Bible
Verses on how to Manage Money
by
Jason Hommel
silverstockreport.com
Nov. 2005
1. Your money is not your own. It all belongs to God.
Haggai 2:8 All silver and gold belong
to me, [says the Lord God]
Psalm 24:1 The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the
world, and they that dwell therein.
1 Corinthians 10:26 For the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness
thereof.
Even the kings and kingdoms of the earth belong to the Lord, The Lord
God owns it
all!
2
Chronicles 36:23 Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given
me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem,
which is
in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The LORD his God be
with him, and let him go up.
Daniel 4:17 This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the
demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may
know that the most High ruleth in the
kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth
up over it the basest of men. see also Daniel 4:25 & 4:32.
Romans 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the
governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God
has established. The authorities that exist have been established by
God.
Psalm 75:6-7 For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from
the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth
down one, and setteth up another.
But why are there bad politicians? Because God gives us what we
deserve. We reap what we sow!
Therefore, we'd better be good if we want good rulers, and if we want
God to bless us. God will trust you with His wealth if you are
trustworthy and obedient
to his laws. Be faithful over a little, and God will give you
more--even rulership!
Joshua
1:8 This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you
shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do
according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way
prosperous, and then you will have success.
Proverbs
13:22 If you obey God, you will have something to leave your
grandchildren. If you don't obey God, those who live right will get
what you leave.
Luke 16:10 Anyone who can be trusted in little matters can also be
trusted in important matters. But anyone who is dishonest in little
matters will be dishonest in important matters.
11 If therefore ye have not been faithful in the
unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
12 And if ye have not been faithful in that which is
another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
Luke 19:17 "That's fine, my good servant!" the king said. "Since
you have shown that you can be trusted with a small amount, you will be
given ten cities to rule."
2. Since we are God's stewards, we must invest our money (God's
money) in ways
that God instructs. If your broker disobeyed you, you'd fire
him. So, don't disobey God's instructions or God will no longer
ask you to be His caretaker of His wealth, and will be likely to stop
blessing you. Seek knowledge from
God and the Bible. Fools refuse instruction. People are
destroyed for lack of knowledge. Seek wisdom first, then all
other things are added. Seek the kingdom first, and all will be
added to you. Godly wisdom leads to wealth. Seek out the
council of wise men.
Proverbs 16:16 It's much better
to be wise and sensible than to be rich.
Proverbs 1:7 Respect and obey the LORD! This is the beginning of
knowledge. Only a fool rejects wisdom and good advice.
James 1:5 If any of you need wisdom, you should ask God, and it
will be given to you. God is generous and won't correct you for asking.
Hosea 4:6 You priests have rejected me, and my people are
destroyed by refusing to obey. Now I'll reject you and forget your
children, because you have forgotten my Law.
Proverbs 13:18 All who refuse correction will be poor and
disgraced; all who accept correction will be praised.
2 Chronicles 1:11 All who refuse
correction will be poor and disgraced; all who accept correction will
be praised.
Matthew 6:33 But more than anything else, put God's work
first and do what he wants. Then the other things will be yours as
well.
Proverbs 15:22 Without good advice everything goes wrong-- it
takes careful planning for things to go right.
3. Work. Tend your flocks. Be diligent. You
must pay attention to your investments, and take care to know the state
of the companies in which you invest. (Be not deceived.)
Galatians 6:7 You cannot fool
God, so don't make a fool of yourself! You will harvest what you plant.
2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, this
we commanded you: that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
Proverbs 31:16 A good woman knows how to buy land and how to
plant a vineyard,
Proverbs 10:4 Laziness leads to poverty; hard work makes you rich.
Proverbs 13:4 No matter how much you want, laziness won't help a
bit, but hard work will reward you with more than enough.
Proverbs 22:29 If you do your job well, you will work for a ruler
and never be a slave.
Proverbs 27:23 You should take good care of your sheep and goats.
Wealth comes from producing
more than you need, and trading your
excess production to other men.
