The Bible On Work

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And it's available in all 50 states and around the world. Learn more at chministries.org slash faith buy. Happy Labor Day. It's a great day to pause and reflect on one of God's most important financial principles, working for a living. Hi, I'm Rob West. Today we take a deep dive into Scripture to learn God's view of work. There's more to it than you might think. Then we take your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Okay, the first thing we have to do is put to rest the misconception that work is punishment for the fall. We know that's not true from the very first verse of the Bible, Genesis 1, 1. It reads, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So we see that God was at work even before man existed. And of course, he labored six days to create the heavens and the earth, everything within them. And finally, he created man in his own image and commanded him to rule over every living thing on earth. Later, we see in Genesis 2 15, that God gave Adam specific instructions about his labor in the garden. It says, Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And just a few verses later, God creates Eve from Adam's rib so that she could be his helper and labor with him in the garden.

All of this was before the fall. So it's correct to say that work itself is not a punishment. And I think we can assume that working in the garden was quite pleasant.

Of course, that was not to last. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of life and were cast out of the garden. That's where some might get the idea that work became punishment. But I still would not describe work performed after the fall as punishment. I think it's important to note that many translations of the Bible distinguish between work and toil. In Genesis 3 17, God tells Adam, cursed is the ground because of you.

Through painful toil, you will eat food from it all the days of your life. So after the fall, work becomes less pleasant. But that doesn't mean that work itself is cursed. It may not always be pleasant, but God continues to bless those who work diligently and honor him. An example of this is in Ruth 2 19. It reads, And her mother-in-law said to her, Where do you glean today?

And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, The man's name with whom I worked today is Boaz.

Of course, Ruth would marry Boaz, bear him a son named Obed, who would become the grandfather of David. I think we can say God blessed her work. And later in Proverbs 22 29, God again says, Diligence in performing our work well will be rewarded. It says, Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings.

He will not stand before obscure men. And in Ecclesiastes 2 24, we find there is nothing better for a person than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God. Work is also mentioned frequently in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul often incorporates work into the proper behavior of believers. An important theme in his teachings about work is that God is our true master and that we should work diligently with a positive attitude, because doing it will point others to Christ. Colossians 3 23 and 24 reads, Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. You see, this doesn't mean you can't look for another job if you feel God leading you somewhere else. It just means that wherever you work, you should exemplify Christ, whom you represent. In Ephesians 6 7, Paul says, With good will render service as to the Lord and not to men. And Paul expands on this in 1 Thessalonians 4 11 and 12.

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need. But it seems not everyone in the Thessalonian church was following Paul's direction. Some believers apparently didn't want to work, and he admonishes them in 2 Thessalonians 3 10 through 12, writing, If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

Okay, one final thought. It's also important to be grateful that you can work to earn a living because that, too, is a gift from God. Deuteronomy 8 18 reads, You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth.

You see, everything we have is a gift from God, and that includes our work. I'm Rob West, and we'll have your calls and questions on the other side of this break. The number to call is 800-525-7000.

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More information is available at lightpointportfolios.com. We're back. I'm Rob West and this is Faith and Finance. Thanks for listening today. Thanks for taking the time as we head into our calls and questions. I want to take a moment to ask you if you've downloaded the FaithFi app.

You can use it on your desktop or your mobile device. All right, let's head to the phones. By the way, if you have a question, just call 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. Let's begin today in South Carolina.

We'll welcome Mac to the broadcast. Go right ahead, sir. All right, I got a quick question. I'm just getting started with my finances. So I have a job now and I need some advice on starting a 401k or getting an IRA. I don't really know which direction to go. Okay. You know, like what percentage of my paycheck should I be investing? And then the second part would be like insurance, term life or whole life.

Great, Mac. Yeah, I'd be happy to weigh in on those. You know, I love that you're just getting started here and thinking about the priority use of God's money. I think the first idea we need to grab hold of is that God owns it all and we're stewards, and the Bible really is our source for how we should think about money as a tool to accomplish God's purposes. I would challenge you to give first because that's going to break the grip of money over your life, and I love the idea of you being a systematic giver.

