Six Fat Cow Years - Interview with Dr. Jim Newheiser of Reformed Theological Seminary and IBCD
August 18, 2021
By Matt Miner, MBA, CFP®
Friends, it’s confession time: There’s philosophy and even theology that undergirds the creative and editorial decisions here at Work Pants Finance. The philosophy is influenced by Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Newton, and Pascal. More recent influences include Hamilton, Churchill, and Friedman. The theology is that of the Protestant Reformation, institutionalized in the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity.
Work Pants Finance is not a religious podcast. Most of the time, my philosophic and theological commitments remain in the background, and that’s on purpose. This podcaster embraces many aspects of Luther’s two-kingdoms theology, and WPF is decidedly kingdom of the left. WPF features stories and wisdom to provide information and entertainment, and to help listeners and guests make progress on their life, career, and money goals. My desire to help listeners and clients is universal and non-sectarian!
This interview differs from my usual approach. My guest and I met because of our shared Christian faith, and so theological assumptions and conversation are at the fore. If you’re interested in a peek behind the curtain at a few of the beliefs that animate my life, you may be interested in this episode; otherwise, please skip this one!
My guest is Jim Newheiser, Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Director of the Christian Counseling Program at Reformed Theological Seminary, and Director of the Institute for Biblical Counseling and Discipleship (IBCD).
Show Themes
One big theme in today’s show is making money early in your career to create flexibility later on. If you’ve got an interest – call it a passion project, a vocation, or a big hobby – that has low financial rewards, consider hitting a lick with your income in your twenties and early thirties, as my guest illustrates, to create wealth that funds or supports your project later in life. This is both less risky and more satisfying that funding a goal with debt and hoping it all works out.
The minister’s calling body - usually a local church - has the responsibility to ensure the minister is free from worldly care. The minister, for his part, may be wise to develop tent-making skills, given all the uncertainty of life in the world.
As the church evaluates pastoral compensation, it must consider the unique demands of pastoral work and pastoral compensation. Jim highlights the costs of hospitality - of food, and perhaps a bigger home. He also points out the differences between jobs with a standard set of corporate benefits, especially health insurance, and a pastor’s call where he needs to procure these benefits himself. Another expense, which entrepreneurs and pastors are both familiar with, is the necessity of paying both the employer and employee portions of payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare). These are the so-called “self employment taxes” faced by business owners and pastors, and they may be unfamiliar to elders, deacons, and trustees whose sole experience is as employees.
What’s next?
Jim’s heart for godly stewardship of financial resources – specifically his commitment that everything we have is a gift from God and belongs to God – is front and center in our conversation. Most of our conversation takes this presupposition as its jumping off point.
Key Take-Aways
First, You – and your children – can finish college at a young age. The university’s four-year program may or may not be the one that serves your student best.
Second, get creative and go big to find income opportunities. Dr Newheiser, later a pastor, seminarian, and author, went to Saudi Arabia as a management consultant in the oil industry! This was a high-paid job for a rich client, with expat pay and benefits layered on top. From there, he managed his expenses downward and created wealth that is still helpful to him today as he works and serves in different capacity.
Third, there’s always time for service in the church, whatever other demands exist on your time. Jim found time to serve as pastor of a secret church in Saudi Arabia while succeeding in his career as a consultant.
Fourth, God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love to all who call on him in truth! Thanks be to God in Jesus Christ who lived, and died and rose again - ultimate generosity - that we might have life in him.
Resources
Read more from Jim and Caroline Newheiser at JimNewheiser.com
Buy Money, Debt and Finances from the Westminster Bookstore
Watch for upcoming New Horizons review “The Money Catechism”, planned for late 2021.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Matt: Friends, it's confession time. There's a philosophy and even theology that undergirds the creative and editorial decisions here at Work Pants Finance. The philosophy is influenced by Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Newton, and Pascal. More recent influences include Hamilton, Churchill, and Friedman. The theology is that of the Protestant Reformation institutionalized in the Westminster standards and the three forms of unity. Now, Work Pants Finance is not a religious podcast. Most of the time, my philosophical and theological commitments remain in the background, and that's on purpose.
