Faith Full Giving

According to Hebrews 11 one, faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

I am Rob West. Faith is the heartbeat of our walk with God. Today, we'll find out what the story of Cain and Abel has to tell us about faith as it relates to giving. Then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Our confidence or faith that God is who he says he is and that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life are rooted in God's word.

We have purpose and hope because of our faith, which touches every area of our lives, including our finances. Today, we're going to take a trip way back into Genesis to find out how faith in the area of giving played a part in the story of brothers Cain and Abel. You may remember that Cain and Abel were sons of Adam and Eve, born after the couple sinned and were driven from the Garden of Eden. Their story is found in Genesis 4.

It's a tragic tale of resentment and murder. Cain killed his younger brother Abel because of an offering. Here's what it says in Genesis 4, 2-5. Now Abel kept flocks and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering, fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and his face was downcast. Now I'm sure you've read the story before. Both brothers were prepared to give to the Lord.

So far so good. Cain was a farmer so he brought some of his produce and Abel was a shepherd so he brought his offering from what he had. And this is where things went wrong. Look at the difference between the quality of their offerings. Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. Abel, on the other hand, brought God the best parts of the best animals he had, fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The words make it obvious that Abel and his gift were somehow more pleasing to God than Cain and his offering. As a kid hearing the story in Sunday school, I thought it seemed unfair that God didn't accept both boys' offerings. I thought maybe God just didn't like vegetables. But if you look a little more closely you can see why God favored Abel.

Hebrews 11 6 gives us a clue. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. God, who always sees the heart behind our actions, was not pleased with Cain's gift because Cain's offering demonstrated a lack of faith. Abel's gift was full of faith. Abel's desire to give his best demonstrated his trust in God's provision and submission to God's authority.

Abel chose to sacrifice some of his prime animals, animals that could have brought a handsome price. Cain, on the other hand, was content to just bring some produce and not even his first fruits. Cain's offering was a reflection of his faithless attitude toward God.

Hebrews 11 4 makes the connection between Abel's faith and God's favor. Here's what happened to Cain and Abel. Cain was furious that God approved of his little brother and not him. Genesis 4 6 continues, Now Cain said to his brother Abel, Let's go out to the field. While they were in the field Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is your brother Abel?

I don't know, he replied. Am I my brother's keeper? You see, not only was Cain faithless and false toward God, he also broke faith with his brother by killing and denying him.

So God judged Cain and sent him into exile. Our relationships with each other are as important as our motivations and attitudes when it comes to giving. Restore faith with your brothers and sisters in Christ before you bring in your own offerings to church. Here's what Jesus says in Matthew 5 23 and 24. Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them. Then come and offer your gift. You see, as Christians, we have the opportunity every day to do what is right by the power of the Holy Spirit in us.

We can choose to walk by faith just as Abel did. All right, your calls are next. The number 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. We'll be right back. The opinions offered during this program represent the personal or professional opinions of the participants given for informational purposes only.

Any information provided is not intended to replace advice from a financial, medical, legal or other professional who understands your specific situation. Well, it's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. It's time to take your calls and questions today on anything financial. The good news is we've got lines open. We're ready for you. The number to call is 800-525-7000.

That's right. You can call right now with that financial question you've been wrestling with. We can talk about it together and we'll help you apply God's wisdom. See if we can help you make a confident decision.

The number again, 800-525-7000 and you can call right now. Before we dive into the phones today, let's talk for a moment about being rich. Now, you might think that's what you want, to be rich, to have a lot of money.

That would sure solve a lot of problems, right? Well, the answer depends on your worldview. Look through the lens of God's Word and you get one answer.

Examine the life from a worldly perspective and the answers will be completely different. So let's look at being rich. What does the Bible say about it? Well, in Luke 12-15 Jesus warns against greed and says, Then Jesus tells a parable about a rich man who builds bigger and bigger barns to store his crops and his possessions. And the rich man is pretty satisfied and he says to himself in verse 19, You have plenty of good things laid up for many years.

Take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry. But God says to him, You fool, this very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? Now, Jesus finishes the story by warning us and he says, and I quote from God's Word, This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God. Those three powerful words, rich toward God. You see, the rich man in the parable has a godless view of the world. His desire is just to be rich, to accumulate a lot of things so he can take life easy. Obviously that doesn't work out for him. According to Jesus, the godly perspective is better.