Beyond that, I'd love for you to have some margin. You know, Proverbs talks about the wisdom of having a bit beyond what we need today. It says there's precious treasure and oil in the house of the wise.

The foolish man swallows it up. So we want to have some margin, both in our spending plan with regard to not spending every dime that comes in, having something left over, but also some cushions set up in savings. I call that an emergency fund, and we typically recommend you have three to six months expenses. So as long as you've got that emergency fund well on your way to three to six months expenses, you're living within your means on a balanced budget, you're giving systematically, and you don't have any high interest debt, then I think it's a great idea to start saving for the future because investing in a 401k or an IRA, anytime you're investing systematically the same amount every month on a regular rhythm, like every paycheck, that's called dollar cost averaging. It's a powerful tool when it comes to our investments, because it allows us to buy in at different points in the market, whether the market is up or down, we're investing a consistent amount. When the market's down, we're getting more shares of whatever investments we're putting our money into, because they're kind of on sale.

And then as they recover, we benefit from that, because we own more shares, but we're systematically investing over time, which takes the emotional buying and selling out of it. And it just has us, you know, investing on a disciplined basis. I love that you asked about the percentage to invest, I would set a goal to at the at a minimum start by taking full advantage of any matching you have in that 401k. So I like the Roth IRA, but I'd start with the 401k up to the matching portion. And then I go to the Roth IRA, and I'd fully max out that for this year, which would be $6,500.

If you're under age 50, and you're if you're married, your spouse could have a Roth IRA as well working or not as a spousal IRA. So you could put away a full 13,000 under age 50 between two Roths. And then I'd go back to the 401k for any additional investing you want to do once you hit that ceiling. In terms of a total percentage allocation, we like to say 10 to 15% of your take home pay is a good starting point. It's a pretty good rule of thumb that doesn't replace some real retirement planning where you'd actually sit with a professional who looks at your lifestyle spending looks at your ultimate savings goal and helps you determine, you know, a real target for your retirement savings every month, it's ultimately going to lead to you accomplishing that goal. But apart from that more in depth retirement planning, I like you investing 10 to 15%.

But if you're just getting started, you can't do that. Let's at least fully max out that matching portion. I know you asked about life insurance. We'll get to that in a moment. But give me any questions or thoughts you have on that first part. Well, I think what I've balanced out so far as I was looking at about $500 per pay to put into the 401k, okay, maybe make up for some lost time and, you know, try to get ahead.

Yeah. My overall monthly bills are expenditure is about $2,000 to $2,500. Okay, so I have some room. And I own everything.

I ride on my home and all my vehicles. So I really got the biggest thing that my wife have a credit card about $10,000. Okay. And I know you mentioned something before about Christian credit counselor.

That's right. Yeah, Christian credit counselors.org. If you've got a balance higher than 4000, certainly, you know, 10,000 is there. I like using a debt management program to pay that off, it's going to keep the debt right where it is, we're not talking about taking out a new loan to pay it off, it's going to get the interest rates down because, you know, through credit counseling, they offer lower interest rates, and you'll send one level monthly payment. But through that level payment, plus the reduction in the interest rate, you should pay that off on average 80% faster. With regard to the in the insurance, the life insurance, I like term insurance. So that's pure insurance where you're just paying, you know, the the mortality expense, the actual expense of what it takes for them to ensure your life, I get it for 20 or 30 years.

And make sure you get enough of it. So at a minimum, you need 10 to 12 times the income you're trying to replace, if in fact, this is for income replacement. So if your wife's relying on your income, you know, and you're making, you know, 100,000 a year, you need a million to a million to just kind of in round numbers. And then you could add to that the ability to pay on the house pay off the house, that would be on top of that, you could go beyond that and add a child's college or complete eradication of your debt. But at a minimum, you need 10 to 12 times your income, the most cost effective way to do that is through term insurance, at some point, you'll renew it for another 20 or 30 years. And then when you get to retirement, you got all the savings and investments you need.

So you drop it, and then you save outside of the life insurance. Hope that gets you going in the right direction. Mac Mac, stay on the line. I want to send you a copy of Ron's blue Ron blues book, master your money. It'll be our gift to you. Quickly to Yolandi in Indiana.

