for a purpose and as something that we will be held accountable for.

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.

Hebrews 3:13

So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

2 Corinthians 5:9-10

We must also be careful that we do not forget who we serve and unknowingly end up serving money instead of the Lord. Our first priority is to serving God, whether while rich or poor. Do not let the living standards of the world draw you away from your true goal.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

1 Timothy 6:6-10

Paul relates our training as stewards to an Olympic athlete training for the games. If a marathon runner was to take his time training and just do a little jogging a few times a week between other activities he would never become a world class athlete and wouldn’t stand a chance at winning an Olympic medal. Olympians make training their first priority. They study how their body works and train day and night to find their weaknesses and overcome them. They have a purpose. And they do it all for a medal that will eventually rust or be destroyed. We are told to train the same way as servants of Christ. But the crown that we will receive will not perish but be eternal.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man bearing the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Many people use money as a defense against chance. Remember that God knows our needs better than we do and he has promised that he will take care of them even if it is not in the lifestyle that we are accustomed to. Sometimes God calls us to leave our comfort zone and just put our faith in him.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Matthew 6:31-33

I want to encourage you to continue your path of stewardship and take the time to learn what being a true steward entails. I will continue to post what little bits of insight that the spirit blesses me with but don’t take my word for it. Remember, you will be held accountable for your beliefs and your actions. Take everything you read here and test it against what the bible says. Even look up the verses for yourself and understand the context that they are written in. If you find something I have written that you think may not be correct, please post a comment and let me know.

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Proverbs 27:17

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.

Proverbs 12:1

Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds; for riches do not endure forever, and a crown is not secure for all generations.

Proverbs 27:23-24

Our goal of this series is to honor God by taking the first step towards responsible management of the material possessions that God has entrusted to us. In previous posts we discussed how Paul trained himself to serve God with the same intensity that an Olympic athlete trains for the games and how he encourages us to train in the same way because the crown that we receive for our stewardship will last forever.

Today we are going to get right to work setting up our long term filing system. This will work in conjunction with the simple filing system that we set up last week and will give us an organized method of storing vital paperwork.

For supplies we’re going to need file folders. Regular manila folders work great but if you have a few extra dollars I would recommend picking up a few of the thicker, multi-classification file folders. They will last a lot longer and it’s just easier when you can group similar classes of documents into one folder. You don’t necessarily need a file cabinet for this but if you have one sitting around the house I would recommend using it. Many office desks have a drawer or two that are set up for filing as well. If you are using a cabinet of some kind then you’ll probably need to pick up some hanging files in addition to the manila folders. If you don’t have a file cabinet, don’t sweat it, you can pick up an expanding file (or accordion file as they are sometimes called) that will fit all of our needs for around $10. I would also recommend picking up a two-hole punch and some two-hole fasteners like these although they really aren’t required.

How to organize folders

There are several different thoughts on how to label your folders, the most popular probably being the one-account-per-folder approach which means that each bill (telephone bill, electric bill, checking account) is placed in its own folder (along with previous statements). In recent years the tendency for companies to offer multiple utilities has made this difficult. I get my home phone, internet, and cell phone all on one bill which makes it all but impossible to separate them into their own folders. That’s why I prefer the one-company-per-folder approach.

The first thing you need to do is make a list of every company that you have accounts with. Don’t overlook the companies that auto-draft out of your checking account each month. Also, be sure to include things like charities which you’ll want to keep track of for taxes but that may not send you a statement every month.

Once you have your list. Start making files. Label each folder and, with the two-hole punch, install a fastener. Now, if you have paid bills still being stored in the simple file system that we developed last week, go ahead and hole-punch them and put them in their appropriate file. This should be done at least once a month.

Now we have our tracking system and out filing system in place. Next post we will talk about the final step. Making a budget.

Why do we track Net Worth?

Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds; for riches do not endure forever, and a crown is not secure for all generations.

