Have you heard about the change happening across the U.S.? Learn more at JoinChristianCommunity.com. That's JoinChristianCommunity.com. Membership eligibility required. Each account is insured up to $250,000.
This institution is not federally insured. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.
Hi, I'm Rob West. That's from the Christmas story in Luke chapter 2. The angels announce the coming of the Savior to a group of shepherds. It sounds simple enough, but there's more to the story. Jerry Boyer joins us to talk about it.
Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, our guest, Jerry Boyer, is the author of The Maker vs. the Takers, What Jesus Really Said About Social Justice and Economics. It's a book loaded with amazing insights about Jesus' time on earth from an economic perspective, and I'd really encourage you to pick up a copy. Jerry, great to have you back.
Always a pleasure, my friend. Jerry, those angels carried probably the most important message in history, so why deliver it to shepherds? Weren't they the social outcasts? Yeah, that's an interesting point, because it's a little complex, because I've heard sermons about how shepherds were social outcasts.
And there is some evidence for that, but I think we kind of need to fill out just a little bit more historical detail. Shepherds were, under the tradition, social outcasts for the reason that you can't necessarily control where your sheep go. So your sheep might go into somebody else's property and eat their grass, thereby you're committing theft against your neighbor. Now that seems, you know, I mean, unless you have a really big flock of sheep and you don't have fences, that's probably not going to be a huge problem. But they like to multiply rules, so shepherds were seen as negative.
However, you have to add something. The temple ran on sheep, right? The temple had a sacrificial system and it used a lot of sheep, which means that there is a sacred purpose to sheep.
Therefore, what they did is they set aside a certain area. You know, in those days that would say in that country, there were shepherds, country in Greek, chora. There was a country, not like a nation, but a zone, a province, set aside where sheep could be raised because they needed sheep for the temple system. Which of course implies, which is in fact historically true, that the area of Bethlehem and those environs, that country, was where sheep were raised for the temple system. And if you stop for a moment and think about that, and by the way, we have it in the archaeology that, you know, Bethlehem is not that far from Jerusalem. And you had a tower called the Migdal Adair, which was sort of at the upper left corner of Bethlehem.
So it was like a short tower. And when sheep were basically herded to Jerusalem, someone would stand over and look down and look at the sheep and say, Oh, wait, that one splotched, or that one has a missing ear, pull that out, so that they were only unblemished sheep that could be used in the temple sacrificial system. In other words, Jesus, the Lamb of God, was born in the city where lambs of God for the temple were bred, which I think is an extremely powerful foreshadowing, even there in the gospel story of Jesus's ultimate purpose and death. It's almost like, Jerry, God had a master plan in all of this, huh?
It's almost like it really is. And what that means is that God's master plan includes economics. So different places in the world specialize in different things, right?
Wall Street is finance, and Silicon Valley is technology, and here in Pittsburgh where I am, industry and steel, and now, you know, healthcare. So regions have regional economic concentration. Capernaum and Bethsaida were fishing villages, for example. You know, Tyre and Sidon, they produced dye. By the way, a dye discovered by a dog, so that shed certain light on Jesus's conversation with the Syrophoenician woman. So every place that Jesus set his foot was a place where there was an economy. And if we know what that economy was, then we'll understand more of what Jesus is saying in those various places. Now, Jesus wasn't actually saying anything in Bethlehem yet. God the Father was saying something by sending Jesus. Jesus wasn't speaking yet.
But in God's providence, the center of creation of sacrificial lambs, lambs of God, was there. So God's plan includes economics, and sometimes Christians tend to think money talk is dirty talk. No, the economy is God's plan too, just like family life, just like church life.
That's exactly right. We're talking with Jerry Boyer today about the economics of the Nativity. What about Mary's economic philosophy?
Did she have one? And what about the birth of Jesus threatening the ruling temple class in Jerusalem? We'll talk about that, plus the Magi, when we come back with Jerry Boyer, This is Faith in Finance.
We'll be right back. If you believe in and have benefited from Faith by, would you consider becoming a monthly faith by patron? Learn more about the faith by patrons membership at faith by dot com and click Give. What if your everyday purchases could support biblical causes with the all new cash rewards visa card from Christian Community Credit Union? A portion of every purchase goes to ministries that spread the gospel, combat human trafficking and protect vulnerable children, plus earn unlimited one point five percent cash back. There's a joint Christian community dot com membership eligibility required. Each account is insured up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
This institution is not federally insured. It's great to have you with us today on faith and finance. I'm sure you're going to read Luke Chapter two at some point during this Christmas season, as you think about and reflect on the Christmas story, the birth of Christ. Well, what about the fact that there's an economic backdrop to everything we read in scripture?
