BIFRS Framework

The Self-Sustaining Principle—Article #1: Planning Wisely to Avoid Burdening Others

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This article is part of the Biblically-Informed Framework for Retirement Stewardship (BIFRS) series. In the previous article, I introduced a biblical framework for retirement planning based on three principles from John Piper: the Self-Sustaining Principle, the Caregiving Principle, and the Ministry Principle. Together, these three principles provide a simple but theologically well-grounded approach to retirement … Read more

Surviving Spouses’ Options for Inherited IRAs

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This article is part of the Biblically Informed Framework for Retirement Stewardship (BIFRS). It was originally published in November 2024 and updated in May 2026. Regular readers know that I think a big part of retirement stewardship is having plans and documentation in place so that things go as well as we have hoped and … Read more

Medicare Commercials: The Hilarious But Confusing Comeback Tour You Didn’t Ask For

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This article is part of the Biblically-Informed Framework for Retirement Stewardship (BIFRS) series. Originally published on November 15, 2023, and updated April 2026. Martha’s still out there When I wrote this article in 2023, I thought Martha was the peak of Medicare Advantage commercial absurdity. I was wrong. She’s back for 2026, along with Karen … Read more

How Interest Rates Are Impacting Retirees

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This article is part of the Biblically-Informed Framework for Retirement Stewardship (BIFRS) series. It was originally published on September 20, 2023, and updated in April 2026. When I wrote this article in 2023 and interesting thing was happening: interest rates were rising for the first time since the pandemic. They were already low, and had … Read more

Does Retirement Cost Less As We Age?

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This article is part of the Biblically-Informed Framework for Retirement Stewardship (BIFRS) series. It was originally published in May of 2023, but was updated in April 2026. When I first wrote about this topic in 2023, I had been retired for about five years. Now, with eight years of actual retirement experience behind me, I … Read more

Choosing a Medicare Plan

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This article is part of the Biblically-Informed Framework for Retirement Stewardship (BIFRS) series. It was originally published on August 18, 2021, and updated in April 2026. When I first wrote this article in 2021, my wife and I had been on Medicare for almost three years. We’d chosen Original Medicare with Medigap Plan F, and … Read more

Medicare Commercials – Be Wise as Serpents and Innocent as Doves

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This article is part of the Biblically-Informed Framework for Retirement Stewardship (BIFRS) series. It was originally published on November 19, 2020, and updated in December 2025. The commercials haven’t changed When I first wrote this article in 2020, I was venting my frustration about misleading Medicare Advantage commercials. Six years later, I’m writing this update … Read more

The “Promised Land” of Retirement

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This article is part of the Biblically-Informed Framework for Retirement Stewardship. On a recent Sunday morning, one of our lay-elders-in-training (we call them pastoral interns) gave his personal testimony and shared from Joshua 1:1-9, a text that had greatly influenced him. He said that God spoke to him through these verses at an early age, … Read more