Proverbs 27:23-24

As Christians desiring to be stewards, the reasons for tracking our net worth may be different for us then for the rest of the world. While many people look at their net worth as a financial scorecard, we need to understand it as a summation of what we have been placed in charge of. As stewards, part of our job is to keep track of and manage everything that has been entrusted to our care, and nothing makes you look more closely at everything you have like estimating your net worth. Net worth is also a valuable tool for evaluating the effectiveness of financial decisions and analyzing our financial strategies. But it is important to remember that our net worth is not what determines our success as stewards, nor is it something to get emotionally attached to, it is only a tool to be used to make us better stewards.

Your net worth, in the strictest terms, is the cash value of everything you own, minus everything you owe i.e. if you sold everything including the clothes on your back and paid off every debt, how much cash would you be holding. This number is important because it sums up your financial life. If your individual accounts and assets are battles, your net worth is what lets you know who’s winning the war.

How we track it

The bad news is that your net worth changes every day and to keep an exact figure pretty much requires you to be both an accountant and a prophet. The good news is that it’s possible to get a fairly reasonable figure without that much work. Sense Mint.com is already tracking our major accounts for us, all we have to do is figure out what other assets and liabilities we have and do the math. Fortunately, Mint will do most of the work for us. If you played around with Mint.com for a little while after you set up your account, then you may have noticed that there is a place for you to track the worth of your property. In fact, you can track everything from the value of your home to the value of your dishes if you so desire. If you haven’t found this feature yet, click on the My Accounts link at the top of your Mint.com home page and you’ll find a place to add financial accounts, real estate and other.

Now I have no intention of making you sit down and estimate the value of your clothing, curtains and cookware because even if you remembered how much you paid for them, chances are you aren’t familiar with the laws of depreciation and who knows what you would be able to sell them for anyways. There are things that we can find out about though, your house and car for example. In fact, the house is the easiest, and if you have a mortgage payment, you definitely want to make sure to include this. All you have to do is put your address into Mint and it will estimate the value for you. It won’t be exact but neither will any other number that you get short of actually selling your house and writing down what was paid for it. I do follow real estate in my area fairly closely though ( I still have dreams of flipping houses for a living) and the estimate that Mint came back with was in the ballpark for what I had figured – if anything, it was about $4 – $5000 high.

Next we figure in our cars. The easiest way to do this is to look up its Kelly blue book value. Again, this is not an exact value but it is an estimate based on what other similar cars are selling for. So go out to www.kbb.com and answer the questions. I usually use the Private Party Value because I have no intention of ever selling my Jeep to a car dealership. If you regularly trade in your cars or are planning on doing so in the next few years, you may want to use the Trade-In value. Once you have an estimated value, go ahead and put that in Mint.

Next we put in our property. Like I said, it’s almost pointless to put in everything we own because there is no way of knowing how much we could really sell most of our stuff for (assuming we could sell it at all). But there are things you should be sure to find the value of and include, such as boats, RVs, jewelry, collectables, artwork, antiques or anything that is not likely to depreciate in value. Also, there are certain things that should not be included such as items that you could not sell or things that only have sentimental value. Do not include household fixtures or appliances that would stay with the house if sold, those are understood to be included in the value of the home. Also, do not try to attach a value to non-material things such as work experience or the potential value of your education (do include college loans though).

Now that you have the “Big Picture” items in, feel free to add anything that you want. If you really want to do the research and find out how much your curtains are worth, then go for it. Just remember that it’s only an estimate and if it really came down to it, you may not be able to sell them for as much as you think. That being said, it’s a good idea to update the information included in your net worth at least once a year to keep it relatively recent. So if you don’t want to figure out the resale value of your bath mats each year, don’t add them, or in accountant language, assume their resale value has depreciated to $0.

