What About Investing in Shares?

One of our readers has asked about investing in shares, and added an additional question about specific shares: "Should a Christian invest in quoted shares and if one has invested in a company that trades on the Sabbath, e.g., Tesco, is a shareholder as part owner, guilty of Sabbath breaking?"

Regarding the more general question about investing in shares, we can see no objection to this, all other things being equal.  Scripture certainly does not condemn investing one's money and would even seem in some places to promote it as a matter of good stewardship (Matt. 25:14-30, Lk. 19:11-28).  Nor can we see that investing or trading in shares is different from any other kind of investing or trading.

We would caution, however, against speculating.  There is a point where investing passes over into speculating and at least in its more extreme forms such speculation is little other than a kind of gambling, something condemned by Scripture (Prov. 18:9, Lk. 15:13).  It is also motivated by the same sins of greed and covetousness that motivate gambling (Ex. 20:17, Col. 3:5).  Nor is it good stewardship and use of what God has given us (Gen. 39:5, 6, Prov. 27:23-27).

The question about investing in a company that trades on the Sabbath is more difficult.  On the one hand, we must remember that the Christian is not responsible for all the wickedness that is done by wicked men, when he lives or works among them.  If that were the case, it would be difficult even to find any work where the company or management were not guilty of evil-doing.

The principle of I Corinthians 5:9, 10 applies here.  Our calling to be separate and holy does NOT require us to go out of the world altogether.  In that case we would fall into the error of Romanism with its monasteries and nunneries, its view of evil as something inherent in things, and its definition of holiness in terms of world-flight.

Nor, with regard to the Sabbath, can the Christian be responsible for all the Sabbath desecration that is so prevalent today as he lives his life in the world.  If so he would not be able to use electricity (produced and distributed on the Sabbath), the Postal system (which operates on the Sabbath) or buy most products (many of which are produced by companies that work on the Sabbath).

There is, however, an additional factor involved in shares, and that is the fact that a shareholder is a part-owner.  We find it difficult to see how such a person, as part -owner, can avoid being responsible for the evil that is committed by a company that openly and publicly desecrates the Sabbath (or engages in other open or public dishonesty or wickedness) - Cf. Exodus 21:28-36.

We do not mean to say that a shareholder, who is, in the very nature of the case, not involved in the everyday affairs of the company, can or ought to be responsible for every detail of a company's business.  Thus we have spoken of companies that openly and publicly violate the law of God.  That, it seems to us, is a different matter altogether.

In any case, however, if one cannot in good conscience before God invest in shares or purchase shares in a certain company, then he ought not do it, even if it is not wrong in itself.  Then the rules of Romans 14 apply: "To him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean" and "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (vss. 14, 23).