Finances

In this post, I will quickly cover finance basics from the Bible.

First off, tithing. Tithing is a requirement, it is God's 10% of what you earn, to be used for his ministry. It is the first 10%, not after expenses, or anything like that.

Leviticus 27:32 "And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman's staff, shall be holy to the Lord."

For us today, that 10% would be money, cattle were very close to being money at the time this verse was said, and could be used to barter for all kinds of things. At this time, the money would be given to the church.

If you were in a place where cattle was still used as money, that would of course be fine, and even in rich countries there are alternative methods to pay tithes, often times for extremely rich people so that they do not have to waste money on taxes. For instance, let's say you are a high-level business man. You do not tithe on your unrealized gains (the value of your business), instead you would tithe on your salary and other cash earnings, and tithe on the value of your business once you sell it (there is some debate over this, but to do otherwise can often be impossible). A common business strategy now after a company goes public is to never sell the shares, and instead take out a loan against them, as paying the interest on that loan is cheaper than paying taxes. In this situation, you would give 10% of your stock once the company goes public. (churches in the US and many other countries have tax-advantages as they are charities, so this is the smartest way to do this).

Now-a-days rather than it being required you give to your closest church physically, that may preach all sorts of Unbiblical principals, and is really no church at all (things such as female headship, child murder, female pastors, it's okay to be weak, it's okay to be gay, cut your willy off, molest your kids, etc.) focus on giving to the big C Church, people who are focused on building Christ's mission.

This could be a physical church, or it could come in all sorts of other manner. It could be an online ministry, it could be a missionary. The point is for the money to go to the best possible purpose you can find that advances God's ministry. Which can actually be quite a difficult thing to do, you of course want to be a good shepherd of God's money, and don't want to give to evil child-sacrificing churches (looking at you Mormons, stop calling yourselves Christians), of which there are many, and good churches or similar are few.

And the more you earn the less simple it becomes. If you are earning a low amount right now, and for that reason you say you can't tithe, that is absolute foolishness. Why would God bless you when you steal from him? Malachi 3:8 "Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions."

Mark 12:41-44 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

This woman gave all that she had and was commended by Jesus for doing so, once again, not a requirement, but 10% is a requirement regardless of how poor or rich you are.

Proverbs 3:9-10 "Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine."

The truth is it's actually easy to tithe when poor, and hard when rich. If you are earning $10,000 a year, it is $1,000, and to find a good home for $1,000 is simple. If you were that business person we talked about before, when your company goes public you could suddenly have realized-gains of $1,000,000,000 in a single year, now it's on you to tithe $100,000,000 on that. Think for a moment how difficult it would be to find good homes for all of that money, especially if you are working as many hours as a person like that would be already.

Here's how God sees it - Luke 16:10 " “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much."

I'm going to wrap up tithing with one last point and reference. And it's a long one, buckle up.

The Parable of the Talents

"“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’"

This parable hits so many points in so few verses that it is amazing. First, tithing. In this parable, the master is God, the servants are us, all of our money comes from God, he just lets us have it for a bit to invest it. The faithful servants invested all of the money, then when God returned they gave 100% of it to him (God had full control of their finances, which is also what giving the tithe symbolizes), then God gives the good servants even more. Meanwhile the wicked slothful servant buried the money in the ground, today that would be called a saving's account. He didn't use the money, and on top of that he insulted God to his face basically calling God a thief. His money of course gets taken away, and he gets sent to Hell for using the money poorly.

Romans 10:9 "because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." By his actions, this servant breaks the "confess with your mouth" part, God is all powerful and all knowing and his servant showed that he wouldn't listen to God, and it also shows that he does not believe in his heart (God is all powerful, trust his directions fool), and thus that is why God would send him to Hell.

The parable above has other meanings as well, one more is simply investing money, even after the 10%. Money should not sit idle, don't roost on it like a dragon. Now, in this verse he tells the wicked servant that he should have at least put it with the banker, but this is not the same today. A banker back then you could be seeing a 10-20% return annually or more, banks then are not the same as banks now. A similar investment today could be seen as putting money in a mostly-safe mutual fund, or similarly safe investments such as buying farm land and renting it out.

And, one last meaning. You may know that a talent was a denomination of money at that time, we estimate it was 33 kg (~72 lbs) of gold. Today those would be worth $1,400,000 each.

But, this also has another meaning because Jesus is a genius. Talent can also be literally talking about God-given talents, otherwise known as skills or abilities. If you ever meet a retiree who sits at home all day watching wheel of fortune, despite at one point being extremely smart and skillful, they are also the wicked and slothful servant for not using their abilities that God loaned to them. And we can even see these abilities in turn be taken away from them, after a certain age if you don't give your brain hard tasks frequently your brain will wither away even faster - this is a large portion of what causes Dementia/Alzheimers. And then all that they own disappears as they fall victim to scam after scam, or their kids take complete control of their finances - AS THEY DESERVE. Don't be this person.

And I'm not saying retirement is wrong here, retirement is the ability to go do something else after being stuck waging for your life, it isn't a free pass to sip martinis on the beach the rest of your life. It also isn't wrong to take time off, but to sit idly for 10-15 years? That is sloth.

And one last final semi-related point I wanted to make here. An incredible amount of Christians think it is wrong to be rich. This is not true, and is sold by evil churches that want to scam you out of more money than you should ever give them - WHICH IS NOTHING, LEAVE THEM TO ROT.

It is however wrong, to love money more than you love God, God comes first, not money (it is also wrong to love money more than you love people). 1 Timothy 6:10 "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs."

Money is the apex tool, but just like most other tools if you use it poorly it can and will hurt you. These wicked churches however like to preach that money itself is evil, this is a blatant lie and is a red-flag for any church you attend. Usually they use Matthew 19:24-25 to try to support this.

"And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

If anyone quotes Matthew 19:23-24 without the two verses that follow it, they are blatantly trying to deceive you, or are deceived themselves (a pastor should know this, so they are automatically lumped in the deceiver pile, they have no excuses Leviticus 5:17 "If anyone sins, doing any of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done, though he did not know it, then realizes his guilt, he shall bear his iniquity.")

Matthew 19:25-26 "25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Jesus wasn't talking about rich people being evil here, he was saying that they aren't better than others (as people at the time thought), and just like everyone else they can not be saved on merit alone, they still need Jesus or they are doomed to Hell. If you've ever wondered why there aren't many rich Christians, churches spewing garbage like above pushes them away. Don't be like those churches.