Invest to Live, Love & Last: The Parable Of The Shrewd Manager

By Peter J. Briscoe

This book describes investing from the perspective of a financial disciple of Jesus. It is not an expert book on investing but describes the journey of a disciple who has surplus funds to invest- God's way. 

Part 1 describes the mission of a disciple investing money - to live, to love and to last.

Part 2 illustrates investing as

• Language: English
• Publisher: Compass - finances God's way
• Release date: Aug 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9789082904116

Peter J. Briscoe

Peter Briscoe an Englishman, born in 1950, and studied Industrial Chemistry and Management at Loughborough University of Technology. He moved to The Netherlands in 1974 and was asked by his company to set up a subsidiary in Holland, selling chemical specialties to the aerospace and food processing industries. From 1986 to 2002, Peter was Executive Director of CBMC, Christian Businessmen's Committees, in Holland. In 1990, Peter set up "Synthesys". a consulting company specialising in chemical product development. When the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1990, Peter developed Europartners, a movement dedicated to reaching European business and professional leaders for Christ. From 2002, Peter took an assignment as Managing Director of a space operations company serving the European Space institutions and specialising in providing professional services for spaceflight activities. From 2008, Peter retired from business to develop a movement of Biblical stewardship in Europe, first of all through Crown Financial Ministries and then Compass - finances God's way. At home, Peter is Chair of the Church board of the Baptist Church of Leiden. He has been married to his Dutch wife, Didie, since 1972. They have three daughters and six grandchildren.

Book preview

Part 1: Money with a Mission

Investing as a financial disciple comes with a unique set of principles and values that go beyond just financial gain. One of the most significant aspects of responsible Christian investing is having a clear mission and purpose. This mission serves as a guiding light, ensuring that investments align with your beliefs and values.

First and foremost, having a mission when investing as a Christian helps maintain a spiritual, moral and ethical compass. The Bible places a strong emphasis on living a righteous and virtuous life. Investing with a mission allows individuals to avoid investments in companies or industries that go against their beliefs. For instance, Christians may choose to avoid investing in businesses involved in activities such as gambling, pornography, or weapons production, which they view as incompatible with their faith. This deliberate approach to investment ensures that one's money is not being used to support or profit from activities that contradict Christian values.

Furthermore, being on a mission in Christian investing encourages stewardship. Christians believe that they are stewards of God's resources, and this includes their financial assets. Investing with a mission prompts individuals to consider the impact of their investments on society, the environment, and the well-being of others. They are more likely to seek out investments that promote social responsibility and sustainable practices, thus contributing positively to the world.

A mission-driven approach to investing also helps Christians to avoid the pitfalls of greed and materialism. The Bible warns against the love of money and the pursuit of wealth for its own sake. By having a clear mission that emphasises responsible and ethical investing, Christians can prioritise values such as generosity, charity, and helping those in need. This allows them to strike a balance between financial success and their spiritual well-being.

Moreover, investing with a mission provides a sense of purpose and fulfilment. It allows investors to feel that their financial decisions are contributing to a greater good, which can be deeply satisfying. Knowing that your investments are aligned with your faith and values can bring a sense of peace and contentment, even during times of market volatility or economic uncertainty.

Chapter 1. First - Invest yourself!

To be invested with originally refers to the act of granting or conferring someone with a particular authority, power, responsibility, or a special quality or attribute. It carries the idea of bestowing or entrusting someone with a certain role or status, often accompanied by a formal ceremony or ritual.

The term invest in this context has its roots in the Latin word "investire, meaning to clothe or to dress. In medieval times, when feudal lords granted a fief (land) to a vassal, they would symbolically clothe the vassal with a piece of their own clothing, signifying the transfer of power and authority over the land. This practice evolved over time, and the phrase to be invested with took on a broader meaning beyond the feudal system. When a bishop was installed in his office, it was said: he is invested," meaning to give authority and power to someone.

Today, to be invested with is commonly used in a metaphorical sense, denoting the granting of authority, responsibility, or trust to someone in various contexts, such as in politics, business, or social institutions. For instance, a leader might be invested with the power to make decisions on behalf of a group, or a person might be invested with the responsibility of managing a project. It carries the sense of being officially and formally given a role or duty.

The financial meaning of the word also descends from Latin, but it entered English via Italian in the early 17th century, as people invested money in trading companies.  In Italian, ‘investire’ developed a special sense fabricated from the notion of clothing money in a new form.

That use was attached to the English word invest, which eventually came to refer to a commitment of money to earn a return. This financial sense of ‘ to invest’ was first mentioned in the early 1600s by the East India Company in connection with trading.