Why? Well, because it has eternal value. It takes the focus off human desires and looks to God instead. Jesus says we're to be rich toward God instead of rich toward ourselves. But what does that phrase, rich toward God, actually look like?

Well, here's what author and pastor John Piper explains it to be. He says, being rich toward God doesn't mean to enrich God. He says, I think it means to count God as your riches. If you're looking out for where to be rich, focus on God. He is your great reward. He is your riches. Handle your money in such a way as to show that God, and not money, is your ultimate treasure. You see, wanting to be rich is a natural desire. But, if we're going to become mature believers in Christ, we need to leave natural desires behind.

And as John Piper says, we need to learn to handle our money in such a way as to show that God, not money, is our treasure. So, how do we do that practically? Well, here's just a couple of ideas, and by the way, we'll be heading to the phones here in just a moment to take your questions today. The number to call is 800-525-7000. You can do that right now. We'll be headed to the phones momentarily.

800-525-7000. Alright, four practical ideas on being rich toward God. First, of course, be generous. Give to God's kingdom as the Lord leads you.

Find ways to serve others with your time, talent, and treasure. Second, handle money with integrity. Be honest in all your dealings. Pay your obligations on time. And if you have children and grandchildren, well, teach them biblical financial principles. Third, keep your priorities straight.

Money is not the goal. Godly character is. And then fourth, be grateful for your blessings. You see, our God is a good Father, and He's given us so much, including the eternal benefits of salvation in Christ. Folks, when we give up being rich toward ourselves and become rich toward God, we receive God's encouragement, God's love, His wisdom and understanding. In 2 Corinthians, excuse me, Colossians 2, Paul prays that God's people, and he says, may be encouraged in heart and united in love so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding. So, in order they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That's our prayer for you today here at Faith and Finance Live, that you would reap the spiritual benefits of being rich toward God.

Now, I hope that was an encouragement to you today. All right, we're going to dive into your questions. We're ready for you. The number 800-525-7000. Let's go to Nebraska. Joe, you'll be our first caller.

Go right ahead. Yes, I have a question. I have a granddaughter who has her first really good full-time job. She's earning good money, and she would like to start figuring out, I think, a financial plan for saving. She grew up in the church, but I'm not sure she grasped all the things that it's taken me 70 years to grasp. So anyway, I would just like something to advise her to turn to so that they could help her. She wants to invest her money so that she can eventually travel and maybe have a job that she truly enjoys doing, and that she feels like she can live as well as work.

Very good. Yeah, I like that a lot, Joe, and I think you're wise to begin counseling her in that direction. Let's do a couple of things. Number one is I'd love to send you a copy of Howard Dayton's book, Your Money Counts. I think that will serve as a good primer to a biblical worldview of money management in all of the practical areas, living, giving, owing, but also growing God's money, which would be savings and investments. You know, this is a great time for her to really establish this central idea of wise money management, apart from understanding that God owns it all and her role is that of steward and money as a tool.

The most foundational practical step is to live within your means. And so she needs to establish a spending plan now that she's got regular income that she can count on. It's important that she establish that plan to give first, save and live on the rest. Our app, the FaithFi app, could be helpful to her at faithfi.com. She could download that to her smartphone, set up her plan right there and then track her expenses throughout the month.

So that's step number one. Step number two would be to establish that emergency fund. If she totals up all of her expenses for a month, I'd love for her to have three to six months worth of expenses in a high yield savings account. And so perhaps that's the next step after she downloads the FaithFi app and sets up her budget. She opens an online savings account that she can then link to her checking account. The idea would be that maybe she sets up a systematic transfer to that savings account every month with the goal of getting three to six months expenses in there. It needs to be outside of her regular operating account where she's paying her bills so that it doesn't get used.

But it's still readily available within a one or two day ACH transfer if she needs it for the unexpected. And then beyond that emergency fund, I think the next step is hopefully with that full time job, she has a company sponsored plan available to her. I'd encourage her to start thinking in terms of ultimately, even if she can't today, putting 10 to 15 percent of her pay of every paycheck right into that company sponsored plan if she has one, a 401K. If she doesn't, then in place of that, she could open a Roth IRA at Fidelity or Schwab and just pick a good high quality growth stock mutual fund and she could just systematically make that investment. Do all those ideas make sense?