Instead, Work Pants Finance features stories and wisdom to provide information and entertainment, and to help listeners and guests make progress on their life, career, and money goals. My desire is to help listeners and is non-sectarian.
Today's show is a little different. My guest and I met because of our shared Christian faith, and so theological assumptions and conversations are more at the fore. If you're interested in a peek behind the curtain at a few of the beliefs that animate my life, you may be interested in this episode. Otherwise, please skip this one.
Hey, and welcome to the Work Pants Finance podcast where I serve up hard-won wisdom about work, life, and money. I teach you how to kill debt, build wealth, and avoid the wage-slave trap. My goal as a podcaster and advisor is to help you put your money to work so you own your career rather than it owning you.
I'm Matt Miner, your money guide and for the last dozen years, my family and I killed debt and build wealth. Then I started teaching other people how to do the same thing. In 2018, I stepped away from corporate work to serve clients full-time as a fee-only Fiduciary Financial Advisor. Work Pants Finance is the show for MBAs, entrepreneurs, and other high-income professionals who want a financial plan that works as hard as they do.
One big theme in today's show is making money early in your career to create flexibility later.
Today's money guide quick tip is this: If you've got an interest, call it a passion project, a vocation, or a big hobby that has low financial rewards, consider hitting a lick with your income in your 20s and early 30s, as my guest illustrates, to create some wealth that funds or supports your interest later in life. This is both less risky and more satisfying than funding an interest with debt and hoping it all works out.
My guest is Jim Newheiser, Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and director of the Christian Counseling Program at Reformed Theological Seminary and director of the Institute for Biblical Counseling and Discipleship.
This is six fat cow years interview with Jim Newheiser. Find more at workpantsfinance.com/40.
Jim Newheiser, welcome to the Work Pants Finance podcast as we get started today, I wonder if you could take just a couple of minutes and share your story with my audience.
[00:02:48] Jim: Yes, in the immediate situation, a professor reformed Theological Seminary where I primarily teach Biblical Counseling. Which includes financial matters, which actually seem to come into most cases indirectly, if not directly. I am also the director of the Institute for Biblical Counseling and Discipleship which started as CCEF West in the early 80s. I've been involved with that for almost 30 years.
I was a pastor of a Reformed Baptist Church in the San Diego area for over 25 years before I came here to Charlotte five years ago and went to Westminster Seminary, California. Before that, I was a tent-making pastor in Saudi Arabia for several years. That's my work history, and then by the kindness of the Lord, I've married Caroline for over 40 years.
[00:03:42] Matt: Congratulations.
[00:03:43] Jim: We were friends in high school, I had a big crush on her, and it took till college for her to realize that was a good idea. We have three adult sons who are scattered in Seattle, San Diego, and Melbourne, Australia.
[00:03:57] Matt: Absolutely. I appreciate you sharing that little bit of background and also your commitment throughout your career to integrate good biblical money habits with so much of what you've done in your work. One of the things that I thought was really interesting as I got ready for this interview was that you earned a business undergrad and then spent some time in the corporate world before you transitioned to a pastoral and an academic career. I wonder if you could talk through the progression of how you're thinking about personal finance for Christians developed throughout your work life.
[00:04:34] Jim: Sure. I was advised as a very young man, I was 20 when I graduated from college, that Jesus worked in a normal job in his 20s and then began his ministry in his 30s and elders are older. I was encouraged to consider gaining a skill in working in the real world for a season, even though my desire from high school was towards the ministry. I went to Baylor University and got a Bachelor of Business Administration and studied accounting and finance and management. Went to work for what's now Accenture. Accenture had a project with what's now Exxon Mobil. They wound up sending me to Saudi Arabia when I was in my early 20s. We ended up staying there for six years.
There were many experiences I had in terms of these particulars of the finances. One is, I was managing financial computer systems and so I had that mindset. Also, going to Saudi Arabia, especially as a very young man for expatriates living in the Middle East, I was around people who were making more money than they'd ever made in their lives in one of the richest countries in the world. I saw how money affected people. I had to deal with what was for me at that time, a lot of money where I was able to save in Saudi Arabia, more than I could gross in the US in a year. This would have been in the early 80s.
