Teaching Scripture, largely achieved through parables of life and real experiences of persons, both devout and secular, often relates to stewardship. Stewardship is basically the management of resources for the purpose of doing good as a hedge against the vicissitudes of natural/daily life. For example, the plan of Joseph, noted in Genesis, presented to us as an interpretation of a dream from God to a leader, to build up a reserve of grain during profitable farming years so to meet the likely famine of drought years, is a stewardship lesson to us. We meet the problems of natural life by taking precautions. One of those precautions relates to money (wealth) management. That management covers the spectrum of our needs and responsibilities. In the Old Testament, a part of the law was to give ten percent of income to God, so that the matter of management related, in some way, to the perception of the practicality of religious faith. One would not know what ten percent would be without some sensible understanding of what the hundred percent of income might be. In short, the faith of an individual had something to say about how resources would be managed, perceived and used. The story is lengthy. Our purpose here is to address the matter of savings. The fact that educated persons tend to manage their personal resources somewhat better than the uneducated ought to be some motivation for us to learn how to manage resources – personal or social.
The proper general objective of the individual is to become a mature and responsible person. God suggests that this may be helped with a percentage process. He does not expect more than a percentage for his purpose with mankind. If I am poor God does not receive a great deal in total. If I do well he receives more. So I tend to do my part, believing that his blessing will not only improve his return on his investment in me, but that I also will likely benefit in some way, perhaps visibly. It is impossible to out-give God. No person is God’s debtor. So it is that I follow, in an orderly way, the resource management over which I have some control – that relates to income and outgo as part of the equation. We live, at this writing, in an age that is sullied somewhat by greed. The markets, excellent means for advancement in modern business life is conflicted between those who follow fair and equitable concerns with those who are so touched by greed that they must have excessive salaries, play bubbles on the market, and follow other practices that endanger the economies of nations, as well as misrepresent mankind. The story lengthens, but we leave it there for another Page. How does the responsible Christian manage his/her personal affairs in the juggernaut of those who, from ancient times to the present, work and connive to accumulate so much excess – beyond being rich, so to be filthy rich. We need the normal wealthy to help balance the society. Wealth ought to be free of greed, so to do the right thing toward society that made them rich – and right toward God. I have known such rich and admire the way in which they use their resources to help others and make a comfortable environment for themselves.
I put my own situation together rather well – up to a point. In my retirement I related to a company building churches, on a plan that would reduce the cost to the congregation. Matters were moving along very well until the housing bubble burst during the first decade of the 21st century. At this writing I am paying debts left to the company when a major builder on the Stock Exchange reneged on a large contract, and left the company with millions of dollars of debt. My name was on some of the agreements, and I could not avoid, in my own spirit, the obligation. I am working on that debt, and with the previous and present planning made, the debt will be paid and not left to my children. In all this I learned an open secret that, if I were to do everything over again, I would make a larger policy than I did with Christian institutions. To lose my investment to a Church related institution would not be as hurtful as losing it to a portfolio borne out of the Stock Exchange. I have several small annuities with a Church denomination and colleges I have been a part. They have never failed in returns on those investments, and they are more generous in interest than most investment portfolios. Christians ought to investigate the proposals of their denominations and related institutions on their planning, saving and giving. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020