How can I help? Hi, Rob. I just had a question. So we just sold our house in we are going to buy my mom's house under contract. I was just wondering, does it will it affect our taxes for next year if we get a check for the equity we have? Have we had in our current in our old house?

And then give that to my mom? No. So if I understand correct, you you lived in this house two out of the last five years, correct as your primary residence? Yeah. Okay. And how much profit did you receive from this? 112,000. Okay. Yeah. So there's no taxes on that because it was your primary residence.

You lived there two out of the last five years. You could actually have up to a half a million in gains and profits before you would pay capital gains tax. So there's no tax on the money coming out.

You deposit it in your checking account. Now you're going to make a gift to your mom of that amount? Yeah.

Or we will kind of have a loan through her instead of the bank in a way. Okay. So you're going to buy another property and she's going to finance it and you're going to pay her? Yeah.

Okay. Which you can do. You're just going to want to have a real estate attorney draw that up and put everything in writing. And then when you give that portion to your mom as the down payment, essentially she's just financing the property.

So I would just make sure you involve a real estate attorney so everything's documented properly with the deed and the note that she's holding on this next property that you're buying. You can find one in your area who can help navigate that through you. Thanks so much for your call today. God bless you.

We'll be right back. We're grateful for support from movement mortgage who provides residential home loans in all 50 States guided by a mission to love and value people and a goal to redefine the mortgage process movement seeks to help others achieve their financial goals. You can find out more at movement.com slash faith movement mortgage LLC supports equal housing opportunity and MLS number 39179.

For licensing information, please visit in MLS consumer access.org. My grocery bill went up 11% this year, gas utilities, rent all went up, but my paycheck the same. I also pay for my own healthcare, a huge expense. A friend recommended Christian healthcare ministries as an option to insurance and CHM helps pay for medical needs while allowing some breathing room in my budget. Open enrollment is here. So make the switch today with potential cost savings up to 40% Christian healthcare ministries at CH ministries.org slash faith. Bye. Welcome back to faith and finance. I'm your host, Rob West.

The number to call is 800-525-7000. I'm looking forward to hearing from you as we take your calls and questions from across the country. In fact, let's head out to Columbia, Missouri. Hi, Jerry. Go right ahead. You know, I start off by saying I don't make a lot of money.

I actually got a settlement check, so I made some money the hard way by, by getting hurt in a car accident. Okay. So, but now that I have this, so the question is, what do I do with a chunk of it? I've got 15,000 that I need to take care of debt wise and the rest, which would be around 30 thereabouts. What do I do with that?

What's the best place to put that? Yeah. Well, Jerry, first of all, I'm so sorry to hear that you were in an accident. How are you doing health wise? Actually, I'm doing well. I've come a long ways. And so considering how badly I was hurt, I'm doing pretty well and glory to God. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I'm delighted to hear that. Jerry, I think, you know, the first thing we always want to think about, and I like the fact that you're going to pay off some consumer debt. Let me ask, are you living on a balanced budget? I know you said you don't, you know, have a lot of money, but are you able to cover your bills and maybe have a little bit left over in a typical month? Oh, check to check with me because I've tried to help out my family and that has kind of taken me into the negative and destroyed my credit rating.

And that's something else I hope I can take care of here. Yeah. Were you a co-signer on some loans? Yes, I was. Okay.

Yeah. So let me and you probably have sounds like you've learned this the hard way, but let me just encourage you not to do that. You know, the Bible offers principles around managing money. This one, though, is pretty much a directive.

I mean, it's very clear. Do not co-sign. And the reason is it can put you in a position where it damages relationships. You know, anytime we're a borrower and a lender, it's a master-slave relationship is the way the Bible describes it. And we know the fallout of that is financial, but it certainly can also be relational. The Federal Trade Commission tells us about 50% of the time when we sign on the dotted line for somebody else who can't qualify on a note without us co-signing, we're going to have to step in and pay it off. And if we don't have the ability to do so because we're obligated equally with them, it'll damage our credit.

