The Economics of Genesis with Jerry Bowyer

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Grow in wisdom and knowledge by connecting with a community of thousands of Christians striving to be good and faithful stewards at Faithfi.com or by downloading the Faithfi app. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. Genesis 1 verses 1 and 2. Hi, I'm Rob West. I'm sure you're more than familiar with those first lines of the Bible, but are you aware of the economic implications of the creation story? Jerry Boyer fills us in today and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, Jerry Boyer is our resident economist and regular contributor here at Faithfi and World News Group. Jerry, great to have you back.

Great to be with you as always. Jerry, before we dive into this, I think it's important to note for our audience that you have spent a considerable amount of time in the book of Genesis. This really has been something that you've committed a good portion of your adult years to studying, isn't it? Yes, Susan and I, my wife and I spent five years reading through the early chapters of Genesis in Hebrew every night together as our personal Bible study. And that's how we learned Hebrew by reading it instead of taking Hebrew courses. That's how people learn languages, right? That's how Hebrew kids learned Hebrew. So we kind of decided to learn it the same way. And we did that for really a spiritual reason.

It sounds highly intellectual, but, you know, I had been through a kind of a health crisis and I thought I need to get closer to God. And what's God's love language? Well, two thirds of the Bible is in Hebrew.

So apparently Hebrew is one of his love languages. So we just went through that over and over and over again. And, you know, the first day we can only read one word, Barashit, in the beginning. But then each time we'd maybe three words, four words, then a whole verse. And then we go back to the beginning.

We just did that. We got to the point where it was, you know, Genesis up through nine, just over and over and over again. Not just doing this, you know, in a scholarly, intellectual way, but with a lot of prayer saying to God, what do you want us to learn from this text? And the important thing we got from God is don't ask the Bible the questions that you want to ask. Ask the Bible what questions it wants to be asked. Well, in other words, we bring our questions to Genesis, like creationism versus evolution, for example. Those are good conversations to have.

But when Genesis was written, no one believed in evolution. So it wasn't about that. So we have to ask what we're asking the Bible, we're asking the Holy Spirit. What do you want me to ask you? So, yeah, we put a lot of time in on that. And the chancellor of a university asked me about that. And then I told him the study we've been doing. And he said, well, that's a master's thesis.

So enroll in our university. And I said, I can't go to seminary. I don't have time.

He said, you won't go to seminary. Just write it up. And if it is what it sounds like, it will be a master's thesis.

It has to be 80 pages long. Well, I spent a year and a half on it. It was 240 pages long. And so that's how I have a seminary degree without ever going to seminary.

They examined it. They gave me the degree. So but it was never going to be about a degree.

It was never even going to be about teaching. It was just about wanting to get closer to God and starting out with his love language. Wow.

I love that. Well, we're going to be the beneficiaries of some of what God has given you through the study of the book of Genesis today. Jerry, why don't we start with those first verses? And I'm sure most of us take it for granted that the earth was formless, void and dark in the beginning. But why is it important that we know that?

It's important that we know that, I think, for two very important reasons. One, it will help us understand the rest of what goes on in Genesis one, because if the earth is formless, meaning disorganized, and it's void, meaning empty, and it's dark, meaning there isn't light, then that's the work program that God is dealing with. And so what we see is for the next few days, basically Genesis one through three is what? Dealing with formlessness. He's separating things, separating the waters above from the waters below, separating the light from the dark, separating the dry land from the sea. See, that's separation stuff.

That's dealing with formless. Then what he does is he starts filling it. So what do we get?

Well, we get the sky filled with the greater light and the lesser light and kokovim, the stars. So he fills, once he separates, once he creates the shelving, then he puts stuff on the shelf. And then he fills the seas with, you know, with fish and he fills the land, first of all, with plants, but then later on with animals.

And then ultimately he fills it with us. What's the first thing he does? Well, the first thing he does is he turns on the light, which isn't, isn't that what you do in your workday?

Yes. First thing I do, you know, when I get up and I come down in the morning, I go into my office and I turn on the light. And so did God. Now, God didn't need the light turned on, but it's analogous. We're kind of like him. So he turns on the light in the beginning of the day, just like we turn on the light in the beginning of the day. Then we get organized and then we start filling what's empty. Wow.

I love it. We're just getting started here today, folks. We're talking with Jerry Boyer, our resident economist.

We're talking Genesis. What does God have for us in this incredible book and his word? We'll continue to unpack this just around the corner.

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Nor do they provide investment advice. So glad to have you with us today on faith and finance. Joining me today are resident economist Jerry Boyer.