I had to manage money. I had various investment advisors, learn some of their tricks, and some of the cautions I maybe should have. I had to deal with, how much do I keep? How much do I give away? How much do I invest in lifestyle? I had to face a lot of those questions on a practical, personal level that might have for other people taken a lifetime, they to have to work their way through.
Then also, I was pastoring as a tent-making pastor, at an underground church in Saudi Arabia where counseling issues included finances. In a place where greed, and then some people also were dealing with horrible financial conditions. The expatriates were making a lot of money from the West. You had foreign workers who were like the people in James 5, who were being kept in dorms, hot bunking three beds in shifts, and not being paid their wages. Yet our church was very unusual in Saudi Arabia because we had people from all nationalities and classes all mixed together in a place that was very segregated by wealth and nationality. Just had many, many experiences.
Then, obviously, trying to do what pleases God from the scriptures, being convinced that the Bible has an immense wealth of wisdom.
[00:07:27] Matt: I really appreciate you sharing all that. I'll get myself back on track in just a minute. I also wanted to ask you, you mentioned twice that you were serving as a tent-making pastor, in this most recent answer said in an underground church. What level of covertness did you have to have at that time, and what's the worst that would have happened to you as an ex-pat, and the worst that could have happened to your parishioners had that become known to the authorities?
[00:07:51] Jim: Yes, when we got to the city we lived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 1981. At that time, there was a Protestant church that met in an American school and the Saudis had kind of agreed to look the other way. After I'd been there a year, they kicked out the leader of that group, said we could not meet there anymore. And so we started meeting, either in a room at the British or American embassy and in homes in many meetings. In one sense, in a country that has such surveillance, like something you would have read about it behind the Iron Curtain with underground churches that the government knows what's going on, for the most part.
Now I'm going to make an example of somebody. I did get kicked out in 1987 so I survived six years. Many others got kicked out, many of the Westerners are sometimes in jail for a day or two, and then put on a plane. There were people of other nationalities that did not have the same pole. Like Filipinos when they got caught sometimes the religious police would even threaten to kill them. Though cases I knew about finally they were able to get out, but it was scary. The biggest risk would be if someone came out of Islam then became a Christian. Technically, they could be put to death.
We did have people in our congregation, I knew of one for sure, who had come out of Islam and that may be the reason I got kicked out. They didn't kill the guy, he left. I keep some contact with people in that part of the world now and varying levels of freedom in those countries.
[00:09:21] Matt: Well, thank you for your service to Christ in His Church in that place.
[00:09:25] Jim: It was a great privilege. I had the opportunity a couple of times actually to go in the Far East. It was very similar experience to being in Saudi Arabia in terms of an underground church that really couldn't be very well hidden from the authorities, but the authorities maintained the right to break it up to harass them. I admired so much their bravery and boldness for Christ. My sense was the worst that would happen would be we'd get kicked out which was very sad, but it was a privilege.
[00:09:56] Matt: Yes. Well, back on track with our personal finance interview from your new book. In your new book, which is Money, Debt, and Finances by Jim Newheiser from P&R, and may reference back to that a time or two more in this conversation. You affirm that pastors should be paid by the church, which is particularly strongly the model in my own denomination, the OPC. Nevertheless, I've seen pastors experience financial hardship and their calling as pastors to engage in tent-making for a time even with a call or sometimes sadly, even though leave the pastorate for at least partially financial reasons.
I wonder for pastors who may hear this interview, how do you think about the importance of having or obtaining marketable skills alongside their ministry skills?
[00:10:43] Jim: Yes. Well, you have the example of the Apostle Paul who was more important than I am as a pastor, and yet there were times in his life by his own principles, he chose to work with a skill that he had, which was making tents and he must've been good at it because he was not only supplying his own needs but the others as well. I think it can be a wise thing for someone who wants to go into ministry to have some skills so that if a season occurs where he can't make a living in ministry, he can provide for the needs of his family. 1 Timothy 5, at the end says we shouldn't muzzle the ox but actually the beginning it also says, if you don't provide for your own family, you're worse than an infidel.
