Hey everyone, Rob West here. You've heard me talk about faith and finances for years and a common question I get is, how can I align my faith values with my banking decisions? Well, we recommend our friends at Christian Community Credit Union who've been serving Christians for over 67 years. Visit JoinChristianCommunity.com to learn more.
That's JoinChristianCommunity.com. Beauty matters to painters, musicians and photographers. But what does it have to do with investing? Hi, I'm Rob West. The creation account suggests that beauty lies at the core of faithful stewardship and investing as well. I'll talk about investing in beautiful today. With Jason Meyer of the Eventide Center for Faith and Investing. 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, joining us again today is my friend Jason Meyer, Executive Director of the Eventide Center for Faith and Investing.
The Eventide Center is an educational initiative of Eventide Asset Management and an underwriter of this program. Jason, always a delight to have you with us. Hey, Rob.
Good to be with you again. Investing, Jason, is a word we tend to associate, of course, with money, retirement, risk and return. But rarely, perhaps if ever, do we think the words investing and beauty. So, Jason, why should we connect beauty with our approach to investing?
Yeah, man, this is one of my favorite topics. So, you know, just to start, we, of course, all experience beauty and beauty is something that we all need as human beings. You know, this morning I watched a beautiful sunrise on a clear day.
I enjoyed a pour over coffee from a specialty coffee roaster that was delicious. This weekend I watched a masterpiece movie from a Japanese filmmaker I like. And we all have these experiences, right, in our lives. We often, though, think about these beauty experiences as taking place during our leisure time. And so we tend to pair beauty with, really, rest and Sabbath. And so, you know, we, for example, take time to go to an orchestra performance. Or on the weekend we hike the mountains or stroll along the beach.
We might buy a bouquet of flowers to adorn our home. Rarely do we think about beauty in association with ordinary human work and, therefore, with things like business and investing. But beauty matters for our work. In fact, it's essential for our work. And I want to help make the case that it matters also for our finances and things like investing. Beauty is an essential characteristic of God's creation, and that makes it central to our work as stewards over God's good creation.
Well, I love this idea. Let's talk about the place of beauty in creation, perhaps as a starting point. Jason, where do we see beauty in the Genesis account of creation, and how is beauty connected with work in creation?
Right. So it's helpful to start first with God's work in creation and the connection of beauty there. So this is something we're very familiar with as Bible readers, and we just take it for granted that God is actually portrayed as a worker. He creates everything that exists. He creates, it says, the heavens and the earth, which is a way of saying everything. And everything that God makes is good.
And this is something that the Genesis 1 account really wants us to see. It says seven times in Genesis chapter 1 that creation is good. And the last instance of that, it says that the whole creation is very good. And in the Hebrew derivation, the word good is a word pronounced tobe, and it's translated as good in our English Bibles.
It's a word that's actually very rich with meaning. So it means, of course, moral perfection. So it's good in a moral sense. Creation is morally perfect.
There's no evil. It's good in a functional sense. So creation is functionally excellent.
It's useful for sustaining life and God's creatures. But one of the things we miss is that it's also good in a sense that it is surpassingly beautiful. When God creates, he looks at his creation and says he sees it and declares it good. He appraises it as good.
It's very much like, you know, it's springtime, we're out cutting the grass, and when we get done cutting the grass, we don't immediately go inside. We look back over what we just accomplished, and we feel that it's good. We see it as beautiful.
And that's the idea. It's this aesthetic, evaluative, pleasurable kind of experience that God had. And so one scholar actually says that a better translation of that word good would be actually a compound word, beauty good. So God is portrayed as a wise artisan artfully crafting the world. And in fact, Eden means delight. So the Garden of Eden was a place of delight. I love that beauty in the creation. But how about beauty in our work? And what about in business and investing? We'll talk about that with Jason Meyer from the Eventide Center for Faith and Investing just around the corner.
