“Bible Verses” that Aren’t Actually in the Bible

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Today we'll find out why so many old saws really don't cut wood. Then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Of all the Bible verses that aren't actually in the Bible, here's the most familiar one. God won't give you more than you can handle.

Now, this sounds great, especially if you're struggling with financial hardship. Unfortunately, it's not true. The fact is, life is always more than we can handle without God. After all, we need His help just to take our next breath. The idea that God won't give you more than you can handle is a misreading of 1 Corinthians 10-13, which actually says God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. The good news is God's faithfulness, providing a way so we can endure temptation, not necessarily avoid it. Okay, here's another popular quote.

Maybe you heard your grandma say this when you refused to do your chores. God helps those who help themselves. Again, it might seem like something from the Bible, but it's not. In fact, it's the opposite of what God's Word says, which is that our help comes from one place. Psalm 121 2 tells us, My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. It's not God plus me getting the job done. God's help is never contingent on what you or I do. In fact, there's nothing we can do even to earn God's help. But again, the good news from the Bible is that God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God's help is always available, not because we do our chores, but because He loves us in spite of our brokenness. Well, we're just getting warmed up here with biblical sounding sayings that aren't actually in the Bible. Have you ever had a disappointment and someone told you, if God closes a door, He'll open a window?

Besides letting the bugs in one way or another, what is that really saying? That God always resolves your problems immediately? In fact, that's not always the case, is it? Sometimes God closes a door and we have to wait, with the doors and the windows firmly shut. The Bible does promise that God will keep us headed in the right direction when we're following Him with all our heart. Psalm 32 says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.

I will counsel you and watch over you. But the way you should go doesn't necessarily mean God will make an escape hatch when you don't seem to be making progress. You'll find that God often does some of His best work as you wait, teaching you to trust Him even more.

Psalm 37 says, Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Our next quote is, To thine own self be true. That might sound like scripture, but it's really from Shakespeare's play Hamlet. As a piece of advice, it's completely unbiblical. To thine own self be true suggests that all you need for success is to follow your own instincts and desires. Unfortunately, it's our own instincts and desires that cause us to sin. Self-reliance is no substitute for reliance on Jesus.

He is the source of truth and the only one we can really rely on. That brings me to the next common saying, another piece of unbiblical advice. Follow your heart. First of all, here's what Jeremiah 17, 9 has to say about our hearts. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

Who can understand it? In light of that truth, following your heart seems like a really bad idea. Bible study tools dot com puts it this way. God gives us passions and desires and uses our lives to prepare us for His purposes. Just as He prepared David during his time as shepherd, soldier and court musician. But that only works if we completely surrender our lives to His leading. The next nod in the Bible quote is, If God brings you to it, He'll lead you through it. What's true about this is that God never abandons us. Jesus said, And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. That's Matthew 28, 20. But does that mean God will always pull us out of difficult situations?

Not necessarily. He certainly can rescue us from pain, but sometimes He doesn't. Sometimes He uses trouble to help us rely on Him more and ourselves less. The bottom line, if you're a follower of Jesus, you can always trust His provision and rest in His peace, even in the midst of hard circumstances. Your calls are next.

I'm Rob West, and we'll be right back. Faith by.com and click Sign up to begin receiving weekly wisdom in your inbox. Are you looking for a financial professional who aligns with your biblical values? Certified Kingdom advisors are trusted financial, legal or accounting professionals who have completed a rigorous certification program to ensure they provide biblically wise financial advice as part of their practice. You can find a local C.K.A. professional in your area by going to faith by.com and clicking Find a C.K.A. Welcome back to faith and finance.

I'm Rob West. This is the program where the 2300 verses on money and possessions found in God's word intersect with today's financial decisions and choices. The number to get in on the conversation, 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. All right, let's dive in. We're going to start in Philadelphia. Brenda, you'll be our first caller. Go ahead. Hi. I feel so blessed. I talked to you guys two months ago. I'm the grandmother that is raising two grandchildren.

Remember me? Yes, ma'am. I sure do.

Yeah. So anyway, the point of it is I just received a gift of somebody at the church for $500. So I don't know what to do. Invested in something or just give it back to the church and invest it in God's kingdom. You're so sweet. I love this question. Let's talk about that, Brenda.

What a blessing that you received this as a gift from somebody who obviously wanted to be the hands and feet of Jesus to bless you. Let's talk about where you're at financially. And ultimately, this is between you and the Lord to pray and ask for his wisdom and how you might use this and follow his leading. But apart from that, let me just ask, do you have any emergency savings, anything set aside that you could use for the unexpected? No, nothing because I don't have nothing left behind. Okay. All right. Do you have enough income to meet your bills most months? To meet the bills, yes. Okay. But you just don't have anything extra? Exactly.

Okay. So I would say let's put this in a savings account. And this is going to be the beginning of what I call an emergency fund.

And we're going to get a little bit of interest on it. You could put it in your regular bank that you're with right now if you want to get a little bit more interest. You could put it in an online bank if you're comfortable using the Internet and have access to it with a computer. By linking an online savings account to your checking account. Do you have a bank checking account that you use? I have a bank and I have a little checking account. Yeah, probably $300. Okay.

