The Bible’s Financial Wisdom With Sharon Epps

Many people are using the FaithFi app to help provide the wisdom, community, and money management to stay on track, financially speaking. To date, over 37,000 members are using its digital envelope system, participating in our community forums, and engaging in virtual workshops. And one of the most convenient features is the ability to keep all your accounts in one place for an easy-at-a-glance view.

You can choose from one of three options, depending on your management style, and it's available on desktop or mobile. Go to faithfi.com and click app to get started. Sharon Epps joins us today for a fascinating discussion on the depth and breadth of financial wisdom found in God's Word. 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 journey. Well, Sharon Epps is in the studio with me today. Sharon is the president of Kingdom Advisors, our parent organization.

Kingdom Advisors is dedicated to training financial professionals to guide and advise you according to biblical principles. And Sharon, it's great to have you back. I think we can still say Happy New Year. Happy New Year, Rob. I think we can. Happy New Year.

I'm delighted to have you here for the first time this year. I know there'll be many more to come, but I'm looking forward to today because we're going to kind of do a flyover of biblical financial wisdom, right? We are.

I just think it's helpful sometimes to step back and have a high-level overview of what God's Word says about financial principles and how they fit together. So we're going to fly over about 10 of those real quickly. All right. Well, let's dive in. Where do you want to start today? Well, one of the best places to start, I think, is with our cash flow and living expenses, primarily because that's where we live and what we think about most often. And the principle there, you've heard it here on Faith and Finance, is we need to spend less than we earn. Philippians says, I've learned to be content in whatever situation I am in. And the Apostle Paul knew exactly what we needed to hear, that we need to be content wherever God's placed us and reduce our living expenses when we can as one of the fastest ways to increase our cash flow.

Yeah. So a lot of folks out there listening today, they may be feeling the pinch, struggling a bit. Obviously, increasing cash flow can come from income or expenses. You're saying the expenses are the quickest way to do it. I'm interested, though, Sharon, why you go to contentment as it relates to spending less than you earn.

What's the connection between the two? Well, if we're not content with what we have, how can God entrust us with more? And so starting with where we are is the best place to start. I love it. That's so true.

All right. What's next? Well, believe it or not, focus on your children. Train your children. Proverbs 22 says, train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old, he won't depart from it. And when we say train children, it means be an example because they catch what we do more than what we say.

Yeah, that's so true, Sharon. And we can obviously train them in the financial literacy, and that's important. How to balance a checkbook, if we still use checkbooks, how to understand the power of compound interest and the dangers of debt. But we also need to teach them a biblical worldview of money as well, right? Absolutely, yes.

All right, very good. The next area is related to borrowing. It's another biggie. It's of course not a sin, but definitely something God wants us to be careful about, right? Well, Proverbs 22 says, the rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave of the lender. And I sure have seen that many, many times. And I think the things we need to remember is that borrowing can deny God an opportunity to work or to provide for us, and it always presumes on the future.

Yeah, that's so good. Sharon, I know there's been some helpful questions we've shared in the past for folks that are considering borrowing. Will you cover those for us?

Yes, there's four of them. The first one is, we don't want to borrow unless the economic return is greater than the economic cost. Secondly, do you have unity with your spouse? That's an important thing in all matters in our finances. Third, is there not any other alternative?

Have you considered the alternatives? And then finally, is there a guaranteed way to repay a way that we believe is certain, and that we're not betting on something out there that might happen? Yeah, and that's where we get into this idea of surety that the Bible talks about. We want that sure way to repay. All right, one more before we take our first break.

Of course, this one has to do with where a lot of folks have been here at the start of the year, right? Absolutely. It's the importance of goal setting, and Proverbs 16, 3 says, commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established. And so when we prayerfully set goals, it's a way that we commit our work to the Lord, and we say, Lord, not my will, but yours be done. Yeah, I love what the founding director of Kingdom Advisors Ron Blue says. He says, write your goals in the sand on the seashore, and that way you're ready to allow them to be changed as the Lord leads, right? We do, yes. All right.

Well, Sharon Epps is here today. We're talking about biblical financial principles. You know, here on Faith and Finance each day, we want to encourage you from God's Word to have a biblical worldview when it comes to money and financial decision-making. That starts with God's Word and these 2,300 verses that are in the Bible about money and possessions. But what are those principles?