And there will be fallout to that. And despite your desire to help your family, which I love, and I think that's God-honoring, you've got to do it in the context of a well-thought-out financial plan where you're not putting yourself in harm's way financially just because you have a desire to help. And, you know, family members, and I'm not saying that happened here, but they can take advantage of your generous heart if you're not careful. So I think we've got to, everything has to be built on a plan that makes sense. And if God's given you the desire and the gift of giving, that's great, but let's build it into that plan.

Now, I'm not saying we removed the Holy Spirit from everything. We need to have some flexibility and freedom to follow his leading, but I don't believe he would lead you into debt in order to help your family. So let's kind of order your finances in such a way where you've got a category for giving, but it's in light of everything else. And I think that's where you've got to start is really going back to that budget, that spending plan, Jerry, to make sure that everything balances, that you have a good handle on your income. And then you have a good handle on your expenses, not only fixed expenses, the things you get a bill in the mail for, but your discretionary spending, those things that come up like the desire to give to somebody in need or clothing or eating out, those things that truly are discretionary and can quickly be the budget busters. Having a plan for all of that makes sense, and we can't live right up to the edge.

We've got to have a little bit of margin. So what I'm going to suggest to you in addition to working on that budget is that you take the balance of this and use it to shore up your emergency fund. Now, that doesn't mean it becomes the miscellaneous category that just takes all of the lifestyle spending beyond what you have available every month. I want you to build a budget that balances without touching this money so that it can truly be for the unexpected. Because if you've got $15,000 in consumer debt, and you're going to end up with about $35,000 in emergency fund, you know, that really should be for something that comes out of left field. Now, if you can demonstrate to yourself you can live on that balanced budget and not touch this, ultimately, you want to have three to six months expenses, and that $35,000 may exceed three to six months expenses.

That's okay. If you determine that, you know what, I can live without this and not touch it, and I think I've got a little bit more than I need. Well, now we're starting to think about maybe carving off a portion of it into a car replacement fund so you can buy the next car with cash.

Maybe you're going to take it and, you know, accelerate some of your long term retirement savings through a 401k or funding an IRA. But I'd like for you to hang on to it for now until you really can live on that balanced budget, you know, for a period of time without having to touch it, and without incurring any new debt. Jerry, God bless you. Thanks for your call. To Illinois. Hi Marge, go ahead.

Hi. Yeah, my question is in regards to allowable deductions when we do our taxes. In years past, I know I was able to claim 100% of my charitable contributions and medical, and this past year we were only allowed to claim $12,500.

Do you know why that? Well, the standard deduction for 2023, for instance, Marge, for a married couple is $27,300. So you would need to have itemized deductions that exceeded $27,300 for you to be able to itemize on your taxes. Do you think you might have charitable donations and other deductions exceeding $27,000?

So I'm single, so what is that amount? So I apologize, $14,700. Okay, so next year when I pay my taxes I'll be able to claim $14,500. Well, that's the standard deduction, so you'd have to get up above that before you would itemize. For 2022, which is the taxes you paid this year, it was $12,950 for single filers. And that's all you can claim, even if you exceed that?

That's right. Well, so that you either take the standard deduction if your deductions are below that or you'd itemize if you'll get above that by itemizing. But if you can't get above that with your itemized deductions, you're better off taking the standard deduction, which is what more than 80% of taxpayers do. Yes, mine exceeded it by almost twice as much, but I was told that I could only claim the $12,500.

Yeah, I'm a little confused by that, so I'd ask for a little bit more explanation. I mean, it may have come down to your adjusted gross income, so there is a maximum on the amount of deductions you can claim based on your AGI, and so that may have been the issue just with regard to your contributions. So I would double check with your CPA on that just to have them, he or she, explain in a little more detail why you were limited to that amount because it's not about the standard deduction.

It probably has more to do with how much income you had versus how much you were trying to deduct, and so it would be worth going back and asking for further explanation. Thanks for your call today. We appreciate you being on the program.

Well, that does it for us today. I'm Rob West. Thanks to our amazing production team and to you for listening. I hope you'll join us again next time right here on Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by FaithFi and listeners like you.