Yes, with one important caution about how the favourite proof-text is used.
Scripture assumes productive capital everywhere. A landowner invests in fields and vineyards.
Ecclesiastes tells you to send your bread across the waters and to divide your portion among
seven or eight, because you do not know what disaster may come, which many readers take as
diversification stated millennia early (others read it as a call to generosity). Proverbs contrasts wealth gathered by hand, which
grows, with wealth from nothing, which dwindles, and tells you to know the condition of your flocks,
because riches are not permanent. Patient, diversified, informed ownership is the pattern.
The caution: the parable of the talents is about faithfulness with what a master entrusted,
and the fear that buried it. It is a story about stewardship before God, not a mandate for
any particular asset allocation. Use it for the courage, not for the stock tips.
So investing is wisdom rather than command. Nothing requires you to hold equities. What
Scripture does press on is the posture: do not chase quick money, do not bet what you
cannot lose, take counsel, and hold the whole thing loosely, since the barn-building man in
Luke 12 was fully provided for and still caught out.
The passages
Printed in full from the public-domain World English Bible, resolved from a local copy of
that text before this page was built. Read them before you take our summary on trust, and
see how we read Scripture on money for the ten rules
every page here follows.
14“For it is like a man, going into another country, who called his own servants, and entrusted his goods to them. 15To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each according to his own ability. Then he went on his journey. 16Immediately he who received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. 17In the same way, he also who got the two gained another two. 18But he who received the one talent went away and dug in the earth, and hid his lord’s money. 19“Now after a long time the lord of those servants came, and reconciled accounts with them. 20He who received the five talents came and brought another five talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents. Behold, I have gained another five talents besides them.’ 21“His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ 22“He also who got the two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents. Behold, I have gained another two talents besides them.’ 23“His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ 24“He also who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter. 25I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the earth. Behold, you have what is yours.’ 26“But his lord answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I reap where I didn’t sow, and gather where I didn’t scatter. 27You ought therefore to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received back my own with interest. 28Take away therefore the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29For to everyone who has will be given, and he will have abundance, but from him who doesn’t have, even that which he has will be taken away. 30Throw out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
1Cast your bread on the waters; for you shall find it after many days. 2Give a portion to seven, yes, even to eight; for you don’t know what evil will be on the earth. 3If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth; and if a tree falls toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falls, there shall it be. 4He who observes the wind won’t sow; and he who regards the clouds won’t reap. 5As you don’t know what is the way of the wind, nor how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child; even so you don’t know the work of God who does all. 6In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening don’t withhold your hand; for you don’t know which will prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both will be equally good.
23Know well the state of your flocks, and pay attention to your herds: 24for riches are not forever, nor does the crown endure to all generations. 25The hay is removed, and the new growth appears, the grasses of the hills are gathered in. 26The lambs are for your clothing, and the goats are the price of a field. 27There will be plenty of goats’ milk for your food, for your family’s food, and for the nourishment of your servant girls.
16He spoke a parable to them, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man produced abundantly. 17He reasoned within himself, saying, ‘What will I do, because I don’t have room to store my crops?’ 18He said, ‘This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns, and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20“But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?’ 21So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”