Pastor Dave has been Earl and Dot’s pastor for eleven years. During that time, he’s preached through most of the Bible, married their kids and some of their friends’ kids, and answered Earl’s questions—and follow-up questions—on all kinds of topics, especially stewardship and retirement.
He’s not exactly a financial whiz, though. He’s got an MDiv, not an MBA. But he is a good steward—he drives a sensible used car, lives modestly, and manages his own retirement savings with the same practical simplicity he brings to most things. He’s got enough diversification to sleep at night, he gives generously as he encourages others to, and he maintains enough humility to know what he doesn’t know. He’s never run a Monte Carlo simulation (he thinks it’s a casino game). He thinks a “hedge fund” is the money you set aside to upgrade your landscaping. Yet somehow, in years of conversations with Earl, he’s never failed to have an answer. It’s usually humbly delivered, short and sweet, full of wisdom, and often includes a verse or two from the Bible.
Pastor Dave strongly believes what the apostle Peter said when he wrote that God, by His divine power, “has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3). (I don’t think he’d be a very good preacher if he didn’t.) Dave knows that Peter isn’t talking about some things or most things, but ALL things. And they’re all recorded in the written Word that Peter himself said is more reliable than his own eyewitness experience of the transfiguration (2 Pet.1:16-18).1 (Peter had a front-row seat to the transfiguration and still said the written Word is more reliable than his own recounting of it. Most of us are working with considerably less firsthand experience and considerably more confidence in our own conclusions about certain things.) Also, Dave knows what Paul said: that “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable” (2 Tim. 3:16). It’s sufficient for doctrine, correction, training, and equipping believers for every good work, including, as it turns out, things like retirement, even though the word “retire” can be found only one time in the Bible in Numbers 8:23-26.
The Levites certainly earned their retirement. Carrying the ark of the covenant across a desert for twenty-five years makes Earl’s IT career carrying a laptop in a briefcase look like a sabbatical. Plus, another lesser-known duty of the Levites included up-close inspections of skin diseases (Lev. 13). So how exactly was a fifty-something priest, with zero access to reading glasses, supposed to squint his way through that job? Imagine the misdiagnoses that could occur, such as occasionally declaring sunburned skin unclean and a leper merely “a bit flushed.” (I sometimes have trouble reading the words to the worship songs displayed on the overhead screens at my church, and I have modern progressive lenses.)
And there’s something that I think biblical scholars may have largely overlooked: the pillar of fire leading Israel through the wilderness may have inspired history’s first F.I.R.E. movement: The Levitical Priesthood Financial Independence, Retire Early plan—L.P.F.I.R.E.P. (Apparently, it wasn’t a “thing” in Moses’ time; he was eighty when he was just really getting started.) I wonder if they had their own exclusive retirement community for retired priests? They could have called it “Levitical Retirement Village.”
Pastor Dave can answer Earl’s most complex non-financial questions (and some financial ones) with four words and a verse. (He could preach a full sermon on some of them) In this case, Pastor Dave said four things: plan wisely, trust God, be generous, and don’t worry about tomorrow. Earl may have been hoping for more specifics, but Pastor Dave gave him a verse written two thousand years ago. So, instead of a textbook explanation, Earl got an ancient but overarching answer to his question about the biblical view of retirement.
Dot, who’s seen this exchange in various forms for over a decade, wants to put Pastor Dave’s words and the verse on the fridge. Tippy, who was there with Earl and Dot in the churchyard for some unknown reason (I can make him appear wherever I want), recalled that the refrigerator door is his most-loved and often-viewed surface in the house, and agreed that this would be a great addition.
Retirement is a complex topic with many facets, but Pastor Dave isn’t oversimplifying the issue. Nor am I suggesting that all the questions about retirement can be answered with one verse. But what that verse gives us is a core principle to guide how we view every season of life, including retirement. I would summarize it this way:
When you make the Kingdom of God and His righteousness the most important thing in your life and your retirement—the first priority, the center around which everything else arranges itself—the practical concerns of daily life, including financial ones, find their proper place. They don’t disappear; God, who is always immanent, loving, and caring, upholds and sustains all things, including your financial and practial needs as you faithfully serve Him. So, focus on God’s kingdom first. Be wise in managing whatever God has entrusted to you. Give generously from whatever God has given you. And trust that your Heavenly Father loves you and wants to care for you your whole life, until he welcomes you into his kingdom that will last forever.
Perhaps you have a pastor like Pastor Dave. He’s there almost every Sunday, with his kind and patient smile, short answers, and powerful verses in response to difficult questions. The book he always references is the Truth, “breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16), and it is timeless. Earl’s questions, beneath the surface of financial talk, are the same as for many of us: “Can we trust God with the future?” The answer is always yes, and it has always been so for those who “love God…and who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 6:28). That’s what the fourteen-word phrase that Dot plans to put on the refrigerator is all about.
[1] This is one of the most stunning statements about biblical authority in the entire New Testament, made all the more powerful because the person making it has the most impressive personal credentials imaginable. Peter is present in all three accounts, along with James and John, which is why his testimony in 2 Peter carries such weight. He’s not reporting secondhand; he was on the mountain. The Transfiguration itself is recorded narratively in Matt. 17:1-8, Mark 9:2, and Luke 9:28-36.