Hope for your financial life and beyond

Is the Bible Really Clear About Paying Taxes?

“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” – Matthew 22:21

taxes in the bibleLike you, my tax paperwork is due to be filed by April 15th. There is no doubt that doing the tax return is no fun to fill out every year. It has become a much easier task though since my wife became a CPA.

Talking about taxes sets our blood to a boil. We despise the fact that we work so hard only to see so much money taken from each paycheck. “Isn’t there a way to avoid it?” we ask.

That question should raise alarm bells for everyone. While certain maneuvers with money are legal, many others are not. If we are not careful, that question can lead us down a path of handling our money in a way that we might regret one day.

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What Does the Bible Say About Debt? Wait Til You See

I turn to the Bible for a lot of questions in my life. After all, God has a lot more wisdom than I do. So why not tap into that knowledge? It seems that no matter what I’m dealing with, I can find some answers within the pages of the Bible.

what does the bible say about debtA few years ago, I’m reviewing our finances and this question randomly pops into my head, What does the Bible say about debt?  The truth is it wasn’t a random thought at all. My wife and I were trying to get out of debt so the topic was weighing on our minds. I knew what I thought about debt but didn’t really know what God said. So I decided to give it a look.

What I found was a little surprising and served as a wake-up call. Not only that, but at another level, it provided encouragement and hope. I realized there was a better path to take than the one I was on.

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12 Bible Verses About Friendship That Will Make You a Better Friend

We all want to be a better friend, right? But sometimes we don’t know how to be a better friend or what being a better friend looks like. It may surprise you to know that there are many Bible verses about friendship that speak to this.

Bible verses about friendshipFirst and foremost, there are many great examples of friendship between people in the Bible. Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi come to mind. Also David and Jonathan were described as being as close of friends as anyone could be. And of course, when we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, He becomes the ultimate friend on whom we can count.

Let’s face it though – friendships can be hard. Sometimes it’s hard just to find friends. Other times we fall into the wrong type of friendships, ones that lead us in the wrong direction. And, just like a reliable car, the best friendships take work to maintain.

The Bible touches on these things with the hopes of making us find and be better friends. There are many Bible verses about friendship to choose from. Here are 12 of the better ones from its pages.

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15 Bible Verses to Remind Us to Be Thankful

thankful bible versesI’m am thankful Bible verses exist to keep me thinking the right way. I often forget how many things I have to be thankful for. It’s much easier for me to let the worries and frustrations of life overshadow all the blessings I enjoy. Doing that only produces a spirit of ingratitude and bitterness.

So how do I fight against my tendencies?

First off, I have to remind myself routinely to let go of the negative. Nothing good comes when I daily choose to focus on all that is wrong with my life or the world. That is no way to live life. You wake up each morning already in a bad mood.

But an even more powerful strategy is to meditate on the concept of thankfulness. And the source that I constantly turn to for that is the Bible.

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What Does God Prescribe for the Handling of Your Personal Finances?

The Bible has a lot to say when it comes to managing our lives in a more wholesome way. Money has always influenced the way people live. However, it does not mean that it should affect the kind of people we are at heart.

If you’ve grown up in a Christian household, you may have heard it said “Practice contentment and don’t covet other people’s stuff” (derived from Exodus 20:17). But the world around us usually says otherwise in the way that it tries to sell us material things by making us want them through various advertisements.

In the modern age, our finances can be affected by just a click of a button. It makes you wonder how we can manage that power and have better control over our finances. Many books have been written and careers made based on the popularity and demand for such help. 

Additionally though, people can and should turn to see the nuggets of advice that the Bible has to offer about how to manage your finances. Here is a quick guide to help us explore what the Bible says about money. 

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FACT: The Rich Rule Over the Poor and the Borrower is Slave to the Lender ― Proverbs 22:4

The society we live in today revolves around being in and remaining in debt. Don’t believe me? In the early 1900s, most people owned their house with no mortgage

what does the bible say about debtIt wasn’t until after WWII that debt became a more popular way to make purchases when loan requirements were loosened and lenders became protected by federal law. When the opportunity for mortgages expanded, debt went through the roof. 

At the beginning of 2020, more than 50% of Americans make just enough money to pay their bills each month. If something were to happen and they missed a paycheck, some of their bills wouldn’t be paid that month. In fact, 40% of Americans can’t cover $400 in the case of an emergency.

