All right, let me pray for us, and then we'll jump into our topic again this morning. Let's pray. Lord, we come before you this morning, and pray that you wake up our minds and our hearts as we look at your word again, and even, Lord, as we think about money again this morning, and what Proverbs has to teach us. We ask that, Lord, you would help us just be able to apply this to our lives. and learn as what we can from it. And Lord, just submit this area, just like all areas of our life to you. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so. We started talking about money, the Proverbs and money. What it talks about is we're getting into more specific topics in Proverbs. And so we're surveying a couple of different specific topics to kind of give you guys a flavor of what that's like in the Proverbs. And we talked about money last week. And I know for me, I have different experiences with money. And I know for me, when I first got you know, a full-time paycheck, I remember that I just didn't really have any really thinking about how I should be using my money. I don't think I really was giving much to church. I was spending it on all kinds of fun stuff that I wanted to buy for my apartment, my new apartment that I had. I wasn't really saving anything, and I still had, like, credit card debt from college. And I was maybe overpaying a little bit on that, but I wasn't aggressively paying it off. And so I really was not very wise with my money. And that's kind of sad because I had just become like a missionary. So you think I would be like, oh, I'm a Christian. I know how to use money well. But I wasn't being very wise with my money. And all those things I just mentioned, all those areas are in the Proverbs. They talk about it. They give you more practicals about how to think about your money and use it. So that's what I want to talk about. We're going to get to more of the practicals today. Now, if you guys remember, last week, and hopefully this will help you all, last week we talked sort of more of our attitude towards money. Let me put this back up just to remind us. Last week we talked about these three things. We talked about like the big picture about money, like what are some of the things that Proverbs say about money. And we talked about that the Proverbs warns a lot about it's not wise to trust in money, right? Money can only take you so far. It can disappear in a moment. We shouldn't be putting our hope in it and kind of putting all our stock in money. And the scriptures really warn us against that. And Jesus, right, when you talk about serving on the mount, he warns us against that. But also, like, we shouldn't neglect it either. Actually, money does a lot of things. It can help accomplish a lot of things. And the foolish person, the Proverbs, is sort of like the lazy person or the person who just spends all their money. And they don't really think about their money and plan. So they end up getting themselves into trouble because they didn't think enough about money. So you can actually think too much about money and obsess about it and make it an idol, but you also can neglect it and be foolish and not think wisely about it, and that gets you into trouble on both sides of the coin. And then we looked at, see that moderation, that's sort of like Proverbs talks about you know, kind of moderation, the idea of moderation, like I'm not like obsessed with being wealthy, but also like I don't necessarily want to be poor either. The proverb says poverty is not a good thing to be poor and not be able to make ends meet in life. So even so, we looked at some proverbs that talks about, he says, don't make me overly rich or overly poor. Like they're both or not both. There's temptations on the rich side and there's a lot of struggles on the poor side. And the proverbs talked about that. And so let's talk about some practicals then. And part of my struggle with this class is Proverbs talks so much about money. It's hard to pick all the passages and topics. But I picked a few for us to look at. And the Bible itself talks a lot about money, too. If you ever want to know about money and just how to use it, how the Bible thinks about it, it's just all over the place. It's a topic that's talked about a lot. And so let's talk about this. And remember what we're doing is we're just taking wisdom, and we're applying it now to the specific. So remember our definition of biblical wisdom. Soon I'm not going to put this up there. I'm going to see if any of you remember this. I'm going to start testing you if you remember. I'm putting this up every week to see if you guys can memorize this. We talk about biblical wisdom is fearing a loving God by seeking to skillfully choose righteous goals and the best ways to achieve those goals. That's what we kind of see that the wisdom literature is trying to get us to do, to honor God by this. So right now, we're going to apply that to, we're applying it to the topic of money. How do we skillfully choose and understand what are the right goals that God wants us to think about with our money, and what are the best ways to get there? Right, so we could say, oh yeah, I really