Very good. So I would encourage you to put this in a separate account just so it's not in that same account that you write your bills out of every month with the hope that we can hang on to it. And you won't use it unless something truly unexpected comes out of left field. And it will, right?

We know that the unexpected comes. But I wouldn't be looking to invest it per se. At the most, I would probably put it in a savings account that's going to get maybe 4%. And you could look at one of the online banks to do that. And then if you need it, down the road, something comes out of left field, you have an unexpected failure with an appliance or a car maintenance that you didn't have the money for or a medical expense.

Now you've got something. And to the best of your ability, and I realize money's tight, so I certainly understand that. But if you have anything left over each month, let's continue to try to build this up with a goal of trying to get three months worth of expenses in there.

So if the total of your expenses are $1,500 in a month, you might want to try to save $4,500. Well, this is the beginning of that. So I think that's really where you want to go from here. Does that make sense?

It makes sense. Would you not recommend a CD in two years and then I would get like $50 more? That would not be recommended by you? I wouldn't, only because you don't have an emergency fund. And so I want you to have access to this money if you need it, and a CD would lock it up for a period of time. I want it in a separate account away from your checking account, but I don't want it in a CD where you can't get to it without paying a penalty because you may need it. We all need some liquid, meaning readily available, cash that's sitting on the side as what I call an emergency fund.

Now, here's the thing. If you use one of the online banks like Marcus or Capital One 360, you're going to get about 4% right now in the way of interest. And a CD of 10 months or 12 months is probably only going to give you a little more than 5%. So there's only about a 1% difference there, and with the savings account, you're going to have access to it at any time, whereas the CD is going to lock it up for a year or two.

Does that make sense? Yes, and if that stays there until next year, when I have to do the in-contact, are they going to charge me because I have the $500 extra money for me to give to the government? No, you would only pay any taxes on the interest. So if you have $500 and you invest that for the next year at 4%, you're going to get $20 worth of interest. That interest is taxable potentially, but it just depends on the rest of your income as to whether or not you'll pay any tax.

But at the most, you'll just pay tax on the interest, which we're looking at about $20. Thank you so much. You guys are wonderful.

Okay. Hey, God bless you, Brenda. Thanks for calling today. May the Lord be with you and keep you, and call back any time to Byer, Indiana. Hi, Jeff. Go ahead, sir.

Hey, Rob. I have an HSA, and I'm able to put some of the value of that HSA into a Schwab account. I want to be very conservative with it, and so I buy these Schwab money funds. They're a dollar a share, and they pay based on a seven-day yield, but I'm not really sure what they invested, a Schwab money fund. Yeah, this is probably just the Schwab money market fund, which is going to invest in government bills, bonds, and notes, depending on which money fund it is. They have a prime money fund that would be in just high-quality, short-term money market securities, so that would be U.S. and foreign entities, but it also could be corporations.

And, of course, the U.S. government. Then they have a government money fund that would only invest in short-term government debt securities, so holdings in the U.S. Treasury obligations or repurchase agreements. And then there's the municipal money fund, which is investing in short-term municipal money market securities, so those are issued by states or local governments and so forth.

So I think that's likely what you're in. You'd have to find out which of those funds you're actually in, but I think that could be a great way to, on a very conservative basis, get a better than average rate of return, and I love the fact that you're building up that HSA fund value. You likely have the option for that portion that you don't think you're going to spend on medical expenses to even invest it in stocks and bonds if you wanted to. And it could be a great supplement to your retirement assets, because after age 65, you get some more favorable treatment on how that can be used without penalties, even for non-medical expenses. But the money fund, I think, is a great option.

You just need to understand which money fund you're in in order to determine exactly what it's being invested in. Sure. Thanks for that explanation, Rob.

All right. Happy to do it. Thanks for your call today, Jeff. God bless you, sir. I'm Rob West. You're listening to Faith and Finance, and we'll have more of your calls and questions on the other side of this break. The number to call is 800-525-7000.

We'll be right back. We are grateful for support from Praxis Mutual Funds. Praxis Mutual Funds has seven impact strategies that are designed to create positive, real-world change. More information is available at praxismutualfunds.com. The fund's investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses are contained in the prospectus and summary prospectus. This and other information is available at praxismutualfunds.com. Investments involve risk.

Principal loss is possible. Foresight Fund Services, LLC. Hey, Greg. I need some advice.

Oh, what's up? I'm really struggling with finding ways to cut back. With costs going up, especially in healthcare, what do you guys do? Oh, we use CHM, Christian Healthcare Ministries. It's a health cost sharing ministry that's been sharing members' eligible medical bills for over 40 years.

It sure helped us stick to our budget. Here's the website, chministries.org. C-A-C-H, ministries.org.

Welcome back to Faith in Finance. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions with a few lines open today. 800-525-7000. I'd love to hear from you. Lynn, our call screener today, is standing by, and she'd love to take your call. All right, let's head right back to the phones. Before we head to Ohio and talk to Craig, we'll begin next in Chicago with Anthony.