Having left with us in goods and monies to be invested in commodities fit for England … to the value of 4000 li. ¹

When individuals or institutions invest, they commit their money and ‘clothe’  others with power and authority to use the funds in various investment vehicles to grow wealth, preserve purchasing power, or achieve specific financial objectives. Each of these investment options comes with its own risk profile, potential for returns, and time horizon.

As disciples of Jesus, we are accountable to God for the way in which we use the money which He has trusted us to use. One of the foundational principles of investing as a believer is that the Father is the Provider of the money we have in our power to use. He trusts us to manage His money for His purposes and in His way.

Therefore, we need to be very careful in whom we invest God’s money - clothing finances with delegated authority and power to use the funds in our name and ultimately in God’s name. We cannot necessarily look to invest the funds in the most profitable way with the least risk and highest liquidity. First and foremost, we should be asking the Lord the most important question; Lord, what would you want me to do with your money?

We are God’s strategic capital investment, and as disciples of Jesus, we are called to ‘invest ourselves’ in Christ - to ‘put on’ Christ and become invested with His power and authority.

Invest yourself … in Christ Himself … and His mission.

And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. (Galatians 3:27)

In the Bible, the phrase clothed with Christ is found in several passages, particularly in the writings of the apostle Paul. It conveys a powerful metaphorical image that represents the transformation and identification of believers with Christ. Here's an overview of what the Bible teaches about being clothed with Christ:

Being clothed (invested) with Christ implies a deep, personal connection and identification with Him, united with Christ in a spiritual and practical way. This identification occurs through professing faith in Him, accepting His sacrifice, and surrendering your life to follow Him. Surrender to the will of the Father characterised the life of Jesus and so must also define our lives. When investing, we should, first of all, surrender our will to His. "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’

Being clothed with Christ means to put on His identity, clothe ourselves with His character, build up His Body, the Church, and help fulfil His mission. 

When a person embraces faith in Christ, they undergo a radical transformation. They receive a new identity and are seen through the lens of Christ's righteousness rather than their own shortcomings. This new identity is symbolised by being clothed with Christ. It signifies being enveloped in His righteousness and living in accordance with His teachings. When investing funds, we need to discover His teachings on using our money - His way.

To be clothed with Christ also means to embody His character and virtues. As followers of Christ, believers are called to emulate His love, compassion, forgiveness, humility, and other qualities. Clothed with Christ reflects the process of sanctification, which is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in believers' lives. They are renewed in their minds, their attitudes are changed, and their behaviours align with Christ's teachings. They are encouraged to let go of their old self and to put on the virtues of Christ, allowing His nature to permeate their thoughts, words, and actions. Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. (Colossians 3:12)

This brings us to ask ourselves, Does the way our funds are invested reflect the character and nature of Jesus?

Another aspect of being invested with Christ is the idea of unity and well-being among believers. Regardless of their background, ethnicity, wealth, or social status, all who have put their faith in Christ become part of the universal body of believers. This unity is symbolised by the common clothing of Christ, transcending human differences and emphasising the shared identity and purpose found in Him. Building the Body of Christ also means using resources for this very purpose and sharing, promoting mutual well-being.

Lastly, being invested with Christ means being available to utilise all we have under our control, our time, talents, and treasure, to help fulfil His mission for us. I believe that this can be described using the three commissions known as the Cultural Mandate, the Great Commandment, and the Great Commission.

The Threefold Mission of Investing as a Disciple

Investing ourselves with Christ - putting on His identity, His values, and His mission, should define how to invest - in His way, for His purposes.

When asking, Lord, what would you have me do with the money you have trusted me to use? I believe His answer would start with the three commissions He has set out in His Word.  I suspect very strongly that He would reply - Well, I have told you. Look after my creation, love me and your neighbour and make disciples. These three commissions have profound consequences for investing as a financial disciple.

The first commission, known as the Cultural Mandate, is derived from the start of human inhabitation of our earth, where God commands Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. (Genesis 1:28)

This mandate emphasises human stewardship over creation, encouraging believers to care for and develop the world around them. It implies that humans are co-creators with God and have a responsibility to cultivate and enhance the earth's resources, culture, and society.

The second commission, known as the Great Commandment, is found in Matthew 22:37-40 and Mark 12:29-31. It is a teaching of Jesus, who summarises the essence of the entire law by saying, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and you shall love your neighbour as yourself. This commandment highlights the importance of love for God and love for others as the foundational principles of Christian living. It calls believers to prioritise their relationship with God and to demonstrate compassion, kindness, and care for their fellow human beings.

