Principled Reasoning With Jerry Bowyer

What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values. How about someone who will take the time to explain your options? Certified Kingdom Advisors are professionals who meet high standards in competence and integrity and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice.

To find a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area, visit faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. Christians know that the world hasn't been right since the fall, and that certainly holds true for the economy. Hi, I'm Rob West.

So if the economy isn't supposed to be this way, if it isn't how God intended, what exactly is the ideal economy? Jerry Boyer joins us to talk about that and how we can fix things. 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 decisions. Well, there's only one person we know that can make economics fun and educational, and that's our good friend and resident economist, Jerry Boyer, Jerry, great to have you back.

Always a pleasure to be with you. Jerry, we're going to pick up where we left off last time. As you know, we're doing a series on the Christian economic worldview, and this time we're talking about what you call principled reasoning, but we might add a subtitle, A Way Out of This Mess. So take us back to that ideal economy and tell us where you'd like to start.

Yeah, I think that's a good place to start. You start with the ideal, right? First you study the way things are supposed to be before you study the way things are not supposed to be. Because if you have that knowledge of the good, then you can understand the bad as well as the good. But if you start with the knowledge of the bad, you won't really understand the good, or even the bad fully for that matter.

So you have to start with what's right and then kind of view through that prism. We've already talked about this in the series, which is in the garden, we're given the model for God, for what he wants the economy to be. God is in the center, the state isn't in the center, the individual is in the center, human beings are not in the center, God is in the center, but we're over the material creation. And we're supposed to improve it, looking at the way God made the world and then imitate him. We don't imitate him perfectly because he's infinite, we're finite, we're his image. We're not little gods, we're just in the image of God. And so our creativity is in the image of his creativity. We can't create something out of nothing, he can, but we can take something that already exists and make it better. And that's how we play out the image of God in man.

But of course that went wrong. We went for, I want it now, I want the fruit of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil, and I want it now, I want to take, I want to steal rather than create because that was stealing from the tree. So it's a lack of respect for private property, and we're not going to obey God, we're going to do whatever we want. And that brings about a curse. So we talked about the curse, you know, in the second in this series, what goes wrong? And then we talked about how our, and then the third part of the series, we talked about how our cursed response to the curse makes things that are bad even more bad. In other words, we could look at the world that's all distorted by the fall and say, well, we're going to repent, but instead what we do is we respond to it inappropriately. So if there's thorns and thistles and we're eating by the sweat of our brow, we don't necessarily become more disciplined and more productive, instead we just become more avaricious.

You know, we just want more, more, more to kind of like salve the wound and give ourselves a sense of peace in this cursed world. And by doing so, we make the curse worse. But there's a way out and the way out is to follow fundamental principles that are laid out in the scripture to begin to reverse to some degree the curse. Now the curse will be here until the second coming and the resurrection. We won't have the garden economy until Jesus comes back and resurrects and we have a new heaven and a new earth, but we can do better than we're doing now. We have a promise in scripture of the blessing of God, that there is a tendency, it's not a guarantee, but there is a tendency if you act wisely and follow certain principles that life will tend to be better in every area of life, relationally, obviously spiritually, in families and yes, in business and the economy as well. Well, Jerry, you're exactly right.

And I think that's the key. And when we follow principled reasoning, yes, the curse is still here, but when we understand God's design, we can see and experience God's blessings. Many nations have experienced that.

The United States is one of those and yet it seems like in many respects, we've lost our way. So that background was helpful when we come back from this break, Jerry, I want to talk about what we can do about it. How do we approach the value of human life and the fact that we're created with God's operating system and his image as a blessing? How we put that into the system? What about risk? What about investments? We'll talk about all of it and perhaps how we could return to God's ideal economy through principled reasoning. Jerry Boyer with us today, he's the president of Boyer Research, our resident economist, and we're continuing our series on the ideal economy. Much more to come just around the corner.

Stay with us. What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values? How about someone who will take the time to explain your options? Certified Kingdom Advisors are professionals who meet high standards in competence and integrity, and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice.

To find a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area, visit faithfi.com and click find a CKA. We are grateful for support from One Ascent Investments on the faith and finance program. They manage a comprehensive suite of value-based investment strategies designed to help Christian investors live aligned with what they value most. One Ascent believes that if your values inspire the way you live, they should also inspire the way you invest.