I grew up in Sacramento, and we had several fruit trees. We had
an apple tree, a plum tree, a lemon bush, a pomegranet tree, a peach
tree, and a grape vine. Each tree could produce more than a small
family of four could eat. But the excess was not really enough to
go into business to trade to others in a reliable, profit making
way.
The Bible says to plant a grove of trees, all of one kind--and not a
grove of trees of different kinds. This would require planning
& specialization in order to trade away the excess to others, in
order to reap the benefit of the harvest season.
Leviticus 19:19 Ye shall keep my
statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled
seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come
upon thee.
4. Don't be lazy, you must work. Laziness leads to
poverty.
Proverbs 18:9 Being lazy is no
different from being a troublemaker.
Ecclesiastes 10:18 Some people are too lazy to fix a leaky
roof-- then the house falls in.
Proverbs 24:30 I once walked by the field and the vineyard
of a lazy fool.
31 and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles
had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken
down.
32 Then I saw and considered it well; I looked upon it, and
received instruction:
33 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding
of the hands to sleep --
34 so shall thy poverty come as one that wandereth, and thy
want as an armed man.
Proverbs 20:13 If you sleep all the time, you will starve; if you
get up and work, you will have enough food.
Proverbs 28:19 Work hard, and you will have a lot of food; waste
time, and you will have a lot of trouble.
The Bible tells us to not only work hard, but to work efficiently, to
not waste time! Therefore, work hard to increase the efficiency
and effectiveness of
the work that you do! Or, seek to do the work that is most
efficient,
most effective and most productive.
Free & Honest Trade increases men's efficiency, because men can
specialize & become experts at what they produce, and thus, produce
more.
5. You must save the excess portion that you get from all your
hard work. You must save to become wealthy. Saving means
spending less than you earn. It requires self-control, one of the
fruits of the Holy Spirit. There is no other way to become
wealthy. You must have a storehouse (savings) in order for it to
be blessed. Even the ants have a storehouse.
Deuteronomy
28:8 The LORD shall command the blessing upon
thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto;
and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Proverbs 21:20 Be sensible and
store up precious treasures-- don't waste them like a fool.
Proverbs 6:6 You lazy people can learn by watching the ant
7 Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
8 Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food
in the harvest.
Proverbs 30: 24 On this earth four things are small but
very wise:
25 the ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their
meat in the summer;
6. Your wealth has a purpose. It is not for your personal
luxury. So, do not live extravagantly to excess. A Rich man
built barns for his money, for a plan of laziness, and it was all taken
away. Another rich man lived extravagantly, and ignored the poor,
and was taken to hell. But having riches was not the problem,
because having wealth is not incompatible with being a disciple of
Jesus. A rich man was a disciple of Jesus.
Proverbs
23:20-21 Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves
on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes
them in rags.
Proverbs 21:17 Heavy drinkers and others who live only for
pleasure will lose all they have.
Luke 12:15-21 Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard
against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the
abundance of his possessions." And he told them this parable:
"The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop.
He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my
crops.'
"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and
build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
19And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for
many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."
"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will
be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for
yourself?'
"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself
but is not rich toward God."
Mark 10:24-27 The disciples were shocked to hear this. So
Jesus told them again, "It's terribly hard to get into God's kingdom!
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
And they were astonished out of measure, saying among
themselves, Who then can be saved?
And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is
impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.
1 Timothy 6:9 People who want to get rich fall into temptation
and a trap and into
many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and
destruction.
7. Do not be deceived. This is not advice, it is a positive
command to not be deceived. Being deceived leads to
disaster. You must avoid investing in frauds such as Enron, or
the dollar, or bonds. Worshiping a false idol (dollar or bonds!)
can cause your wealth to be destroyed. Wealth itself can be
either a deception, or a reward.
Galatians 6:7 You cannot fool
God, so don't make a fool of yourself! You will harvest what you plant.