The third commission, known as the Great Commission, is recorded in the New Testament in Matthew 28:19-20. Jesus, after His resurrection, commands His disciples to Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. The Great Commission emphasises the mission of spreading the teachings of Jesus and making disciples of all nations. It encourages believers to actively share the message of salvation, lead others to faith, and support their growth as followers of Christ.

These three commissions give us a three-point plan for investing as a financial disciple. Invest to live, invest to love, and invest to last.

Let’s look in the following chapters at how this works in practice.

Chapter 2. Invest to Live

The Lord blessed us by giving us our very first commission to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.’" (Genesis 1:28,29)

The word used for ‘subdue’ is the Hebrew ‘kavash’2, which means ‘to bring under control.’ Adam was to cultivate the resources God gave to him in Eden and was put to work to multiply these resources for more people to enjoy. We are physical beings in a physical world, and God blessed Adam with all the physical resources we need for life.

However, as we know, Adam chose to disobey God and was expelled from Eden, with tough consequences. His stewardship of creation would be fraught with problems. Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread… (Genesis 3:17-19)

After being expelled from Eden, Adam became a farmer. The LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. Every farmer understands the art of investing - the art of accepting a risk with the potential of reward. He can eat his seeds, sell his seeds, or sow some for a future harvest. This requires wisdom and discipline.

A new kind of economy emerged, in which we find not only plants and livestock but also instruments manufactured out of iron and bronze were developed. (Genesis 4:22) A more complex society in cities began to emerge.  People still needed to eat and to find ways to use the resources the earth offered to sustain and develop their lives together.

Later, God re-confirmed His cultural mandate to Noah after the flood in a covenant in which He promised to sustain life. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it. (Genesis 9:3,7)

Therefore, all the resources He has given us are to be used to sustain life and promote well-being for all people.  This is our first criterion for investing.

The Bible gives us an insight into the fulfilment of creation, showing us a world teeming with people from every nation praising God. They are no longer in a garden but a city with foundations, walls, gates, tree-lined streets, iron, gold, domesticated animals, and trading ships (Isaiah 60, Revelation 21). This development of creation from a garden to a city filled with people and their cultural elements is the conclusion of God’s mandate to fill the earth, subdue it, invest in it, work it and care for it. Even though God’s creation at the beginning was perfect and full of resources, it was not as complete as God intended it to become.

I believe that God intended right from the beginning that human beings would develop the earth with multiple products of our hands to make life good. We are God’s creative hands and continue his creative work, building, by grace, on the foundation of His perfect and abundant creation.

Investing surplus

Over time, correctly stewarding what creation has offered to us and employing our God-given skills and talents will lead to a surplus as resources are multiplied.

"And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. (Deuteronomy 28:11-12).

The Hebrew term translated as ‘abound in prosperity’ is ‘yatar’3,  which means a surplus of that which is good, more than enough. This describes a situation whereby people have far more than they require for their needs.  Once harvested, the surplus needs to be stored, and in the ancient economy employing commodity money, stored goods represent both reserves and investable funds. Thus, it would be a natural progression for the Hebrews to graduate from being successful grain producers to becoming grain traders – and eventually grain bankers. This is why we read that the Lord’s abundant blessing would cause His people to lend to many nations (Hebrew: ‘goyim’, usually a reference to non-Hebrew people), which would cause them to become economically powerful and a blessing to the nations.

Therefore, as the Lord allows us to prosper, His norm is that we should become lenders and not borrowers, investing our surplus to bless many and helping them sustain and develop life.

Allocating our resources for life

Managing resources over time to facilitate growth is crucial for fulfilling the creation mandate. Investing plays a pivotal role in enabling individuals to adhere to this mandate from God. Notable instances illustrating how investing helps humans to carry out this mandate encompass actions like setting aside funds to procure seeds in preparation for spring planting, mobilising funds to acquire mining machinery for extracting iron and copper ores, young families seeking loans to purchase homes, and communities issuing bonds to erect schools.

Finance serves as the mechanism that strategically allocates resources toward future growth. It empowers those with the highest potential to augment resources in the upcoming period. Subsequently, it shares the gains with those who provided spare resources that would have otherwise lain idle. The absence of investment would confine people to living hand-to-mouth, solely relying on daily acquisitions or the personal accumulations of previous days. Humanity's remarkable economic progress across centuries owes its existence to the practice of investment. The flourishing of humanity would only be attainable with the interplay of lending and investing.