And could that, in fact, enlighten what God is telling us through the scriptures? Well, we're talking about that today with Jerry Boyer, our resident economist. Before the break, Jerry was sharing with us about the economics of Bethlehem and perhaps how that was foreshadowing what Jesus would ultimately do to pay for the sins of the world on the cross. But, Jerry, what about Mary? Obviously, a central figure in this story. We know a little more about her than we do Joseph.
Does she have an economic philosophy? Yeah, she pretty clearly does, because when she goes to visit Cousin Elizabeth, she sings a little song or writes a little poem that history knows as the Magnificat. So why is it called the Magnificat? Because she starts out by saying, my soul magnifies the Lord or magnify the Lord, my soul.
And in Latin, that's Magnificat. So a lot of great music has been written around that. And there's a lot of economics about the rich being torn down, those who are on the thrones being deposed, about the rich being sent away empty, and about the poor being filled, about the humility of God's handmaiden. She's referring to herself that way. There's a lot of economics and kind of politics going on there.
And again, remember, you have to look at location. So when the angel announces to Mary that this is going to happen, you don't have a Magnificat. You don't get the Magnificat until she visits Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a Judean. And so remember, Judea was richer and a more hierarchical society, more kind of cronyist in many ways. There was a kind of the ruling class was kind of living off of others. It was a society that was more like there was an aristocracy there. You don't really have that in Galilee. I mean, look at how Mary and Joseph, they're living in a humble village and she's a descendant of David. So you didn't have a functioning aristocracy, but you did down in the south. And Elizabeth was of such high status that her husband was able to offer sacrifices, or I should say incense, although incense is a kind of sacrifice in the temple, because that's when it's announced that John will be conceived. So their higher status, their higher socioeconomic status.
So there's a reversal. Mary goes to the hill country of Judea. And the first thing Elizabeth does is subordinate herself to Mary. And so does John in her womb, subordinates himself to Jesus.
He leaps for joy. And Elizabeth marvels that the mother of our Lord would come to me. Now, if Mary didn't have Jesus in her womb, then Mary would have been subordinate. There wouldn't have been, oh my, my cousin Mary is coming to visit me.
I am so honored. Mary was lower status. But in this case, there's a reversal. And that reversal, only after that does Mary give the song, the Magnificat, about a reversal. The aristocracy is going to be set aside and the humble, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount and on the Plain, the meek will inherit the land, will inherit the earth. And interestingly enough, and I credit my wife Susan with noticing this in the book, we actually line up statements that Mary makes in that Magnificat song with statements that Jesus makes in the Sermon on the Plain, which is his sermon to the ruling class, which is different than the Sermon on the Mount.
And some of the words are almost verbatim. In other words, Mary's song gets taught to Jesus, her approach gets taught to Jesus, and then in one of his most important sermons, he recapitulates in that sermon some of what he learned from his mother. By the way, the Gospels don't say where Mary was raised, but Eusebius, the church historian, says she was raised in Sepphoris, which is near Nazareth, which was the financial capital of Galilee, and it was also a cultural capital. So it's fairly likely that Mary would have been economically and culturally sophisticated.
They had Greek theaters there, they had banks there. Mary would have been around sort of the ways of the big city in the region, would have been exposed to multiple languages. So she's humble morally in that she humbles herself, but she writes this beautiful poem and she's raised in a metropolitan, sophisticated area. So she's fairly likely the one who was the big intellectual influence on Jesus. And people don't like to think about Jesus having intellectual influence, but he's God and man. The human nature learned, right?
The divine nature didn't learn, but he's fully God and he's fully man, so he learned. So the God-man learns from his mother, and that shows up in the Sermon on the Mount exactly how much he learned from her. Wow, that's fascinating. All right, Jerry, the other economic backdrop that we have going on here is the fact that the birth of Jesus threatens the ruling temple class in Jerusalem. How does that help to illuminate this story? Well, it's interesting. Mary and Herod both understand more than anybody else around them what the birth of Jesus means.
They just react differently to it. Mary understands that it's going to upset everything and bring justice to the world, and she wants that. Herod understands that it's going to upset everything and bring justice to the world. And being an unjust, oppressive tyrant, he doesn't want that. In some ways, I think Herod understood the birth of Jesus more than many Christians do, because we think he just came to change our hearts.