I've known of men who thought they were called to ministry who almost refused to do something else. In my opinion, even sinfully didn't do what was necessary to provide for their families or put the burden of that entirely on their wives. Part of it would be if the Lord-- especially, in the United States, I think over time if the Lord has called you to ministry, you would hope they would be enough of God's people willing to financially support you that you would not have to make tents. I admire in church planting situations or situations of economic difficulty and who knows what may be ahead where men are willing for a season to make tents or even some who pastor small churches and get paid something and work outside some as well.
Paul's model would say that we should be content with such from the standpoint of the congregation, if you have members listening, I think ideally we as members of the church should want to make sure that the ox is not muzzled and be sensitive to the fact that the pastor may have expenses beyond what we realize. Somebody say, "Well, oh, I make $80,000 a year in my job. If we pay this guy 80,000, that's plenty for a guy with four kids and this and the other?" Well, you may not realize that the benefits that you get make your 80,000 over 100,000 and you're taking his health insurance and he's paying both sides of social security and other things.
I think we ought to be the mind, we want to make sure that not to be extravagant and there are rare cases of that but that he's comfortable. I often have pastors coming to me saying, "I have not had a raise in several years, things are very difficult. I've not been able to save for retirement but I don't want to seem like I'm greedy but my wife is frustrated with me." What I've encouraged them to do would be to go to the leaders with your problem and say, "I'm thankful for how you provide for me and I really want your advice. Here's my budget. Here's what I'm being paid and so help me figure this. Is there something I'm overspending? That I'm not being wise here? Is this unreasonable or should I get another job and maybe have fewer responsibilities here? I'm willing to go Uber Eats, or whatever, the church can't afford to pay me more than, should I supplement that somehow?" Not just going demanding and then, hopefully, the leaders would try to do what they can. There are cases where churches are small and they don't have resources and presbytery or denomination aren't helping and a man may have to do what Paul did and there's no shame in that.
From the standpoint of the man, I think we ought to be content and thankful. I think from the standpoint of the leadership in the congregation, we had to make sure that our pastors are well provided for.
[00:14:23] Matt: I think to be as generous as possible without, in your words, being extravagant. I also think in terms of in our particular denomination's form of government, we talked about being free from worldly care as the standard of an adequate call. I think that's on as you said the congregation in the session. Then I also-- like you pointing out, both from your own story and from that discussion how it can be beneficial for pastors to have the ability to generate revenue if that would be at some point necessary or helpful.
[00:14:55] Jim: I think also, pastors may have expenses others don't recognize in terms of elders are to be hospitable. I think an outstanding pastor is somebody's going to be inviting lots of people over and it costs money to feed them and you may have people staying with him. I just think we need to be sensitive to that. Again, like you said, he would not be burdened by that and may even more so his wife. Actually, one strategy might be instead of asking him, ask his wife how things are going because she may be more willing to say than some of the pastors I've met.
[00:15:27] Matt: I think that's a great point. Jim, you're a self-described financial junkie putting you in company with me and with many in this audience. You were also a preaching pastor for 25 years and now lead the Christian Counseling program at RTS. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you brought together your big interest in personal finance with this pastoral and academic career.
[00:15:48] Jim: It has a personal bent and then counseling bent. On a personal level, as I already mentioned, I had to manage what was for me a lot of money and I to be around people with a lot of money and because we want the scriptures to be our guide in all of life, I had to work through lots of issues. I remember sitting with an older pastor-- when I was working in Saudi Arabia, I'm making more money than I'm spending. I'm also thinking I'm going to seminary someday and I used to say these are my fat cow years. I had six fat cow years and I've been living off of that beef for the last 35-- since then.
I was wrestling through looking for answers in the Bible for my own situation and then even in terms of debt, investing, how has wealth built, people having financial trouble. You're counseling people and they're not making ends meet. Proverbs 21:5, the plans of the diligent lead to advantage. A budgeting verse, people who lack income will the hand of the diligent makes rich but also do you see him in skilled in his work he will stand before King. You either need to work more hours where you need to improve your skill so you make more money per hour.