wanna honor God with my money, but if you don't have any practical skills or direction on how to do that, you can sometimes make mistakes and not get to the goal that you actually wanna get to in honoring God with your money and how you use it. So what we're going to do is look at some particular things we see in the wisdom literature. One, we're going to talk about giving, that really when it comes to using our money, the first thing is giving to the Lord and sometimes to other people in need. Those things are talked about in the Bible. Second, budgeting. The idea of, and which kind of encompasses our giving as well, it's like how do we plan well? Like we're thinking wisely about how we use our money. And part of that is budgeting. Usually today we'll talk about it as budgeting. The Bible talks about, Proverbs talks about debt and warnings about debt. And we can discuss that. And then also saving. Saving is mentioned in the Proverbs along this line. So we're gonna talk about these four things. and see what we can learn in the wisdom literature. So let's just start off with the giving, the first topic there. Giving to the Lord. And there's several proverbs that connect to this. Let me pull out my Bible. Most of them are on the screen, but I wanna have this ready. So this proverb is interesting. This is Proverbs 3, 9 through 10. It says, honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. So honor the Lord with all your wealth and the firstfruits of your produce. Does anybody know what it means when it talks about the firstfruits? What is that phrase when you see that in the Bible? Anybody know what the firstfruits are? Yeah. Yeah, right, yeah, the first time you go out to harvest, it's sort of like the first crop that comes in in agricultural society. Solomon is saying, okay, honor the Lord with that first produce that comes in, that first thing. So the idea is like a priority, right? The Lord is who we worship. He is the most important thing in our life. So as you use your, you get wealth, what you do is you prioritize God first. You give him the first crop. You donate that first. And that's sort of like what you see kind of in the scripture, right, is whenever we get money, the first person that we are called to give it to is God, is to prioritize him with the money that we get. And why do you think that's the case? Why do we need to prioritize God first when we get any type of income? Like why should we do that? Yeah, Emily. Cause it is his, it is his. How is the money that I could say, how's the money I made God's? Didn't I work for it? Yeah. So if God didn't create me, give me the strength or the mind or the abilities, I wouldn't be able to do anything. So I might say, well, it's my work, but how could I do that work if God did not give me those abilities in the first place? So in a sense, I'm dependent on God for my work and the money that I make in that regard. Yeah, that's a good point. Anything else like why we should be prioritizing giving to the Lord first? Why is that important? Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point too. Yeah, like think about when we give to the Lord first, right, it's reminding us that God is the priority in our life. So as far as the money that we have available to us, we're deciding, okay, first, I wanna prioritize God because God is the most important thing in my life. He is the most important thing in reality. So I'm gonna give to him first. And the Proverbs is saying, wisely, that's what you should be doing, right? And we know that in scripture, right, it calls us to do that in different ways in the scriptures. And you see like in the Old Testament, right, God commanded the Israelites to give to him. And usually the initial standard was 10% of their income to give to the temple and to take care of the priests and other things that the Lord commanded them to give. And then there's also other giving for festivals and other things beyond the 10% that they would give to. And so, yes, the Lord would say, you know, this is important. And even in Malachi, he like rebukes the nation of Israel. He says they weren't giving to him. He says, what would you dare rob God? You know, would you rob me? So he almost looks at it like, this is mine. I've asked you to give this. And when you don't give it, it's actually you're robbing God of that. And so, yeah, so the Lord calls us to do it. What do you guys think, though, about the second half of this proverb? Because remember we talked about the difference between the idea of thinking about the proverbs as promises. So is this proverb saying, it says, in the second half, it says, then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. So that means if you give God your first one, your first part of your income, then, boy, you're rich. It's going to be flowing after that. What do you think about that? It seems that it's like saying, that's what it seems like it's saying, right? So how do we take this proverb? Yeah, Chris. My first reaction is a reaction against adverse because I feel like this is the type of verse that tell evangelists what to do. Just send me your money and God is gonna bless you. He's