The Love of Money

One Bible verse that's often misquoted is, Money is the root of all evil. The actual verse, which is found in 1 Timothy 6-10, says, For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

I am Rob West. Money is a useful tool for reaching personal goals, supporting loved ones, and serving those in need. But no matter how necessary it is for daily living, money should not become an object of devotion.

We'll talk about that today, and then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well some people believe money is what makes life worthwhile. For the worldly mind, money seems to promise security, success, freedom, and power.

The Christian worldview holds that only God can meet our deepest needs, so we put our trust and hope in Jesus, not in temporary things. Still, we all need and use money every day. Everyone deals with temptations to worry about money, or fight about it, or overspend it, or even hoard it. That's why the Bible offers so much wisdom for putting money in its proper place. Getting back to our verse in 1 Timothy 6-10, For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils, to find out what evils Paul is talking about, we can look back at verse 9. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation, and a trap, and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. So the first problem with loving money is this. Wanting to get rich can actually destroy your life. When the longing for wealth consumes your thinking and defines your priorities, it leads to temptations, foolishness, and harmful desires.

The end result of these is ruin and destruction. Another danger is that craving money can derail your faith in God. 1 Timothy 6-10 continues, Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. I don't think Paul is overstating the problem here. Faith in God is the way of peace.

Wandering off his path can be a painful experience. Next, loving money too much makes it an idol. Replacing God is the highest priority. Instead, Jesus said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The Bible also explains that loving money and God at the same time is not possible. In Matthew 6-24, Jesus warned us that no one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Finally, you'll have to admit it. Money is never really enough. Have you ever really wanted something, and when you got it, you realized it wasn't as great as you expected? Well, that's just what happens when you try to accumulate money for its own sake. Ecclesiastes 5-10 says, He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. The fact is, only Jesus can satisfy the desires of your heart. Ultimately, loving money opens the door for sins like greed, fear, pride, envy, and dishonesty to take hold, leading you away from the Lord.

All this can destroy your peace and ruin your witness. Of course, money itself is neutral, neither good nor bad. Like possessions or prescription drugs or relationships or food, it's not the thing itself that's evil.

It's what you think about it and what you do with it that can become a problem. Let me read those verses from 1 Timothy again. Those who want to get rich fall into a temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. So what we need now is a way out of temptation. The next verses explain how Christians, by the power of the Holy Spirit, can actually avoid the dangers of loving money.

Listen to this. Flee from all this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith.

Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession and the presence of many witnesses. The world offers us many things that demand our loyalty and affection. Money is just one of those things, and as believers in Christ, we are called to flee from foolish desires, stay faithful to God, and hold on to our hope of eternal life. If we can help you with that, visit us at faithfi.com. All right, let's take your calls next, the number 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. 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. Hey, thanks for joining us today, I should say, on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We've got some lines open today, although the calls are coming in quick.

Four lines remain 800-525-7000. We're looking forward to diving into whatever you want to talk about today, related to your money. We'll help you apply biblical wisdom, see if we can help you make a good decision as you think through a biblical worldview as it relates to the practical financial matters that concern you today. Also coming up on the broadcast today, Jerry Boyer will stop by. Always look forward to our time with Jerry on the economy and whatever else we tackle related to the markets, but that'll be coming in the final segment today. Let's dive in.

We're going to begin in Pennsylvania today. Hi, John. Go ahead, sir.

Hey, Rob. God bless you. Thank you, and you as well. I love to listen to your program and I do so at every opportunity. Well, I'm so glad. Thank you.

That's very kind. Last week I heard you talk about Social Security benefits and then I was confused. Oh, boy.

That's not my goal, so let me see if I can help. All right, so I'm 67, almost 68, and what I had understood in the past was that if you wait to draw any till, you know, however long you can do without, you'll get more, you know, per year after that. But in that conversation last week, it sounded like that only holds up till you're 67.

