Ep. 079 - Should Christian Couples Consider a Prenup? A Biblical Look at Money, Marriage, and Trust

Episode Transcript

Austin
Money may not be the foundation of a Christian marriage, but it certainly plays a role in how couples live out their vows and fulfill their role in demonstrating the love of Christ and his church to the world. Is it ever wise, or is it always a signal of distrust? Today we'll explore biblical and practical perspectives to help Christian couples approach this sensitive topic with both wisdom and conviction.
Spencer, today we want to talk about being stewards of our marriages and really the steward of the relationship that we hold and that we enter into covenantally, between husband and wife. So one of the thoughts here is, as we think about stewarding our relationships stewarding our finances, we've come to the question before of what do we think about prenuptial agreements?
As a believer, as a steward, as a follower of Jesus. So what is maybe the foundational piece that we need to come back to when we think about marriage?

Spencer
Well, first, marriage is a covenant. And as an Anglican, I think about are the vows that we take and think about kind of the context of relationships. And we would always put our relationship with God first. And so those baptismal vows that we have as we follow Christ would be above all. But the second layer is the marital vow even more important than any kind of ordination or clergy, you know, vows that we would take.
And certainly more important than the way that we think about, you know, using our finances and other things there. So there's a clear delineation, I think. As we look at things that this is a tremendously important relationship, obviously, as we look at Scripture. So we come back again to the idea that it's a covenant. And Jesus himself in Matthew 19 says, so they are no longer two, but one flesh.
What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. So there's this union. And as we go further into the New Testament, we see in Ephesians 5, Paul describes spouses submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. And he says in 5:31-32, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
This is a profound mystery, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. So our marriages should be reflecting Christ's love for the church. And this level of submitting one to another. So when we think about that, that is a really, really high bar. So there is nowhere in Christ's relationship to the church that he is trying to withhold something from the church, that he is not willing to lay down his full life for the church.
So when we look at how we structure our finances, we shouldn't be withholding or thinking, hey, how am I going to protect myself if this goes south. Because again, we are mirroring Christ and the church to the world via our marriages.

Austin
Right. It needs to be both submissive and sacrificial in a lot of ways. Like I lay down my life as Christ laid down his for me. I do that for my spouse. In all of this, I think there needs to be this reality that in our modern secular world, marriage is just seen as the next step after dating.
There's not a whole lot that's sacred culturally to it. And so we need to say that is not the actuality of marriage. Marriage is a beautiful, sacred covenantal thing where it joins us together for a lifetime. And it is not something to be taken flippantly. And I think, you know, especially because you get married young.
In your first third of life most often times. Our brains aren't fully developed to really think about this in a full lifetime. But I think we really just need to come back to this over and over and over that what we have entered into is a covenant. It is not something that is meant to be taken again, flippantly or lightly.
So even as we think about this idea of prenuptial agreements, we come at it first with that foundational piece, that this is a sacred covenant between us and our spouses. It's meant to reflect Christ in the church.

Spencer
Well, and even in the section, of the, Book of Common Prayer that leads us through a marital ceremony and the betrothal section. It says, will you have this woman to be your wife, to live together out of reverence for Christ in the covenant of holy marriage? Will you love her, honor her, comfort her, and keep her in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?
So that duration is exactly what you're talking about. And you know. Will you love her, honor her, comfort her, keep her? You know those directions, though, that vow, that's really serious. And when we think about. Okay, I'm going to, before I even, you know, make these vows, I'm going to enter into a contract that says, well, if this, you know, if our marriage splits, then I still get to keep, you know, all of the assets or something like that, that I brought to it.
That seems to fly in the face of, at least, you know, these vows and what we would read, I think, in Matthew 19.

Austin
Right. Well, I think it comes back to am I seeing marriage as that sacred covenant, or [am I] seeing it just as the next thing that makes me happy? And if it's purely about my happiness, we have seen time and time again whether it's with relationships, money, if we're purely looking for happiness it's fleeting.
It's long standing joy towards that, that unity in Christ, that sanctification in Christ.

Spencer
Well like the Christian author Gary Thomas, you know, is kind of famous for saying, you know, God intends our marriages to make us holy not happy necessarily. Now, well, you know, happiness oftentimes comes along. Sometimes it's only coming along, though, in and out. You know, for most of us who have been married for many years,
We recognize, hey, there's days, there's weeks, there's months., you know, where marriage is tough. The pastor and his wife that, married Emily and I, he said, if you really get honest with people and talk to folks who have been married 40 and 50 years, they won't talk about the hard years of marriage. They'll talk about the hard decades of marriage.
Yeah. And so, I mean, setting the expectation that you're going to go through some difficult times. It may not be pleasant at times, but you need to lay down your life just like Christ did. And as you approach things in that way, then oftentimes you can restore those relationship, points where there's friction. You know.