gonna, you're gonna, your bank account's gonna grow. You're gonna be, yeah, like, yeah. Right, I mean, we certainly see these verses abused in that way. So how do we, how do we, so should we just like not talk about these verses then just be like, you know, they'll get abused. So let's not even, let's not use these ones in the Bible. Like, I think you probably all say, well, that probably doesn't sound good either. So how should we take these Proverbs, right? Cause we've talked about this issue before. The Proverbs seem to promise things that are, you're like, man, does that how it always works? I don't, I don't know. What do you guys think? Yeah, Jack. Right. Yeah. So I guess maybe you're saying that as we prioritize the Lord in our lives, that this helps us in other ways, right? Because it's getting our priority focused. And then that can infect us financially, too. Because if you think about it, if Lord is your top priority and you're saying, I want to prioritize and give to him first, you're thinking about the Lord, and then you're going to be more open to what the Lord says about money, which we're going to see all these other Proverbs that talk about how to wisely handle your money. So if you're thinking more wisely about your money, you're in general, right? This is the tough thing, because it sounds like a promise, like you give, and then you're going to be rich. But the idea is that the Proverbs is saying, as you live wisely, there will be benefits of that. And sometimes those are financial benefits, where you're actually being wise about how you use your finances. Oftentimes, wise people who are weighing wisely in their finances often do better. They are not overspending, and they're not idolizing the money, and their saving, and all these other things that we're going to talk about. But it's not an absolute promise. Because if you think about it, with Job, Job was really wealthy, and he was super righteous. But God allowed Satan to test him, and he lost everything. And so that's why what I'm reading is you need to balance all the wisdom literature. And you realize that God reserves the right to change the scenario. Even though he says, this is generally going to happen, but the Lord has a right to change the plan. Which is hard. Which is hard to wrestle with. And that's what Job wrestles with in his book. He's like, man, I was doing everything right that God said, and I still am suffering. I don't understand this. But the pattern that's set up in Proverbs is, in general, as you honor the Lord, you're wise with your finances, you prioritize God first, you usually see a blessing in terms of you're not like the fool who has nothing left, but he's able to provide for himself. I don't think it means necessarily being rich, but the idea is you're going to be blessed through this, because the wise person tends to be more careful with their money, and they don't lose it all. But God can change the plans, which is hard. So this idea is like, prioritize giving to the Lord. We see this throughout the scriptures. Another aspect of giving is, it says, whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deeds. So we see this idea of not just giving to the Lord, but also the idea of giving to the poor, people who are in need. Which sometimes is a challenge, because sometimes there may not be anybody right around you that you see in need. But sometimes we just need to look harder, and the Lord can make that obvious to us. And we see this connection in the New Testament to the gospel. this idea of we're giving because of the gospel. It says for Jesus, talking about Jesus, it says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you might by his poverty might become rich. Paul talks about this in a section where he's asking the Corinthians to give to support people in need in Jerusalem. And so he's helping them to think, right? Like, well, you've been made so rich by the gospel, right? God has given you so much. And Jesus became poor, right? Gave up everything so you could have eternity and treasures in heaven. You know, that's one of the reasons why we give, you know? It's like, why should I care about other people? Why should I just save the money for myself? It's like, no, because that's not how God treated us, right? He gave up so much so that we could benefit, and that's the idea for us. And then he goes on and he says this, and you guys probably have heard this passage, sometimes we say, this idea of being a cheerful giver for Christians. Paul goes on in the same context, right, where he's trying to help them to think about giving. He says, the point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each man must give as he has decided in his heart. not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written, he has distributed freely, he has given to the poor, his righteousness endures forever. He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. All right, so you see Paul here, he's casting vision for them. He's like, He's saying, OK, if you sow sparingly, you're going to reap sparingly. But he's encouraging them to reap so bountifully. But he's like, you guys have to make decide what you're going to give, though. He's like, I'm not going to tell you how much you need to give, but think about the gospel when you're challenging yourself to give. And don't do it because you feel like you have to, but do it because you want to, because of what Jesus has done for you. And that's sort of like our motivation for giving in the scriptures. Yeah, any questions about this topic of giving? Other thoughts, Jack? That's a good question. Can you? Yeah, God is able to make all grace abound to you. So having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good word. Yeah, it's kind of a lot of alls there, you know? Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yep, yeah, the God is saying, okay, as you give, God is able to actually do things in your life, right? It seems like he talks about like physical things here too, kind of like the Proverbs God will provide for you. But also you can see he's talking about spiritual things as well. Right? Especially at the end there where it says, and increase the harvest of your righteousness. Right? God is changing you as you give. Like, God is changing you as you give. Like, and there's a spiritual benefit as well, which is really, really good. Yeah, Steve? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep, yep, there's preparation for eternity. And you know, right in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, store up your treasure in heaven, where moth and rust don't destroy and thieves don't break in and steal. There are eternal rewards for what we do and riches. So Jesus is saying, OK, focus on that. Don't focus only on this world. And the scripture's not saying, like I said, it doesn't encourage the ascetic lifestyle. Jesus does commend the widow who gives her last bit of money. But the general principle is not like, OK, everybody needs to live absolutely poor as Christians. We talked about that. That's not necessarily the standard. Asceticism is not necessarily what the Bible calls us to. But it also calls us not to be tied to this world and be willing to give as the Lord calls us to give. So yeah, that's what we're called to. And the question is, you might say, well, how much should you give? We just see, right, he says, OK, Paul, this was like a special gift to a special need. Paul's saying, I'm not saying how much you should give. You should give what you feel like you should. But like I said, a lot of Christians just use the tithe, like the 10%, because it was what God asked the Israelites to do in the Old Testament. And I feel like it's a good argument. Most people would say, I've heard people say, a lot of people say, well, that's the Old Testament. That's the Old Testament law, so we don't have to follow that anymore. But a lot of people have said, if this is the vision that God gives us as Christians for giving in his kingdom, how would we now say, well, I think I'll give less. I'll give less than the 10%. They said, actually, average Christians give maybe 2% to 3% of their income to God. And again, I don't think there is an absolute number, but part of it is just to think. How much are we giving? Are you giving in a way to really say, this is my priority. Does your giving show that this is my priority in life, is the Lord. I think that's the biggest question we all should wrestle with. Any other questions about giving before? Not comments, but questions, more or less. If it's a comment and a question together, that's fine. OK. I was wondering, any questions first before Steve? Yeah, a lot of people will say, use that term sacrificial giving. And usually I think what people mean right by that is that I'm giving to the point where it kind of hurts me a little bit. I feel like I'm going to have less over here if I prioritize my giving here. And yeah, I really didn't come prepared to fully think through that question. Yeah, well, I think Yeah. Yeah, people say that a lot. I mean, I think you think of the widow who gives her last little bit of money to the Lord. Jesus does praise her for that. Although I don't know if, I'm trying to think of if there's a command to give sacrificially or along those lines. It's certainly not, that's not how Paul approaches it here. Exactly, but I think that idea here, Jack, do you have a thought? Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And yeah, so you think, yeah, if you step back, think about the bigger picture that, yeah, our lives as Christians are sort of, we're like, we're called living sacrifices now. Like that, the vision is, okay, in my look at my life, am I sacrificing anything for the Lord in my life? And that question should really go to our money, too, right? Am I really, you know, am I just trying to, out of fear, or greed, or ever hold everything to myself? Or am I willing to say, you know what? Yes, I could go buy a better car. I could go on a better vacation. Or I could do this or that. But if I didn't give this money, but you're willing to say, you know what? I'm going to give this money to the Lord first, because that's my priority. And then also be open to needs that are around. And I think we just need to trust God. Part of it's a step of faith, because you'd be like, oh, man, I don't know if I'm going to have enough money. But that's what I think the general truth of Proverbs is true, that if we give, prioritize to the Lord, the Lord helps us. We're all supposed to pray for our daily bread and pray for our needs. So to say, Lord, I'm going to give this to you, and I'm going to trust. Pray that you provide what I need. So yeah, we need to trust in that. Emily, and then we're going to move on to the next topic. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Right, and I think... That, you know, what about the sources? How do we think about where we give and who we give to? And I think those are the general principles of discernment that we see in scripture, right? That we're exercising wisdom and discernment in how we give and where we give. And so, yeah, so I think there's definitely principles there. Like, because we don't want to waste the Lord's resources either. Right? I mean, if you give your money to a, somebody who's teaching heresy and is actually leading people straight from Christ, that's, you know, I mean, like, I mean, the Lord knows your heart and maybe you were tricked into it, right? He would, he would honor you be like, okay, you got tricked into it. But a thing is like the Proverbs says, like, be wise, like, don't, if you can try to have some discernment on what you do and how you give, um, Yeah, and so, yeah, you definitely want to be wise about where you're giving your resources to the Lord and not to people that are misusing them. Yeah, that's a complicated question, but let's just move on, because part of this could help, like talking about budgeting. And I think this is helpful. This is a general thing we saw about that the wise person in Proverbs is thinking and discerning and planning his way, particularly with giving to financial things. We see this as well. In Proverbs 27, 23 through 27, The author says, know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds. For riches do not last forever and does a crown endure to all generations? When the grass is gone and the new growth appears and the vegetation of the mountains is gathered, the lambs will provide your clothing and the goats the price of a field. There will be enough goat's milk for your food, for the food of your household and the maintenance of your girls. And then Proverbs 21.5 says, the plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. So you notice I underlined a few words there. And in the first one, right, he said, know well and give attention. And then in Proverbs 21.5, diligent. So the idea is that the wise, Proverbs points out, the wise person is planning his future. They're thinking about things. They're not just blindly doing things and letting them come to you. I think that's what, when I first started getting a paycheck, I was sort of just doing whatever just came to my mind and I wasn't really planning or thinking at all about where my money should go and how I should save it. And so I didn't have any plans. I was sort of just doing whatever I felt like doing at the moment, which wasn't great financially. And so this idea of planning. So as you plan, then you'll have stuff in the future. But the foolish person, they're hasty, and it leads them into poverty. And that's sort of the pattern. in Proverbs that you see. So I was thinking, you know, well, what do we usually say in our culture, right? For our modern context, a lot of times we'll say, you know, that's just budgeting, right? That you actually are planning about your finances and you're thinking about them. And you're thinking, like, okay, where is my money going? What am I doing with my money? You know, now, yeah, what do you got in terms of applying this proverb today for us, right? The idea of planning for your money, right? And planning how to use your money. What has been your guys' experience with that? Hmm, yep. Mm-hmm. That's a good point, because you could have a budget in allocating all your resources, but it could be a bad budget. Because your budget will reveal where you put your resources. It will reveal where your vision is, where you're going in life, what your priorities are. Yeah, so you could keep track of your money really well, but if your priorities are off, right? That's why I started with the giving one, because the idea like, OK, what are your priorities? Solomon is saying, your priority is the Lord first. Right? And so then when you look at your budget as you plan, that would be a good question. Like, you know, when I look at my budget, one, do I have one? Two, if I do look at my budget and I have one already, like, where are my priorities in it? Like, how they reflect it in how I'm managing my money. Yeah, that's a good question. Other thoughts or comments on this idea of planning Right Yes, yes, yes, you will be surprised if you start like you're saying if you start tracking your money and and you start seeing where it's going, you might be surprised. Like, man, yeah, how much am I spending on certain things? But honestly, that's why I don't want to do a budget, because I don't want to know. I'd rather just be blissfully ignorant, because then if I actually look