They do. She had mentioned a high yield and I had never heard of that. So I think she's at least thinking along the right track here. Yeah, good. I appreciate it. You're welcome. So just to review quickly, get her to download the FaithFi app, set up her budget.

She could find a good high yield savings account at bakerate.com, start funding that emergency fund and then 10 to 15 percent in that retirement plan. Stay on the line, Joe. We'll get your information and get that book.

Your money counts in the mail. It's our gift to you. We'll be right back. Well, I'm grateful to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. We've got some great questions coming up.

Room for just a few more at 800-525-7000. Let's go to Fort Lauderdale. Hi, Winston.

Go right ahead. Hey, Bob. What's your name?

It's Rob, but I'll take whatever you call me, Winston. No problem, sir. Yes, I'm glad that you were able to take my call. Of course. I'm a regular listener to your program and find it to be very instructive.

Well, thank you. Now, my problem is I currently have a financial advisor who would like for the past couple of months have been trying just to get in touch with him and not able to. And I've been listening to you and I've heard of your, you know, kingdom advisors. And I'd like to make a transition from this guy over to one of your kingdom advisor.

What would be your advice? Yes. Well, I would say any time you use an advisor, if you can't get in touch with them for a couple of months, that's a that's a pretty good sign that maybe it's time for a new advisor. Yeah. To find a certified kingdom advisor in your area, Winston, just head to our website, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. And right there at the top of the page, it'll say find a CKA and that stands for certified kingdom advisor. Now, this is about 1400 men and women across the country and it's growing rapidly who have earned the only industry designation in the financial services industry for advice that aligns with the values and priorities of Christians. So these men and women have met high standards and character and competence, experience. They've gotten a pastor and client reference.

They've had a regulatory review. They've gone through an extensive university based training program on biblically wise financial advice, and they've earned and are in good standing to hold the CKA designation. So again, just head to the website, faithfi.com.

Click find a CKA and you can interview two or three there in your area and find the one that's the best fit. And I hope you have a much better experience. I'm confident you will. Thanks for your call, sir. And your kind remarks about the program. Yesen in Chicago. Go right ahead.

Hi, Rob. I'm 35 years old, married, three kids and a mortgage. I have life insurance through my work, which is only a one year salary worth. I was wondering if I should take out a whole term life policy or a term life policy. I wanted to do a whole life so I can borrow against it and pay off my mortgage, but I don't know if that's such a good idea.

It really isn't what I would recommend. Yes, and I'm glad you're thinking about getting more insurance. You know, often what we have through our employer is inexpensive and in some cases it's an employee benefit, but it's most often not enough. And that would be certainly the case here because I would recommend you have at least 10 times your income.

The idea being that if something were to happen to you, you've got those three little ones at home. Your wife would need to replace your income so that she could maintain your lifestyle and a starting point would be 10 times your income. So if you make 60,000, you'd want 600,000 in life insurance. You might want to add to that the cost of the mortgage. If you wanted to have her be able to pay off the mortgage, you could add to that even the cost of a college education.

Those are often the two things that are added to that multiple of income. And I would do term insurance to get the proper coverage. And the reason is that's pure insurance. You're just paying for the mortality expense, which is the pure cost of what it takes to ensure your life based on your age and health status and give her the proper amount of insurance coverage on your life so that she could be well taken care of in the event something happens to you.

It's going to be very cost effective and that will ensure that you can get the proper amount of coverage. Then with regard to the house, I wouldn't be looking to borrow against a whole life policy because remember, I'm recommending term. What I would then do is order your budget in such a way that you could maybe make one extra payment a year. Whether you do that one twelfth every month or one full extra payment a year, that's going to take a 30 year mortgage and cut it down to somewhere between 24 and 26 years. So that will allow you to systematically accelerate it.

But I wouldn't do that by borrowing. I would do all of your investing outside of an insurance policy through a company sponsored retirement plan. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. My company, well, my position is a union position, so I have a pension.

My company is not offering any 401k plans. Okay. Or I think it's a match on anything. Should I invest on my own? Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. You probably want to. You could open a Roth IRA for you and your wife, whether she works or not, and put in up to $6,500 each in that and that would be a great way for you to save alongside that pension.

So you have both tax free money growing for you as well as tax deferred. So hopefully that helps you, sir. Thanks for your call. Fran in Bradenton. No, Brandon, Florida. Go right ahead.