Deuteronomy 11:16-17 Be careful, or you will be enticed to
turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the LORD's
anger will burn against you, and he will shut the
heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce,
and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you.
Matthew 13:22-23 The one who received the seed that fell
among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this
life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.
But
the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who
hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a
hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."
8. Use just weights and measures. Unjust weights and
measures are an abomination. Therefore the dollar, which used to
be a weight of gold, is no longer a just weight of gold. The
dollar is fraud, and an abomination. The dollar is also a
deception, a broken promise, because it used to be a promise to pay a
certain amount of gold or silver.
Leviticus 19:35 Use honest scales
and don't cheat when you weigh or measure
anything
Deuteronomy 25:15 If you weigh and measure things honestly, the
LORD your God will let you enjoy a
long life in the land he is giving you.
Proverbs 20:10 Two things the LORD hates are dishonest scales and
dishonest measures
Exodus 20:15 Do not steal
9. Do not covet. (To covet means to envy and desire things that
don't belong to you.) Coveting makes you miserable, and it leads
you to want to take from another to be rich, rather than realizing that
wealth comes from producing on your own.
Exodus 20:17 Do not want
anything that belongs to someone else. Don't want anyone's house, wife
or husband, slaves, oxen, donkeys or anything else.
Coveting and taking from others is
wrong, because it assumes that one man's wealth must come at another
man's expense. But the world economy is not a "zero sum" game of
mere
transfers of wealth. Real wealth is produced from the
earth: everything either is originally grown or mined--including
you.
Production, work, creates
wealth. Trade creates wealth.
10. Avoid the lures of communism, which is the result of
coveting
and stealing. Avoid insurance, and social security, which are
plans of communism. Trust in God's ways. God's ways are
that the family should take care of the family, and that the Church
should take care of widows. The way of criminals is the way of
communism, "let us all have one purse", which means that the family
does not need to take care of the family, because the state has taken
over the family duty.
Exodus 20:12 Respect your father
and your mother, and you will live a
long time in the land I am giving you.
1 Timothy 5:8 People who don't take care of their relatives, and
especially their own families, have given up their faith. They are
worse than someone who doesn't have faith in the Lord.
Proverbs 1:11 when they say, "Come on! Let's gang up and
kill somebody, just for the fun of it
12 let us swallow them up alive as the grave, and whole, as
those that go down to the pit;
13 we shall find much precious substance, we shall fill our
houses with spoil;
14 cast in thy lot among us, let us all have one purse""
15 my son, walk not thou in the way with them; restrain thy
foot from their path;
16 for their feet run to evil and make haste to shed blood.
17 Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any
bird!
18 And they lie in wait for their own blood; they lurk
privily for their own lives.
19 So are the ways of every one that is greedy for gain,
which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.
11. Do not take advantage of other people--treat them as
brothers. If you must lend, then lend, but take no usury.
Do not be a
usurer. In the modern world, this means you cannot invest in
bonds, nor CD's, nor a savings account, nor Treasury bills, nor junk
bonds. Taking usury is extortion, and enslaving others.
Luke 6:35-37 But love your
enemies and be good to them. Lend without expecting to be paid
back. Then you will get a great reward, and you will be the true
children of God in heaven. He is good even to people who are unthankful
and cruel. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy
God; that thy brother may live with thee.
Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy
victuals for increase.
Deuteronomy 23:19 When you lend money, food, or anything else to
another Israelite, you are not allowed to charge
interest.
Exodus 22:25 Don't charge interest when you lend money to any of
my people who are in need
Ezekiel 22:12 In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou
hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy
neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord GOD.
Nehemiah 5:7 So I thought it over and said to the leaders and
officials, " How can you charge your own people interest?"
Although the Israelite could lend money to someone who was not an
Israelite, they could NOT lend to a stranger who lived among
them--because they were to treat strangers who lived with them as
brothers, as themselves. Christians are to love our enemeis, see
Luke 6:35 above...
Leviticus 19:33 And if a stranger
sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.
