Seeing Investing Clearly With Jason Myhre | FaithFi
March 28, 2022
Seeing Investing Clearly With Jason Myhre
Faith & Finance with Rob West
Mixing faith in with investing can make investing seem all the more complicated. As stewards of God’s resources, we should be up to the challenge of investing in a way that honors the Lord. Rob talks about that with investing professional Jason Myhre.
Investing is often a confusing enterprise. Mixing faith with investing can make investing seem all the more complicated. Investment expert Jason Myhre joins Rob West to help simplify biblical investing. Jason Myhre of the Eventide Center for Faith & Investing, an underwriter of this program.
Investing can seem intimidating, but it really comes down to something quite ordinary, and easy to understand. And it’s simply this: investing is company ownership.
At its most basic level, investing involves a supply of capital to support a business, in exchange for ownership in that business. That’s really all it is.
You can think of a stock certificate, remember those? Maybe your grandmother gave you a stock in McDonald’s or Disney when you were a kid. A stock certificate is like a certificate of ownership in a company. It says you own a piece of that business.
Physically printed stock certificates aren’t don’t really exist anymore, but the concept is still the same. When you own the stock within a company, you own a piece of that company.
And this ownership is what gives us the rights to receive our share of the profits and growth that might come in the future.
MUTUAL FUNDS AND ETFs
Instead of doing the hard work of choosing which companies to buy, you can outsource that decision-making process to someone else, by using an investment product, and they’ll pick the companies for you. You simply pay them a fee for that service.
So, if you own a mutual fund or an ETF (exchange traded fund), you’re the owner of many companies, sometimes hundreds of companies.
If you hire a financial advisor, most of the time they’re picking the mutual funds and ETFs for you based on your goals, tolerances, etc.
FAITH-BASED INVESTING
If investing is simply company ownership, then a couple of questions should come naturally to mind:
First, if we have an investment of some kind, what are the companies that I own within that fund?
And second, what kind of companies SHOULD I own based on my faith and values?
Essentially, from a biblical point of view, what is a “good business”? And what is a “bad business”?
There are three words to consider here, and they are: Products, practices, and profit.
PRODUCTS: A good business, first of all, has to have a good product that they’re selling. The sale of products is what drives the profits is what drives the investment returns we receive as owners of companies. So, those products must be good.
And from a biblical perspective, this goes all the way back to the garden of Eden.
God made us in his image, and gave us the gift of work, that we too might be able to produce things that are good and beautiful.
But we live in a world with sin, which means sinful men and women can produce things which harm others and dishonor God. Some easy examples here would include companies that sell or promote abortion services, predatory lending products, gambling, etc.
PRACTICES: A good business not only has good products, but they produce them using good practices.
Here we remember that businesses are social enterprises that impact the lives of many people: customers, employees, suppliers and their workers, the communities in which the business operates, and society as a whole. A business touches all these people and so their practices must exhibit justice and service of others in the way they operate.
We, as God’s image-bearers, must reflect God’s work in our work. We are to work in loving community with one another and for the benefit of the community – and of course all for God’s glory.
That means good customer service, good jobs for employees, good partnerships with suppliers that in turn have good jobs for their workers, communities that are better off for the business being there, and businesses that in sum total add value to society.
PROFITS: In Deuteronomy 8 God tells the nation of Israel that the ability to create wealth is in fact a gift from God.
And when we invest in businesses that make good products, and that do so with good practices, we can feel genuinely proud of owning those companies and sharing in the profits that may come about as a result.
But Scripture is also clear that there is a kind of profit that is bad. In Proverbs 1 we read about the bad kind of profit – profit that is made at the expense of others, made by harming others, and dishonoring God.
Profit is good only when it is the natural byproduct of serving others through good products and good practices.
FINDING INVESTMENTS THAT ALIGN WITH YOUR FAITH
There is a whole industry of faith-based investing using mutual funds and ETFs that are guided by some of the principles discussed today. Eventide is one such example, but there are others, including those that can be found through the MoneyWise website.
On this program, Rob also answers listener questions:
How can you pass inheritance to adult children while you’re still alive and help them learn to handle it wisely?
How can you be wise and attentive with your finances without being overly focused on money? Where is the proper balance?
Remember, you can call in to ask your questions most days at (800) 525-7000 or email them to Questions@MoneyWise.org. Also, visit our website at MoneyWise.org where you can connect with a MoneyWise Coach, join the MoneyWise Community, and even download the free MoneyWise app. Like and Follow us on Facebook at MoneyWise Media for videos and the very latest discussion! Remember that it’s your prayerful and financial support that keeps MoneyWise on the air. Help us continue this outreach by clicking the Donate tab on our website or in our app.