This can be a unique form of worship. More information is available at investments.oneascent.com. That web address is investments.oneascent.com. Delighted to have you with us today on faith and finance. With us today, our good friend Jerry Boyer, resident economist here at faith and finance, the author of the maker versus the takers, what Jesus really said about social justice and economics. It's a fascinating read. I'd encourage you to pick up a copy today. We're talking about the ideal economy.

This is a multi-part series. We've talked about God's design, how it goes wrong. Today we're talking about how we can perhaps redirect our nation back to what God originally intended. Jerry, you made the point before the break that until Jesus returns, we are in a fallen state. We will continue to be, and yet the United States has experienced God's blessing in the past because in many respects, the founding fathers understood that we were created with God's operating system in his image and that human life, that God's creation, we're to be productive. And with that comes a virtuous cycle of expansion and productivity and investment and savings and giving.

So given where things have gone wrong, how can we return to that as a nation? Well, I think one of the things is to recognize that sin is not stronger than creation. We're created by God and we're in his image and a modifier to that is that we're fallen and sinful. We're not mostly sin, but we're also in the image of God. The most real thing about us is what God created us to be.

The most real thing about us is that we're made in the image of God and sin is the distortion of that fundamental reality. So when the fall happened, we didn't change metaphysically. Our minds still work.

Yes, they're distorted. We might not pursue the right goal, but the universe still runs on the operating system of God's mind. And our minds are made in his image, so we run on that operating system. So we're able to understand the world much better than people would think. Eugene Wigner, the famous mathematician, said, why does our math work so well when it comes to understanding physics and nature? You know, if we just evolved randomly, it wouldn't make sense that our minds would be so good at doing science. Science depends on the idea that our minds are made by the same person who, or three persons, who made the world. And so that means there really is the possibility of having a lot of human flourishing in the world.

And I think that the Bible is about cursing and blessing, but it's mostly about blessing, not mostly about cursing. And I think what happened to some degree, we've talked about Thomas Malthus, the person who's kind of behind, really behind fascism and communism and eugenics and abortion. He didn't mean to be, he was a Christian minister, but he read the account in Genesis 3 that said the ground is cursed because of us. And he kind of stopped there and said, well, that means there's too many people. So if you have too many people, there's bound to be mass starvation. And out of that, you get eugenics.

Well, there's too many people, let's breed the right ones, right? And that you get genocides and the rest of that from that. But he didn't go on and see, right after the curse is the promise of the blessing of the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. And so that curse can be managed and dealt with. Under the curse, we eat by the sweat of our brow. Well, wait a minute, does that mean that we're violating God's principle if we have air conditioning?

I mean, you don't sweat, I mean, it's hot right now, right? But air conditioning can reverse that a little bit. Yeah, you have thorns and thistles, but we also have modern agriculture, which means we don't get so many thorns and thistles, and we're better at growing food. And yes, women will have pain in childbirth, but there's also medical care that makes that pain less. So the curse is not the main story or the whole story.

Blessing and redemption is the more powerful story. We won't get perfection in this world before Jesus comes. But the American experiment shows that we can do so, so, so much better than 1500 years of Christian thinking thought we could before. So Jerry, economically speaking, then where do we go from here with regard to the Fed and monetary policy and risk levels and interest rates and inflation, obviously a lot there.

So what would that path forward look like? Well, markets are reflecting the risk levels of the curse, or they're reflecting sometimes with fiat money, they don't properly reflect the risk levels, because easy money makes it seem like we're not cursed, right? Like we're hat like we're savers. When the Fed creates new money, it makes us look like we're a saving society. But we're not.

It's just new. It's not new wealth, it's just new money. So markets can get distorted and overcount the amount of risk or undercount the amount of risk. So the idea is to the way you decrease risk, Jesus has it in the Sermon on the Mount, if you build your house, if you see a house that's built on a foundation of sand, it is more risky than a house that's built on a foundation of stone. So as we dethrone mankind, and when we worship man, we don't usually end up worshiping the individual, we end up worshipping the state. That's the big man, when we dethrone the state and put God back on the throne, and then we limit the power of the state, say the central bank, we limit its power to create new money, which causes inflation, we limit the power of the state to take more than it needs to, in the form of taxation, or to spend more than it should in the form of overspending and borrowing. When we do that, that is to some degree reversing that curse, and it's making us a little bit more of a house built on stone and a little bit less of a house built on sand. And over time, as societies do that, it reflects itself in the markets, which is why the United States markets are so much more highly valued, say, than European markets or emerging markets. States are reflecting and kind of voting yes or no on the cursedness or blessedness or the principal adherence of a nation at any given time. And so the U.S., I was just on a call where we were talking about how much the United States has overperformed European stock markets over a long period of time.