He's a regular contributor here and also at the World News Group. We're talking today about Genesis, that creation account, and what are the financial implications to that? The economic implications and even God's plan for us as workers to take his creation and order it and improve it. And what can we pull out from these first verses in this book and apply to our lives? And before the break, Jerry, you were talking about the significance of the earth that was formless and void and dark in the beginning. And then God separates and he fills and he turns on the light.

Let's continue to move this. There are, of course, several expressions here in the first chapter of Genesis that you can shed some light on. What does it mean when God creates and the Bible says it was so? Is that important?

Yeah, it really is important. And you have to read the text really carefully to see that because there's something kind of confusing, which is in several of the creation acts. God says, let us do such and such. And it was so. And then he made such and such. And if you look at that carefully, it looks out of order, doesn't it? Shouldn't it was so be after he does it? Yeah.

Right. So whenever the Bible looks wrong, it's not going to change. We have to. So the Bible's not weird. We are.

There's something we're missing. And having wrestled with this for a long time, I concluded that it was so doesn't mean that this is how it happened. It means this is how it was established or decided by he came. That word Cain can also mean established or decided. So why is that so important?

What it means is that God did not act unilaterally. Let us do this. Let's discuss it. Ah, we agree. And on this basis, we're going to go and do it. Now, who's he discussing it with?

Well, that's a tough one, right? Is he discussing it with the angels or the three members of the Trinity discussing it with one another? You know, I don't have a definitive answer to that. All I'm saying is you don't have God the Father just doing things on his own. You have a discussion and a consensus and then action, which I think certainly has a lot of importance for what we're doing in our daily work. We turn on the lights. We organize what's disorganized. We fill what's empty. But that's all done in collaboration. That's all done from a place of agreement.

Fascinating, Jerry. Well, if we move along, the Bible also says in Genesis 1 18 that God, quote, saw that it was good. What are the implications of that verse?

Well, the implications are when you're doing work, you have to stop and examine it and see if it's good. Even God looked at his past work. And there are a lot of things that God does that he doesn't have to do here, by the way. God didn't have to get the buy in from the angels.

Right. You know, God was perfectly capable of doing this without the angels saying, oh, yeah, we agree. I mean, he's the boss.

He can do it. But he still got buy in from them. God doesn't have to go back and look over his work and say, hmm, that I do OK.

But he did anyway. And I think that's for us. And I think that's we're in the image of God. So when we see God creating, we should see ourselves there. Now, God can create out of nothing. We're not infinite.

So we can't totally see ourselves there. But given the fact that the end of all of this, God is going to say, let us create man in our own image. I think that means that we should go back and reread this saying, well, if we're in the image of God in his work, how does he work?

Well, one of the things he does is he looks at what he did and he evaluates it and saw that it was good. One of the other really important implications for this is any theology of work that sees material or non-spiritual things as inferior is saying that God is wrong when he saw that it was good. The material world is good. Yes, it's fallen, but that doesn't mean it's not good. And if we think the material world isn't good and we have to be spiritual only, well, we're saying that God was wrong when it says, you know, by Elohim Kitov that God saw that it was good.

Interesting. Well, he takes it to another level, Jerry. After he creates humanity, he says it was very good. So what makes humans different than the rest of his creation according to this? We're the thing in the creation that's most like him, which means that the forming and filling and turning on the lights and looking and seeing whether it's good is something that we uniquely do. I mean, animals do things. They go hunting for food or whatever, but they don't go back and say, how have I been doing so far?

I want to look at my work and how am I doing? Or they might form through instinct or fill through instinct. But we actually are like God. And so we're very good because we're the thing that's most like him in the universe. By the way, side note here, that's why we shouldn't be afraid that A.I. is going to replace humans because we can't do better than very good. You know, so when God created us, he created the best thing in creation and we will never create something better than us.

They might be A.I. might be good tools, but it's more like that inanimate matter. It's more like the sun and moon and stars and water and everything else.

It's not like us. Yeah. Oh, that's really helpful, Jerry. All right. Then what is humanity's relationship with the garden, with the earth? Yeah. And by the way, it's the garden and the earth. It's not the same.

And this is an important thing. So what's the relationship with the garden? Well, the garden was already done. It's a garden. It wasn't wilderness. It said God planted a garden in the east of Eden.

So it's already cultivated. So that's a model for us. So the man and the woman, Adam, later on, Esha and Esha and later on, she's called Eve. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on with names here. They're all the same people, but names change. They tell us things. Maybe that we'll do that in another interview.

