Is it wrong or is it right for Christians to invest in the stock market?
Hi, welcome to Little Lessons, we're continuing from our previous little lesson questions
about investing in the stock market.
Something that is widely practiced because, at least from a natural standpoint, it certainly
does make a lot of sense to save money for the future.
Now, I began to speak yesterday, discuss a little bit, the whole idea of saving.
We have to question why we would be saving.
You have to be saving for a legitimate reason.
If you're just piling up treasures on this earth so that you can just grow your wealth
and enjoy more, that's a questionable practice.
But, investing a portion of what you earn to guard against the future, and the eventualities
of old age is extremely wise and could be considered again, as just an act of love towards
the people that you love, so you're not a burden upon them.
There are other valid reasons to save.
You may be saving to start a future business in which you need some startup capital, and
boy, doesn't it make sense to save and earn interest and dividends then it does to borrow
money and pay interest.
That shows some self discipline, some prudence, and then when the time comes, you have enough
money, some capital to start a business, because every business, generally speaking, needs
some capital to start, even the smallest business.
If you have a lemonade stand, you gotta have the water and the lemons and you gotta have
a little table.
That being said, there's legitimate reasons to save for business, but again, if you're
not submitted to God, if you're just trying to save money to start a business so you grow
filthy rich and live a life of luxury, that's wrong, that's very, very wrong.
But if you're trying to save so that you can start a business and support your family and
help your kids get a start in life and take some of the earnings from your business and,
as much as possible, if God blesses it and you work hard enough, that you could give
a whole lot for the sake of Gods Kingdom.
Well that's praiseworthy, that's virtuous.
So it all comes down to what's really in your heart in this case.
You can also save purely to give, and that's New Testament right there.
I just pulled up a verse in the Bible from the 16th Chapter of First Corinthians where
Paul's writing about a collection that he's taking amongst all the Churches for the very
poor, and struggling Saints there in Jerusalem, and he writes in First Corinthians 16:1.
"Now concerning the collection of the Saints, as I directed the Churches of Galatia so do
you also on the first day of every week, each one of you is to put aside and save as he
may prosper so that no collections be made when I come."
So what he's saying is, "I'm gonna be coming by in a few months and if you guys save weekly
from what you earn every single week, when I come, it'll be a huge blessing, and I can
take your gift them to Jerusalem."
That's an illustration of saving money in order to be a blessing, to give money, to
serve others.
And you can do that in the short term or the long term, as in the example that I previously
made.
Starting a business at some point in the future, having the business capital to start up, you
have to save to get there.
But, your ultimate goal is to be a blessing.
Maybe one day you could be a millionaire, and you can give away millions of dollars
and lay up lots of treasure in Heaven.
So you can see that saving money could be on the path to laying up more treasure in
Heaven, which is what Jesus wants us to and what, of course, all followers of Christ want
to do.
There are valid reasons to save, but, regarding the stock market again, it's not a short term
investment.
If you want to invest in the short term, like you're saving up to buy a car in two years,
I wouldn't personally recommend the stock market 'cause there's a chance you could lose
money and nobody wants to lose money.
And God, I don't think, wants us to lose money, so, don't think of the stock market.
Now, people try to beat the stock market, one of the ways to do it is of course to spread
your investment out over the entire stock market.
These are called Index Funds where you basically are investing in the top 100 companies, biggest
companies in North America, for example.
Those are actually the safest and in one sense the smartest mutual funds to invest in, but
the trouble is, as I mentioned on our previous little lesson, you're very likely to be investing
in a few companies that ... what they're doing doesn't please God.
But, so I'm not encouraging investment in Index Funds, but I am certainly encouraging,
if you're gonna invest for the long term, spread out your investment, don't put all
your eggs in one basket.
People also try to beat the stock market by predicting the future.
There's lots of really, really smart people who spend their ... that's their business,
trying to figure it out and the next thing they're trying to figure out is how to convince
you that they can predict the future.
None of them can.
This years great stock picker is often next years major loser.
Because you could you say, "Well, last year my investments returned 100%, I doubled my
money so listen to me."
Well, it wasn't 'cause he was so smart, it was because he was so lucky.
Luckiness has a way of turning into unluckiness, so my advice is to be conservative investing
in companies that have proven track records that are definitely providing goods and services
that benefit people and they're evolving with the times and the stock value goes up and
they're paying the dividends.
You think about it, what an opportunity it is to be an owner, a part owner of a business
that is providing goods and or services for which people are willing to pay a fair price.
It's the investors that make it all possible.
All the blessing that comes from an economy, a functioning economy, comes from the people
who've invested, who are part owners in those companies.
For you to say, carte blanche, it's wrong to invest your money.
That be like saying it's wrong to participate in a functioning economy.
No, it's the investors that make it all possible.
Those are the people who consume less than what they earn, so they're living below their
means as it where, but seeing the wisdom in preparing for their future.
And at the same time, having the blessing of participating in a functioning economy
which blesses everybody in that functioning economy.
Alright, well, that's enough.
This is Little Lesson.
There's so much to be be said about this, but, I thought I'd just give you my two cents.
Thanks for listening.
God Bless.