How can I help? Yes. We had fallen behind with filing an S core and personal taxes for like seven years, and we've gotten everything filed now and have heard back from the IRS on most of the years. And of course, now the penalties and fees are extremely high and wondering the best way to go about negotiating with the IRS, whether we should do it personally, use our accountant or use a tax lawyer.

Yeah, it's a good question. I would use a professional, often a professional, a CPA or an enrolled agent who has a special expertise in representing taxpayers before the IRS would be helpful. Any CPA or EA can do it now.

You can do it yourself, but I just think it's advantageous, especially in your case where you've got several years. You've got a significant sum of money. They are going to be willing to work with you either through an offer in compromise or through a payment plan. So, you know, you don't have to lose sleep over this. The key is don't continue to run from it.

Let's engage them. I would use somebody to represent you, but the key is getting on that payment plan, sticking to it and getting all of this taken care of over time. You'll feel a lot better once you've got a plan in place that you can work against.

But I would use, to your question, a professional to represent you, either a CPA or an EA professional who hopefully has some experience in this area. All right, Fran, appreciate your call today. Thanks for being on the program. Courtney and Del Rey, we're going to come to you right after the break. I understand you have a testimony, how God's been at work in your life. I can't wait to hear it. Plus, we have some phone lines open.

800-525-7000. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. Coming up in our final segment, Jerry Boyer will stop by. He'll give us his update on the markets and the economy. We'll get Jerry's take on all of it. That's just around the corner. But first, more of your questions with room for maybe a few more between now and the end of the program. 800-525-7000.

Let's go to Del Rey, Florida. Courtney, thanks for your patience. I understand you have a testimony. Go right ahead. Hey, Rob. I wanted to share my testimony with you.

Thank you so much for this program and everything that you do. I've just learned a tremendous amount of wisdom with finance and how to tackle investments. You always would say to save up three to six months of an emergency fund before you make any kind of crazy investment. So I started doing that and almost to the exact day that I saved up six months of an emergency fund, I lost my job and God called me into global missions. Wow.

Yeah, I know. So because I had the six months emergency fund there, I didn't have to be frantic and look for a different job. And I was able to really focus on my ministry and go to training that I needed to do. And I expedited that entire process.

And I literally leave for the mission field in January. So without this program and your advice, you know, who knows where I would be right now. But I just wanted to call in and just say thank you so much for everything that you do.

Courtney, that is incredible. And you know what? It's you following the obedience of the Lord and applying these principles that allowed you to be able to follow the leading of the Lord to the mission field. I'm so excited to hear that.

And then we could play a small part in that. Are you able to share where you're headed? Yeah, so I start in Australia for a few months and I'll go for discipleship training.

And when I'm done with that, I will head to the Middle East. Wow, that's incredible. And are you going to be going under the covering of a local church or with a mission agency or how is that going to work? Yes, I'll be with a mission agency called Pioneers and I will be supported kind of through prayer by my local church, Journey Church.

Wow, that is amazing. Well, I am so excited to hear your story. I'll tell you, it makes everything we do here and all the team that works to make this possible every day.

It makes it all worth it when we hear stories like that, because when we're faithful to follow God's design for our lives, and that includes our role in managing his money, it allows us to be free, as my mentor Ron Blue says, to live or die, give or go. And you are doing just that and we're so excited that we can be a part of sending you out and seeing what God does with you. Hey, can I pray for you before we wrap up today? Absolutely.

Awesome. Father, thank you for Courtney for this amazing testimony of your faithfulness in her life and how you've prompted her, Lord, to be sent. And we just pray that as she prepares in these coming weeks that you'd prepare her heart, that you'd be with her as she trains, and that, Lord, you just give her an incredible fruit, a harvest of souls as she goes off to the Middle East. Lord, may you protect her, but above all else, may she be bold for you. And we're going to commit this to you in Jesus' name. Amen. Courtney, God bless you. Will you keep us posted if you have time?

Yes, absolutely. All right. Thanks for calling. Happy Thanksgiving to you and God bless you.

Man, that's an amazing, incredible story. All right, let's go to Chicago. Hi, Nick.

How can I help? Hi, Rob. I have about $5,000 to $10,000 to work with, and I could tie that up for about a year, and I was wondering if you could advise what sort of vehicle I could use to give me the best interest yield, like a CD or a bond? Could you help me out with that?