Well, many more of them we'll cover just around the corner. Sharon Epps is president of Kingdom Advisors. I'm Rob West, and we'll be right back.

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This institution is not federally insured. So thankful to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West. With me today, Sharon Epps, president of Kingdom Advisors. By the way, you can learn more about Kingdom Advisors at kingdomadvisors.com. Perhaps you're a financial professional wanting to integrate your faith and your practice.

kingdomadvisors.com would be a great place for you to start. Sharon, as you know, we're covering the waterfront today as it relates to biblical financial wisdom, and a lot of folks are surprised to hear that money is almost the most talked about topic in the Bible. It is. We like to say there's over 2,300 verses that have something to do with money. Yeah, and so we're going to give you some of those principles today.

Before the break, we talked about many of them. We talked about the importance of goal setting according to biblical wisdom, spending less than you earn, the dangers of debt, and training up the next generation of children. Sharon, I want to turn the corner and this is a topic that a lot of folks don't want to think about. But tax time is right around the corner. What do we take out of God's word related to the paying of taxes? Well, believe it or not, Jesus even spoke to this in Luke 20-25.

He said to them, then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And I think the main thing is we need to remember that taxes are always symptomatic of income. We would not need to pay any taxes if we didn't have income. And reducing taxes will always cost you something. So often people look for tax deductions that actually causes them to spend more to get to the deduction. Yeah, so if I see taxes as symptomatic of God's provision, then I can actually and I'm actually going to say this, I can actually rejoice in the paying of taxes. Is that right?

Because we know that God provided. All right, I like it. All right, let's move to another biggie. And this is the area of investing. What does God's word say about investing?

Well, first of all, remember that this is a flyover. We certainly can't say everything. But I think one of the verses that's really helpful to us is Ecclesiastes 11, 1 and 2, where it says, Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.

Give a portion to seven or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on the earth. And there's so many principles embedded in that verse. We want to diversify. We want to get rich slowly. And with everything, we want to be sure that our spouses are in agreement. Now, there's a lot going on outside of us in this investment realm. And so economic uncertainty is going to be certain. We won't always know that we made exactly the right decision. Cycles are normative, and we need to seek godly counsel because of this.

We can't just go it alone. Yeah, that's really helpful. And I think those principles are so key. We certainly see those play out anytime we're investing. All right, this next area to look to related to biblical wisdom involves net worth.

We talked about investing. When we invest over the long haul, it helps to build our net worth. But how do we think about our balance sheet or our net worth in light of biblical truth? Well, first of all, let's make sure we know what net worth is. Net worth is simply the things that I own, less the things that I owe, and what's left over is our net worth. And so often we tend to get net worth and self-worth intertwined. And we think if our net worth increases, our self-worth increases. And that's just not God's principles. In fact, Proverbs 23, 4 and 5 says, Do not toil to acquire wealth. Be discerning enough to desist.

When your eyes light on it, it's gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings flying like an eagle toward heaven. And I think the main point there is that money is a tool to accomplish God's purposes and to accomplish goals that he has for us on earth, and that we can't rely on that net worth to have our own security. And we need to answer that question, how much is enough and how much could be too much?

Yeah, that's really helpful. And this, of course, involves our balance sheet, our net worth. You gave us a definition of that. So we need to answer the question, how much is enough to accumulate? We also need to answer the how much is enough question for our monthly spending or what you might call our lifestyle. Yes, on both sides of the equation, that cash flow that we talked about at the very first, as well as our balance sheet. How have you counseled people in determining enough?

What does that look like? Well, I think it's individual to every family. In fact, it's why we recommend that you have a certified kingdom advisor to help you through that process. But we look at what goals God's laid on our hearts, the plans that he's put before us that we need to accomplish. And when we look at those things, we can begin to draw a picture of how much is enough for now and for in the future, and ask the Lord, what would you have us to do with everything above that? Now, I'll also say the Lord might interrupt your plans and actually have you give or invest some that was in your enough. So it's a continual conversation with the Lord about what he wants us to keep for the future and what he wants us to give away. I love that. Yeah, that's so helpful.