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I'm Rob West. Joining me today, Jason Meyer, Executive Director of the Eventide Center for Faith and Investing, an educational initiative of Eventide Asset Management and an underwriter of this program. Today we're talking about beauty. Beauty in God's work, beauty in our work, but also beauty found in business and investing. Jason, just before the break you were talking about beauty as an essential aspect of God's work, but what about our work that He ordained us and created us to do?
Where do we see beauty connected to our work in the creation account? Right, so we just got done talking about God's work and how beauty was an aspect of God's work. So God creates, He looks at the things He made, He sees that they're good and declares them to be good. It is actually into this context that God places humanity and then gives us our role to play, which is this gift of work that He gives us. Now, as we think about the beauty and majesty of God's creation, you know, we think, who could add anything to it? And the Bible here is very surprising because it says that we are capable of adding to this beauty and goodness to the world through our work. The place that we see this is in Genesis 2.15. So God places humanity right there in that Garden of Delight, Garden of Eden, and gives us the gift of work.
It says, then the Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it. Essentially, God placed humanity in this very good creation, and then the thrust of these instructions is that He's telling them to make it even better through the things that we make and that we add to the world. Yeah, which raises the question, if God's creation was already very good, essentially perfect, then how can we improve on it? Yeah, this is one of, I would say this is just a really great insight that has come to me through books over the years, is that God's creation was absolutely perfect. But it's perfect in a very particular way, okay? So it's perfect, as I'll explain, it's filled with potential, okay?
Let me explain. So we know that God made the world beautiful and good, as we've been discussing. Part of that beauty we can see with our own eyes. It's manifest in the world that God made, and it's kind of the raw materials of creation.
We can see it. And part of the beauty and goodness of God's creation is hidden within creation as a yet undiscovered potential that it has, and that we are to uncover this potential through our work. So the early church father, St. Augustine, described this potential as seeds. So creation has potential like seeds have potential. And it's the task of us, God's image bearers, to find this potential and through work to develop it and to bring it forth into new kinds of beauty and goodness that has been lying hidden within God's creation. So let me give you some examples just to illustrate this.
A couple of easy ones. So bread and wine. God creates grain, and grain has always had the potential to become bread since the day that he made the wheat. God placed that potential there so that we would discover it and make it manifest through our work.
Or grapes have always had the potential to become wine through our work. These are just easy examples of the way in which we have created new things, new good things out of God's good creation. Let me give you now maybe a sophisticated example, one that is relevant in the world of business and investing today. So take semiconductors that power all of our smart devices and computers and cars and you name it. The fundamental material used to create semiconductors is sand. And as my colleague, Christian Say, who covers semiconductors in his work at Eventide Asset Management, he puts it this way. He said with semiconductors, what we're doing essentially is we're taking sand and we're teaching it how to think. We're taking sand and teaching it how to think.
Sand has always had the potential to become semiconductors, even back in that ancient Garden of Eden, because God planted it there as a potential, as a seed in his beautiful and good creation for us to discover and to develop so that the world would be made even more delightful for us and so that all the glory of creation would be revealed. All that hidden potential would be brought forward and that God's reputation as the Creator would be made even more famous and glorious. Let me give you one little final analogy to help solidify this in our minds.
I love this analogy. It comes from one of my favorite theologians, Craig Bartholomew. He says, imagine that you are a sculptor, so Rob West, the sculptor, and Michelangelo says to you, the great sculptor, he says, look, he gives you a phone call and he says, look, I've just started work on this new sculpture, this major, major sculpture, but I want you to come and finish it for me.
I want you to come and to complete the sculpture and to develop the potentials I've built into it so far so that when it's done, this sculpture will enhance my reputation in the art world. Bartholomew says that illustration is an illustration of what God intended with work in Genesis 1 and 2. Wow, that is powerful. What an analogy. And I'd love for you, though, Jason, to help us translate this biblical picture of work that you just articulated so well to the modern world now of business and investing.