at what I'm actually spending my money on, then I'll be convicted. I'll be like, oh, yeah, like, all those $5 coffees added up, you know, and all the other things in life, right, that we just buy and we don't really think about. So that is one obstacle to planning is like, I don't want to know, but you're saying you got to sort of. like, pull the curtains back. And that's what budgeting does. And honestly, there was a guy, one of the older staff that was overseeing me. He's like, do you have a budget? I'm like, uh, no. And I remember initially, I'm like, I don't know if I want to do a budget. I don't know if I want to show him my budget, because then he'll see how much money I'm blowing and all kinds of things. But so that's the thing. Sometimes even just taking that first step of tracking everything you're doing is convicting because it starts to show where you're using your money and where you're not using your money either. Exactly. Yeah. Other? Emily. Yeah. Hm. Yes. Yep. Yep. I was going to say, Emily, it's easy for you to say, OK? You like math. Yeah. Yep. Exactly, I really appreciate that, because we can look at a picture just helping our vision of like having a budget in planning is not just a negative thing. It's a positive thing. There's blessings that come with it. And one you're saying is that it shows us God's provision. You know, you're like, man, look how God provided for all these things this year. And yeah, and that's an encouragement. And I've also heard another blessing of budgets is it gives you freedom. Because once you plan out your different, David, you look like discouraged that I just stole your thunder. Well, you say it rather than me. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, yeah. And we were dedicated. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yep. Right. Yep. Yeah, which is nice because it gives you freedom. If you've already planned, you thought, okay, I think this is a wise use of my resources. When it is that time and you have that money for that, you don't have to feel guilty about it because you're not like, yeah, I already planned for this. I have the extra money left in the month. I'm gonna go get a Starbucks. So it gives you freedom too. For me, I don't like restriction, I think like that. So it was mostly, I looked at the budget as negative. It was really helpful to see over time that it's actually helpful. And here in the Proverbs, it's like, OK, when there is a lack of resources because you've planned, you have in the times when there's leanness. And that's a pattern. The wise person saves and is ready, which we'll talk about in a second, for the lean times that are coming. Yeah. Go ahead, David. One more. Yes. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. It really helps us as we. think through the future, for sure. And you might say, I don't have a budget, or I don't know if my budget's good. I don't know how to do it. I think that's often a big hurdle for us, if we're not good with spreadsheets. One of the objections I had that Emily sort of already addressed is the idea of, I'm not good at it. I'm just not good at this. And the thing is, it's so nice. There's so many tools nowadays. I mean, you can get apps on your phone that you can just track stuff. I just started a very simple, I just had a regular spreadsheet where I just wrote down how much money came in and how much I spent on each thing. I had different categories, and I would just put in each category. And just doing that, it wasn't really a complex budget at all. That just really started to help me a lot, just to have some way of keeping track of things. So there's a lot of people here that have budgets, probably, that can help you. So if you don't have one, you can talk to them. And like I said, that's a way you can help each other. We can help each other. I need to move on just for the sake of time, but we can come back if there's questions at the end. I just want to cover these last two pretty quickly, and then we'll talk about them. The Proverbs also talks about debt, and debt is usually warned against in the Proverbs. So there's a couple here. It says, the rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender. and says, do not say to your neighbor, go and come again. Tomorrow I will give it when you have it with you. What about that first one? It says the rich rules over the poor and the borrower is the slave of the lender. How is the borrower a slave of the lender? What do you think this proverb is trying to say, Steve? Yeah, in a way. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, because you're in a sense, there's a way you're working for them when you're paying. Because usually when you borrow, you have to pay interest. You have to pay something. Debt is not free. Right, right. Emily, do you have a question? Yeah. Right. So in that sense, you're saying it's like the slavery idea is like, I have somebody else has a claim on my resources. It's not just God and my family and the needs I have. It's some outside person now has a claim on me. Yep. Yep. Yep. Diane, do you have a question or comment? Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Exactly. You're paying a lot of money long term. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. I think the idea of right is that now you have an obligation to pay back. And I think even, the reason why I put Proverbs 328 up there is I feel like this proverb seems to be saying you should pay back your debts. I think the implication is your neighbor, you have something, you owe your neighbor. Solomon is saying, don't put them off. Don't say, oh, I'll give it to you tomorrow when you have it now. So his idea is like, yeah, if you owe something to somebody, you should be paying them back. And so that would be the case with our debts. And if you don't pay back your debt, your financial credit and livelihood could really be affected. And so in a sense, you're kind of stuck. Until you pay back those those debts Steve Uh-huh Yeah, that's true. That's another way of taking this as well. Yeah, so it could be, yeah, somebody's in need, right, needy, and you're kind of putting them off. Right, right, yeah. And so that's another way of taking this proverb, too, if that's true. And there's also some proverbs that talk about this. One, it says, it warns about going into debt for other people. It says, whoever puts up security for a stranger will sorely suffer harm. But he who hates striking hands in pledge is secure. and 22, 26 through 27. Be not one of those who gives pledges, who puts up security for debts. If you have nothing with which to pay, why should your bed be taken from under you? So there's several things here, right, about, so this, a lot of times this goes, today, is like co-signing loans with somebody, where somebody will say to you, like, oh, I need to get this loan, but my credit's not good, can you sign so that, I'll pay it back, don't worry, you don't have to pay anything, I'll pay it back, but, you know, you just sign so I can get this loan. But the thing is, once you sign, right, you now are just as obligated to pay it back as that other person, so if that person defaults, They're going to come after you, too. And so I think this is what Solomon is saying. That's a very bad idea. Now, you're free to do that. It's not a sin. But it's also going to be very unwise. I think when you co-sign something or you greet it, you have to be willing to lose all that money. You have to say, can I pay back everything this person owes? Because if they don't and they fall through, they lose their job, I have to pay it back. Now, if you're willing to lose all that going in knowingly, OK, you can do it. But the Proverbs here is saying, why should your bed be taken from under you? The idea is the person probably doesn't have the money to pay back the other person's debt, so you're going to lose everything you have as well. And that's just foolish to sign for somebody else. So debt is usually looked at as a warning. It doesn't say absolutely don't do it. There's a lot of warnings against it. Yeah, Steve? Right. Right. Right, yeah, I think it's a different, slightly different issue, but like still the same potential warning, right? Not getting yourself into trouble for something you can't afford, and you can't technically pay back if something bad happens, and you lose all, you really get yourself into financial trouble. But let me ask this, is it wise to go into debt, though, at all? Like, what about buying a house? Most of us probably have gone into debt to buy a house, right? We took out a loan. Is that unwise or wrong? Because somebody could just say that, like, well, you took out a loan on a house, so aren't you going against the Proverbs, Leah? Yeah. Yeah, those are two big ones, right? You just said, we said house and then college, college loans. A lot of people take college loans. A lot of us might've had college loans. I mean, I had some too. So like, so, so you're saying like, okay, when you, I think most people probably say, OK, there can be wise use of debt, but you have to think through, can I make those payments? How do I think through what I'm going to owe? How is it going to affect me? Yeah. Right. Yeah, and so that's a good point. When you go into debt, you have to be willing to sacrifice to get out of it, because you're a slave until you do. And the idea is like, a lot of us probably have maybe debts like that, like house, college loans still. The idea is like, OK, get out of the slavery and prioritize that. So sometimes that means you've got to give up fun things now to pay that off, to get that paid off. And that was something that I was encouraged to do, is like, hey, prioritize your credit, get rid of your credit cards first, those are high interest, and then get rid of your school loans. And then you're paying less over time, the more you pay those off. And then you're free. It's so nice. When you pay off your last loans, you're like, yes. People celebrate burning their mortgage or their college loan when they make the last payment. It's really fun. Because they're doing that because they're feeling the freedom. I'm not a slave anymore. And that's really encouraging. And then that frees you up your resources for the Lord even more and to save for your future, which is