Like anything else, there are a lot of different ways to manage your personal finances or schools of thought to follow when it comes to money. No matter what books or websites you read, whether you invest in stocks or tuck money under your mattress for safe-keeping, it’s good to have some greater goal or philosophy that drives your financial decisions. It could be that you want to set a good example for your children, you want to set yourself up for a comfortable retirement, or are saving to buy a bigger house. Or, if you’re Craig, your faith also plays a big role in how you think about and use money.
Craig, a
father of three and missionary in Papa New Guinea, started his interesting and
informative blog, Money Help for
Christians (MH4C), for what he says were both noble and selfish reasons; he
wanted to help other Christians to better understand “the complexity of faith
and finances,” and he thought that writing about personal finances would be a
good way for him to learn more about the subject as well.
I’ll admit, before I stumbled upon MH4C, I had never really thought about how a person’s religion could inform or affect the way they use money. Whether you had financially savvy parents who taught you to budget and save, or if you were lucky enough to learn about money management in school, were the sources of influence that often came to my mind. In reality, however, research (Ron Sider in The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience) shows that, generally speaking, Christians don’t handle money differently than the rest of the population, and this is something that Craig hopes to address with his blog.
“I feel like faith should influence actions, so that’s what we talk about at my blog,” he explains. “I don’t so much teach others about using money in a way that honours God, but I start the discussion and do a lot of listening. I also challenge traditional assumptions with the hope that I can learn something fresh and new.”
When you visit MH4C, you will find thought-provoking, information-packed posts about a plethora of different personal finance topics such as, investing, debt, retirement, credit cards, and budgeting. You don’t have to be a Christian to learn something from Craig’s blog and, in actuality, a lot of the same rules apply; racking up debt on superfluous ‘stuff,’ for example, isn’t a good move, regardless of your faith.
Like most personal finance bloggers, Craig writes regularly about debt. In one of these posts, he so accurately states that the masses have come to view debt as “the vehicle of freedom, pleasure, and satisfaction,” (Debt as a Theme in the Bible) and so I asked him how he thought it came to be this way.
“If we hear something enough, we believe it. I keep hearing that Americans can’t function without debt. It is a necessity of life,” Craig explains. “I wish we’d all learn to take more personal responsibility and make debt a choice. We choose debt. It is not a necessity of life. Unfortunately, we find it hard to be without stuff so we borrow to remedy our impatience.”
While the Bible doesn’t necessarily see debt as a sin, Craig says it’s not something that anyone should view as desirable and a person shouldn’t be controlled by their desires or wants. Whether you’re a Christian or not, debt limits you in terms of your freedom.
“I believe that the Bible proposes another pathway; one where wants are not the centre of everything,” he says. “It teaches about patience and self-control. Ultimately, the Biblical problem with debt is that we are giving more and more commitment to our lenders which means we have less freedom to act in a way that God calls Christians.”
And, like debt, Craig says Christians also get caught-up in the materialism that’s so pervasive in North America, despite the fact that it might not be in-line with the Bible’s teachings or whether or not it’s responsible money management.
“To be honest, Christians are not immune to the bigger-is-better attitude,” he says. “Mass consumption is simply the inability to live with boundaries and the inability to say ‘no.’ That is not a healthy spiritual disposition, nor is it a healthy financial position.”
Learning or
understanding why it is that you do what you do with money is an important
exercise for anyone who’s trying to take greater control of their finances.
Becoming fiscally responsible requires that you learn practical skills like
budgeting, but it also requires you to change the way you think about and view
money and the role it plays in your life. When you figure out what your motives
are for spending, you gain greater control.
From my conversation with Craig and while reading his blog posts, I learned that motives for spending, saving, and giving are probably what differentiate Christians from non-Christians the most, when it comes to matters of money. So, for example, in terms of thrift and making the best use of time, money, and resources, a non-believer might practice thrift for the sake of the planet, because they want to live a more sustainable life, or they hate waste. While Christians may also practice thrift for those same reasons, Craig says that in terms of how it relates to the Bible’s teachings, thrift plays another role as well.
“Christians and non-Christians do a lot of the exact same things—just with different motives,” Craig says. “I think the Christian motive for thrift is to use our resources in service of God and his kingdom. Being thrifty is ultimately a vehicle to free up resources to use for the benefit of others.”
I encourage you to check out MH4C. If you’re a Christian, Craig’s discussions will help clarify the relationship between the Bible and money, helping you to better align your financial motivations with Christian teachings. For non-Christians, just reading how others are using a greater goal or philosophy to drive the way they manage money might be inspiring, and spur you to identify a source of motivation for staying on-track with your own financial goals.
In the world of personal finance blogs, MH4C brings another perspective to how we think about and use money.
“I hope anyone who visits my blog will get a fresh look at personal finances,” Craig says. “If you want to learn something new, challenge something old, or just read a blog with a header that is blue, then MH4C is the place to visit.”
Share this article...