So tell me more. Yeah, I apologize that I was not clear on that. No, your first thought was correct. So your full benefit, which is at your full retirement age, either 66 or 67, is the amount that is on your benefit statement. So they're going to take your high 35 years and they're going to calculate the benefit that you're to receive at full retirement age. But if you're willing to wait and not collect benefits at full retirement age, then you can see that estimated benefit that you're entitled to based on your work record continue to grow and it will grow by one twelfth of eight percent every month or roughly eight percent a year. And so therefore, if you were to wait until age 70 to take the money, you'd get about 125 percent of your full retirement age benefits in the form of a monthly check. And that would be locked in for the rest of your life. Now, some folks will look at that and say, well, I just can't do that. I need the money.

That's fine. But if you don't or you have another way to cover your bills between full retirement age and 70, then it's nice to have that guaranteed increase of eight percent. Now, the way the math works out, John, is that typically, you know, after about 11 years of collecting that higher amount that you'd start taking at age 70, so between 70 and 81, it would take that long for you to be paid back everything you gave up between full retirement age and age 70. Because, remember, for those years you weren't collecting. But from your higher check, you'll you'll be made up for all that you gave up. And then from that point forward, 81 on, you're, quote, in the money, so to speak, because now you have that higher check for the rest of your life. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. So, OK, so you're saying you're saying about 70. No words waiting, waiting even longer than 70 is probably not going to benefit, you know, more at a later time. There is no benefit to waiting beyond 70 because it stops increasing at age 70.

So there is no reason why you would ever want to not start collecting at age 70. OK, that's the part that I need clarified. OK, very good, John. Hey, appreciate your call, sir. And please call back any time. God bless you.

Let's go to Charleston, South Carolina. Lynn, I understand you have a testimony that you'd like to share with us. Go ahead. Yes, sir, I do. I was I was listening to your show the other day and you had Ron Blue on and you were talking to him about he was helping out his one of his children who had become a single parent. Yes.

And I yes. And I so related to that because I had the same experience when my kids were two, four and six. And I was left to bring them up on my own and provide for them. And it was very difficult.

But I made it out on the other end. And I thought that if I gave my testimony, it may be an inspiration to somebody else to keep. I used to tell my children when they wanted something we couldn't find it. We couldn't afford it that we were storing our treasures in heaven. And they didn't really like that all the time. But we we, you know, we we we struggled and we went through things. But I also took the crown ministry course.

Oh, yeah. And which was so beneficial about just like you say God owns it all and helping me to tithe when I didn't see a way to tithe and helping me to not only give monetarily but of my time as well. And I it was very valuable. And also I was I was part of in my church, my parents didn't have the resources to help me. But they helped me by babysitting and that type of thing. But monetarily, I was kind of on my own. But our home group, our small group that we were a part of came together. They they provided Christmas gifts for my children for for a number of years, and just were a great support to me and wasn't always financially but but just being there to help me.

So I would encourage somebody to take a one of the the crown ministries or one of the courses offered through church and and also stay very well connected in your church with a small group or something. So you have that support system around you. That was over 30 years ago. And I'm in a lot better place financially and spiritually now. But looking back, it was very difficult. But my children, I made it through.

Oh, wow. Thank you for that testimony of God's faithfulness and that encouragement today, Lynn. Let me ask you a question for somebody listening today who has a single parent in their life, maybe a church friend that's a single parent, a single parent that lives in their neighborhood down the street or a family member. Knowing what you faced in that season, how might somebody be able to bless another single parent just based on what you know you needed in that time? I would say if you could take them out for coffee, they probably don't get much time by themselves away from the children.

And maybe someone take them for coffee and somebody take care of the children if the children are young and just listen to them. I always felt like I was I was bothering people, but I didn't I had to work through so many things. But I would say just offering a listening ear is really what I needed back then.

So I would imagine somebody else would as well. Yeah, that's so good. So often it's just the simple things that really are going to be the most effective in a period like that. Well, so thankful, Lynn, for your time today and for sharing that with our listeners. I know it's been an encouragement. May the Lord bless you. Call back any time. We're going to take a quick break, folks. Back with more of your questions just around the corner. Stay with us. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. All the lines are full. So if you're calling, just keep trying. If you get a busy signal, we'll see if we can sneak you in here today. Back to the phones to Greg in Indy. How can we help, sir? Yeah, Rob, thanks for taking the call.