What does that look like? Yeah, you know, if we are to be Christians who have a Christian worldview, a biblical worldview, then that means that we need to see the world of business and investing with Christian eyes. We actually need to view them in light of this biblical vision for work. This is the true story of work, the biblical story. So the Genesis instructions to develop the beauty and goodness of creation are the very same instructions that we have for work for humanity today.
This is still God's design. This is still His desire for our work in business and investing, even though very far removed from that Genesis garden picture. And so we must ask ourselves, how can the specific work of business and investing contribute beauty and goodness to creation?
And I want to suggest a couple answers to that. So business is called to create products that are good. You know, we have this language for products in business. We call them goods and services.
And I think that's no accident. The products of business and God's design are intended to be genuinely good, right? The products of business and God's design are intended to genuinely be a service to humankind. So humanity through business is to create goods that are truly good and services that truly serve.
So that's what I would say about business. And what about investors? How does investing enhance the beauty and goodness of God's world? So investors are called to supply the capital that enables and enlarges this good work of business to create those goods and services. So when we're contemplating investing, we need to think about these things and ask, is this prospective investment that I'm thinking about making, is it going to be in companies that are creating goods and services? These are things we should embrace. And we should be asking, in a fallen world, are there any companies that actually are diminishing God's good creation that I should seek to avoid investing in?
These are things I think we should avoid. Yeah, and the exciting thing is there's a whole industry of Christian faith-based investments that have been raised up to make it easier for us to either avoid companies whose products run counter to this biblical vision, or avoid while also targeting the good, looking for companies who meet human needs and enhance the world. So, Jason, how can our listeners get more information about faith-based investments? Yeah, we've put together two resources for you today. The first is an article on beauty and investing, like we've been talking about. The second is a list of faith-based investments that are out there. And to get that, you can go to faithandinvesting.com slash faithfi.
That's faithandinvesting.com slash faithfi, F-I. This has been incredibly enlightening, Jason. Thanks for stopping by. My pleasure, Rob. See you. All right. Check it out today, faithandinvesting.com slash faithfi. We'll be right back.
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Call right now, 800-525-7000. Let me take a moment before we head to the phones, which we will here in just a moment. We'll be going to Virginia to talk to Pauline and just encourage you around the opportunity to support Faith and Finance here at Year End. And this is a really important time for us here at FaithFi. We're a listener-supported ministry, and so here's what I would ask of you. If this is a program you've found some value in, maybe you count on it, you listen regularly, and you've never supported the ministry, perhaps this is the time for you to stand in the gap with us. We're driving toward our Year End goal for listener support, and we're about, well, just a little more than $100,000 away to be able to meet the 100% of our listener support goal.
And here's what happened. Some donors of the ministry came alongside us, and they said, listen, every gift that comes in between now, and this was a few weeks ago, now and December 31st, we're going to double it. And we're going to make sure that you finish the year strong, but we're only going to release the money as the gifts come in from your listeners. And so we've got an opportunity for every gift right now to be doubled between now and December 31st, up to the remaining amount that's available in the match, which is a little more than $100,000.
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That's faithfi.com and just click Give. All right, we've got a few lines open. 800-525-7000. Let's go to Virginia. Hi, Pauline.
How can I help? Yeah, Rob. I wanted to speak with you about my circumstances. I recently lost my husband this summer, who was 77 years old. I happen to be 71. I'm retired right now.
Trying to just figure out our financial or my financial picture going forward is just taking care of expenses and having some of this liquid assets that I have, pretty much trying to figure out how to access that for some growth for me as well as some income for me to meet just monthly expenses as well as to go forward and hopefully carry that into my future. And I can answer any of the questions. I guess you can guide me.
I've talked to a couple people, advisors, got a couple different scenarios, and I guess I'm just kind of frozen and scared to a little bit of anything. Yes. Well, I certainly understand that. Pauline, let me first say I'm so sorry to hear about your husband's passing. You know, as you think about your role in managing what God has entrusted to you, I want this to be something that's joyful, that you can see as a blessing, as a tool to accomplish God's purposes, and for that not to have any part of, you know, causing you to have any kind of fear or anxiousness over it. And yet I know it's a big responsibility.