All right, let's move along. This next one comes up in a question we get once in a while, Sharon. Is insurance and specifically life insurance biblical? Well, you know, I think the concept of insurance is one of providing for your family and thinking about how my family can be taken care of when I might be gone. And certainly that concept of provision is biblical. It doesn't indicate a lack of faith. It actually indicates planning like we were talking about and asking the Lord to show us what is the best amount of insurance for our family's needs.

And by the way, that changes over time and in different seasons of your life. Yeah, it sure does. And Sharon, I know you've had these calls before and counseled folks in this situation. I can think of a caller just last week who her husband passed away, but he was providing even in his death through life insurance and that weight that was lifted knowing that I can continue to cover my bills because this is now available to me is just so significant.

Yes, it can be a huge blessing. All right. This next one covers a lot of ground. Tell us what it is.

Well, as we're doing this high flyover these last couple, I want to just take us to the heart of the matter. And this is a concept of life planning. And the reason that we like this concept is that life planning is not just about our financial capital.

It involves spiritual capital and social capital as well. And that's why it's so important is because our finances are a tool to accomplish the spiritual things and the social things that God's put on our heart. And we're going to always have simultaneous and competing priorities. And we're going to have to always make choices. And our decisions are not independent of one another.

When I decide to do option A, it automatically means that I'm not doing option B. And so the more that we can have a long term perspective, the better we can make those decisions in those tradeoffs. And sometimes we exhibit financial maturity when we're able to give up today's desires for those longer term benefits.

Oh, yeah. And there's this principle that I know you talk about often that the longer term, the perspective, the better the financial decision will make today. And folks, if you think about that, you'll know that it's true. It's easy to say.

It's harder to do. But if you can keep that in mind, you will make better decisions. All right, Sharon, unfortunately, we're getting short on time. But I know you wanted to end with a question for our listeners today, didn't you?

I do. I think the main thing that we want to remember is that God owns it all and our role is a trustee or a steward. And in that role, oftentimes we need counsel and we need certified kingdom advisors who are able to walk alongside of us to help walk us through all of these principles and how they apply to our situation. And so I just wanted to point out today, are you a CPA, a financial advisor or another financial professional that your heart beats a little stronger when you hear us talk about these things and you'd like to integrate these faith concepts? We would really encourage you to go to kingdomadvisors.com slash get certified and learn more about how to teach these. And for you financial advisors, that's kingdomadvisors.com slash get certified.

Now, if you would like to find a certified kingdom advisor, you can head to faithfi.com and click Find a CPA. Well, Sharon, it's always a joy to have you. We appreciate you stopping by today. Thank you, Rob.

That's Sharon Epps from Kingdom Advisors. Again, learn more at kingdomadvisors.com. We're going to take a quick break and then come back and tackle your financial questions today. What are you thinking about?

Let's talk about it. The number 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000.

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

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

This is Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls today. 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. By the way, you don't have to call, just send an email, askrobatfaithfi.com.

That's askrobatfaithfi.com. Let's go to Cleveland. Ed, you've been very patient. Go ahead, sir. Well, thank you, Rob. Greetings and salutations to you. We've spoken a couple of times in the past.

What I'd like to do is just tell you quickly. I just bought a brand new car, a 2024, and I was going to finance it. There's no trade in it or anything like that. I was going to finance it through my credit union, so they did a credit check and whatnot. Long story short, I just decided to take cash. In other words, I wrote a personal check and bought the car. You know what I mean?

I know that's not too rare, but God's been good to me. But I keep getting these emails that say a hard credit check was done on you. It's a warning and whatnot. So people have been telling me that when they run a credit report for you, that has a detrimental effect on your credit rating.

And my question is, why would that be? Yeah, it's a great question. So just to bring some terminology to bear, you mentioned the hard credit inquiry. That's when you authorize a lender to check your credit for the purposes of determining whether or not they'll extend you credit.

A soft inquiry is what you would initiate on your own. So you could go to Credit Karma. Many credit card companies now offer free credit scores to their cardholders. So if you go and get your own credit just for the purpose of knowing what your credit score is or checking your credit file, that's a soft inquiry and that's not going to have an effect on you.