I had a question. At age 60, I had become disabled, could no longer work, filed for disability through Social Security and was approved still at age 60, started receiving the pay. I didn't know when I hit, which I've already hit, 66 and a half. That is my full retirement age. Will my check ever change? No, it shouldn't, except for just some limited situations. What happens is it just converts to a Social Security retirement benefit. But your disability insurance, SSDI, is based on or calculated using the same equation that Social Security uses for your benefits at your full retirement age.

So when it switches from one bucket to the other, the amount doesn't change because when you started to get it, it was based on your full retirement age benefit in the beginning. And so therefore it just continues on. OK, well, thank you. All right. You're very welcome, Greg. Thanks for calling today, sir. We appreciate it. Let's go to Tulsa. Hi, Jennifer.

How can we help? Hey, Jennifer, it's Rob. Go ahead.

Hi. I was wondering what would be the best way to save my tax return and make money on it at the same time? All right. Let me make sure I understand. Are you talking about like a tax refund or something else? Yes.

Yes, a refund. I get a pretty large one because I'm a single mom of five and I want to buy a home. OK, good. And how far off do you think that that home is that you'd like to purchase? Well, I mean, a couple of years. OK. Yeah, I would just sock it away and put it in a high yield savings account. You could put it in maybe a one year CD and just try to take advantage of some of these great interest rates that are out right now, Jennifer. But if if you wanted to, you could also just put it in a high yield savings, a one year CD right now, about the best you're going to find is probably five point six percent. How much money are you getting back about seven thousand?

OK. Yeah. So over the next 12 months, you know, you could bring in another three hundred ninety dollars, which is not an insignificant amount of money. And that'd be great. In that way, it's secure. You don't have to worry about losing the money, but it's also ready and available. You know, when that time comes and you're ready to buy that home.

And so if you had a longer time horizon, we could talk about other things to do with it. Let me ask, though, do you have any any debt, Jennifer? I'm paying on student loans. OK. All right.

And do you think you'll have those paid off in the next 10 years? Oh, yes. OK. All right. Great. So, yeah, I think I mean, one option would be you could how much do you have left on the student loans?

About five thousand. OK. So that would be the other option is you could go out and pay off the student loans and then, you know, take 100 percent of that student loan payment and just start putting it away every month. I mean, that would actually save in the long run in the sense that your student loan interest is likely higher than what you're going to get on that CD. So you would be saving the interest by paying it off and then you could start paying yourself. But if you feel like you're comfortable just continuing to pay on that student loan out of current cash flow, meaning your income until it's paid off and you really want to try to build up that savings for the house a little quicker than I think just sticking, you know, the the tax refund in a CD, you know, add to five point six percent, five and a half, something like that.

I'd go to bankrate.com, find the online bank that's paying the best interest rate, and then that's what you'd want to use for your savings. All right. OK. You've given me a lot to think about. Thank you.

Yeah. One other quick thing is I would probably adjust your W-4, which is what is going to change your withholding so that you don't keep getting these big refunds. I mean, I know it's nice when that time of year comes to have this windfall, but I'd rather you get that in your monthly paycheck. And so they're withholding too much from your paycheck. And so by completing the W-4, you'd be able to change that withholding. And the idea would be to get that refund as close to zero as possible, which means now your monthly paycheck or biweekly or however you get paid is higher. And maybe we build into that an automatic for savings where it just goes into the savings directly. But I'd rather you do that than waiting to get it back from the government after giving them an interest-free loan.

All right. So then I claim less dependence on my W-4? Yeah, it's a little more complicated than that. But the W-4 has basically a series of questions that you'll answer. And if you just follow the steps, it will help you determine how much you need to withhold.

And, you know, you can change it as often as you need to. OK. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks for your call today. God bless you.

To Jupiter, Florida. Hi, Alice. Go ahead. Hi, Rob. Thanks for taking my call and I love your show. Thank you.

Yeah, it's great. I took thirty eight hundred and fifty five dollars out of my IRA. I'm 71. I took it out. That's the first money I've ever taken out of there.