Leviticus 19:34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be
unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for
ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
Free market economists tell us that the immigrant is great for a
nation. These people are entrepreneurs. Generally smarter,
& braver than their countrymen, they make us better off.
They enable us to trade more with their home nation.
If they come to do menial labor, that's great, as we generally don't
want to have to do that kind of work ourselves.
And if they come to do high paying intellectual labor, that's great,
because that kind of work generally produces more for the company (and
nation) that employs them.
12. The borrower is the servant to the lender. Therefore do not
lend, lest you enslave someone. And do not borrow and enslave
yourself. No man can serve two masters, God and mammon. So,
how could you enslave yourself with debt, and become a servant of
money? If you are in debt,
you must "service" the debt, and the borrower is the servant to the
lender. Be a servant to God alone, not to money, not to the
lenders. Make your
money serve you, don't serve the money you have spent to excess that
did not belong to you in the first place.
Proverbs 22:7 The poor are ruled
by the rich, and those who borrow are slaves of moneylenders.
Matthew 6:24 You cannot be the slave of two masters! You
will like one more than the other or be more loyal to one than the
other. You cannot serve both God and money
1 Corinthians 7:23 God paid a great price for you. So don't become
slaves of anyone else.
Don't be a slave to debt. Be free. Declare your
freedom. You are
allowed, by God, to declare your freedom once every seven years.
Debts
are not meant to be carried for 30 years, but only for a maximum of
seven. It is not dishonorable to declare your freedom
(through bankruptcy). It
is especially not dishonorable when fraud, (unjust weights and
measures) are used to enslave you to debt.
Deuteronomy 15:12 If any of you
buy Israelites as slaves, you must set
them free after six years.
Jeremiah 34:14 As part of this agreement, you must let a Hebrew
slave
go free after six years of service. Your ancestors did not obey me...
Modern math, compounded interest, which you can do on an Excel
spreadsheet, shows that usury leads to slavery.
If you invest a single ounce of gold, and invest it for 6000 years,
since the time of Adam, you can see the truth of usury. You can
grow an ounce of gold into 6 billion ounces of gold (which is more gold
than has been mined in all of human history) at a mere 1/4 of 1% rate
of interest! And if you grow from an ounce of gold at 2% for 6000
years, then all the atoms of the universe would all be gold, and it
would all belong to you. Therefore, it is impossible for
extremely large money to grow more than 1/4 of 1% per year. And
if it does, it will have corresponding years of losses to make up for
it, because no man can own all the gold in the world. But small
amounts of money can grow at extremely fast rates: you can buy a can of
coke for 50 cents, and resell it for a dollar in one day to make a 100%
return.
Acorns can grow into big oak trees, but oak trees do not grow to the
moon.
13. Buy low, and sell high! Buy when cheap, sell when
expensive. One of the greatest stories of a transfer of wealth
occurs in the life of Joseph, who was sold into slavery and taken to
Egypt. He became the chief servant of Pharoah, who had a
dream. Joseph, with God's help, interpreted Pharoah's dream as a
prediction of seven years of abundance and plenty, to be followed by
seven years of famine. With this knowledge of future economic
conditions, the Pharoah put Joseph in charge of storing up grain during
the years of plenty at low prices, and then he sold grain during the
famine years at high prices, and ended up owning virtually everything
in the land of Egypt. See Genesis 41
Ecclesiastes
3:1-3 To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a
time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to
build up...
Proverbs 11:26 He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him:
but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it.
14. Diversify. Invest your money with wise and honest men
for the sake of safety, because you do not know what bad or unexpected
things may happen. Although there is no safer investment than
gold and silver in your possession; however, they can be stolen, so
invest with others, like mining companies.
Ecclesiastes 11:1 Be
generous, and someday you will be rewarded.
2 Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou
knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.