But you're right. That hard inquiry where you authorized a lender, in this case a car dealership, to check your credit because you were considering financing, that does temporarily pull your score down. So there are two points there. Number one is all hard inquiries in a two-week period for the same type of loan, in this case a car loan, would be treated as one. So that does give you the freedom, and I know you chose to pay cash so this doesn't apply, but it does give someone who's out shopping for a car loan, let's say, the freedom to have a number of lenders or dealerships pull their credit and all of that would be treated as one.

So there is that piece of it. Now, why would it bring your score down to your original question? Well, the scoring algorithm is just a function of the studies that have been done on hundreds and hundreds of credit files to determine a formula that will produce a number that indicates how likely you are to repay as agreed. And basically what that's saying is that the more credit reports they looked at, that this idea that somebody's out looking to borrow money is just one indication among many that they're a worse credit risk than somebody else. Because somebody who's not out looking to borrow money arguably is in a stronger financial position than somebody who is out looking to borrow money. Now, again, that's just one piece of hundreds of factors that make up your credit score, but nevertheless, when you have that one hard inquiry, it does pull your score down 20 or 30 points generally.

Is that a big deal? It shouldn't be because, again, as long as you keep it within the two-week period, your score shouldn't be affected and once you've gotten the loan, then it's a temporary decline. It will come back up as you have the months following where you don't have any hard inquiries. And really, the only time your credit score matters is when you're looking to get a loan because it's at that point that you need to know or they need to know where your score is and which bracket that falls into in terms of whether they're going to give you their very best rates and terms. If it's in a period where you're not out borrowing money, it doesn't really mean anything because nobody's using it for that basis.

Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense and does it make a difference that I didn't accept the loan? That I went personal? No, the fact that you authorized that credit inquiry has already had the impact. It was minimal. It's temporary.

It's going to come right back and it's just based on the data that says that because you're out looking to borrow some money or at least considering it, they're going to drop your score temporarily. I see. When you talk about algorithms and things like that, it reminds me of 50 years ago when I took physics and calculus courses, but thank you very much. All right. Thanks, Ed. We appreciate your call today. God bless you, my friend. All right, all the lines are full now, so I better get back to the phones. Indiana is where we're going next. Miriam, go right ahead.

Yes, hi. We came into some money, about $25,000, and we put $5,000 back into a safe and we spent about $5,000 on just some silver, so just trying to figure out what to do with that so I'm not nickel and diming it away. Yeah, I like that a lot. So in terms of an emergency fund, and that's just this name that we give to the fund that you would keep in a savings account separate from your operating account, which is typically a checking account, we usually use a rule of thumb there of three to six months expenses. You'll hear a lot of advisors and, you know, political or personal finance, you know, folks talk about that three to six months worth of expenses and the idea behind that is just that if you had an interruption in income, you lost a job, you had a major expense come out of left field, not something that you should have planned for like, and we know that the tires are going to wear out eventually in the car, we need to have a fund and we know the house is going to need some maintenance, but something truly unexpected. That's where that emergency fund comes in. So what would that be? How much are you all spending roughly on a monthly basis?

Do you know? Goodness, I would probably say around between three and 4000 a month. Okay, so let's say it's four.

So you'd be talking somewhere between 12 and 24,000. So, you know, basically, if you've got 15,000 plus you said you had 5000 in cash, I wouldn't count the five in silver because that's illiquid. But between the 5000 in cash and the 15, I mean, you're well on your way to that six months. So I'd take whatever portion you want to really call your emergency fund, and I put it into an online savings account with one of the online banks.

You can find out who has the best rates right now at bankrate.com. But let's say you're getting four and a half percent on that, which is, you know, something. And you would move it into that savings account, but you'd link that savings account back to your checking account. So that way, if you needed that money, you had an unexpected expense come up within two to, you know, one to two days through the ACH transfer, which will be free. You can move that money back into your checking, and it's available. But the key is it's not sitting in that checking account where you write your, you know, cover your monthly bills.

And that way you're less inclined to use it because it's kind of socked away for a rainy day. Does that make sense? It does. Yes, I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Okay, you're welcome. Thanks for calling today. We appreciate it. Well, once again, our time went by way too fast, but tune in next time and we'll do it all over again. Before we go, I'd like to thank our incredible production team, Amy, Devin, Jim, Robert, Brandi, Rob, and Ben. Couldn't do it without them. Have a great rest of your day, and I'll see you again next time for another edition of Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.