And largely because I don't trust, you know, any of it anymore. And that was the cost of the materials that I had to order in advance. I still got more materials out for this deck that I had to replace in a rental house. And that's about 300 miles away from me. So that's all.

I mean, there was a lot more, including labor. But does that thirty eight fifty five automatically get passed on to whatever I make for the whole year? Yes. So that ten ninety nine R, which is the form that you will get that has all of your IRS excuse me, IRA withdrawals would be hit the ten forty the the tax return and be added to your taxable income. And if you're less than fifty nine and a half, you'll have a 10 percent penalty on top of it. So, yeah, you don't want to get caught by a surprise on that.

And it will be added to your taxable income. Thanks for your call, Alice. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. All right. We're going to head right back to the phones. We've got some great questions coming up to Cleveland, Ohio. Hello, Paul. Go ahead, sir. Thanks, Rob. Love your program.

Listen to it many years and gotten great, godly advice. Yeah. My question is, my wife and I have recently become grandparents for the first time and a family member has started a 529 plan for our granddaughter who's just months old.

Great idea. But we're wondering if she chooses perhaps to just become married at you know, later in life, 18, 20, 22, whatever, and not go to college or go right into the workforce. Are the penalties and so forth, they would be imposed on that kind of making that maybe not the best plan or is that tech deferred benefit of the 529 even if you don't use it for for education, kind of a wash because of the tax benefits and it really doesn't make that big a difference.

Yeah, that's a great question, Paul. And it would not be beneficial if she doesn't use it for college with some exceptions because you don't get a tax deduction going in, you're putting in after tax money or somebody else's whoever's contributing to it is putting in after tax money. So the benefit comes in the tax free growth as long as it's used for qualified educational expenses. So from the time she's an infant till 18, it's invested, it's growing all those gains on top of the original contributions are going to come out tax free and for qualified education expenses. So if she doesn't go to college, how do you get the money out? Well, this is where it typically is not beneficial in the sense that, you know, if you have to just pull it out, you will pay not only taxes, but a 10% penalty on the gains, anything above the total contributions.

What are the alternatives? Well, the alternatives are transferred to another beneficiary. So another grandchild, it could be used for future educational needs, maybe, you know, resume college later, get a graduate or a professional program. The other thing that it could be used for is it could be rolled, this is new starting this year, it could be rolled into a Roth IRA. So I realized at that point, she's 18, she's not really thinking about retirement, but what a blessing to have money already in a Roth IRA that's growing for the future. That would be a wonderful nest egg, you know, 40 years later or 50 years later, you can roll over up to $35,000 to a Roth IRA as of this year out of a 529, as long as the money's been in there 15 years. So, you know, but it would have been, or she may have to wait a little while, but then it could be rolled to a Roth. So, you know, I think for those reasons, most folks find it beneficial. The other thing I'll mention is one of the exceptions in terms of just getting it out without any penalties or taxes is if she gets a scholarship. So if she gets a scholarship award, she can get the money out on a pro rata basis. But apart from that, if you want it more widely available for, you know, something, then certainly another option is to just invest it and, you know, pay the taxes on it along the way. And then all of that growth is available penalty free. Gotcha. Gotcha. So I hear you saying that really that's not used for education, you know, then really it probably would have been better from the start to have it into a custodial account or just a savings account in our name to present at some point down the road.

I think so. It's going to give you more flexibility for sure. But, you know, if she uses it for college, it is a wonderful thing.

I mean, it's it's that tax free growth that you get with the Roth IRA that everybody loves. But just in a in a college savings flavor, if you will. So, yeah, something to think about. The other thing is you mentioned a custodial account. And I will say, you know, just think through that one as well. It's not that it's a bad decision, but if she's not spiritually or financially mature enough to handle that money, it's her money at the age of majority. And so often folks who want to save an earmark money for children to get when they're, you know, entering adulthood, they'll do it in their own name or in a joint account with their spouse, know that it's separate and for the child.

But then they can choose when the right time is to give it to the child just based on their readiness. So that's the other consideration on that. Great. Thank you. Big help. OK, thanks for your call, Paul.