15. Store your treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust
can steal. Recognize that it all belongs to God. And
therefore, be a wise steward of what God has entrusted to you. Pay
God's things to God. (only the image belonged to Caesar). The
famous question about taxes was a doubled edged question, for if Jesus
said "don't pay tribute to Caesar," then Caesar would have reason to
kill him, but if he said "pay tribute to Caesar," then he would be
against the Bible laws which say "bow to none other than God," and it
all belongs to God.
Mark 12:13 The Pharisees
got together with Herod's followers. [a] Then they sent some men to
trick Jesus into saying something
wrong
14 And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we
know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not
the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful
to give tribute to Caesar, or not?
15 Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing
their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny,
that I may see it.
16 And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is
this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar's.
17 And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And
they marvelled at him.
Matthew 6:20 Instead, store up your treasures in heaven, where
moths and rust cannot destroy them, and thieves cannot break in and
steal them.
Matthew 19:21 Jesus replied, "If
you want to be perfect, go sell everything you own! Give the money to
the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. Then come and be my
follower."
Prov 19:17 Caring for the poor is lending to the LORD, and you will be
well repaid.
Matthew 25
The Parable of the Talents
14 "Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his
servants and entrusted his property to them.
15 To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to
another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his
journey.
16 The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his
money to work and gained five more.
17 So also, the one with the two talents gained two more.
18 But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in
the ground and hid his master's money.
19 "After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled
accounts with them. 20The man who had received the five talents brought
the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents.
See, I have gained five more.'
21 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have
been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many
things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
22 "The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you
entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.'
23 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have
been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many
things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
24 "Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he
said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not
sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25So I was afraid
and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what
belongs to you.'
26 "His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I
harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered
seed?
27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers,
so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
28 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten
talents. 29For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an
abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from
him. 30And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness,
where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
16. Why should God bless you with wealth if you would use it for
selfish things, and if it could cause you to lose your soul?
Wealth comes with problems, and creates problems. Wealth can be
stolen, which is a problem the rich will fear. Wealth comes with
responsibility--not only to defend
and protect it, but to use it wisely, to give it away wisely,
and to invest it into the Kingdom of God.
Ecclesiastes 5:12 If you have to work
hard for a living, you can rest
well at night, even if you don't have much to eat. But if you are rich,
you can't even sleep.
Luke 11:21-22 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own
house,
his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and
overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and
divides up the spoils.
Proverbs 23:5 Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for
riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle
toward heaven.
Matt 13:22 The seeds that fell among the thornbushes are also people
who hear the message. But they start worrying about the needs of this
life and are fooled by the desire to get rich. So the message gets
choked out, and they never produce
anything
Luke 9:25 What will you gain, if you own the whole world but
destroy yourself or waste your life?
There is a purpose for wealth. For increasing the Kingdom of God.
1 Timothy 6:17-19 Command those who are rich in this
present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which
is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us
with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich
in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share
(communicate-KJV). In
this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation
for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is
truly life.
17. To me, investing in the Kingdom of God, means to start back
at number one, and seek Bible knowledge. And then, to teach that
knowledge to others who are interested, like I'm doing with this
article.
Daniel 11:33 And they that
understand among the people shall instruct many...
Daniel 12:4 ... many shall run to and
fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Hebrews 5:12 In fact, though by this time you ought
to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of
God's word all over again.
And also, by promoting the gospel message that we can
have eternal life through believing in, and speaking about what Jesus
did for us when he died in our place for us, and then was raised from
the dead.
Rom 5:8 But God showed how much he
loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful.
1John 1:8 If we say that we have not sinned, we are fooling ourselves,
and the truth isn't in our
hearts
1John 1:9 But if we confess our sins to God, he can always be trusted
to forgive us and take our sins away
Rom 10:9 So you will be saved, if you honestly say, "Jesus is
Lord," and if you believe with all your heart that God raised him from
death.
Rom 10:10 God will accept you and save you, if you truly believe this
and tell it to others.
Mat 10:32 If you tell others that you belong to me, I will tell my
Father in heaven that you are my followers.