I could, yeah. You know, I think with a one-year time horizon, Nick, a CD is going to be probably the best option for you. The good news is that, you know, CDs for a year are paying, you know, higher rates than we've seen in a long, long time.

So I'm looking right now at a one-year CD. You're probably going to find the very best you can get is about 5.6%, which is great for 12 months. I would go to bankrate.com. That's bankrate.com, and you'll find four and five star rated online banks with FDIC insurance at anywhere between five and a half and 5.67%. And then you'd open that, you'd fund it, you know, with your deposit. In some cases, they'll have a minimum deposit of five or 10,000, so you'll just want to make sure that you know what that minimum is. Others will have no minimum or maybe only a thousand, so you'll be able to find plenty.

But that's going to give you the backing of the U.S. government, a great rate of return, and be able to allow you to sync up the time horizon with exactly when you need the money, okay? Terrific. Rob West, you're the best. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. I appreciate it. That's very kind of you.

Let's go to Cleveland. Hi, Mary. How can I help you? Hi, Rob. Well, first of all, I want to say thank you, because I've spoken with you before when I was going through a divorce situation, and you hooked me up with the Kingdom Advisor, and I spoke with him. Things still aren't done with things, all of that, but I just wanted to say thank you, and you prayed with me online, and I appreciate that.

Oh, that's great. So the reason I'm calling today is I had received some money from my father when he died, and annuities and stuff, so I have not touched a lot of that money, and I have three children. Today is Olivia's birthday, so we have a 21-year-old, a 22-year-old, and a 24-year-old, young adults. Only one of them has any kind of pension fund with their jobs. I would like to gift each of them $10,000 to start a seed for an IRA, a Roth, or whatever you suggest. I don't know if it's better to go through like Charles Schwab or kind of thing.

I mean, no particulars, but I know it's better to go through an advisor rather than do it on your own. So I just don't know how to go about the steps for that. Can I start it for them and then surprise it for them for Christmas and say, you know, because I don't want to just gift them $10,000, and I know I can give them $10,000 without getting taxed. Correct?

Yes, so you can absolutely. First of all, I love this idea, Mary. What a blessing this will be to your adult children. They won't be able to put it all in at one time.

What I would probably do, because they are adults now, is they'll need to open these accounts themselves. I would recommend a Roth IRA, so that will be money that will go in after tax, but it'll grow tax-free for the next 45 years. So imagine what they'll have if it's invested for the next four decades plus to show for it when they get to retirement. They can put in up to $6,500 for 2023, and then they'd be able to turn around and put the rest of it in in 24. So if you make this gift before the end of the year and they can fund it this year, then that would be great.

You're right. You can give them up to $17,000 per year, and you don't have to tell the IRS about it. If you went over that, it still wouldn't be taxable. You'd just have to report it. But you can write the check to them, $10,000 apiece, and then let them know that your intent is that they use this money to fund a Roth IRA.

Now, where do they go to do that? They could use one of the robo-advisors like the Schwab Intelligent Portfolios or Betterment. So that's the Schwab Intelligent Portfolios or Betterment. Then it would kind of create an index solution that is automated and very low cost. The other option is they could go to soundmindinvesting.org, soundmindinvesting.org, and Soundmind Investing would help them select the mutual funds if they wanted to go that route. But in either case, I think this is a great idea. You're probably going to need to let them open the Roth, but I would kind of tell them the steps to do it and tell them that that is your intent, okay?

Okay. What's the Charles Schwab thing called again? It's called the Schwab Intelligent Portfolios.

Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, and they'll answer a series of questions, and it'll create a portfolio for them, and one of those can be a Roth IRA. Thanks for your call, Mary. We'll be right back. Well, I'm grateful to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. Here on a Friday in our final segment, we welcome Jerry Boyer to the broadcast. He joins us with his market commentary and economic analysis. Jerry, great to have you, sir.

Always a pleasure to be with you, my friend. Let's cover a few topics today starting with the economy. Obviously, inflation has been front and center, which is I guess why we've had so much strength as of late in the market. So what do you make of it?

Well, what I make of it is that we see the pattern that we've seen all along. So we know that the Fed, which is basically trying to manage our economy rather than just manage the money supply, the Fed thinks that if inflation is a problem, they have to slow down the economy. Well, so when inflation is high, then the Fed says, okay, we need to ride the brakes to slow down the economy because they think growth causes inflation, which is wrong, but that's what they think, and markets know that's what they think.

