A Biblical Worldview of Investing

Shawn (00:00): Avoid making irrational decisions motivated by greed or hearsay and stay focused on long-term goals. Bob (00:07): Well, I tell you what, every one of these has to do with investing, doesn’t it? Shawn (00:19): Welcome back to Christian Financial Perspectives. My name is Shawn Peters. This is Bob Barber, and today we are going to be covering the Biblical worldview of investing. A Biblical worldview of investing today is referred to as Biblically responsible investing, or BRI, which began in the mid 1990s and is now becoming mainstream among Christian believers as a way to glorify God. BRI is an investment strategy that aligns financial choices with Christian faith by screening out companies involved in activities contrary to Biblical values such as abortion, pornography, gambling, tobacco, while seeking companies that positively reflect Christian principles and Biblical stewardship, aiming to glorify God through both financial returns and ethical conduct. Bob (01:04): Quite a definition, isn’t it? Shawn (01:05): A little bit, yeah. Bob (01:06): Yeah, it really is. But you’ve got to say it all for someone to understand what is a Biblical worldview of investing, which that’s what Biblically responsible investing is. And we’ve got a lot of scriptures that we’re going to share today. There’s a little bit of a theme behind each one that goes with a Biblical worldview for investing. Shawn (01:26): We’ll share a theme, scripture, and application to try to keep things easy to follow along with whether you’re watching us or whether you’re listening to us. Bob (01:34): There’s a lot of them too, isn’t there? Okay, so how do you want to do this? You going to go first and then … Shawn (01:39): You just want to take turns? Bob (01:40): Yeah, let’s do that. Shawn (01:40): Do you want me to be your scripture reader consistently or do you want to take turns on those? Bob (01:44): I can do it. I can do it this time. Shawn (01:45): Well, you go first, sir. Bob (01:46): Okay, well of course the first theme behind Biblically responsible investing is ownership. The scripture behind this is Psalms 24:1, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.” The application behind the scripture is that God owns all our investments and allows us to managing them. And the question is, are we following Biblical guidelines for doing this? Shawn (02:10): Amen. And our next one is returns 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” Now the application of this one, the love of returns is the same as the love of money. Christians need to be careful not to allow greed to dictate investment decisions. Bob (02:32): Let that one sink in a minute. Shawn (02:34): Set. Okay. You can pause t if you want longer. Alright, next one. Bob (02:37): The next one is about morality and 2 Corinthians 6:17 says, “Therefore come out from them [from the world] and be separate says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing and I’ll receive you.” The way that we apply the scripture to a Biblical worldview for investing is avoiding investing in companies that knowingly violate or support and moral agendas and principles. Shawn (03:03): That’s right. That’s right. Our next one, avoidance. Two scriptures on this one. Exodus 20:13-14, “You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery.” Psalms 139:13, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” The application of this one, avoid investing in companies that support abortion, make the abortion pill or support organizations like Planned Parenthood, the nation’s biggest abortion provider. Bob (03:34): I wanted to pop behind that and say a lot of companies will send even their employees out of state. Like here in Texas, abortion is illegal. So the companies will pay for their employees to go out of state. So we know how to screen for those companies. And the next theme is about fear. And this is from 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind.” Shawn (04:00): Amen. Bob (04:00): So the Biblical worldview behind this is be wary of professional fear mongerers who sell conspiracy theories to promote high commission financial products. Yeah, we’ve had an entire podcast on this. Shawn (04:13): We have. Bob (04:13): The little postcards that come in your mail every week for the free steak dinner. Shawn (04:17): Yeah. Next one, diversification. Ecclesiastes 11:2, “Invest in seven ventures. Yes, in eight, you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.” So the application diversify across all 11 sectors of the economy. Taking this principle to math that you take 100/8, you get 12.5% and a 100/7 is 14.28%, meaning don’t put more than 12.5-14.28% in any one sector of the economy or a disaster may come upon your investment portfolio. Bob (04:52): Yeah, I think you could probably round that up 12-15% basically. Shawn (04:56): Yeah. And it probably also, understandably, it depends on what’s currently going on. You may want to underweight a little bit at times. So, alright, next one. Bob (05:06): The next theme behind a Biblical worldview of investing is wisdom. We’re going to use two scriptures here. They’re both from Proverbs, which is one of my favorite books in the Bible. Proverbs 7:7, “I saw among the simple, I noticed among the young men, a youth had no sense.” Shawn (05:24): Harsh. Bob (05:25): Okay. Proverbs 18:15 says, “The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge for the ears of the wise seek it out.” The way you apply this to investing is making investment decisions based on facts and math, not emotions, not hearsay. And by diversifying across all the many sectors by company size, financial strength, markets they serve, and avoiding the day-to-day financial media hype and articles written by inexperienced people. And this is in my research, Shawn, I’ve noticed that so many of the people that write these don’t even have a degree in finance. It’s just journalism. Shawn (06:10): It’s just the journalists. Bob (06:11): Yeah, right, exactly. Shawn (06:12): And for a lot of that stuff, the financial media, the financial news, it’s less about helping people with investing and it’s more about, “well find out this one trick to help you” kind of a thing like “right after this commercial break.” So that way you come back. Bob (06:29): And they like pushing the emotional buttons because they plunge or skyrocket, they use all these words. Shawn (06:34): It gets people to click on the headlines. It’s what we call click bait. Alright, so the next one consideration, Proverbs 14:15, “The simple believe anything but the prudent give thought to their steps.” So what’s the application of this one? Avoid making irrational decisions motivated by greed or hearsay and stay focused on long-term goals. Bob (06:57): Boy, I tell you what, every one of these has to do with investing, doesn’t it? Yeah, it definitely does. And using that Biblical worldview for investing. This next theme is on false hope. Proverbs 14:7-8, “Stay away from a fool for you will not find knowledge on their