And so you're feeling the weight of that. I think it's a good thing that you haven't made a lot of big sweeping decisions here. I think you need to take a period of time just to take a deep breath, get your things in order, understand what you have. And, you know, before you make some big decisions, I do like the idea of you having somebody that can walk alongside you, a financial professional who shares your values, who's a Christ follower, who can guide you being a sounding board, but also, you know, take some of that load off of you just in terms of making management decisions for the assets. Not that they would just, you know, make their own decisions based on their own accord, but getting to know you and understanding who you are and what God's doing in your life and what your income needs are and what your giving desires are and all of those things that could then inform a very well-thought-out and crafted investment plan that doesn't take any more risk than needs to be taken, but does seek to grow what God has entrusted to you appropriately so that it's there regardless of, you know, how you're doing.
Regardless of, you know, how long the Lord has you here because clearly your calling doesn't have an expiration and so we want these funds to last so long as you're here and the Lord still has more for you to do. So let me start there. Do you have an advisor or have you and your husband had an advisor in the past that you could turn to? We had gone a couple of times to different ones.
He always went and listened and then he never followed through with anything on that. I did speak to an advisor, just kind of a meet and greet and get a little information from me as well as from him with one of the larger companies. And then I also have always been an insurance auto and property insurance myself and I spoke with, you know, an insurance agent recently that's advised me some on, you know, annuities like an immediate annuity, you know, to maybe get some instant cash, you know, coming in and then going from there with what I do have to maybe project that into the expense piece. And then, like I said, to try to take the other to grow that. But those are the only two that I've talked to and I get this courage and then I get the nerve. So I just haven't proceeded forward too much right now with any of that.
Okay, well, that's helpful. Well, one option you may want to consider is we've got about 1600 certified kingdom advisors around the country. There's a number of them right there in Virginia, and you could perhaps talk to one or two or three of those and just see if one is just a really good fit in terms of just a relational compatibility. And just, you know, I think you'll get a sense of who you ultimately should work with just based on a peace of mind and comfort level, but at least you'd know that these are folks that, you know, have had a pastor and client reference and a regulatory review.
And they've been trained to bring a biblical worldview and they have signed a statement of faith and have a code of ethics that they're bound by and it can just really bring God's heart to bear from the scriptures, alongside really competent professional financial advice. And so your starting point will be, you know, much further down the road in terms of compatibility when you choose a CKA. I think, you know, the options for you at this point are you certainly could go with an annuity, which would give you immediate income. They're not my biggest, I'm not the biggest fan of annuities. I'd rather you keep that money more liquid and available. So if you needed it for long-term care or something like that, you'd have full access to it and then manage the risk levels with the investments. And so you'd find an advisor that can make sure that, number one, we work out your cash flow and your budget and know exactly what you need to, you know, you're spending every month, make sure you have the proper insurance coverage is in place. Sounds like you got that covered. Make sure you have six months to maybe 12 months liquid and in cash. And then with what's truly left over to grow so that you can create an income stream to live on, that we're not taking any more risk than you absolutely need to take.
Which, you know, at 70, you know, I would probably be thinking of no more than 30% in stocks and probably 60 to 70% in bonds and maybe some precious metals. But again, I think a CKA could be really helpful in doing that. So that would be my next step. Find a CKA at faithfi.com.
I also want to send you a book called Wise Women Managing Money by Miriam Neff, who wrote this book for women just like you after their husbands pass away that I think could be a real encouragement to you. So let's start there and then call me back with any questions along the way. Hold on the line. We'll get that book out to you. God bless you. Thanks to my team today and thank you for being here. We'll see you tomorrow. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-23 04:23:04 / 2024-12-23 04:32:46 / 10