Jesus’ terrible financial advice is that you cannot serve two masters. If you serve money, then you cannot possibly be serving God. God and Mammon are incompatible poles around which to orient a life; therefore, a life serving money puts you at odds with God. If Jesus’ advice is right, many people, indeed most people, have put their souls in danger by serving money, which is a cause for ‘terror’. That is what makes Jesus’ advice ‘terrible’.

That’s the conclusion of Dr. John Thornton’s new book, Jesus’ Terrible Financial Advice. Dr. Thornton is a CPA, holds a PhD in accounting, and is the head of a university accounting department, so he’s spent a lot of time thinking about money. Almost two decades ago, he embarked on a project to research, and then later write, a book about God and money. He started collecting every statement in the Bible about it, and what he found shocked him. He had intended to write a book about how one could use principles of the Bible to become wealthy. He knew such principles worked, because he had followed them himself. He and his wife managed to go through graduate school and not go into debt. In fact, despite the education and the birth of two children, the couple managed to double their net worth. So, imagine how helpful it would be to your goal of maximizing wealth if you could learn everything the Bible ever said about wealth!

The problem is that what the Bible says about wealth is that maximizing wealth is a lousy goal for your life. The book which Dr. Thornton had meant to write was gone, but instead, a more spiritually penetrating book was born.

So, does that mean earning money is a bad thing? No.

Does it mean that saving and investing are bad things? No.

Does it mean that money is a bad thing? No, but it does mean that money is a bad master. On the other hand, money can be a good servant when placed in service to a worthy goal. In other words, money is only as good as the purpose to which it is set.

According to Jesus, the purpose of life is to glorify His Father, and the chief rule of life is love of God and of neighbor.  Money used for that purpose is money used properly.

Jesus tells a story about a man who accumulated so much grain that he needed to tear down his barn and build a bigger one in order to hold all of it. After long years spent accumulating wealth, he would finally be at ease…. Except that God spoke to him saying, “You fool, this night, your soul will be required of you.” The fool lived for accumulation, but had no enjoyment of what he had accumulated. Simple accumulation makes no sense as an end in itself because money is for something. It is a proxy for something else of value; therefore, it points toward something other than itself. Classical economics defines money as a medium of exchange. This definition helps us to understand what Jesus said about money: It is not a goal in and of itself. A medium is something that acts as a channel, a means through which something else is accomplished.

In our recent discussion about his book, Dr. Thornton deployed his financial skill set to analyze the story above (known as The Parable of the Rich Fool) more deeply than I have heard anyone else do. Was the hoarding of grain a defensible strategy from a financial point of view? Very unlikely. Hoarded grain provides no return on capital. In fact, it tends to create a negative return: There is the problem of spoilage. If grain gets wet, it sprouts prematurely, or rots. Rodents eat stored grain, which both causes loss of stored supply and attracts disease-ridden vermin who may end up consuming other stored food stuffs.

In addition, there are warehousing costs. The giant barn is a substantial capital expenditure. Security costs money too. Hoarded grain is a magnet for theft.

Now, I admit that there are certain specific circumstances under which hoarding  commodities such as grain may make sense; for example, in response to an anticipated shortage (like the patriarch, Joseph) or like a commodity speculator helping commodity consumers hedge against future price spikes. But this man is not engaging in either disaster preparedness or price speculation. He says nothing about a future famine or about selling at some future time. He only talks about taking his ease.

The rich fool is acting as a miser, not an entrepreneur, and it’s going to cost him money. There are few things in the ancient world more productive than grain. Keep harvesting it and then putting it back into the ground, and (under normal circumstances) it multiplies itself exponentially. It puts people to work. It feeds the hungry. It provides profit. The grain with its seed in itself is an engine of yield in both the agricultural and financial senses of the word. It multiplies wealth for all.