Austin
Yeah. Okay. So let's think about this. Let's come back to our topic at hand. Being stewards of the resources that God has placed in our hands. And the reality here is whenever you get married in life, there are times where it might actually make sense. You know, as you and I were talking about before we clicked the cameras on.
My first inclination was to say, okay, turn the camera on. Is a prenuptial biblical? No. Turn the camera off. Be done. That's our episode. But I think as we dove into the nuance, there can be times where it can make sense. So can you walk us through maybe where this does make sense?

Spencer
Well, again, not from a posture of let me defend myself or let me protect myself because I don't know that this is going to work, but more from a posture of, hey, let's have this conversation, because there is some complexity here either, maybe we have a couple that is coming together, and each of them have been married and they have children, and now we have a blended family, and we have some assets where, surrounding, individuals are going to have some level of expectation, some question.
There may even be questions about, what the intentions are of each person. And so if we use a prenuptial agreement to just clarify what's going to be done with assets, how they're going to be used, who's going to be directing that? And we keep the posture of still loving each other. As being first and foremost and laying down our lives for each other, then a prenuptial agreement actually can make some sense.
But again, it's just used for that level of clarity and making sure that everyone's on the same page when there are conflict situations like a blended families coming together or, maybe there's business interests there. That we need to make sure that we are, doing right by our employees and saying, okay, if something happens, you know, to me, or if something should happen to our marriage, here's how we're going to have leadership say, within the firm.
And sometimes that's already set up, actually within the LLC documents or, the business documents themselves. But surfacing the conversation and including that in a prenuptial agreement could actually keep everybody on the same page and be a reminder of no, this is what we agreed to. If something should happen, yes we're going to make sure that, spouses are taken care of.
But at the same time, we need to be careful about who is, making the decision, because there might be dozens or even hundreds of other people that this is going to impact.

Austin
Right. So we think about it almost in two paths that you think about a prenuptial agreement. One is one that's governed by greed. I've made all this money. I keep my money, my money is mine. This marriage over here, it's just kind of for fun. We'll see what happens with it. But if anything breaks down that I get to keep everything that I've already done.
So that one is more one that's based on the idea of greed and consumption. And I want to keep whatever is mine. And I don't care about people.

Spencer
Well, or you could even just say fear. I mean, most folks, when they've gone through a painful divorce, they may say, you know, as much as I love this person, and as much as I want to enter into this covenant, I'm still fearful. And if we have that level of fear, I think we really have to take a deep breath and reflect and, say, you know, are there any qualms that I have about this?
Because sometimes it is, you know, you could say it's there is an element with a lot of folks with greed. And, you know, we see that, you know, I mean, one of the, high profile marriages that just dissolved here in the last year or so was a billionaire hedge fund manager that, you know, gets into a marriage, you know, after he's owned this firm and it's $1 billion firm already, and he's basically just trying to defend his assets.
And he says as much, you know, I mean, there's just this level of just kind of yeah, my firm and my business and taking care of myself is priority number one. If the marriage works, I hope it does. But if it doesn't, then I still get to keep everything else. That you could certainly say is greed. For other folks, it's just the level of fear, because they've had such a painful, separation.
And sometimes, you know, the first marriage, dissolves, significantly because of the infidelity of another person. And so they say, you know, if someone does that again to me, I just don't want to lose all of my assets. But we can't let fear drive decisions, you know, here and have a posture where we're already setting ourselves up, where we're saying, well, if this doesn't work, then I get to keep all the money.
That does not seem biblical from a covenantal standpoint. Again, the energy has to be laying down our lives for each other, believing the best and doing everything that we can. And then if something happens, heaven forbid, okay, well, you know, we've got to deal with other things there.

Austin
Right. Well, I think the reality to there, to what you're talking about fear is, maybe that's a signal that the Lord may be speaking something. And we need to be a little bit more cognizant at that moment of, okay, God, am I afraid because I'm afraid of losing everything? Or am I afraid because maybe there's something wrong here with this relationship that is causing me to have this hesitancy.
And I think if that's the case, then let's surround ourselves with believers that are going to call us out, that are going to challenge us and really ask the hard questions of, hey, why are you entering this marriage if there's this level of fear? Is that something that you need to work on? Like, are you completely committed? And there's this other layer of man I really need to, before I step into this marriage, really delve deeply into why am I so afraid?
Can I put my trust in the Lord? Can I put my whole heart towards him? That way I can be fully myself with this other person. So there's kind of this layer of fear in the background. We're not bringing our full selves into the marriage. So Spencer since you talked about stewarding businesses, you've talked about stewarding blended families.
Where can it really make sense for a blended family to consider a prenuptial agreement?