The fact that you need real skills and you can't circumvent this where the scripture talks about get-rich-quick schemes and how you increase wealth by labor tilling your land not being in haste to get rich. All of these principles from 3,000 years ago, especially in proverbs immediately apply in terms of the situations people face.
When we were living abroad as we saved money, friends and relatives knew we had money and they wanted to borrow our money, or they wanted us to invest the money. I learned through some hard experiences the wisdom of the warnings in scripture about being liable for the debts of others.
When it says the borrower becomes the lender slave, what I realized is that people don't like to be slaves and therefore, they don't like the one who lent them the money even when they borrowed it, especially if they're not paying you back. They blame you. You're seeing that wisdom fleshed out. Evaluating different investments. Having people come to me and say, "Oh, I figured out this way essentially without a lot of skill or without a lot of effort to make a lot of money." I'm just saying that circumvents what the scripture says.
I've actually kind of made sport of it, I bet you have too, and somebody comes and says, "I've learned a way that I can make a lot of return with no risk.” Let me look at it long enough and I'll show you where the catch is. Watching people lose small fortunes by buying into schemes that were supposedly foolproof. Seeing people infiltrate the church with investment schemes. Just going through all of this and then applying the scripture specifically as I try to counsel people through their experiences.
[music]
[00:18:52] Matt: If you're new to Work Pants Finance, welcome. Thank you for sharing some time with Jim Newheiser and me. Today's show is brought to you by workpantsfinance.com. Go to workpantsfinance.com/resources to see all that's available there. Go to workpantsfinance.com/podcast to check out 41 shows lovingly created, edited, and curated for MBAs, entrepreneurs, and other professionals who want a financial plan that works as hard as they do.
The opportunity that we have to be together today is because of your work creating this new book, Money, Debt, and Finances. I know from podcasting that creating anything is a labor of love. As I read this book, one of the things that I noticed is how much scriptural exegesis is included in the book. I'm not aware of any other personal finance book with this much Bible in it. I wonder if you could tell us the story of how this book came together.
[00:19:50] Jim: Authors love to do that. This is something that's really been on my heart for more than 20, 25 years. When I originally pitched it to P&R people say, "Well, why do we need this because we already have Dave Ramsey?" I say, "Well, Dave Ramsey to me for finances is kind of like Jim Dobson was for parenting where he says a lot of things that sound good, but it's not really theologically deep or exegetically based." I’d talk about how Ted Tripp wrote on parenting where it was rooted in the scriptures, not just principles practically.
I said I wanted to do the same thing with finances that it would be based on some theology and then exegetically profound and rich so there would be a depth that the reader can see this is really from the Bible rather than tossing out a few proof texts here and in there. I wanted just people to see the great glorious wisdom of the scriptures which is timeless, invaluable and important and people get in trouble when they try to circumvent the wisdom of God, and they will experience blessing as they follow that.
Even then, it's a long book and I had actually done a shorter devotional on finances a few years earlier, and a little bitty booklet on like, "What do you do when you're in trouble financially?" This was meant to be my systematic theology of finances. I think the question and answer format makes it accessible because people don't have to always read it straight through.
What really helped me was COVID. When COVID hit a year ago March, and we stopped teaching face to face, and suddenly I'm sitting at home, I'm not traveling and speaking, I'm not going to class, I'm not in school, and I just decided my job was to write a book.
I had worked for two summers on it and finished less than a third. My job every morning was to just keep working my way through. I had a mountain of notes and outlines that provided the basis by just putting it all together, doing more research. This is my COVID book, where for months during that, that just was my full-time job was completing the project. That was a good thing that came out of Covid for me.
[00:22:13] Matt: II think your description of it as most accessible as a reference is probably helpful, and I also like the Q&A format. In fact, spoiler alert, my intended title for the New Horizons review is the Money Catechism, and I really appreciate you sharing the story of how that came together and I'm thankful that you were afforded that time to write even during a hard time in many people's lives and in some ways a hard time in the life of the church, so thank you for that effort.