Far too often the evangelical conversation about money falls into utilitarianism: Ways to get out of debt, tools for budgeting, techniques to stop finances from causing marital conflict, pointers on how to stop worrying about money and get financial peace. Personal finance ‘hacks’ are all well and good, but what they are lacking is a teleology of money. What’s money for? The Westminster Catechisms say that, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” That includes man’s money. The catechism supplies the ‘why’ and that is essential because once you get the ‘why’ settled then you can move onto the ‘what’.

The ‘what’ might be volunteering for charity, but it might not be. For example, expensive trips to an underdeveloped country to re-stack a pile of cinder blocks into a community center might be a great resume builder and a fulfilling bit of charity tourism, but is it really the best way to get kids a nice place to play? The cost of the plane tickets alone might exceed the cost of the building. If you are a high earner, you can build far more community centers and sink far more water wells by staying home, excelling at your job and making a hefty donation. If the ‘why’ is to serve God by caring for the poor, then the ‘what’ may well be to stay, earn, and cut checks, rather than fly, haul, and snap selfies.

Even if your ‘what’ is volunteering, it may well be volunteering in accordance with the comparative advantage of your gifts.  The comptroller of a company may accomplish more good by volunteering to help a homeless shelter clean up its books than she would by ladling soup into bowls.

And don’t forget the for-profit sector. The Christian conversation about money tends to short-change business in favor of alms. If the why is to serve God rather than self, then reinvesting into the business, expanding employment and at a generous wage, and improving service to the customer will often be a better way to serve than to give it away – especially in contrast to giving it away ostentatiously and racking up social status points.

According to Dr. Thornton, using money to focus on God instead of self paradoxically liberates the self, because idols enslave people. Idols are insatiable; we can never feed them enough of our lifeblood. The quest for financial status is unending and the thirst for luxury and security is unquenchable.

In case you feel like you missed out because Dr. Thornton did not write the ‘how to get rich’ book he had originally set out to write, have no fear – Moody has contracted with him to write that book now, too. Having helped the reader to get the ‘why’ right, now Dr. Thornton can in good conscience go on to write the ‘how’ of money. If you just can’t wait to read it, a lot of the material can be found at www.gettingrichright.com.

Dr. Thornton and I sat down across a Skype line (frugally using the free version) to talk about Jesus’ Terrible Financial Advice; the theology of double entry bookkeeping and the use of forensic accounting as an investment tool. You can listen to it all here

Chaplaincy has long been a reliable marker that leadership of a company is serious about ministering to the spiritual needs of its employees. David Miller, Director of the Faith and Work Initiative at Princeton has released a very compelling research paper on the case for Chaplaincy.

He states:

“The arena of spirituality in the workplace continues to garner growing scholarly and popular attention as evidenced by increased interdisciplinary scholarship, media reports, and corporate interest. However, workplace chaplaincy, an expression and a growing subset of the faith at work movement, has received very little scholarly attention. This paper fills that gap by explicating the business reasoning, socio-cultural explanations and spiritual imperatives behind organizational leaders’ decisions to incorporate workplace chaplains into their employee benefit programs. Unlike hospital or military chaplains, workplace chaplains work in corporate settings, including offices, factory floors, and manufacturing plants, helping to provide holistic employee care. Through interviews with senior organizational leaders, this study found that chaplains care for employees needs thus contributing to organizational commitment, employee wellbeing, reduced operational costs, reduced turnover/increased retention, and an overall positive, welcoming organizational culture. The paper ends with implications for future studies to unpack the potential risks and challenges associated with corporate chaplaincy, discover perceptions of employees and other constituents, and provide measures and metrics for evaluating chaplaincy programs.”

Microfinance loans, which took off in the decades between 1980 and now have had a different effect than originally expected, but this does not mean failure. To the contrary, research into the effects of microcredit show that these loans opened up a previously unknown financial world to the poor. Though they were not a savior from poverty, they are tool in the fight against it.

