Is it wrong or is it right for Christians to invest in the stock market?

We’re continuing from our previous Little Lesson’s question about investing in the stock market. This is 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 a little bit about 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.

Saving to Start a Future Business

There are other valid reasons to save. You may be saving to start a future business in which you need some startup capital. Doesn’t it make more 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’ve got to have the water and the lemons and you’ve got to have a little table.

That being said, there are 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.

Saving Purely to Give

You can also save purely to give, and that’s from the New Testament. I just pulled up a verse in the Bible from 1 Corinthians 16 where Paul is writing about a collection that he’s taking amongst all the churches for the very poor and struggling saints in Jerusalem:

Now concerning the collection for 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. – 1 Corinthians 16:1-2

So what he’s saying is, “I’m going to be coming by in a few months, and if you save weekly from what you earn every single week, when I come, it’ll be a huge blessing, and I can take your gift 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 do and what, of course, all followers of Christ want to do.

How to Invest in the Stock Market

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. Because 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.

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 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 where what they’re doing doesn’t please God.

So I’m not encouraging investment in Index Funds, but I am certainly encouraging, if you’re going to invest for the long term, spread out your investment. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

No One Can Predict the Future of the Stock Market

People also try to beat the stock market by predicting the future. There are a lot of really, really smart people who have trying to figure it out this as their business. 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 year’s 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 because 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 are evolving with the times. And the stock value goes up and they’re paying the dividends.

Investing in the Stock Market is Participation in a Functioning Economy

You think about it, what an opportunity it is to be 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 would 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 were, but seeing the wisdom in preparing for their future. And at the same time, have the blessing of participating in a functioning economy which blesses everybody in that functioning economy.

Alright, well, that’s enough. This is a 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.

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We’ve got a great question to answer today about investing in the stock market. Some Christians are very concerned about this for a couple of reasons, and actually for a couple of very good reasons.

When Christians Should Not Invest in the Stock Market

One of them would be investing in a company or a business that is doing something or producing a good or a service that’s not so good. Particularly something that would be offensive to God. I think it goes without saying that the Lord would not want any Christians investing in and therefore profiting by a company that, for example, produces pornography, right? Right.

If they’re harming people by the “service” that they’re providing and people are paying for, or harming people by “goods” that they’re manufacturing, then Christians don’t want to be in partnership with that and profiting by that.

I personally would never want to invest, for example, in a cigarette company. I mean, honestly, what is there good to say about the whole cigarette industry? It causes people to get lung caner and to die prematurely. So you don’t want to be invested in some cigarette manufacturing company, all right?

Isn’t Investing in the Stock Market Storing Up Treasures on Earth?

Another reason that Christians are concerned about this—and rightfully so—is because Jesus talked about not laying up your treasures on earth, but laying them up in heaven. Because where your treasures are, there is your heart also (see Matthew 6:19-21).

But I don’t think that Jesus meant by that that we shouldn’t own anything on this earth, right? We have to have a place to sleep, we have to have a place to live, we have to have clothes to wear. And so obviously we have to decide what we actually need and what we really don’t need.

And all the things that we really don’t need, it would be best to take the money that we would use to buy those things and lay the treasure up in heaven. Because it’s yours forever then. That’s the best investment, right?

Anything that you invest on this earth, anything that you accumulate on this earth, one day you will not be the owner of it. But if you invest in heavenly treasures, as Jesus said, you never lose them. So that’s the best investment. Everybody has to draw the line and wrestle with what should be laid up in heaven and what should be kept on this earth.

When Investing in the Stock Market is Wise

So why would anyone want to invest in the stock market in the first place? Well, simply because it’s a potential means of saving. And better than that, it’s a potential means of investing so that the value of what you invest eventually goes up. So in the end you have more than what you started with.

Now let’s consider a couple of facets of that. One thing is of course, why would you want to save up? What would be valid reasons for saving up?

Well, one is to prepare for things in the future that you might otherwise not be prepared for. Things happen. Calamities happen. It’s just wise to be prepared. One thing that’s going to happen to all of us is that we’re going to get older. In fact, right now you’re getting older, and if you notice, I’m getting older too. One day we eventually die.

Investing in the Stock Market to Prepare for Old Age

We’d all like to think that Jesus is going to return before we die and so therefore we’re not going to go through old age, but I notice that most people in human history have gone through old age and its accompanying challenges.

I just wheeled my own 86-year-old father out of my house where he lives, in his wheelchair, out to the car, so he could go to his regular therapy session to help him once again be able to walk (which he hasn’t been able to do since he had a stroke some months ago).

So it’s a good thing my dad was somewhat prepared for this time in his life financially or else he would have been forced to have been a burden on somebody else. So saving for old age can be an act of love and an act of love toward the very ones that you love the most, your own family members. Because they’re the ones who are naturally going to assume responsibility for you in your latter years. Okay?

The Stock Market Is Not a Good Short-Term Investment

Now the stock market specifically is not a good short-term investment. Because it goes up and down. And stocks of individual companies, their value goes up and down all based on the fear and the greed of all the rest of the stockholders.

So if you’re going to get into the stock market, you’ve got to think in terms of a length of time that makes sense, where you have a reasonable chance of not losing your money. The stock market goes through bull and bear phases where sometimes it’s generally going up and sometimes it’s generally going down. You don’t want to get on that at the wrong time, because then yours goes down and it would have been better that you had never invested.

So that’s why a lot of people use the stock market to invest for retirement. Because if you start early, in your 20s or 30s, then in the end, the chances are it’s going to be worth more than what you put in it.

Why I Avoid Investing in Mutual Funds

I have more to say on this in our next Little Lesson. But something that I think that I’ve felt I needed to avoid in my savings plan for my elderly years is investing in mutual funds.

It’s very wise to spread your investments if you’re investing in the stock market over a wide range of stocks, because then if some go down others will probably go up. And you have a better chance of not losing your money and actually making some money.

But the trouble with mutual funds is, someone else is in control of which companies they invest in. And you might, inadvertently, through a mutual fund be investing in some companies that are doing things that God hates, okay? The products they manufacture are not good, the services that they provide are not good.

Those companies I think are a minority, but people are sinful and they buy sinful products and sinful services. And we don’t want to be a part of that profiting over that. Okay, more to say on our next little lesson. Thank you so much for joining me. God bless you.

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