So like in any dysfunctional relationship, people learn to kind of manage around the people that are in charge of them. So we're always trying to guess like what is the boss of the economy? How are they going to react to the news? So this week, inflation was lower than expected and lower than it's been lately. And so the thought is, well, the Fed then doesn't have to slow down the economy to fight inflation because we already won, which means that the Fed is going to cut rates sooner. It's going to put money into the system. It doesn't have to slow down the economy. In fact, maybe there's a recession. It'll have to pump money in. It thinks it'll have to pump money in to speed up the economy. I mean it's really weird the way this works, like hit the gas, hit the brake, hit the gas, hit the brake. They used to call that the stop-go economy in the 1950s, that if you don't – we don't want the economy to grow too quickly because it will cause inflation, then you've got to hit the brake. Oh, that's a recession.

You've got to hit the gas. And then in the 1960s, John F. Kennedy said, no, we don't want a stop-go economy. We want a go-go economy, and that kind of came over in the popular culture. There was something called go-go boots.

You don't remember that. But they talked about the go-go economy because Kennedy was basically a classical economist. He wanted economic growth.

Well, that's not who's in charge now. We've got the stop-go, right? So we had a slowdown about two years ago, and then it sped up, and then we – you know, you and I know that the economy really slowed down a lot last year, not technically a recession, but slow. And then it sped up last quarter. This quarter is probably slowing again because the Fed hits the gas, hits the brake, hits the gas, hits the brake. So this week it was hits the gas because inflation has beaten, so now we can hit the gas. And then that's why markets went up because the Fed is going to be putting money – is going to be pumping money into the system. But also inflation hedges went up because people who are concerned about inflation, they think rightly, if the Fed isn't worried about inflation, we should be. It's their job to worry about inflation, and if they're not worried about inflation, then we need to hedge against it. So inflation hedges went up this week. Gold went up this week. The dollar went down, and growth stocks went up.

Very predictable in a kind of unpredictable way, very predictably reacting to what we think the Fed is going to do. By the way, I think the low inflation numbers that we saw this week are not permanent. I don't think we've beaten inflation. But I think they were low enough that the Fed maybe thinks it's beaten inflation. Yeah, Jerry, we've talked in the past about the fact that you can violate biblical principles and be rewarded in the short run, even though not in the long run.

Could that be what's happening here? I mean, is it possible that on the heels of all this stimulus and Americans flush with cash and the Fed doing, you know, in some cases exactly the wrong thing could actually result in this soft landing that everybody's been hoping for and in effect get a temporary reward even though we're really violating these principles in the long run? Yeah, I think that, you know, remember way back when we were putting together this idea of principled reasoning as approach to an investment, and we looked at thousands and thousands of factors that look at the character of a nation and what is conducive to prosperity, you know, rule of law, sound money, low taxes, etc. What we found is that there's a certain category of places where if you violate biblical principles, you actually prosper more in the short run. And that category is easy money and debt. So if this week the government came out and raised everybody's taxes a lot, I can tell you markets would go down, not up.

We would respond immediately to that or we nationalize an industry violating property rights, we would respond to that. But the one area where certain nations, nations that are considered the reserve currencies, we can create a lot of money and the world will soak it up. So it's not inflationary right away. The one area where we can violate biblical principles and seem to escape judgment would be when the central bank creates a lot of easy money and then people use that to create debt. You can get away with that.

Not only can you get away with that for a while, but you can actually prosper. Markets can go up when the central bank is pumping money into the markets. But what are they doing? They're creating bubbles. So eventually as they have to pull the money out, which they've been doing for the past couple of years, then the markets go down.

So eventually reality catches up with you. Yeah, that's really helpful. All right, Jerry, let's turn the corner.

Give us an update. I know you've been working on some really significant projects in the corporate engagement space and even this week. Yeah, and part of that is talking to the largest company in the world, at least largest publicly traded company.

That's Apple Corporation. And we just had a meeting, we and a shareholder had a meeting with them today to talk about the fact that they took down some Bible apps and a Quran app when the communist government demanded that they do that and that they recently canceled Jon Stewart, the comedian's TV show. And Jon Stewart has been critical of China that they took down some relatively tame but conservative Christian content. And we were talking about them because, frankly, we're concerned about that.