For a period of time from the 1980s to the early 2000s, “microloans” were all the rage in international development. The idea was simple enough:

By giving a very small loan to someone living in a poor country, you could help them expand a small business, which would lift their family out of poverty. When they pay back the loan, the money can be cycled to more borrowers, getting more families out of poverty.

Organizations offering microcredit to poor borrowers – many living on $2 or less per day – took off in those decades. Investors and donors poured money into microcredit, hundreds of organizations offered loans, and the number of borrowers worldwide skyrocketed to 211 million by 2013.

The microcredit movement has been undeniably successful in opening up financial services to poor people across many countries. But what has its track record been when it comes to lifting people out of poverty?

Over the past decade, this question has occupied researchers, who have conducted randomized studies across a variety of countries and settings. The findings have not supported the original hope for microcredit: They can’t find evidence that the loans have been lifting families out of poverty on average. Many concluded that the classic conception of microcredit was based much more on anecdotes than on robust evidence. Those results have in turn cooled the development community’s enthusiasm for microcredit.

But does this mean that microcredit has been a failure? Hardly.

Read the full story at Vox. 

Nexus Impact Advisors has recently published The Landscape for Christian Investing: A Brief Introduction. This booklet explores the socially responsible and impact investing marketplace through a Christian lens and is designed to inform and educate current stakeholders as well as those new to the industry.

In the booklet, the answer questions about socially responsible investing (SRI) and impact investing, as well as looking at the different types of Christian investing.

With the rapid growth of mainstream SRI and impact investing and the largely undefined Christian marketplace, this publication is an effort to address this knowledge gap and bring greater clarity to the space.

To download your copy, simply click on the image below.

There is more at stake in investing than the risk of losing our money. There is also the risk of losing life’s wholeness. In this video, you’ll hear Eventide CIO Finny Kuruvilla, MD PhD talk about the ethical dimensions of investing using a passage from the biblical book of Proverbs.

Watch the video from Eventide and read the full article below.

by Finny Kuruvilla

I want to take us back now, really to thousands of years from before where we’re standing at this moment, and we’re going to a very ancient book. This is the Book of Proverbs, which is a book in the bible. This particular passage is from the very first chapter of the Book of Proverbs.

Let’s read it together. It says, “My son, if sinful men entice you, do not give into them. If they say, ‘Come along with us, let’s lie in wait for innocent blood. Let’s ambush some harmless soul. Let’s swallow them alive like the grave, and whole like those who go down to the pit. We will get all sorts of valuable things, and fill our houses with plunder. Cast lots with us. We will all share the purse.’

My son, do not go along with them. Do not set foot on their paths, for their feet rush into evil. They are swift to shed blood. How useless to spread a net where every bird can see it. These men lie in wait for their own blood. They ambush only themselves. Such are the paths of all who go after ill-gotten gain. It takes away the life of those who get it.” That’s Proverbs, Chapter 1, Verses 10-19.

Well, let’s now think carefully about what we just read. The first observation that I’d like to make is to notice that culpability here is contemplated even for scenarios of mere financial participation. The passage reads, “Cast lots with us,” which basically means something like, “Put your money in with us, we will all share in the purse.” There’s some kind of common purse that this business venture is drawing from.

What is fascinating about this, is the author of Proverbs implores the son, implores the daughter, to avoid these bad profits. It’s phrased in this passage, “Ill-gotten gains,” which are profits that are made at the expense of others; profits that come from some activity that results in harm towards others.

In contrast, the biblical narrative calls us to derive our profits and our livelihood from good profits, from activities that are really the byproduct of serving well the needs of others. Thousands of years ago, the author of Proverbs was making a very simple but very profound statement that we need to be careful and not join into these schemes that are hatched by people that are about ill-gotten gain, bad profits, where there may be some kind of a common purse.

Now in fact, if you think about it, a mutual fund is in some sense a common purse where there’s one pool of capital, and the fund manager allocates out of that to various companies. We as a wise son or the wise daughter seek to avoid these schemes of bad profit in favor of the opportunities for good profit.