Hey, by the way, if you're checking out 529, my favorite website is saving for college dot com because your state's 529 may not be the best one for you. And they have a quick tutorial that'll help you figure that out. Thanks for your call, sir. To St. Louis. Hi, Dennis. Go ahead.

Hey, Rob. Thank you very much for taking my call. Sure. I appreciate your show.

It's very jolly advice. Thank you. My question is, my mom passed away a little over a year ago and left an inheritance to me. And I was wondering if I have to pay taxes on that.

No, no. So good news. You don't pay taxes on money you inherited from your mother. Any taxes do would always be paid by the deceased estate, not the heirs. You don't even have to declare this money to the IRS. So there's no form necessary because there's no declaration. And most estates, at least based on the current estate laws, don't pay estate tax either until you get above 13 million dollars for the estate.

So in most cases, the estate is not paying tax and certainly not the heirs because there is no inheritance tax. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. All right. Happy to take the call. And thanks for your kind remarks about the program. We appreciate it.

Let's go to Tennessee. Hi, go ahead. So thank you for taking my call.

My question may be more of a personal decision than anything else. But I wanted to ask, how much is enough? I'm 71. My wife is 71.

We're both retired. We have comfortable income. But I like buying real estate and either selling it or renting it sometimes during the renovation. I'm not crazy about putting money in the stock market. I don't need any additional income, but I still like doing this. But on the other hand, I don't want money to become my sole goal in life is to make more money, more money. That's not it. So how do I know when enough is enough here?

Yeah. Well, it's a great question, James. And I think the starting point is on your knees and asking the Lord that question, because he's the only one who can answer that in terms of enough for your lifestyle, enough for your accumulation. Sounds to me, Lo, that part of this is just God's wiring in you, that you enjoy working. He created you just like he did all of us to be productive, to take his creation and improve it. You're doing that through this buying and selling of homes, which I think gives you something that's enjoyable. Yes, there's an economic return, but I think your work is hardwired into you as just a part of your gifting and your enjoyment.

And that's the way God designed it. Now, with regard to the financial means, see, money is just a tool to accomplish God's purposes. And as long as God is our ultimate treasure and the acquisition of money is not the desire of our heart, then we're now in a place where we can say, God, what would you have me to do? And what's exciting about that is there's incredible opportunities for you to take this gift you've been given of being able to buy and sell these homes and make money and use that as an engine for ministry and even spreading the gospel and meeting the needs of people on your path and around the world.

So I think that's perhaps maybe the thing to consider. But here's what I'd like to do. I want to send you a book that I think is going to help you think through this a little bit more specifically around this idea of enough. So you stay on the line, we'll get your information, and then we'll get that book out to you.

And once you've thought it through, maybe give me a call back. We'll be right back. Hey, thanks for joining us on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. Hey, in this segment, Jerry Boyer's here.

He joins us each Friday with his market commentary and economic analysis. Jerry, you and I are going to be together in just a few days down in sunny South Florida, I guess, huh? We are.

And I'm looking forward to that. Actually, Orlando. So about the middle of the state. But yeah, I understand it's going to be in the 80s, a little different than than Pennsylvania this time of year.

Yeah, a little different than Pittsburgh in my muddy yard. That's great. Hey, you're going to be speaking twice. I know you're going to be talking about corporate engagement and an interesting topic, virtue in the markets.

Preview that for us. Yeah, well, there's three things. This is a conversation with David Bahns and is a financial adviser. And one thing is, are free markets a virtuous approach to economics? And I think the answer that David is going to give, and I think it's correct, is yes.

The free market system is the one that's consistent with Christian virtue in that it honors property rights and honors people's labor. Right. It puts responsibility with decision makers. But is that enough? No, it's not enough, because the system largely runs on trust. And if people cheat all the time, if they're constantly engaging in fraud, if they're trying to rip one another off, then trust breaks down and the system breaks down with it. So the free market system is better than other systems, but it still doesn't operate properly without virtue.