Important

This was where I originally planned on ending this post but I felt it was important to touch on something again. Many people get very emotionally attached to their financial net worth and use it as a scorecard to determine their successes. As Christians, we need to understand that our worth does not determine our success as stewards. Suppose for a moment that a man’s net worth continued to fall year after year because his amount of giving continued to increase. From a worldly standpoint this would be considered financially unwise but from a Christian standpoint he is simply giving what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21

The world acts from a position of ownership, we must act from a position of stewardship. Our goal is not to become wealthy even thought our duty as stewards may include increasing wealth. So do not use your net worth as anything other than what it is; a tool for determining your financial position and for tracking the direction or your finances. It is not a measure of your stewardship, it is not a scorecard of your wealth, and it is not a figure to devote unhealthy amounts of your time obsessing over.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

1 Timothy 6:6-10

We have been spending the last few days talking about the importance of stewardship and developing a plan to help get our personal finances in order. A lot of this may be extremely basic for some people but because much of what is required to create and maintain a responsible home budget isn’t taught in school, I decided to start from the beginning. If you don’t currently have a system set up in your house then I would suggest reading the previous two posts to help catch up.

The first step that we took was to create a simple filing system and calendar to help keep track of our bills. Today we are going to set up a system for tracking income and expenses. Proverbs 27:23-24 tells us;

Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds; for riches do not endure forever, and a crown is not secure for all generations.

Proverbs 27:23-24

So in light of that, we are going to set up a system to ensure that we can constantly monitor and give careful attention to the condition of our finances.

If the thought of this makes you groan, believe me, I understand. It was many years before I was able to set up a system that accurately let me see where my money was going. But the good news is, it’s only going to take you about 15 minutes.

Create an account with Mint.com

Mint.com is a free, online, personal finance tool that helps you to track multiple accounts with banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions. It also easily allows you to create a budget and see how much you are spending in different categories such as groceries, utilities, dining, gifts, ect.. And the best part is that, after a little setup time, it takes very little maintenance on your part. Each day, it will download your transactions from your financial institution(s) and categorize them according to where the money was spent.

If you have trouble with Mint.com, or you are more familiar with the quicken interface, you can also set up your accounts with QuickenOnline.com. I have used Quicken for years but am personally partial to Mint.com because of its interface and its ability to include the value of my property (such as a house, car, jewelry, ect..) in my net worth. We’re going to set that up in a future post but for now, just be sure to get your major accounts listed. Make sure to include the following accounts:

-Checking Accounts

- Savings Accounts

- Credit Card

- Mortgage

- Loans (including auto and student)

-Investment Accounts

If you can’t get your investment or retirement account in there it should be ok. We’re mainly just trying to get the “high traffic” accounts, that is, the accounts that are used on a regular basis. If Mint.com isn’t set up with one of your major financial institutions, then you may want to try QuickenOnline.com.

Now that we have a method of tracking credit card and bank transactions, that only leaves one area…cash. If you are one of those people who have been using a check card or credit/debit card for so long that you’ve forgotten what cash looks like, then this isn’t for you. But, if you do carry cash for vending machines, parking meters and such then we need to keep an eye on that as well. I’m going to recommend an age old budgeting tradition. Keep a small notepad or even just a piece of paper with you each day for the next two weeks and write down how much cash you spend. It’s amazing how a little change here and there add up.

Don’t forget to keep tracking (and paying) your bills in the mean time. We’re going to come back to those in a few days when we set up our filing system. Next post we are going to discuss finding and tracking your net worth.

There has been a lot of debate over the last few months on whether the new stimulus package is necessary or even moral. One of the biggest objections that I have heard is that people don’t want the government spending “their money” (that the government collected through taxes) on things that they don’t believe in or support. I fully understand this point of view and being fairly conservative would appreciate the government letting me support my own causes with the money I earn. But I was reading the Gospel of Matthew the other day and came upon chapter 22 where the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus in his words by asking if it was right to pay taxes to Cesar or not.