Sure. Essentially, when they're in the garden, they're naked. They're children.

They're apprenticing. God showed them how to build a garden. The rest of the earth is still wild at that point. It's not the earth isn't done. God's part of it is done at the end of Genesis one.

But our part is just beginning. So we look at how God does things in the garden and we apprentice with him. And then he says, OK, you know, son, daughter, now go out and do to the rest of the earth what I did with the garden. So the language about garden is serve and protect.

The language about earth is subdue and fill. So any anti development economics, anything that says, well, the first thing we need to think about when we think about the creation is what humans shouldn't do. Right. And we have to leave things pristine. I'm sorry, we're not supposed to leave it pristine. There are limits on what we're supposed to do. We shouldn't pollute. We shouldn't destroy.

But those are limits on an order. And it seems to me in the modern world, all of the conversation about our relationship with the earth is all about not developing it rather than a biblical approach, which is we're supposed to develop it. But there are guardrails on what we do when we do that.

We need to get that back. Otherwise we will and already are losing economic growth because we no longer see ourselves as having the obligation to fill the earth. It's not a garden yet. You know, we didn't have to fix the garden. We just live there. What we what we are supposed to change the earth.

We've got just a minute left. We're going to have to pick this up with another interview. But, Jerry, everything we need is in those raw materials. God's creation. Right. Whether it's a seed that becomes a harvest or sand that becomes a microprocessor.

Exactly. And we're disobedient if we don't turn the sand into a microprocessor. We're disobedient if we don't turn the seed into plants.

It's not a matter of optionality. It is the first command given to mankind and it's never rescinded. Other commands are given because when sin enters into the world, we have to war against sin and we have to believe in Jesus in order to have forgiveness. But none of that sets aside basic human nature, which is we're supposed to fill the earth and subdue it. And we've lost that.

Europe especially has lost it and it's economically stagnant. And we need to get that creation mandate back if we're ever going to get back to economic growth and real human flourishing. And our audience can know today their work done unto the Lord is a part of God's plan and can promote human flourishing, right? It is the only way to human flourishing.

Otherwise, we stagnate, fight over scraps rather than doing God's will in the world. Wow. Powerful. Jerry, we're going to have to do a part two on this.

I can already tell. But that was really encouraging and insightful. Thanks for sharing that with us today. My pleasure. God bless you.

That was our resident economist, Jerry Boyer, with a new look at the creation story from an economist perspective. All right. We'll be right back with your questions. The number to call, 800-525-7000.

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That's kingdomadvisors.com. I'm so glad to have you with us today on faith and finance. I'm Rob West. We've got a few lines open today for your calls and questions. That number, 800-525-7000. You can call right now, 800-525-7000.

Let's go out to New York. Hi, Anita. How can I help you?

Hi, Rob. I recently borrowed on my life insurance. All right. And I'm just basically wanting to know if I'm going to have to declare that on my income taxes next year.

No. A loan from a life insurance policy is not taxable. The exception to that would be if the policy terminates before you repaid the loan. Why would a policy terminate? Well, if it was canceled or if you surrendered it or if you didn't pay the premiums, then if you had an outstanding loan, then that would become taxable in most cases.

But the loan itself, while the policy is still in force, is not taxable. Oh, okay. Well, that's terrific. Terrific, terrific. Thank you very much. I enjoy your program so much. Well, thank you. I have learned so much. I listen to you all the time. I'm delighted to hear that. That's very kind of you.

Will you call any time? Now, where in New York are you located? In the southern tier. Okay. Well, I bet it's beautiful there this time of year and probably not quite.

Right near Elmira. Oh, it's just beautiful. I can only imagine. Well, listen, Anita. God bless you. And if I can help you further in the future, please call us back. Let's go down to Florida. Hi, Tim. Go ahead. Hi, Rob. How are you doing today? Thanks for taking my call. I'm doing great.

Absolutely. I just want to thank you for picking up the torch with Larry Burkett. I used to listen to him a long time ago, too. In fact, I've even got his green envelope system that he has.

I still have it here. I love that. My question is that down here in Florida, you know, a lot of us have the 55 deed restriction homes and there's a lot of fees involved with these and quite a few of them have gone up. My question is that the particular one that I have that we signed up when we came in there is the recreation and fitness membership and it's deeded to the house.

