How the Bible celebrates women as wise investors
While I learned my love of business from my father, I learned my passion for finance from my mother, who managed the family’s finances, just as I do mine. In recent years, I’ve also seen an exciting shift. More and more women are taking an active role in managing their family’s finances and investment portfolio.
Anecdotally, it seems that part of this shift is being driven by the growing realization among women and men that we can help shape the world by allocating our investment capital toward companies that are meeting important needs and serving the common good.
To me, this reflects Scripture passages that celebrate women as successful investors whose work is actually an expression of God’s purposes. For example, in Acts 16, Paul meets a businesswoman named Lydia, who sells purple cloth. Purple, in those days, was the most expensive color of dye, made from mollusks. Thousands of mollusks were required to dye a single yard of fabric. Lydia had a large home and many servants and had achieved status within the community. Scripture doesn’t mention a husband or father, implying that she was a self-sufficient woman. Acts describes Lydia as a model Christian woman — humble, hospitable, hard-working, and devoted to her faith.
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We can also look at the Proverbs 31 woman — God’s virtuous woman, believed by some commentators to be the personification of Wisdom also seen elsewhere in the book of Proverbs.
She invests her capital, buying a field and using her earnings to plant a vineyard, putting her money to work. She participates in regional supply chains, purchasing wool and flax, and supplying merchants with sashes. She is prepared for seasonal disruptions and makes sure those who work for her are cared for well. She runs her business with excellence and uses her profits to serve those in need.
Inspired by these examples, I want to offer four encouragements to women who are considering taking a more active role in stewarding their investments in alignment with their values.
1. Follow your gifting from God
God gifts individuals with different talents and interests and calls us each to use the gifts and talents he has individually designed us with. So, in any given partnership, either partner might be better suited to the task of money management, or they may be most successful working in tandem. But regardless of which spouse takes the more active role in financial management, both can actively participate in conversations about the values that are reflected by those financial decisions.
2. We are all called to be stewards of what God has entrusted to our care, including our investment portfolios
It’s easy to assume that the Bible doesn’t have a lot to say about investing. After all, the New York Stock Exchange didn’t exist until nearly 1,800 years after Jesus died. But God himself is actually an investor. The word “invest” comes from a root word that means to clothe someone with the authority and power of a particular office — such as in the coronation of a monarch, or the ordination of a priest.
God calls his people to be a “royal priesthood,” ordaining us as priestly conduits of his blessings to it. In the act of investment, we are actually imitating God by using our capital to empower companies to do whatever it is they do in the world. Are we ordaining companies that are furthering God’s kingdom of abundance and flourishing, or Satan’s kingdom of misery and exploitation?
3. Values-based investing can sometimes protect or improve your returns
This can be surprising, but I think it makes sense when you look at it through a Christian lens. A scarcity mindset is a worldly mindset: one that says, if you win, I lose.
Jehovah Jireh (which means “the Lord will provide”) encourages us to have an abundance mindset, wherein He has given us all of the resources and talents we need to build a world in which no one needs to snatch their own flourishing at the expense of another. Rather, when we bring our gifts and resources to Him, like a few loaves and fishes, he multiplies them beyond what we could ask or imagine. We might think of this as true in charity or nonprofit situations, but it can also be true in business situations. In my career, I have seen thousands of examples of companies achieving greater success through serving and caring well for others, including their customers, employees, suppliers, host communities, the environment, and society at large.
God cares how we earn our money. Do we earn it by creating or investing in harmful products, or methods that exploit people? Ill-gotten gain is forbidden (e.g. Proverbs 1) and God doesn’t want it on the altar (e.g. Deuteronomy 23:18). God also cares what we do with our money, with dozens of instructions throughout the Bible pertaining to money and stewardship, contentment, generosity, avoiding idolatry, and much more.
4. God resources us to join Him in the renewal of all things.
The Bible tells us that when the righteous prosper, the people rejoice, but when the wicked prosper, the people suffer (Proverbs 11:10, 29:2). As God gives us grace to imitate His perfection, our righteousness will show up when we use our resources and influence to bring flourishing to all.
So, when I hear of women inspired to join the investment conversation, realizing their ability to bless others through investment, what I see are image-bearers of God, pressing more fully into living out that image. Women and men of God who steward their investment portfolios in alignment with their values have the opportunity to participate in bringing about prosperity and flourishing for themselves and for all, “on earth as it is in Heaven.”
Dolores Bamford, CFA, is co-chief investment officer and senior portfolio manager of Eventide Asset Management.