And the other thing is that I think we really want to talk about that doesn't get enough attention. And David has a book out on that this week, which is, there really has been, I think, and he thinks an under emphasis on the Christian virtue of hard work. That labor is something that's done to the glory of God.

Six days thou shalt labor and do all thy work. The seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord is two commands. It's not just a command to rest. It's a command to work.

And it's a command to mostly work. And at some point, I think in the Christian conversation, we got the idea that, well, work is a curse, but you have to do it. Or work is good because it puts food on the table, but not really good in and of itself. Or work is good because you're tied from it.

And it's the tide that makes the work, you know, sacred, when in fact the work is a sacred calling under God, all in and of itself. Now, of course, it can be done wrongly. Every good thing could be done wrongly. Marriages can be done wrongly. Parenting can be done wrongly.

Church can be done wrongly. But they are all inherently a good calling of God, and that therefore we need essentially a revival of the biblical or Christian work ethic. And if we did that, we wouldn't have the labor shortage that we have now. We wouldn't have the supply chain disruptions that we have now.

We wouldn't have the great resignation, which is crippling our economy. It's so good. You know, Jerry, just a moment ago, we were talking to a caller, James. He said, Listen, my wife and I are fully retired. I'm buying and selling properties. I'm making money on them.

I love it. But I want to be careful to answer the question, how much is enough? And I want to make sure I'm doing it for the right reasons. And it's a little bit of what you're talking about. That's what I said to James. I said, part of this, James, that's just how God has wired you. You're enjoying this because you're being productive. You're using a skill that he's given you and you're buying real property, part of his creation and improving it.

Now, you need to check your heart. And if we can continue to do it and use it as an engine for ministry and giving, that's great. But the idea of continuing to work throughout that season of life is a good one, right? Right. And it doesn't become good because of the giving.

It's already good. The working is good and the giving is good. The giving isn't essentially the thing that makes the work no longer a curse. They're both callings of God.

And it's an interesting thing. What is it about our Christian culture that makes somebody who loves being economically productive stop and wonder, should I be economically productive? Because by buying and selling homes, he's helping people.

People live in homes. So let me kind of recast this, how much is enough question. How much what is enough? How much productivity is enough? Or how much spending on myself is enough? How much keeping is enough?

Because those are entirely different questions. Yeah, we shouldn't over-consume on ourselves. We shouldn't lavish ourselves, you know, and be greedy and selfish that way. But that's a completely different question than how economically productive we should be. There should, there should, there should be a ceiling, I believe, on our living standard. I do not think there should be a ceiling on our economic productivity and our earning standard. And once we distinguish those questions from one another, there's nothing greedy about earning.

There's just something greedy about keeping more of what you earn than you should. Oh, wow. That's well said.

And I appreciate you drawing the distinction between those two. I think that I hope James is still listening. I think that'll be an encouragement to him. All right, Jerry, let's move to your second topic. And by the way, folks, we're talking about the Kingdom Advisors Conference, 2200 advisors gathering in Orlando to really worship the Lord, grow in their spiritual journey, but also be better equipped to bring biblically wise financial advice to their clients. Jerry, you're going to be doing a panel on corporate engagement. As I shared with you earlier today, this weekend, I was just kind of out and about on the Internet and I ended up on the documents for the Apple shareholder meeting. So the annual meeting, Apple. And there it is, page 86, the proposal that you drafted, Jerry, that really talks about this opportunity to confront Apple about deplatforming folks.

Tell us about that. Yeah, and that's one of probably 13 proposals that we've helped various financial advisors and or ministries put there on the ballot. So that's a pro-family ministry that happens on Apple stock that put that on the ballot.

By the way, I want to put that as a challenge. All the other Christian ministries out there and churches, you own stocks. Are you using are you reaching the mission field of boardrooms? What? We didn't even know there was one.

Yeah, there is one. And so what this particular ministry did is said, listen, you've been taking that Christian content from your app store. We're concerned about that. We've helped them fight it out before the Securities and Exchange Commission Alliance Defending Freedom also helped our side one, it's going to be there. The head of that ministry is going to give a speech to the board of directors and the other shareholders basically making the case that Apple is not upholding the civil liberties and civil rights, particularly the religious liberty of customers who want to use a Bible app or some other conservative Christian apps. And that's, you know, we've got a lot of those proposals going.