Go ahead, sir. I had a problem where I went to a dentist in my area where I live at in Illinois, and she informed me that one of the ways that could be of assistance to me would be to get care credit, which is a credit card to help with your leftover after your insurance. Anyway, instead of her billing my insurance company, she billed the direct amount of her charges directly to my care credit. I guess she was saying that she's not going to go for any deductions or anything that the insurance company might do, so she wanted everything as far as with no deductions. I just needed some guidance on what I could do rectified because I'm paying my bill to the credit card to keep my credit in good standing in the meantime, but I just needed your guidance.

Yeah, well, I'm so sorry to hear, Anthony, that you're dealing with this. Did you give the dentist permission to bill care credit for the services? Yes, I did, but it was under the agreement between her and I that she was going to bill my insurance, and then the leftover would get billed to care credit, and then she still lies and tells me she billed the insurance, but my insurance company has informed me that they have not received any bills from her.

And she acts as though I haven't figured out that she's lying. Yeah, well, have you already reached out to the office manager, the person in charge of billing to discuss this? Well, she takes care of all that stuff herself, the dentist.

All right. Well, yeah, I mean, that's where your recourse would be is at the dentist level since they billed care credit, they had the directive to do it from you, even though I understand there was a conversation that indicated you didn't want it handled quite the way that they did. It was really only for the overage as opposed to the initial bill, but since care credit has already paid, then the recourse is with the dentist. To make you whole, they would have to reimburse care credit and then bill your insurance company, and unfortunately, if they refuse that, the only recourse you would have would be to try to take them to small claims court or something.

Unfortunately, I think, though, that with this agreement that you signed to give them permission to bill care credit, they would rely on that. So I think you're just going to have to perhaps reach back out and just see if maybe you can visit with this dentist in person, maybe just stop by the office and just say, listen, I'd like to work with you to straighten this out. Despite what the agreement might have said, my intention and my understanding on our conversation was that you were going to handle this differently than you did.

This is not the way I wanted to build and I need you to help me unwind this. Perhaps the biggest issue you may be able to enforce is that you would leave a negative review on a rating site like Yelp or Google or something like that. Obviously, you'd have to really just think through how you want to approach this, but if they're just unwilling to work with you, that could be a way to get their attention. But hopefully they will, in good faith, be willing to work with you. And even though it'll take some extra work and there was a misunderstanding, they might be willing to try to unwind this and then bill it through your insurance provider. But ultimately, Anthony, this really is going to have to run through your dentist and you're going to have to appeal to their willingness to satisfy you as a customer.

And if at the last recourse, possibly look at Legal Group approaching it legally with possibly getting an attorney. I guess. I mean, how much are we talking about the bill for? $6,000. $6,000 plus. Yeah, yeah.

So it's significant. I mean, the challenge is legal fees could mount pretty quickly here. So I think you're going to want to try to avoid that at all costs. And again, I think just even the idea that you might need to leave some sort of review about your experience may get their attention because nobody wants that. And hopefully they'll just work in good faith with you, understanding this is a significant bill. They're still going to get paid either way, whether they run it through the insurance or not. And ultimately, that was your intention, even though perhaps they misunderstood.

So I think you need to go back to the dentist and see if they'll be willing to work with you and try to reverse this. They certainly have the ability to do it if they're willing. But you keep us posted, Anthony. I'm so sorry you're going through this. So we'll ask the Lord to give you some favor here as you try to navigate through it, sir.

God bless you. Let's head to Ohio. Hi, Craig. Go ahead.

Hi, I was calling. I wanted to find out how to invest in, like, credential or Fidelity, but I don't get on the computers and I don't have an email and stuff like that. Do you have to be online in order to invest with Fidelity?

Yeah, I mean, you can go into a Fidelity branch and you would just want to go to Fidelity. Well, you don't use the Internet, but they should have investor centers in most major cities. Where are you located? What is your zip code?

44438. Okay. Yeah, you could get. Well, let me just do a quick search here and see if anything comes up. Yeah, I mean, well, they've got about 50 miles away from you. It looks like they have an office there in Cleveland, East Ohio.

Pittsburgh would be another location. So if you wanted to drive, you could go to one of the investor centers there at Fidelity. You could also do this all through the phone and the mail. So you could just call their customer service center and see about having them mail the paperwork out to open the account. You would sign it and complete it and return it via the mail and you could do it that way.

So I think one of those two could bypass an online approach. Okay. Would you have an address for them for going on in mail? Let's do this. If you get I'll have my team get your information if you hold the line and we can give you a quick call back and provide that information to you. Just since you don't have access to a computer, we're delighted to do that. So, Craig, you stay on the line right there.

Our team will pick up, get your information and we will call you before the end of the day and see if we can help you get that address. Thanks for being on the program, sir. All the best to you. Well, once again, our time went by way too fast, but tune in next time and we'll do it all over again. Before we go, I'd like to thank our incredible production team, Amy, Devin, Jim, Robert, Brandy, Rob and Ben. Couldn't do it without them. Have a great rest of your day and I'll see you again next time for another edition of Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.