lips. The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.” Shawn (07:21): 1 Timothy 6:9-10, “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people 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.” Bob (07:40): So this false hope theme that we talk about is if a return sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Watch out for Ponzi schemes that guarantee unreasonable returns, get rich quick schemes, and even these investment courses that are heavily promoted promising that you can beat Wall Street. Shawn (08:00): Or you can consistently do this and you can just quit your job. Bob (08:04): Yeah, yeah. So I’ve heard that, I mean actually quit your job. Shawn (08:07): Which could be true if you already have a few million dollars. In which case, depending on how much income you want to live on then well, okay, that’s true. But most people that are going after these courses are interested in them, don’t already have multiple millions of dollars. Bob (08:22): And if that return sounds to good to be true. If somebody’s guaranteeing you you’re going to make 12% or 15% every single year for the next 20 years. That’s too good to be true. Come on. Shawn (08:31): Yeah, exactly. Bob (08:32): These themes only work for the greedy, deceptive people selling them. And be careful not to let greed dictate your investment decisions. I think that’s worth saying again. Be careful not to let greed dictate your investment decisions. Shawn (08:46): Agreed. Agreed. It’s next one, consistency. Proverbs 13:11, “Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.” So the application of this one, not every investment will be a winner. Investing is a long-term marathon, not a short-term sprint. Investors are not day traders and day traders are not investors. And the long-term, it’s time, not timing, that wins. And I think a key distinction on that is day traders, the reason why we say they’re not investors, day traders are simply using the stock market to gamble whether they realize it or not. That’s really what it comes down to. They’re basically just gambling but in approved financial instruments instead of going to Vegas. Bob (09:34): Be careful of the writers, the journalists, they will really use these terms wrong. They’ll say investors are thinking this over the next hour or two. That’s a day trader. That’s not an investor. Shawn (09:47): Remember Bob, many of those people are just journalists and they don’t actually have any financial knowledge. So they don’t even understand that there’s a difference, but they’re the ones writing them. Bob (09:56): So this next theme is there’s different seasons. We call it seasons. In Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, “There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot.” And just read the whole third chapter. It really goes with this. The application is that bear markets, volatility, and up and down market cycles are to be expected. And that’s a regular part of life. Just like it says here in Ecclesiastes. Shawn (10:26): It’s not if the market will drop, it’s not if the market will rally, it’s when. Bob (10:31): Yeah. Shawn (10:32): So, alright, next one. Planning Proverbs 21:5, “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.” Investing should always focus on long-term goals from 5 to 20 years (or longer) with a well thought out financial plan updated annually. Otherwise, you can quickly get off track. You can also quickly get distracted by something that sounds like a good idea, but really you may not even need it when you’re looking long term. So, don’t get distracted by those things. Bob (11:07): As we get down to just our last couple of themes. One is that we see in a Biblical worldview in investing is you have to be careful of idolatry. Shawn (11:17): Yeah. Bob (11:18): Exodus 23, which is the first commandment is, “You shall have no other gods before me.” And the application of this is being careful not to allow money to take the place of God. Don’t make money your God. Shawn (11:32): Exactly. Bob (11:33): And that same scripture, a few verses behind it talks about idolatry and being careful of that. Shawn (11:40): And our last one, we’ll take turns on this one because we have three longer scriptures for this one. But our last one – called to be different. Starting in Matthew 5:13-16, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.” Bob (12:10): There’s so much to that whole chapter, but these few verses are really good as well. The next one is 1 Peter 1:15-16, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do for it is written, ‘Be holy because I am holy.'” Shawn (12:30): Amen. Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will.” So the application – Christian investors are called to follow a Biblical worldview for investing by aligning their faith with their investment decisions through Biblically responsible investing. And as we said, the topic for this one is called to be different. When we look at these verses, the way we live our lives are different than the way the world lives their lives. It’s what we’re called to by Jesus and why would that stop when it comes to certain aspects of our life like investing? Bob (13:17): That’s correct. Yeah. Shawn (13:18): That’s I guess the thought I would say is like, well, if the Lord calls us to be different and he does, why would we follow the patterns… why would we follow the heart and desire and the strategy of the world when it comes to investing? Bob (13:35): Shawn, I think there’s another thing behind this called to “be all in.” Are you all in? That’s really the bottom line, including your investments. You want your investments to be all in, to glorify God because you want all the other areas of your life, I’m hoping, that you’re all in and we are here to help you with this as well. This is why Christian Financial Advisors® exists. It really is to help you be all in with your finances, which all belong to God and it’s his. If you would like to find out more about that, you can go to our website www.christianfinancialadvisors.com or call or text us during business hours at 830-609-6986. Shawn (14:27): That’s also why we continue to publish these episodes, regardless of whether it’s five people or 5 million people that end up watching or listening is because we feel called to share this kind of information with people for free. We’re not getting paid for this. And we of course also have the business where we do this for a living and we help people that way. But yeah, we want to help people. So if you are watching or listening and you’re on a platform that allows for, you can comment as well on these and there’s ideas that you’d like us to cover, reach out to us with those as well. So as always, thank you so much for joining us, whenever that may be. Bob (15:04): And tune in for our next episodes. We have much more to say about a Biblical worldview for money and finances. Shawn (15:11): Exactly. This is a part of our ongoing series of, we have 12, I think. Bob (15:15): There’s about 12 of them. That’s right. Shawn (15:17): So, alright. Thank you so much and God bless.