important. Yeah, David? Yeah. Yeah, yep. Amen. Yeah, yep. Yep, yep. And that's the thing, because it seems like, that what we're saying is that you have to calculate the cost going in. And I think with college loans, you have to cost, what is my income going to be when I graduate? And I was a philosophy major. So in anthropology, there's not a huge job market out there for those things. So I can't tell my kids, oh, don't major in humanities. It's a waste of time. But what I do tell them is if you choose to do it, you're going to have a lower income. So you don't want to have high college debt, because it'll just take you so much longer to pay it off. You know, certain jobs, when you get out, the market is pretty easy to find a job, and the jobs are fairly high-paying. So you know, okay, if you're gonna be willing to count the cost, you can pay off that debt. So you do look at it as an investment, right? You have more earning power as you go through school, each level you reach. But you really gotta try to, like, weigh that. Yeah, some people have college debts that are so high, they're basically like a mortgage of a house. And if you want to own a house, good luck. It's going to be a long time before you can even think about buying a house. And a house is a little different, too, because you have an asset. So you can sell the house if you need to. But the idea is you don't want to buy a house and have to sell it right away, because there's all these costs that go into buying and selling a house. So if you buy a house and you have to sell it in six months, you're going to lose money, thousands of dollars. So if you're going to buy a house, you want to have it for a long period of time. This way, you don't lose money on it. But you also have to realize, because remember the Proverbs warns that money can disappear. And there's a lot of people in 2007, who said, houses just keep going up in price. This is awesome. Let's buy it. Let's get a huge mortgage and get this house, because it'll be worth another $50,000, $100,000 in the next year. And then the market collapsed. And I know several people that were, maybe you found yourself in this, where they owned a house now that they were stuck and they couldn't move because the house value dropped $50,000 or $100,000. And they couldn't sell it because they didn't have the money to cover it. And the bank won't want you to sell it because you'll lose money. So even a house, you have to count the costs. Am I just trying to make money? Or is this something I'm going to live in for the long period of time that I know that I could afford to pay and work on paying back? Yeah, so I think, like, debt is, you have to be very careful about going into debt. You know, the warnings are there. And so just like anything, like you said, get counsel and talk about it with people. Because that's, like, Proverbs talks about that. Plans fail for lack of counsel. With many advisors, they succeed. Ask somebody before you go into it. Don't buy the house and then say that you really want it and you're just really excited, but you can't afford to pay it. Then later say, ask, oh, how do I handle this? That was the wrong time to ask. Ask before you buy the house. Talk about your finances with somebody that you trust. Because they might say, you know what? It's an amazing house. It's perfect for you, but you can't afford it. Don't do it. And that will save you so much pain right down the road going into that debt. So if you do go into debt, you have to be extremely wise and very cautious before you do. Because the proverb says, be careful before you take that step. All right, well, we need to wrap up. I really appreciate your guys' thoughts and comments on this. I'm sure we're just going to unearth ideas and more questions. But like I said, let's not stop here. Keep talking about it with each other outside of the class. Talk to me. If you have financial questions, ask people here that have knowledge, more knowledge than you, and they'll help you. All right, so let's go ahead and close. Let me close this in prayer. Lord, we thank you for your word. And we just ask, Lord, that you would help us in all these areas. Lord, most importantly, putting you first in our lives, with our finances. And Lord, you give us all things. There's nothing we have that we didn't get because of you. And Lord, just help us to be able to give back to you first, that you would be our priority. But Lord, we pray also for wisdom in all these other areas. We need our daily bread. And Lord, we pray that you would help us be wise with our finances so we can have our daily bread. And Lord, by your grace, might have enough extra to give more to you and to give and help other people and to save up for the future needs that we have. And so Lord, I pray you give us wisdom in that. I pray if there's anybody struggling with their finances or just This is not an easy thing or they don't like thinking about finances. Lord, I pray you just help them, help all of us to continue to grow in this area of discipleship, of what it means to follow you with our finances. Lord, we lift these things up to you and pray that you would help us in Jesus' name. Amen.