Faith & Finance Fridays
Reflect • Commit • Equip • Apply

Matthew 25:14-30
Faith Isn’t Measured in Numbers

Equip: The Power of the Small Offering

So far this month, we’ve reflected on the significance of the servant who received two talents in Matthew 24:14-30 and committed ourselves to taking responsibility for what we’ve been given and using it for God’s purpose and serving others. This week, we’ll look at some concrete tools that will equip us to do exactly that.

Oseola McCarty is a beautiful example of the power of small offerings. While she always wanted to be a nurse, she had to leave school after sixth grade and spent the next 75 years washing and ironing clothes for other people in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Throughout her life she lived extremely simply. By the time she was 87, the small amounts here and there she’d saved totaled some $250,000—$150,000 of which she donated to the University of Southern Mississippi to establish scholarships.

We don’t all have to do, and frankly many of us cannot do, what Oseola McCarty did. However, by putting away a small amount of money every week—$2 if we’re going through our own rough patch or $20 if we can—we accumulate enough by the end of the month to make a difference to someone. You might have heard me talk about financial “buckets.” We can look at this as our “talent bucket.”

While our churches, schools, and favorite charities could always use more funding, we might also look at our talent bucket savings as a way to literally honor one of God’s greatest commandments: to love our neighbor as ourselves. If, for example, a neighbor has been ill, we could use our talent bucket savings to make a dinner for them or bring them groceries. Maybe that neighbor, or someone else we know, is out of work and has been driving to a lot of job interviews. Those funds could buy them a gas card.

There are many ways we can fill this bucket. We can directly put cash aside every week, into an account created specifically for this purpose or even an envelope. There are other ways that we can fill our talent bucket, too.

Many stores or credit cards have a cash-back customer loyalty program. These are places we shop and cards we use regularly anyway, making this a simple way to set aside funds. Much like the master in the parable pointed out: “Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest.” – Matthew 25:27

A number of banks have cash back credit cards that can be turned into cash or gift cards: Citi Double Cash, Wells Fargo Active Cash, Capital One Savor, Capital One Quicksilver, Chase Freedom Unlimited, Fidelity Rewards Visa, bank of America Customized Cash Rewards, and Discover It Cash Back.

Shopping platforms/apps that have popped up over the last few years allow us to do our shopping online while receiving referral bonuses that we can convert to cash or gift cards: Rakuten, Ibotta, TopCashback, ShopBack, Fetch, Receipt Hog, Checkout 51, Capital One Shopping, and Swagbucks.

While many retail stores offer customer loyalty programs in which we can earn points, most don’t have rewards that are transferrable. However, a few allow you to donate your points to participating charities, nonprofits, or the store’s own charitable ventures. These retailers include Gap Encore, Schnucks, Chick-fil-A, and Gala Foods.

Those of us who travel likely participate in hotel or airline loyalty programs. The points we earn through some of these can similarly be donated to participating charities. These programs include Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy, IHG One Rewards, Best Western Rewards, Choice Privileges, Delta SkyMiles, America AAdvantage, Unite MileagePlus, Southwest Rapid Rewards, and Alaska/Hawaiian Atmos Rewards.

We often overlook the literal value of recycling. For those of us who live in states with deposits on bottles and cans, we could make a weekly practice of recycling these and putting the refund into our talent bucket. Electronic waste like used batteries, scrap metal, cardboard, and used ink cartridges can also generate funds for our talent bucket. There are even specialized non-profit programs like TerraCycle and Cans for Cash through which participants earn points or cash that go to charities.

Cash back loyalty programs and recycling won’t make your buckets overflow. Yet, these small amounts, which we often leave on the table without thinking about them, often won’t make or break our own household budget. However, they can go a long way to making someone else’s.

Saving small amounts of money here and there for the good of others may not seem like much on the surface. We’ll likely never do anything on the same scale as funding a scholarship program like Oseola McCarty did. Yet every one of these little acts of faithfulness to God’s purpose helps someone and gives us the chance to renew our commitment to responsibly stewarding what we’ve been given.

Reflection Question:

What does it mean to make generosity part of the way we manage what God has entrusted to us, rather than treating it as something separate from our financial lives?

Next Week:

Next week we’ll wrap up our study of Matthew 25:14-30 by looking at how we can apply these lessons every day.