And after that call, frankly, we're still concerned about that. Their answer is that, you know, China is a government and if China gives a legal order to do something, then they have to do it. And I asked, well, wait a minute, did China pass a law against the Bible app or did just some Chinese bureaucrat call you and tell you to take it down?

Because those aren't the same things at all, right? And by the way, let's say that you had apartheid in South Africa and the South African government called up and said, well, we want you to take down apps that help people with interracial dating or marriage. Would you do that or would you fight it? Well, you know you'd fight it. So did you fight China?

Is there any evidence that you fought against this or did you just like fall into line behind whatever the CCP told you to do? And they just weren't willing to answer that question. They weren't willing to explain why the apps that they end up canceling tend to be conservative Christian apps. They couldn't give us any example of groups on the more sort of secular side or liberal side who are getting their apps. They couldn't give any example of that. They said that they're being transparent, but I think I told you that their terms of service literally say, we believe in all forms of expression except those that go over the line. How do we know if something's gone over the line? Well, we'll know it when we see it.

That's a literal quote. And we said, you can't possibly think that that's transparent. We'll know it when we see it.

Who's we? Who's making the decision? Well, they said there's a committee, right? There's a review board. Well, who's on the review board? Well, we can't tell you that.

Okay. So some review board has absolute power and they'll know it when we see it and we don't know who they are. Are there any conservatives on that review board?

Are there any Christians? So we're kind of to the point now where they're really not answering questions and that happens a lot with these corporations. They, they're asking the Securities and Exchange Commission permission to not put this proposal on the ballot before the shareholders. They don't think the shareholders ought to see this. We think the shareholders should see it. We think it's important enough that the shareholders should see it and they haven't revealed enough. So that's where the battle goes now. And that's an area for people to be praying that the Securities and Exchange Commission would say, no, no, no, this is a matter for shareholder concern.

They're the owners. Put it on the ballot and let them vote on it. Well said, Jerry. And I think it's just evidence of the opportunity we have to engage when we own shares of these companies and express our values and enter into dialogue just as you're doing and let the voters have a say.

And we'll continue to watch this one in particular. Jerry, before we finish up today, obviously next week, Thanksgiving, you know, part of that virtuous cycle that God designed for economics is that we give back to the God who created us out of gratitude. Well, what might you draw from as we think about the pilgrims and our founding fathers as we think as we're thankful next week? Well, the pilgrims had imposed on them a system of common ownership of property when they were when they were given the Plymouth Plant plantation. And what happened is, as in communism, always people don't work and they didn't work and they didn't have crops and they starved and had plagues.

Eventually, they violated what they were told to do by London and they adopted what they called the mosaic system of private property and gave plots to people and they worked them. And then when that happened, people worked very hard and they had great crops and they had a bountiful harvest and they started trading with the Indians. And that led to the prosperity that they gave thanks for on Thanksgiving Day. So, yes, we're thankful to God and that's how we orient ourselves, but we also have to have wisdom in the world. And what they learned through painful experience is that the cutting edge thinking of the day, which was Plato, and everything should be held in common because that seems efficient, led to death, starvation and plague, and that the Ten Commandments, which held to a system of private property, led to abundance.

Now, you're thankful in all things, even when there's starvation, you thank God even in travail, but I like thanking God for abundance. And what that means is following biblical principles and we have forgotten that story. It's not taught in schools anymore. It is there in the primary sources.

It's real. Just read a Plymouth plantation. We have forgotten that story and that's one of the reasons that we won't have as good a Thanksgiving. Food prices are high. Unemployment is rising.

We have a slower economy because in some ways we're backsliding back to that idea of low view of property rights and not giving people incentives to work. And if we're going to really start to have great prosperity again, we've got to go back to, quote, the wisdom of Moses, which includes private property and the rule of law. That's well said, Jerry, and a great reminder of something that has been lost, unfortunately. Hey, happy Thanksgiving to you and Susan and the entire family, my friend. And to you and yours, my friend.

All right. That's Jerry Boyer, our resident economist. He joins us each Friday with his insights and analysis on the markets and the economy and whatever else we happen to talk about each day. Hey, folks, before I go, let me remind you, this is a listener supported ministry. And here at the end of the year, it's vital that we hear from you to reach our goals of listener support. If you'd like to support the ministry, you can do that at faithfi.com. Just click Give.

Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and Faithfi. Thanks to my team. Couldn't do it without them. Have a great weekend. See you Monday. Bye bye.