Why? Because our form of Christianity went more back to the Bible and more back to that idea of us being creative and economically productive and everything being a calling under God, creating finance and commerce, whereas theirs was still more beholden to paganism. And that's reflected itself in our great economic expansion and our explosion of wealth. And the tapering off of that is reflecting the fact that we are drifting away from those foundations.

Jerry, just got about 90 seconds left. So what would be some of the next steps then for us economically? Is it about money supply and not artificially suppressing our interest rates? Is it about understanding that we need regulations that support productivity and wealth creation? Where do we go from here?

Yes. And yes, those are two great places to start. Sound money, unjust weights and measures are an abomination to the Lord. That's where most of the pain now is, the inflation and then the recession, maybe causing a recession because we think that's the way you fight inflation rather than being productive and growing.

Those are great places to start. But of course, always start with your heart and start with your own life. We can't expect the federal government to be biblically economic if we aren't biblically economic. Jerry, put a bow on this for us. For our listeners today, what would you have them take away from this as they look at God's handiwork and design for economics? Glorify God when the economy is doing well, but also glorify him when it's doing poorly because he's glorified when you follow his principles and they work, that brings glory to God. But when people violate his principles and things go badly, that also vindicates his wisdom. But don't stop there.

Go back to the principles, do it in the voting booth, do it in your own life, do it in your own heart. Be generous. You know why?

Because I say in the video series that calibrates you. I mean, there's good reason to be generous because people need our help, but it's also good for us. It dethrones us and puts God back on the throne. And around that throne, we build the great economy, which like the angels who are circling God and saying, holy, holy, holy glory, when we are economically productive to his glory, that glorifies God.

That's worship too. Fabulous. Jerry, can't wait to continue the conversation next time. Thanks for stopping by, my friend.

Always a pleasure to be with you. That's Jerry Boyer, resident economist here at Faith and Finance, also the author of The Maker vs. the Taker is what Jesus really said about social justice and economics. All right, your calls are next. 800-525-7000.

I'm Rob West, and we'll be right back. As the leading advocate for the Christian financial industry, Kingdom Advisors serves the public by promoting the integration of a biblical worldview across every aspect of the financial services industry. And we serve a growing network of thousands of Christian financial professionals, equipping and empowering them to carry biblical financial wisdom to their clients, peers, and community. For more information, visit kingdomadvisors.com.

That's kingdomadvisors.com. We're grateful for support from Eventide Investments on the Faith and Finance Program. Eventide's approach to values-based investing is grounded in the belief that humankind was created in the image of God with intrinsic dignity, value, and worth. Eventide calls this investing that makes the world rejoice. More information is available at eventideinvestments.com.

That's eventideinvestments.com. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West, your host. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions today on anything financial. We'd love to hear from you. The number to call is 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. We've got lines open, and we'd love to take your calls and questions today. Let's dive in. We're going to begin in Colorado Springs. Linda, you'll be our first caller. Go right ahead.

Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. My husband and I are 67, so we're going to be taking Social Security in a couple of years. We have a vacation home in Arizona.

We rent it out when we aren't there, and it doesn't rent well in the summer. We owe about $300,000 on it, and I'm wondering if it would be smart to maybe take money out of our IRA since we don't really need it for retirement and plunk that down into the house. And I also have some funds coming in from my business, which I recently sold, in order to try to reduce the interest that we're paying on that home. Sure. So what is the interest rate on that home, Linda?

It's 4.5, so it's not horrible like today's interest. Yeah. Okay.

Very good. So this is a question of your investable assets. So what do you have in the IRA, for instance?

Okay. So my traditional IRA, $89,000. I've got annuity for $63,000. My husband's got a TSP for $250,000. I've got a SEP IRA. That's what I was wondering if I should do with my SEP IRA. Also, it's got $75,000 in it, and I know if I take that out and put it on the house, I've got to pay taxes. But just wondering how that would balance out with the amount of interest we might be avoiding having to pay. Sure. No, I can understand why you're wanting to consider this. What do you have coming in from the business sale?

