Hello and Welcome,

My name is Father Donald Wilson and this Bible study and class is called

Basic Biblical Financial Principles.

As we start this great adventure into Biblical Finance, I would like take just a moment to Pray and ask the Lord for guidance and direction in understanding the words we read and the ways to put them to use in our daily lives.

Gracious Father, we come to you as your children knowing that it was you who created us and it is you who sustains us. Please give us insight into your Holy Word and show us how to obey this word to your glory and to our edification. In the name of Jesus we pray. AMEN

Welcome to Basic Biblical Financial Principles where we will focus on the scriptures and learn what the Lord has said about managing our finances. We will be asking some questions like:

What is money anyway?

Why is it so important to God?

And, what can’t we just manage our money the way we want to?

What is the definition of money?

Why so important to God…?

MY DEFINITION OF MONEY IS: Money is simply,

“ the conversion of a finite life into a tangible, tradable asset.”

In other words, you trade hours, minutes, and seconds of your finite life, that will never come back, for money.

As I look at the silver coin, I think about all the hours, minutes and seconds that were traded for it and then it is passed to others so on hours, minutes and seconds will be traded to obtain it again.

When you think about it, you can’t give away pieces of your life, but you can convert it and then give it away. Unless you are present (like volunteering), you can’t give your life to be used elsewhere.

When we give a donation to a mission group or a specific focused ministry, it is like we have converted our life into the tangible, tradable asset and then shipped it to another area, which then gets reconverted into a life and the work gets done. Very much like it is you working at another location, doing the ministry. (this is modern day teleporting, ha ha)

This may help us begin to understand why in the bible there are about 550 verses on love, and about 230 verses on faith but 2,300 + verses about money, assets and possessions.

The two parts of money to consider are these. The one is the Value and the other is the Cost. When you trade parts of your life, that is the cost of money. So, then value is what something does to enhance your life and make it better.

When your life is traded for money, (tangible, tradable asset), we need to look at cost and at value. Each time we take the asset we have traded life for, we should see that we are getting value that is equal of greater than the cost.

When we purchase things, we look at cost, and ask “what does it cost to get the item? “, And is that item going to help me in this life have a better life, safer life, more secure life, happier life, or more comfortable life?

When we consider the value of the money, the question is “what is it being used for?”.

We use money to enhance our life, to sustain our life, to insure our finite life and to save so we can continue to do the same and lastly give to others to do the same for them.

We need to understand, the reason that God is so interested with how we handle money is the idea that He has given us the finite life we all have and what we do with that gift is very important to our relationship with God. The way we view and handle money will affect this relationship with Christ because:

Much of what we do in our life and work revolves around money and possessions and money is a “god” that can very easily compete with Christ for our love and focus. The Lord is very specific when He speaks about the god “mammon”.

Let’s look at MATTHEW 6:24 (24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (mammon)KJV) )

When we look at this verse, You need to ask yourself the question “can you worship just a small part of the god Mammon ?” OR Can Mammon just have a little of your life? OR Are you willing to put all your life completely under Gods control?.

Our complete surrender to Christ, must be….. complete… there are two sides and you are unable to be on both…. You are 100% Christ or 100% mammon….there’s no split…Christ will not allow that.

You can listen to your friends tell you how to handle money and possessions or you can turn toward the bible for answers. The two guides will have a completely different view.

Let’s look at ISAIAH 55:8 (For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.).

So ask yourself this “what is the best way to go ?”

As we begin this study of God’s word and what it has to say about managing finances in a Godly way, I would like to have you read this verse first. This verse will help us to more completely understand the full meaning of the next verse.

READ Genesis 5:2…. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. (esv) The Hebrew word here has been translated to man, mankind or Human

By this passage we see that when the scripture refers to man, that many times it refers to mankind as a whole.

Let’s start our Bible study by reading Second Timothy 3:16 and 17, in this verse we will see why we focus on the Bible for all our answers.

(16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man (man and woman) of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.). (esv)

What does this say about the Bible ?

Well, let's look at it. When we read 2 Timothy 3:16 What is the first thing it says?

(16 All Scripture is breathed out by God.)

“All scripture” …… stop right there.

All scripture, not some scripture,... not the good parts of Scripture, ....Not the easy parts of Scripture, ...not just the Old Testament scripture, not just the New Testament scripture.

All scripture is breathed out by God so we use the Bible as our Google because the Bible IS the Scripture breathed out by God AND IS God's words to us.

And since this is GODS word what does it say it is for…???

READ the rest of the verse…..

…..and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.) (esv)

It says, All scripture is breathed out by God.

And IS profitable…

Every business out there wants this one thing … profit.

When there is PROFIT… then things are getting better… not worse….right??

They want to have a profit so it says all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for ….

THESE four things teach us what scripture is for.

It says scripture is profitable for teaching.

What is teaching?.... It's the imparting of ideas or principles taught by an authority or someone who has knowledge or experience. So obviously God made us and God knows what we need to know.

So, scripture is profitable for teaching.

Number two, scripture is profitable for reproof.

Now, when you look at reproof, sometimes you might want to turn up your nose when you think of this, because reproof means scolding, rebuke, showing disapproval. Many times, we're going up the wrong road. We're doing things the wrong way. So, when we use the scripture to look at what we're doing, we may feel like it might be scolding us or rebuking us or showing disapproval, but it's for our better good.

The third thing scripture is for, is correction.

So, once we see that we are going the wrong way, we need to stop doing that. Then it gives correction which is the process or action of correcting something, a change that rectifies an error or inaccuracy. Many times, we're doing stuff that we think is right. But we didn't get all the information or we're simply in error. And this is to correct us and guide us to what is the right way.

And finally, the third thing is training.

Scripture is for training which is the process of increasing the knowledge and skills of someone for doing a particular job.

We need Scripture to instruct us for the Job we have to do….and “What is the job?”

That Scripture is teaching us what our primary job is.

Scripture is profitable for teaching us, reprimanding us, correcting us and then training us to do something?

What does it say?

It is training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

We see understand that this is what Scripture is for, and this is the focus of BBFP.ORG.

In the following classes you will be taught and possibly rebuked, and given some corrective advice and trained.

You may see how or why your financial choices were being implemented incorrectly and lead in a correct way to do it, and to be trained in the way God wants you to do it so that you will be totally equipped for every good work.

Praise God.

Jesus said : John 10:10 b ….”I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (esv)