But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Mathew 22:18-21)

It reminded me again how little ownership we really have. As stewards, we understand that the possessions, talents, and gifts that we have are all given to us by God to manage. But we forget that the money we use on a daily basis is minted and given value by the government. In fact, according to Matthew 22, the government owns the money that we use every day. Now this obviously does not supersede Gods ownership of everything on earth but it does show us that the money that the government collects for taxes was never our money to begin with. Just as we are to give to the Lord from our first fruits, what is already his, Jesus tells us that we are to give to Caesar what is Caesars. It doesn’t matter if we agree with what the Government is doing with the money because it is theirs to do what they want with. The stewards that are in charge of it, will be judged accordingly just like in the parable of the talents. God will not hold us responsible for what is done with the taxes collected.

So while we may agree or disagree with the way the Government is spending tax dollars, we have to remember that it was never ours to begin with. We are fortunate enough to live in a time where we can choose who will be in charge of spending our money but that is the extent of our tax accountability. If there are any other opinions out there I would be glad to hear them.

In the last few posts we’ve covered tough questions relating to stocks and bonds. I’d like to take a break from talking about investment vehicles to respond to one of the most asked questions and most popular assumptions in regard to Biblically Responsible Investing. The ever dreaded…

“Will I have to sacrifice returns to invest in accordance with biblical principals?”

Like I mentioned, this often comes in the form of a logically laid out assumption such as, “well if I limit the stocks that I’m allowed to buy, then I’ll miss a lot of opportunities that I would have had otherwise”. Before I respond to that statement or answer the above question, I’d like to address the biggest concern that comes to mind when I hear someone in that mindset. The first question I always have to do is, “Would you still invest in accordance with biblical principals if it meant that you would absolutely have to make lower returns with your investments?” What is more important? There are plenty of immoral or even illegal investing opportunities out there that will get you much higher returns than you could make in the stock market.  The point is, what is your first priority? Is it getting the best returns, or honoring God? In Matthew 6:24 Jesus tells us “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money”. That last line, “You cannot serve both God and Money” is important for Christians to understand. No matter what we do, or how hard we try to avoid it, at some point, our priorities are going to come to a test. We are going to have to choose between the things that we have chosen to make most important to us. Investing may be one of those times. We may have to make a choice between doing business the way God instructed us to, or the potential of greater returns. So what is the right thing to do?

Matthew 6 is one of my favorite chapters in the entire bible when it comes to God and money. Jesus sums up in a couple of short paragraphs many of the key themes that we need to remember about how God cares for us. Matthew 6:31-33 says, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ for the pagans run after all these things, and you’re heavenly Father know that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”. We need to remember that God is going to take care of us and that worrying about losing returns is secondary to seeking his kingdom and righteousness. Remember, God knew how much money you would have to invest, and which way the market would move on any given day, when he gave us his rules of money. He didn’t add in any exceptions for investing in immorality even though he knows the outcome of every stock and bond in every market in the world. So if God isn’t worried if you make lower returns with the money that he gave you, should you be? If you heart is so attached to the money that you’re investing that you’re being tempted to violate Gods rules, then maybe the stock market isn’t where you should have it invested.

Now that we’ve talked about the concerns that come to mind I’d like to answer the question. The answer is no, you do not have to sacrifice returns to invest in accordance with the bible. In fact, according to US News.com, The Timothy Plan, an evangelical Christian mutual fund company, is well out performing the S&P 500 with a five year annualized return topping 16 percent. They screen all of their holdings for alcohol, tobacco, gambling, abortion, pornography, and “anti-family entertainment”. In my experience, screening the immoral companies from your portfolio only eliminates 30 to 50 percent of publically traded companies. There are still thousands of financially sound investments available. Of course there is no telling how long any fund will continue to make profits. Look at the bottom of any brochure or advertisement that has a graph of a stock or funds performance and you’ll always see the same disclaimer, “Past performance is not indicative of future results”.