There's a number having to do with the banking. There's some that have to do with discriminating against employees based on their religious views. We just had a conversation this week.

It was really just so fascinating. I'll leave the name of the company out for now, since it's not past the SEC, where there's a proposal that's saying, listen, you don't protect the viewpoint diversity of your employees. You have a history of taking stances on issues publicly that are contrary to Christian values. You don't have a Christian employee resource group. You don't match grants to churches.

You know, there's something going on here. There seems to be bias. And, you know, one of the investment relations teams said, well, no, no, there can't be bias. We make all our people take unconscious bias training program. We have an unconscious bias training program that we make all our associates take. So what's the problem? And I said, the problem is, you know, how do we know there's not a bias in your unconscious bias?

I shouldn't say it this way. How do we know there's not an unconscious bias in your unconscious bias training program? For instance, we looked at, you know, something that they put out through one of their branches that said, you need to check your privilege if you're heterosexual or cisgender or Christian. Well, then you have unearned religious privilege. You have unearned privilege.

If you expect to get the day off on December 25th, well, then that's Christian privilege. Well, how are Christians going to feel about being treated like they are somehow guilty and have some undeserved or unearned privilege that they should be ashamed of? Again, I think there's an unconscious bias problem in their unconscious bias program. And we asked them for permission to take a look at it and see what we think. And they said, well, you know, we get feedback from our employees on these. And I said, yes, but the employees work for you. They're under you. How about us, the shareholders?

We're over you. We'd like to evaluate you rather than you evaluating your employees on whether you're treating them fairly. So these are the kinds of things that are going on on a weekly basis. And this is a witness to the truth in the boardroom that has not heard it for a long time. And perhaps the boardroom is the most powerful place to have these conversations in terms of real culture change, would you think? Jesus said to the apostles and disciples, you'll stand before kings and I'll tell you what to say. We don't have kings now, really. I mean, we have we elect our rulers, but in a sense, we do. A CEO really is a king, or at least they think of some of them act that way. Those are the kings of the modern world. We need to be speaking before those kings. And here's the beautiful thing about that.

We have that power as shareholders. Remember when they accused Paul and they said and they whipped them and Paul and they said, well, we're sorry. And Paul said, well, that's great.

Thanks for the apology. I'm putting it my way. But I still want to appeal to Caesar. He had a right. He has a citizen of Rome. He had a right to talk to Caesar.

When you own a share in a corporation, you are a citizen of that Rome. You have a right to talk to Caesar. It is time to start using that right. Wow. That's well said, Jerry. All right. We're going to leave it there for today, my friend. Listen, safe travels and we'll see you in Orlando. See you then. All right, folks, that's Jerry Boyer.

He's president of Boyer Research and boy, that's why we love when Jerry stops by. What gold he had for us today. All right. We're almost out of time.

Quickly to Grand Rapids. Sophia, I've got about a minute. Go ahead.

Hey, Rob, thank you for taking my call. My husband and I are basically looking for your opinion on what to do with some excess house loan money from a new construction. Okay. And yeah, so we have a couple of options and the house loan interest right now is 4.5%. So we're looking to build a garage pretty soon that we were considering pulling that money out and using towards that. And we also have student loans that we could pay pretty close to off with that money as well that are at almost 7%. Okay.

Yeah. And then if you did that, how would you fund the garage? You'd pull more of the construction loan? We have a savings account that we could use. We're just hoping to not tap into it. Okay. And if you paid for the garage out of that, would you still have enough for an emergency fund? Yeah, we would. Okay.

I probably, unless that's earmarked for something, I like getting rid of that student loan, getting rid of that 7% interest and then taking that monthly amount and use that every month to rebuild your savings. Let's talk a little bit more off the air. I'm out of time, unfortunately. Hang right there, Sophia.

Faith in Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. Thank you to Laura, Jim, Tahir, and Amy. See you next time. Bye-bye.