And I wanted to find out two things. Is there any way that we can be able to contain these fees or the second thing is possibly get out of something like this? Yeah. You know, those deed restrictions are typically harder to change than the HOA rules because they're tied to the property deed itself, whereas the HOA's governance process can change the HOA rules. And so, you know, it's a complex process.

Normally, you need to have consent from a majority of the property owners and potentially even other parties like mortgage lenders, because again, it involves a deed. Have you raised this with the board or any other homeowners? Yeah. A lot of us have complained about it, but we can't get anywhere. They just tell us if we don't like it, you know, move. That's basically what it's been. Yeah.

Unfortunately, it's not an uncommon occurrence here. But, you know, I think the key is the HOA should represent the homeowners. And so I'd probably kind of talk this up with your neighbors and see if there's others who share your opinion. And if you can get enough of you that, you know, want to head in this direction, I think then approaching the board to say, listen, this group of us would like to explore this further. We realize it's not simple and yet it's important to us. And so perhaps, you know, we need to make this a priority moving forward. That would be the approach. You know, when you speak in numbers, you usually can get a little further than when you're on your own. Thanks for calling today. Let's go to Knoxville. Hi, GW.

How can I help? Yes, thanks. Appreciate that and appreciate the ministry that you have.

Well, thank you very much. The question will be about annuity. So a quick background is I'm going to return sixty five next month. I can retire. I have a pension coming and I'm probably I'm hoping that it'll be great to be good enough. I'm going to try to put off my Social Security for a few years.

I'm sure that you said it grows like eight percent a year every year I wait. So I'll probably try to let that bill do better than I could do anywhere. But my annuity, it's through work.

So when I retire, I have to do something with it. A friend of mine took the lump sum. He said he lost 18 percent. I assume that was taxes.

It could have been penalties. I don't know, but I would like to know what's the best move for me to do with that annuity so that I don't lose money. And maybe it can continue to grow and where to put it, where to put it and how to keep from losing the 18 percent he lost. Yeah, well, that should be a fairly simple solution to that. And that is, you know, if you take the lump sum option and it's in a tax deferred annuity, meaning it went in pre-tax, you should be able to roll it out to an IRA, an individual retirement account, which is not a taxable event. And so as long as you leave it in the IRA, you could reinvest it at that point. And you're only going to pay tax as you take the money out beyond fifty nine and a half.

There shouldn't be any penalty. So it would just be taxable and whatever the prevailing tax rate is for that calendar year. But again, you could push all that down the road by just rolling it to an IRA. I think the question is, what's better, the monthly payment or the lump sum payout against staying inside the IRA?

And it could go either way. You know, I think having an advisor help you compute the internal rate of return on the income stream if you take the annuity versus the lump sum. I prefer the lump sum just because it gives you access to the money if you need it. And if you don't need it because you're living modestly and your pension plus your Social Security, when you take it covers all of your expenses, then you could just let it continue to grow and start giving it away or leave it as an inheritance or both. And you'd have access to that money, you know, throughout the rest of your life and then you could pass it to the next steward.

So I like that. The only downside might be sometimes that the lump sum just doesn't make sense in light of what they're willing to give you as a monthly payout. And so you'd need somebody to just kind of analyze both numbers and say, yep, the monthly makes a lot more sense. And here's why or no, we think the lump sum makes sense.

And, you know, here's our calculation. So I'd love to have an advisor walk you through that decision. But at the end of the day, if you decide to take the lump sum, you should be able to do it without creating a taxable event. Does that make sense?

It does. So I don't really know the differences in the IRAs. I know there's traditional and there's Roth. But if I take the lump sum and I put it in the bank, figure out what to do with it, or just I have to have an account set up for it to go directly to.

Yeah. So it would be a traditional IRA, not a Roth, just because if you put it into the Roth, you've got to go ahead and pay the tax on it. And you would want to, if you decided you were going to have an advisor manage that for you, you'd want to pick that advisor first, because then he or she would open that IRA wherever they custody their client's assets. And then you just have it rolled over directly into that new account.

Otherwise, if you're going to do it yourself, you'd open the IRA first and then you'd roll the assets in. If you need an advisor, head to our website, faithbuy.com. God bless you, sir. So thankful for your calls, for you listening, being a part of the program. Thanks also for your great emails and encouragement that come through the mail as well. Let me say thanks to my team today. I certainly couldn't do this without them.

Taylor Standrich, Devin Patrick and Robert Youngblood, plus the incredible team behind those gentlemen here at Faith Buy. Amazing that I get to work with them every day. Hope you have a great day. May the Lord bless you and come back and join us tomorrow. We'll see you then. Bye bye.