So the good news is, no, you don’t have to sacrifice returns to invest in accordance with your faith but the more important thing to remember is that it wouldn’t matter if you did. God gave us extensive rules on how he wants’ money handled here on earth along with the order that we are to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness”, (Matt 6:33). Like everything in the Bible, when interpreted correctly, these orders will not contradict each other.

Yesterday we started a conversation about the tough questions that are asked about Biblically Responsible Investing. For the most part, the questions focused around investing in stocks. Today I’d like to talk about a few more questions that apply.

Ok, if buying a stock is buying ownership in a company, then I can see why Christians would want to avoid buying stock in certain companies. But what about bonds?

First of all, let’s cover exactly what a bond is. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines a bond as “an interest-bearing certificate of public or private indebtedness”.  Basically, a bond is a type of IOU issued by a government or company that says that if you lend them money, they will repay you what you lent, with interest, by a certain date (the maturity date).  With that taken into consideration, you can see how some of the conflicts with owning stocks in immoral companies would also apply to owning bonds. With a stock, you profit the company by buying a portion of the company for a set price, with a bond; you simply lend the company money with interest. You can see why we would want to avoid buying bonds from the same companies that we would want to avoid buying stock from.

For the sake of explanation, I’m going to give a very cut-and-dried example for both to make it clear where the conflict lies.

Say for a moment, that you were looking to financially invest in a movie studio that produces children’s movies. We’ll call it “Studio KID”. Studio KID has both stock and bonds available for purchase.  Upon closer examination you realize that the Studio KID has a branch (called “Adult Filmz”) that produces only hard-core adult entertainment on DVD and the internet. Even though it goes by a different name, Adult Filmz is owned by Studio KID and Studio KID manages and runs Adult Filmz. As a Christian, is it a biblically sound investment to buy stock in Studio KID? If you read yesterdays post then you know that the money you use to buy the stock will either directly or indirectly profit Studio KID (and therefore Adult Filmz) and not only that but you will also be an owner of Studio KID (and therefore Adult Filmz) and you profits will be made primarily due to the actions of that company. This is a problem (see Ephesians 5:11)

But what about bonds? If you buy bonds from Studio KID then you will be lending them money to use at their discretion.  The money would benefit both Studio KID and Adult Filmz, and the interest that is earned on the bonds is made from the sales and advertising profits of both studios. The same scripture that applied to profiting from immoral stocks yesterday, applies to bonds today (Deuteronomy 23:18, Ephesians 5:11).

So after breaking it down we can see that stocks and bonds pretty much go together in the sense that if it would be wrong to invest in a company’s stock, then we should probably avoid buying that companies bonds as well. But there are some circumstances where that rule won’t work. I’m talking about government bonds.  The U.S Government does not sell stock to the American people, but it can raise money by issuing bonds. This goes for state and municipal governments as well.. Most governments would never pass a moral screening. They give money to support abortion clinics, manufacture weapons of mass destruction, and profit from the actions of every company in America, good or bad (taxes). Some would say that any financial investment in any U.S. government would violate everything that the bible says about stewardship and honoring God with our finances. In some cases, that may be true. While the government does use bonds to raise money for unspecified uses (such as treasury bonds) they also issue bonds for specific projects. These bonds make it much easier to ensure that the money you lend is not going to make its way into Planned Parenthood’s yearly government grant. One of the key questions we need to ask before buying these bonds is what is the money going to be used for. Bonds for road projects or to build a state park could be considered morally neutral (depending on the details) and could be a good financial investment. But it’s important to know the details before making your decision.

Once you have the information you need, you only need to be sure that the money that our master has entrusted you with is being handled according to his orders. If you’re unsure if a company is involved in immoral actions, then your best bet is to either contact someone who can find the information for you, or play it safe and avoid investing in that company. Also, if you hire an investor to choose stocks for you, be sure to ask what software or information he uses for moral screenings and what all he is screening the companies for. If you not confident that he is investing with your Christian convictions in mind, then be sure to find someone who will. Remember, it’s not your money that your having invested. It’s the Lords,(Deu 10:14, Hag 2:8, Psa 50:10-12)  and he’s entrusted it to you to be faithful with (Corinthians 4:2, Luke 16:12).