The questions regarding debt that are the most important have nothing to do with what others are doing or thinking. For Christians, it is important to ask what the Bible says about debt

The four most important lessons the Bible teaches about debt are:

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15 Bible Verses About Helping the Poor You Need to Know

“…For the poor will never cease from the land…” – Deuteronomy 15:11. This is one of many Bible verses about helping the poor, a major theme within the Bible. Jesus famously said in Matthew 22:39, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This statement can best applied in how we treat the poor.

bible verses about helping the poorDeuteronomy 15:11 says that the poor will always be with us. The world cannot escape it. We can try through economic and political systems to pull people out of poverty and create an environment where they can better themselves. But even the best system that leads to prosperity for many can’t reach everyone.  There will never be an instance in this present life when someone somewhere isn’t experiencing poverty.

Because of that, we should consider all manner of ways in which we might go about helping the poor.

God clearly has a special place in his heart for the poor. His words about the poor are littered throughout the pages of the Bible. So today, we are going to look at 15 powerful Bible verses about helping the poor that show us how we might best meet their needs.

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3 Principles from the Bible that Will Help You Build Wealth

The following is a guest post from ESI who blogs at ESI Money. He’s a 50-something early retiree who has amassed a multi-million dollar net worth by following three simple steps to build wealth — earning, saving, and investing (ESI).

As most Christians know, the Bible has a wealth of information and advice about handling money and the ability to build wealth. The book of Proverbs alone provides enough guidance to fill many personal finance books.

build wealthOf course the Bible doesn’t focus on becoming wealthy for wealth’s sake, but to bless others. That said, if you apply the principles in the Bible, you can’t help but become wealthy.

Over the past 25 years I have applied three simple steps to become wealthy. At the same time, my knowledge of what the Bible says about money has grown. Somewhere along the way I realized that my actions mirrored what was in Scripture. And even better, as I changed my actions to better reflect the Bible’s teachings on money, I prospered even more.

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Money in the Bible: 99 Topics That Will Move You to Action

When I began Luke1428, the main purpose was to share all that I’d learned about money in the Bible. After reading through the Bible in a year, I had recorded all the verses about money I could find. It was my goal to use those for a series of articles that would teach people what God thought about money and inspire them to take action.

I called this money in the Bible series “Hidden Nuggets.”

digging up hidden nuggets about money in the bibleIt’s called Hidden Nuggets because sometimes things aren’t obvious when you read the Bible. Usually you must dig to understand what God is trying to say. Like a piece of gold that is waiting in the earth to be discovered by a metal detector or a miner, so are many Bible verses. The truth is there waiting to be exposed to those who want to search out the meaning.

God has revealed to me more than I could have imagined through my study of money in the Bible. Many things I thought I knew I realize now I didn’t really know. So it is when you begin to dig for the truth – it stretches you to examine your faulting ways of thinking.

I’ve come to a very exciting milestone in my Hidden Nuggets series about money in the Bible. This is my 100th article for the series that dates back to July 14, 2013 with the publication of This Little Light of Mine. To commemorate this, I’d like share with you what I believe are the best 25 posts in the series.

My Top 25 Posts About Money in the Bible

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My Top 10 Favorite Proverbs About Money

proverbs about moneyIt’s an exciting milestone day for me as my Hidden Nuggets Series is turning 50…as in this will be the 50th post in the series I started just over a year ago. It’s been an encouraging experience for me personally as I’ve explored how verses in the Bible and proverbs about money relate to my personal financial journey and issues in the world at large.

In case you are wondering, my interest in what the Bible said about money began while leading Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class in 2010. In the middle of a video session, Dave made an off-hand remark saying that a person could get a degree in personal finance just by reading the Biblical book of Proverbs. “It’s in there…really!” he said, and then went on with the lesson.

That statement intrigued me. For days I couldn’t shake the comment.

So I started reading from Proverbs – one chapter a day for a month. That month of reading and recording all the proverbs about money I could find so inspired me, I decided to read the entire Bible through in a year and record all the verses that discussed a money related theme. I would find over 400 passages in all…you can find them categorized here.

That exercise taught me that if God takes the issue of money and our use of it seriously then so should I.

Top 10 Proverbs About Money

To celebrate my 50th post in the Hidden Nuggets Series I’d like to list and rank my personal top 10 proverbs about money and share a brief snippet about what the verse means to me. Here they are from #10 to #1.

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