Jim, you wrote this book with I think Christian readers in mind. I thought about this, if you imagine you could receive emails from a pastor, from a lay elder, from a deacon, or from a parishioner in the pews about how they or their family had profited from your book, what do you hope that each of those people might say in their messages to you?
[00:23:12] Jim: Sure. If I did it one by one from the standpoint of a pastor, I think that since so much of the scripture does indirectly or directly address financial issues, I think to wisely teach people from the scriptures how to look at these issues in which there are many great distortions. Many pastors, all they talk about when they talk about money is giving and stewardship which is something I really felt uncomfortable about when I was a pastor and tying it into a broader view of God's purpose for us in this life in terms of dominion and the goodness of creating wealth.
I dedicated the book to people who had been productive and have created wealth that have contributed money so that we could buy a church building and pay staff. Now, more than half of the expenses of RTS comes from donors who are people who followed biblical principles and created value for others. I think helping people have a biblical perspective of wealth and vocation and how they honor Christ, then that would be a good thing. From the standpoint of deacons and ruling elders, practical things come up with people as we're shepherding them.
There are many people in the congregation who are in debt and I think there's a two-pronged approach to people with financial troubles. I would like this book to help equip people through our leaders in the church to do two things. One is to deal, often with the hard issues that lead to financial trouble in terms of covetousness or laziness, or even just an attitude towards, "I can buy what I have credit for," rather than seeing debt as a bad thing, learning how to plan their expenditures practically. I've been moving beyond in terms of practically how to make a budget.
There's a chapter in there where [inaudible 00:25:10] say, "Yes, I took them through your chapter on making a budget, and they followed this, and they're keeping records." I have personal stories of a family who come to me, they are in debt, and they have low income, we made a budget together, and they gave them some suggestions and they came back about two years later and said, "Well, we need your advice about money again." I thought, "Oh no, they fell off the wagon." "No, we got $25,000 saved, what do we do with it? How do we manage this?" That would be exciting for me.
Then there are practical problems that come up. One of the most, I think, interesting chapters in the book is on multilevel marketing or direct marketing, relationship marketing, whatever you want to say. Sometimes this hits the church. It's one of many practical issues, I think, addressed in the book, that I've personally walked this a few times in the last 40 years where somebody comes in and it's going through the church and how do we evaluate this? How do we wisely deal with this as leaders? Well, we can’t exactly forbid people from selling to each other but it's fraught with danger and how do we manage this wisely not to intrude on people's liberties, but also not to encourage people to use relationships in the church inappropriately without going too much further?
I would love for that to help people on a practical level, and then at the end where it talks about planning for retirement and making wills and preparing for the future. There's so many people in the church who have no will, who have no plan. I would love for, as we have discussions with people to encourage them to make biblically-wise plans in that regard.
[00:26:53] Matt: Yes. I always tell clients when talking about estate planning. I'm like, "Well, you do have a will. It's just a matter of whether it's the one that the state of North Carolina or your state wrote for you or whether you'd like to have some say in that yourself." I think that's an important thing to point out.
[00:27:09] Jim: I really stress when we do pre-marriage counseling, or when I have young couples that, with your kids, you want it to be clear what your wishes are in these matters. It's an act of love toward those who might be left behind.
[00:27:23] Matt: Yes, to not create confusion, and then another one that people, a lot of times don't think about around estate planning is that everyone who's over 18, even if they have literally no assets and perhaps for that reason don't need a will, need at least that general durable power of attorney and a medical power of attorney and to express any end of life wishes that they have even if they are very young. Because what some parents listening to this podcast may or may not know is that, once their children reached the age of majority without consent, medical people won't even talk to you about your own kids because of privacy laws.
That's another reason to at least get some of those kind of minimum documents in place. Jim, the Work Pants Finance podcast is addressed to MBAs, entrepreneurs, and other high-income professionals, and some of them are elders, beacons, and parishioners. With your counseling hat on, I wonder what your thoughts are about money for those who are doing well in their careers or have sizeable incomes or big assets.