It’s difficult to explain to my friends and family (in-laws especially) exactly what I do for a living. Not because I’m ashamed, but because there isn’t really an established job description to fall back on. Most people will get the gist of what you do if you tell them that you’re a computer programmer for a financial firm or an accountant for a retail outlet, but telling them you run Moral Money for a living usually requires a little more explaining and often times the conversation leads to some pretty tough questions.  It usually goes something like this:

Friend: So what exactly do you do for a living?

Me: I run a website called MoralMoney.com.

Friend: What’s that?

Me: It’s a specialty website that offers free information about Biblically/Morally Responsible Investing to Christians.

Friend: What’s Biblically/Morally Responsible Investing?

Me: It’s making sure that your investments line up with your beliefs.

Friend: *Shrugs* *raises one eyebrow*

Me: Ok, as a Christian, you probably wouldn’t want to make a living by profiting off of abortion or pornography. We find out what companies are involve in biblically immoral activities and offer it to the public so that they don’t unknowingly end up with one of those companies in their portfolios

Friend: Why does it matter? It’s just an investment. You’re not working for them or supporting them. You’re not even taking an active role in the company. You’re just using the company stock to invest for retirement.

Me: Well, what is a stock?

Friend: What do you mean?

Me: A stock certificate is a certificate of ownership that a company issues to raise money. Everyone who owns stock in a company is an owner in that company and has a say in the actions of that company. The money that is used to purchase the stock, whether directly or indirectly goes to support that company financially. The value of the stock, whether it rises or falls, is due, primarily, to the actions of that company. Just because you take a passive stance on investing and choose to waive your right to vote on company policy, doesn’t mean that you’re not an owner of that company and that your profits aren’t from the actions of that company.

You can see how things get complicated pretty quickly. From here, things can branch off into several areas. Sometimes they ask “What about bonds?” sometimes they say “What am I supposed to do? I only own a couple of shares?” occasionally there’s the “ok, that makes sense. So what exactly do you do again?”. But for the purposes of this post I want to take the conversation to the “But the purpose of investing is making money. God wants us to be good stewards so I don’t think it matters what companies we invest in” response.

What does the Bible say about this? Well, to start from the beginning, Jesus uses illustrations about investing for financial gain several times in his teachings (Matthew 25:14-29; Luke 19:12-26). While this doesn’t directly teach us that we should invest, it does suggest that he approves of wise investments and certainly indicates that he doesn’t forbid investing.

Now we need to understand that investing doesn’t just bring profits to the investor, it also profits the company that we have invested in. As Christians, we should not be attempting to profit from people doing what they shouldn’t, nor should we be partnering with companies who do. Ephesians 5:11 tells us “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them”. How can we justify investing in companies who profit by marketing “fruitless deeds of darkness”?

In Deuteronomy 23:18 God gave the Israelites the command “You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the Lord your God to pay any vow, because the Lord your God detests them both”. This makes it clear that God does care where our money comes from and does not want “dirty money” in his temple.

But does God care if you don’t know where your money is invested or if you just give your money to a professional investor to make the stock picks for you? The answer is again a resounding yes! First of all, this is a violation of our commands to be good stewards. A good steward always takes the necessary steps to know where his master’s money is invested. As stewards, it is our duty to ensure that anyone that we entrust our masters money with is going to invest it in accordance with our master’s orders. This means choosing investors that have the ability to choose companies that do not involve themselves with biblically immoral products or actions.

In the next few posts, I will be exploring some of the most popular questions about Biblically Responsible Investing and taking them to the bible to find solid answers. If you have any questions you would like explored or you have biblical information for or against any of my conclusions, please feel free to let me know. I’m always open to new opinions.