What if?

Commenting on our economic crisis, John Carney---a former corporate lawyer, former editor in chief of a Wall Street online tabloid, and a frequent guest on CNBC---remarked that if a person fresh out of college in the 1990s had done what he was told and started investing in an IRA immediately, today he would have saved no money. A sobering thought.

Christian financial advisors are a necessary part of the body of Christ. They can teach clueless people like me financial planning and investment disciplines and strategies centered on biblical principles. We know that "children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children" (2 Corinthians 12:14). We also know that God is often pleased to bless materially. Abraham accumulated great wealth. One of the blessings God confers for obedience is wealth:

"All these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl" (Deuteronomy 28:2-5).

I was thinking, though, what if, back in 1990, you had been a simpleminded Bible reader and taken Jesus' words literally: ". . . Sell what you possess, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven" (Matthew 19:21)? Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in The Cost of Discipleship that the rich young man kept evading the command by raising "moral difficulties" and "play[ing] them off against the commandments of God."

But if you had obeyed Jesus like a child, you probably would have come out today just as well off, or better, than the more traditional investor in the 1990s-especially in heaven.

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.