[00:28:24] Jim: Well, Paul specifically addresses your audience in 1 Timothy 6. And I imagine that you also have used that before where he says that, "Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches but on God who richly supplies all good things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich and good works. To be generous and ready to share."
I'd make a few observations, first of all, he doesn't say repent of being rich. He's not assuming they'll no longer be wealthy after he gets done talking to them. It's God who sees fit to bless some people with wealth. Like I said, I wouldn't have had a job for the last 30 something years unless there were wealthy people who invested in the church and in the seminary, in IBCD. God gives wealth as a stewardship and I think to recognize ultimately it all belongs to him and to make it a goal to use that in a way that will count forever.
Then I would also say that one thing I've emphasized in the book is we don't want to acquire more than the Bible does and there are principles of wisdom, but we're left intention. People like to say, "Well, if I give away 10%, then I can use the 90% however, I want." I mentioned earlier, you have these choices between what lifestyle. If God has blessed me with more than I need to live a very basic lifestyle, is it okay for me to enjoy some of that? Yes. Does it give me an opportunity to save for the future for my grandchildren or for retirement? Yes. Should I be giving some away? Yes. It'd be nice if there was just a little formula in some passage in Leviticus where I could just pop in my income, and my total assets and I would know, live this lifestyle, give this much away, but it's not that simple. There's a wrestling that will never cease.
For me, even now, I'm probably not in your target audience of high wealth people, but my fat cows have not all been butchered yet. We live with that tension, which should never, in my opinion, completely go away, but we also live with freedom and I think it is a good thing to say, "I want the wealth that God has given me to make a significant impact for his kingdom, but I also want to be able to do nice things for my grandchildren. I also want to be able to give my wife a nice house to live in as God has blessed us this way without feeling guilty."
I don't think I have to wear thrift store suits like some pastors may. We're living with that tension, but then to seek to honor God in the midst of the tension, without there being a final mathematical answer for how we resolve it.
[00:31:10] Matt: I think that the overarching principle that's there in all that you say, but that I would say explicitly, is that what we're called to as Christians from how much to keep, and how much to give away is that the standard is generosity and that how that plays out differs from time to time or over time, but God has given us all things in Christ and we are therefore free to be generous, what we have with others. I think about your comment about grandchildren. The Proverbs speaks to that too, about a good man leaving an inheritance to his children's children.
Then I also thought if you were just a little bit less scrupulous, you could probably develop an app that Christians could go to and could plug in their income and assets and perhaps various other boundary conditions, and it could just spit that out for them. I don't think that that's probably the right approach.
[00:32:04] Jim: I think the wrestling is good for us. I have one other comment to make that is that if you've never made a mistake by being too generous, you've not been generous enough. If you're always so careful, in terms of, "I don't ever want to be taken advantage of," you're probably on the other end.
[00:32:21] Matt: I was struck by that. I've gotten far enough in the book that I read that one. I thought back to a time in my early 30s, where there were two times back to back in the church, this would have been around 2010, where I felt very distinctly taken advantage of to the tune of a few $100 each time. It was not anything that was going to change my world. As I thought back over the last half dozen years, I couldn't really think of a time where I had had that same feeling.
On the one hand, of course, we want to be careful, and we want to be wise, but I did think that that was a good comment, a helpful comment about are we being generous enough? Are we taking some risk trying to help people? Of course not wanting to do so foolishly, but also not being so steely-eyed that never happens? It's been a decade since I can think of that happening to me. It's probably an area that I need to think about some more.
[00:33:17] Jim: I've been burned enough that I'm a pretty hard sell now when it comes to people in those situations. And yet, God is merciful to me in spite of my sin; He treats me better than my sins deserve. There have been circumstances especially where it's a family member or someone in church whom you know well, who may through their own foolishness, have gotten into trouble and yet you can reflect the mercy of God by offering help they don't fully deserve. I think there's a difference between that and a person you hardly know who's telling you a story.
Again, those are hard decisions. The Bible gives us principles, but then in the application, it's a challenge to know exactly what to do.