But if he changes our hearts, everything else changes, too. He came, the prophesied Messiah was going to bring justice to the earth. He was going to cleanse the temple.
Hold on a second, what? He's going to cleanse the temple? A whole lot of people's living depended on a dirty temple, a crooked temple, a temple where when people went to buy sacrifices, they had to pay double because the money changers were giving unjust exchange rates. So, so Herod understood that his livelihood and the livelihood is, by the way, says Herod was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him. Think about how corrupt Jerusalem was, that the birth of a Messiah who would bring justice to Israel was seen as trouble in the national capital.
I mean, you can imagine that in America. Let's say someone says Jesus is going to come back and get rid of all the evil in America, and everyone in Washington, D.C. is really worried. You know, we all should be worried, but they were especially worried. They understood the Messiah was going to cleanse the temple. He was going to set things right. He was going to treat the poor equally, and that would have ruined their lives.
It would have ruined their livelihoods in particular. By the way, that's why later in the Gospels, it wasn't until Jesus told a very explicitly economic parable that Luke says that they discerned that he was talking about them, and then they set out to destroy him. When Jesus confronted the money changers, he was confronting the evil of the temple and starting in motion the cleansing of the temple, which actually eventually ended up to the destruction of the temple and the destruction of all Jerusalem in 70 A.D. So the people who worshiped power in some sense got the power implications of Jesus's message better than we do. Wow.
Jerry, quickly, we've got just a minute left. Of course, in Matthew chapter 2, the Magi come to worship the baby Jesus and give him very expensive gifts. What was timely about that? Well, I think what's timely about that is the gifts that match the gifts that are described in Torah for the temple. And basically, by giving him things that you would bring to the temple, basically that starts the theme in the Gospels, which is throughout, that the temple is completely corrupt and that Jesus is the other temple. So throughout the Gospels, you have a competition between two temples. One temple devours widows' houses, Jesus says. The other temple feeds widows and raises them up from sick beds and feeds them out of himself. So basically, the gospel is in some sense a conflict between two kingdoms, two temples and two economic models. One is taker and the other is maker. Maybe that would be a good title for a book. I think so. In fact, Jerry's the author of The Maker vs. The Taker is What Jesus Really Said About Social Justice and Economics.
Pick it up. You'll see this conversation and much more. Great stocking stuff. Yes, it is.
Absolutely. Jerry, thanks for stopping by, buddy. Thank you. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas. We'll be right back with your questions. 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000.
I'm Rob West and we'll be right back. Stick around. Because of my past health history, finding affordable healthcare was nearly impossible. But then I found CHM, where costs are not adjusted based on medical history. Christian Healthcare Ministries even provides the freedom to choose my own providers.
And the best part? CHM members pray for me. Too good to be true?
It's not. I'm a proud member of Christian Healthcare Ministries. And if you think it could be right for you, learn more at chministries.org slash faith by.
Are you struggling to fit your faith into your practice as a Christian financial advisor? The certified kingdom advisor designation teaches you a step by step process to confidently deliver advice that aligns with Christian values. Discover the skills you need to help your clients make a kingdom impact. Get started today by enrolling in the CKA educational program at kingdomadvisors.com slash get certified.
That's kingdomadvisors.com slash get certified. You're listening to Faith and Finance, where we talk about how we handle God's resources. And as you know, we live in a world that often feels unstable with economic and political uncertainty. FaithFi exists to replace the financial lies of the world with the truth of the gospel. So would you consider partnering with us? Help us share this incredible news.
Send your year-end gift to faithfi.com and thanks in advance. Now, let's talk to Ana in New York. Go right ahead. Hi. Sorry, I was having another call coming in. Oh, no problem.
So I just had a quick question. So I had about a year and a half ago had bought a 2014 Buick Encore car and I have been paying about $450 a month on this car. And at the end of paying off this car, it's going to be about $25,000. So currently I am not making enough money to be able to keep up with that payment. And I still owe another $20,000 on it. What do you think, like what can I do or like what are my options to be able to either get into a cheaper car or to pay this car off? Yeah.
No, I certainly understand that. And let me ask you a couple of questions. You said you've got a payment of $450 a month. You still owe $20,000 on it. What do you think it's worth, Ana?
So last time I took it to get it appraised, which was back in June, they were telling me between like $12,000 and $13,000. Wow. Okay. Now when you say took it to get appraised, did you take it somewhere to sell it like CarMax or something like that? No, I took it back to the dealership that I had previously bought it from.