Spencer
Well, this would be where we just all have everything, specified, clarified and the level of transparency. What we've noticed in working with clients is that sometimes there's a level of distrust among one's family if they are entering into a, second marriage, let's just say. So you have, children from a prior marriage, and, you have this blended family.
What sometimes will makes sense is rather than just naming each other as contingent beneficiaries or as primary beneficiaries, I should say, is setting up some kind of qualified terminal interest, property trust. So a Q-Tip. What a Q-Tip does is allows resources to go from one spouse to the trust, and the other spouse typically will then, the surviving spouse will be able to use those assets during his or her lifetime, but then the remaining amount will go to the designated heirs.
So what can be helpful here is you can say, okay, you know, we're entering this union and you can be able to show your kids they're not in it for the money. You know, we're going to bring our assets together. Yes, we're going to make sure that we take care of each other, yes. But this isn't a situation where, you know, this person is just trying to make sure that they get a ton of money or something if something goes awry so that planning itself can be helpful to say, okay, this is the direction that we intend to go with our estate plan, it can get everybody just on
that same page and be able to kind of allay fears so that actually the relationships can be better all across, the blended family there. So if we just specify, okay, here's how we're going to handle, you know, particular things, then, that gives a level of transparency.

Austin
Right. So Spencer we've run through prenuptial agreements, what do we think about postnuptial agreements?

Spencer
So this is another flavor, in all of this and I can say this, from some experience, just even personally with this, it's interesting that some families will want to protect their children and they will not pass along resources unless there is a post nuptial agreement or prenuptial agreement executed. So in our particular situation, there were not going to be assets that were going to be passed to my wife unless we agreed that those assets would be hers
if you know, we separated. So it was kind of a weird situation, but, you know, that the way that the trust had been set up within the family, that's the way it was. So now we had this situation that we needed to be able to address where it's like, okay, I can sign this agreement and say, I'm not going to, encumber these assets, you know, in any way if my spouse should receive them.
So to me, that was an easy decision. Okay, yes. Those resources, they go to her. I'm not going to try to attach myself, you know, to those resources. Now, I think later on down the road, if the resources were then co-mingled and other things happened, then I'm not sure the validity, you know, of a post nuptial agreement.
And in those circumstances, you'd have to talk with an attorney on that. But there are circumstances when even we have spouses who they come to a relationship and they may want to share everything, but they had, they’re put in interesting circumstances by other loved ones. And it may not even be parents. It could be grandparents or great grandparents, you know, with, some circumstances.
And so they, I think you have to take this before the Lord and be comfortable with the fact that, okay, am I laying down my life, you know, in doing this? And does it, will this create friction within our marriage? If it's a situation where clearly one spouse will have a tremendous amount of assets and, be tempted even to use that as control, you know, over the other spouse,
then I think we've got to pause even there, even if the one spouse is going to lay down his or her life. If there's a situation where it's just like, well, you know, there's assets that will come, it shouldn't impact, you know, anything there in terms of our lifestyle, in terms of the way that we approach things, then, I think I would be far more open, just as we were, to some kind of post nuptial agreement where you say, okay, yeah, I'm not in it for the money anyway.
Yeah, I'll sign this. You know, resources go to, spouse, and, we'll be along our merry way.

Austin
Yeah. Well, Spencer, thanks for walking us through this idea of prenuptial and post nuptial agreement. The reality here is we take everything before the Lord. We take our marriages, we take our finances. We take everything beforehand because he is the provider of it all. We look to him first and put our trust first in him. And sometimes these are agreements that can actually help aid in that trust, in that trust of one another and that trust of the Lord.
And if that ever gets in the way, if our trust and our hope is in our money or our businesses or other resources, that's where we really need to look internally and check ourselves and ask, why am I doing this? Or why am I afraid? Or being driven by some other emotion. Clients, if you want to talk to us about this, we would love to have that conversation with you.
As always, feel free to leave comments down below and we'll see you again next time. If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss the next episode.

Disclaimer
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We are in Knoxville, Tennessee and you can visit our website at www.secondhalfstewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.