[00:33:59] Matt: Praise the Lord. We serve a gracious and merciful God in all aspects of this life. Jim, is there anything special that I didn't ask that you would like to share with the podcast listeners?
[00:34:10] Jim: I'm really thankful that you're helping people to really think biblically about these things. It's your job to, but for me, as a biblical counselor, the percentage of cases that come in where it's a financial emergency is fairly low. We did have a couple recently where they lost their house and the overspending and debt. We worked through the nitty-gritty of solving the problems economically, but also the heart issues that got them there, that I find that it's almost always an issue along with whatever they came in for. I think it is very pervasive in terms of the need of people and to see how the Scriptures speak to these challenges that they are facing.
As Romans 12 says, "We're not to be conformed to the world." We live in a world of greed and selfishness and materialism, and maybe false guilt and lots of other things and so to be renewed in our minds by the truth of the word of God as we think about financial issues so that we can honor Him in all things.
[00:35:17] Matt: Good deal. Well, Jim, is there a way that you would like people to follow-up or to follow you online as a result of this interview?
[00:35:25] Jim: I have a website, Jimnewheiser.com, where I post my blogs and links to different things I'm involved in. Ibcd.org has a wealth of biblical counseling resources, including some on finances. Publishers love you to buy books. I can tell you that-- people ask me, "Well, are you getting wealthy selling books?" I say, "Well--" actually, in my office I have a check for 57 British pence, or something from a British publisher. Must have sold one book in a quarter or something and if I took it to the bank, I would have been charged $5 for a foreign transaction so I'd have had to pay them for something to get my 50 cents.
I'm thankful that the Lord has given me the privilege of making some of this available and I hope it'll be useful to the church. I'm really thankful that you allowed me to come on and talk about it and write New Horizons about it. I hope it will be a blessing to people. If you find something that needs to be fixed, I've had done this before with books where I talked to the publisher, and on the next run on this page, "Can we change this thing?" I would welcome that also.
[00:36:27] Matt: All right. I will share any of those myself and the New Horizons readers can do the same. Jim, thank you so much for the time that you shared today. We'll link out the new book to IBCD and also to your personal blog in the show notes from today's show. I hope you have a great rest of your day.
[00:36:45] Jim: Thank you. You too.
[00:36:48] Matt: Jim's heart for godly stewardship of financial resources, specifically his commitment that everything we have is a gift from God and belongs to God, is front and center in our conversation. Most of our conversation takes this presupposition as it's jumping off point.
Key takeaways include, first, you and your children can finish college at a young age. The universities for your program may or may not be the program that serves your student best. Second, get creative and go big to find income opportunities. Dr. Newheiser, later a pastor, seminarian, author, and then seminary professor, went to Saudi Arabia as a management consultant in the oil industry. This was a high-paying job for a rich client with ex-pat pay and benefits layered on top. From there, he managed his expenses downward and created wealth that still helps Dr. Newheiser and his family today as he works and serves in a different capacity. Third, there's always time for service in the church, whatever other demands exist. Jim Newheiser found time to serve as a pastor of a secret church in Saudi Arabia while succeeding in his career as a consultant.
That's it for this week. Thank you so much for joining me on the Work Pants Finance podcast. Until next time, this is Matt Miner encouraging you to make a financial plan that works as hard as you do.
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[00:38:10] VoiceOver: Matt Miner is a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor and founder and CEO of Miner Wealth Management. A North Carolina registered investment advisor where Matt provides personalized, unconflicted advice to clients for a fee. He's also my dad, so please be nice when you talk to him. Matt is a certified financial planner professional and holds a Series 65 securities license. He earned his bachelor's degree in finance from Arizona State University and his MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.
Work Pants Finance is Matt's financial media business where he talks about work, entrepreneurship, kids and money, taxes, investing and other personal finance topics. Workpantsfinance.com exists to share wisdom and provide general financial information. It is not financial tax or legal advice. You're an individual and probably need personal advice for your specific situation. You should consider building relationships with helpful, caring and competent professionals who understand your unique context and can provide advice that is tailored to your needs.