The business sale, I sold it January 1st for $300,000, but it will be payments of $5,000, well, $5,600 a month for five years, and that's including the interest. Okay. And then are you all fully retired then at this point?

I am not. My husband's pretty much working full-time. We both are self-employed, and I do a little bit of work. I'm a sign language interpreter, so I work from home off and on. Okay.

Very good. And once you all really move into a full retirement phase where you're no longer working for pay, what income sources would you be counting on at that point other than Social Security? The things that I just listed.

We have those. Also, my husband plans to probably work until he absolutely can't. He works from home with a tractor business, so he will probably keep working. We also have quite a bit of inventory here at the home.

He sells tractors and has quite a bit that he could be selling throughout the years. Sure. Okay. And then just in terms of your overall lifestyle, have you looked at what you will be receiving from Social Security? And if you were to compare that to your monthly expenses, including the debt service on that vacation property, is that enough, or does it require a supplement from either you all continuing to work or drawing an income from these investment accounts?

Our Social Security will give us, I just looked this up, about, I think about $8,000 a month. So that, with these other items, will be in pretty good shape. Okay. Yeah, so I think this is probably not the time to pull that kind of money from the IRAs, number one. So I would give that some time, and if you were to do it, perhaps consider that a year from now. And even then, you'd want to do it over multiple tax years, just so you didn't push a portion of that up into a higher tax bracket.

So you might want to stage it, let's say, over three years. The only thing I would look at, though, is just whether it might make some more sense to perhaps pay it out of current cash flow. So for instance, as you have these additional payments to pay out for your business sale, perhaps that's an opportunity to accelerate the mortgage payoff out of that surplus with an idea that you might look down maybe five years and say, okay, we want this paid off in the next five years, but we're not going to do it all right now because we want the accounts to recover, number one.

Number two, we want to stage this over time so we can preserve as much of that as possible to allow it to continue to grow. So when that time comes, if we do need to supplement our income because we need long-term care, whatever it might be in that season of life, if it goes beyond what you're going to be bringing in from Social Security, you would have the ability to fund that by creating an income stream from those portfolios. And perhaps there's some point in the future where we don't wait for you to pay it off just based on your scheduled mortgage payments, but we don't try to do it all right away. Does that make sense?

It does make sense. And that's what we've been talking back and forth about, so I really appreciate your input on that. Well, I think that we'll perhaps accomplish the best of both worlds. Thanks for being on the program today, Linda. All the best to you all in this exciting season. God has you in. May God bless you.

Tampa, Florida. Rebecca, go right ahead. Yes. Do I pay tithes on money received from an insurance claim for repairs? Okay, so you had damage to your property, Rebecca, and the insurance company made you whole? Is that what happened? Yes.

Okay. So that would not be an increase. So if we step back and we say, okay, what is the purpose of the tithe? Well, if we look at the Old Testament principle of the tithe, it would be giving unto the Lord based on our increase. The word tithe means a tenth, and so we return that to the Lord on a systematic basis as he provides. So then we have to say, okay, what truly is our increase? Well, clearly that would be wages or an inheritance or a gift. All of that would be our increase. In this case, you suffered a loss based on damage to your property, and as a wise steward, you had insurance on that to offset that risk, and the insurance company then repaid you for that loss.

So because that insurance payment is offsetting that loss, there really isn't an increase there, and therefore, if we applied the principle of the tithe, it would not apply in this situation. Does that make sense? Yes.

Thanks for clarification. Okay. Thank you for wanting to be a faithful steward in your giving, Rebecca, and for being on the program today. May the Lord bless you. Hey, a quick email.

This comes to us from Mike in Tennessee. He writes, Rob, my daughter has a Roth IRA, which I started for her while she was working part-time in college. Now she has a full-time job and has a Roth IRA there. Can she still fund her personal Roth too? What Mike probably means is she has the option for a Roth 401k there. She wouldn't have a Roth IRA through her employer.

Those are only set up individually, and if that's the case, Mike, absolutely. She can have a Roth 401k, which has the ability to put in, well, for this year, $22,500, and in addition to that, she can have a Roth IRA held in her name personally. She can put in $6,500 into that.

So her combined contributions could go as high as $29,000. Mike, hope that's helpful to you. By the way, if you have a question you'd like read on the air, send it along to us, AskRob at FaithFi.com.

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.