Okay. Yeah, I mean I'd probably go look at edmunds.com, E-D-M-U-N-D-S, edmunds.com or kellybluebookkbb.com. Look at the private sale value. So if you were to sell it outright on your own, you'll want to see what the actual value of the car is. They'll give you that number and you can tell them what make and model and miles and the condition and all the features, that kind of thing.
And you'll get a pretty accurate reading. The reality is used cars are selling, they're still elevated, although we're down 6% from last year, we were up 18% the year before. So used cars are still priced pretty high. But it sounds like you are, even if it's worth $15,000 and not $12,000, you're still upside down and you don't have the $5,000 to come out of pocket if you were to sell it for $15,000. And so you're going to have a deficient balance there. You're not going to be able to satisfy the note.
So what do you do? Well, typically a dealer would tell you, well, come in, we'll get you in a lesser car that's less expensive and we'll roll the loan in. That's not going to work in this situation. That's just going to put you deeper in debt. I mean, the other option is you can ask for a loan modification where you'd work with the lender to change the terms of your loan because it's in their best interest to help you continue to make this payment so they don't have to sell this car for auction. And they're going to get far less than you owe on it. They know that.
And so it's in their best interest to work with you. You could request a deferral where they agree to defer the auto loan payments that are no longer affordable. That would involve skipping a couple of payments.
I'm not excited about that just because that's, again, just going to put you in a bigger hole. You could refinance it, but that's not going to be helpful here just because, again, you're upside down. And then the other option is you sell it privately and somehow you get maybe a personal loan or something like that to the bank and then find another cheaper way. I mean, maybe you're buying a scooter or something that can really take your cost of ownership way down and focus on getting this extra $5,000 or $7,000 paid off. The other option is you just continue to make this a learning opportunity and trim your budget, maybe pick up an extra few hours at work or pick up a second job so you can keep paying the $4.50 a month.
And then next time around, let's not get into the same hole. Unfortunately, there's not really any great options. It's really just a matter of which is the best of the options you have available to you. Does that make sense?
Yeah. So I think at this point, number one, let's understand what is the true private sale value of this car. Edmunds or KBB.com can help you with that. Can you get a loan to make up for the difference? Could you get a personal loan? I don't want you to borrow money from friends and family, but could you get a personal loan from your bank where you could get out from under this thing? But now you're without transportation. So the best option, even though it's not great, is for you to probably stay in the car you own, continue to pay on it to you, at least get the balance down to what it's worth. And the way to do that is probably to go back to that budget, look for every opportunity to cut back, try to pick up an extra side gig or something at work that's going to get your income up, and just try to hang on to this car and stay current as best you can. I think that's going to be my best advice right now.
That's probably not what you want to hear, but there's not a silver bullet here. You can do this. We'll ask the Lord to give you some wisdom as you navigate this, Ana, and we appreciate your call today. To Park Rapids, Minnesota, Evelyn, go right ahead. Hi, can you hear me? I can. Thanks for taking my call.
I just have a question. We sold our home and we were hoping to find a home, just take that money and buy a home we're downsizing, and we haven't found one. So we have to rent for six months, and we're wondering if there's something we can do with that money that we can, instead of just putting it in a checking account, can we do a money market, or is there some other way to generate a little bit of savings to help it grow a little bit in six months?
Yeah, there is. I think your best option right now is probably just a high-yield savings account. I mean, you could get a little bit more, maybe an extra half to three-quarters of a point in a six-month CD, but that gives you less flexibility because you may find something a little quicker. But with a high-yield savings, you could get four and a half.
In some cases, you could get as much as 5% on your money with FDIC insurance, zero minimum balance, zero monthly fees. How much money are we talking about? What were the proceeds of the home sale? About $350,000 we have.
Okay. Yeah, so the great thing is that over 12 months, you could get $17,500, so in six months, you're talking almost $9,000, which would go a long way to help paying for the expenses, the closing costs, when you turn around and buy. And hopefully, at lower mortgage rates a year from now or at least six months from now, we think that these 7.5% mortgage rates will come down probably to about the highest fives by the end of next year. So I would head to bankrate.com, Evelyn. That's bankrate.com, and you'll find the very best banks with the most compelling and highest yields right now. You're going to see banks that are five star rated with FDIC insurance between four and a half and 5%. I think that's your best option. Thanks for listening. I hope you'll make plans to join us again next time for another edition of Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.