God's directive encompasses the cultivation of His creation and its careful preservation. The inherent timespan of borrowing and lending underscores how investing fosters a forward-looking mindset in decision-making. Those who secure mortgages for homeownership often exhibit greater responsibility in maintaining their properties than short-term renters. Conversely, practices that are unsustainable face hurdles in obtaining financial support. A lumber company depleting forests rapidly over a few years would need help finding lenders. Additionally, finance facilitates capital enhancements that curtail the excessive utilisation of natural resources. For instance, a city can acquire funds to expand its public transit system, optimising carbon resources while affording retirement earnings to municipal bond investors.

The Lord granted us resources to uncover, develop, and harness. He guides us to engage with these resources productively. The yields of our toil are meant to be shared for the collective welfare. Finance serves as a conduit for realising our roles as industrious labourers, effectively leveraging the resources bestowed upon us and generously distributing the abundant fruits of our efforts.

In essence, finance transforms the circumstances of human existence into channels for honouring God, stewarding creation, and upholding justice and love. When contemplating the divine intent behind the financial aspect of His creation, we must comprehend how finance can be harnessed to express love for our fellow beings and advance equitable and just interactions. If financial dealings lack fairness and compassion, we deviate from God's intended purpose for the financial facet of His creation.

We shouldn't relegate any facet of God's creation to secular realms; rather, we should acknowledge the entirety of creation as subject to His sovereignty and power. He extends an invitation to redemption, beckoning us to return under His authority within His Kingdom.

I have often asked myself if I should be investing in things of this world, which has drifted so far from God’s original intentions and is positively hostile to Christ. The apostle John stated forcefully, Do not love the world or the things in the world. (1 John 2:15a)

A wonderful challenge and promise that Jesus gave us is to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:33) ‘All these things’ which Jesus talked about in His sermon, refer to all we need to sustain us for daily living, without the need to worry about it.

This gives us two immediate goals for investing: to advance His Kingdom,  His righteousness and His right way of living. I believe that when Jesus talked about God's kingdom, He was not just referring to the spiritual kingdom but also the material kingdom - both of which belong to Him.

At the very centre of Cristian life is the prayer, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  This means that our return on investments will bring justice out of oppression, hope out of marginalisation, sharing out of individualism, and healing out of brokenness.

Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness.

God actually has two Kingdoms. The Kingdom of God (or of heaven), which Jesus introduced by saying, the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you (Luke 17:21) and the natural kingdom which God created and which He sustains, also called the common or natural kingdom. As investors, we are called to invest in both.

When the children of Israel were banished to Babylon, we read in a letter from Jeremiah how the Israelites were to conduct themselves in that strange and faraway land. This must have come as a great surprise to the Israelites when they were instructed to build houses, plant gardens, get married, and have children, to multiply and not decrease. In other words, they were to live peaceful lives and pursue their ordinary cultural activities and invest in this foreign land. They were also encouraged to seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its prosperity you will find your prosperity (Jeremiah 29:7)

So how, then, are we to live and invest?

In Al Wolters’ book Creation Regained, he makes the point that Christians are reformers, seeking to restore something that’s been tarnished, acknowledging that it was once good. Humankind, which has botched its original mandate and the whole creation along with it, is given another chance in Christ; we are reinstated as God’s managers on earth. The original good creation is to be restored.⁴

Firstly, Christians should pursue investing surplus funds not with any sense of superiority but with the spirit of love and service towards others. We have been justified in Christ in order that we may love and serve our neighbour, for this is the fulfilment of the law. (Romans 13:8 – 10)  

Secondly, we are called to critically engage in our economy. While we seek to treat all people with love and generosity, we must remain awake and perceptive to the many ways in which sin has corrupted human culture in this fallen world. Paul stated, We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5.) Paul acknowledged that living in the common kingdom means that We are engaged in spiritual warfare for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds." (2 Corinthians 10:3,4) We need to realise that the ethic in the common kingdom is rebellious to the things of God and to be on our guard against the philosophy and empty deceit that seeks to take us captive. (Colossians 2:8)

Third, we are called to invest in worldly organisations with a deep sense of detachment, realising that our true home and hope are in the world to come. We are encouraged to seek the things that are above, not on the earth, because our life is hidden in Christ. We are to seek not to lay up treasures of the Earth but to lay up treasures in heaven. (Matthew 6:20) We must realise that one day this common kingdom will pass away, and we must not seek success and glory in this present age but instead seek to please God – to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled and godly lives in this present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and saviour Jesus Christ.

Importance of stewarding creation

As disciples of Christ, the call to care for God's creation is not only a moral responsibility but also an essential aspect of our faith and belief. From the very beginning