|PIC1|Looking at Alistair Darling’s pre-budget report last week, it’s very easy to get caught up in the world view of everything. Rather than doing that, we should think ‘what does God think about this?’, because after all He is the most important person, the one we wish to honour by stewarding the resources He has given to us.

There are biblical principles to financial planning that can help us get a sense of the answer to that question and I’ll consider some of them here.

OWNERSHIP – God owns everything, not us

Haggai 2.8 ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty.

The first principle to financial planning has to be ownership. God owns 100 per cent of everything in this world and therefore He owns the debt, He owns all the investments, He owns all the banks, He owns the Treasury. Haggai 2.8 recognises that no matter how bad or good things might seem, our treasury is in Heaven and God is ultimately in control of this - the good and the bad.

When we look at the pre-budget there are some good things and some bad things. I’m uncomfortable about the bingo tax, for example, because it’s clearly a votes thing and sends the wrong message, but it’s important not to be judgemental about it because that would simply give pleasure to a certain section of society.

INTEGRITY - dealing fairly with others

Proverbs 13.6 Righteousness guards the man of integrity, but wickedness overthrows the sinner.

The Chancellor kept to the 1.5% increase in pensions and benefits for people with disabilities. He could have got rid of that but he didn’t. He has kept to what he said he would do and seeing that the vulnerable are cared for. The trouble is that a lot of it is electioneering and it’s difficult to know exactly what is going to happen until the details of the pre-budget report comes out and that’s what we’re all waiting for now. Until the detail comes out we don’t know how it’s going to affect things and it is sometimes the case that aspects that initially seemed fair later appear as unfair once the details have emerged. And of course, the Government may or may not change things.

GENEROSITY

1 Timothy 6.19 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.

The Government have kept their promise to give overseas and fund projects abroad. That would have been an easy thing to cut and would have been quite justifiable. There is some debate as to whether it was right of the Government to tax bankers’ bonuses by 50 per cent tax. It certainly sent a political message – that ‘you can’t get away with it’ - and I think overall, yes, it was right to do so.

But I also think we’ve got to be careful that we’re not unfairly demonising one sector of society because the financial services sector is still a very important sector within the country’s economy. It is a short-term measure and it has to be, otherwise we are just going to drive people out the country who have some very good skills. What it has probably done is open up a much wider questioning in terms of how the financial services market is regulated in the future and that needs to go hand in hand with new and improved regulation for the whole banking and regulation sector.



|PIC1|PLANNING – plan ahead

Proverbs 6.6-8 Go to the ant you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! … It stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.

Perhaps the Government didn’t plan well before but they are having to think about planning ahead now. I do think they are taking a very short-term view of things because they are just thinking about the election and how they are going to get in. If they give away too much information then that can be an advantage to the other parties so they’re not being completely open with how they need to reduce the national debt.

The projections they have given are simply projections and it all depends on the macro-economics as to how this will actually work. It just depends how the economy works out but planning ahead needs to happen. Whether this pre-budget puts things in place is doubtful. We won’t actually know what’s truly going to happen until after the election next year.

BUDGETING - spend less than you earn

Proverbs 25.28 Like a city whose walls have broken down is a man who lacks self control.

As a country we seem to be spending more than we are earning. People recognise that and we’ve got to implement measures to stop that happening. God would expect us to honour the stewardship principle.

BORROWING AND LENDING – borrow cautiously and repay; lend freely

Proverbs 22.7 The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.
Romans 13.8 Let no debt remain outstanding

We have borrowed not too cautiously. There is a corporate and a government responsibility for that and as consumers, a personal responsibility. It’s up to us as society and government to look at the way we spend and consume and what our expectations are. The pre-budget report is trying to put some measures in place that will allow borrowing to be made more cautiously. Initially the debt is going to go up and in the long term it looks like it’s going to go down but that’s really up to the macro-economics again, how the country is going to perform, and what the revenue is going to be from the tax intake. It really is complex.



These are just some of the principles we can use to interpret the nation’s financial state of affairs and where we should go from here. It is of course a bit of a talking shop until the actual budget comes out in April 2010 and then we’ve got the General Election in either May or June. Really it’s the next election that’s going to make all the difference because the whole thing could be turned upside down again. I think it could be quite draconian because the debt has got to be managed in a more prudent way.

What’s important, however, is that we take a long-term view. One budget doesn’t make a whole economy and God’s perspective of how the economy should run is very different from our perspective. We have to accept that we are where we are now and we are looking for God to put His hand back on a righteous market. ACFA believes that God’s hand had been taken off the financial market place because it had become unrighteous. Now it’s time for us to put things in place and for His hand to come back down on the market and protect it.

Taking this long-term perspective on our finances will help us all to see that it’s not simply doom and gloom. Finances really are not just for Christmas; they are for life. And it’s for believers to sit down and get a real understanding of what God wants them to do with their resources, match their resources to their God-given goals, and take action with that as a starting point.


www.christianfinancialadvisers.org.uk