Endowment Plans

QUESTION: Is it wrong to be insured in a reliable company on the twenty years' endowment plan?

ANSWER: I fail to see any sin in it. Christ did not teach improvidence though the erroneous translation, "Take no thought for morrow," instead of, "Be not anxious for the morrow," as in the Revision, seems to make Christ teach a total disregard of the future. Faith and Worry cannot be happily married. Faith soon dies.

— Steele's Answers pp. 241, 242.

A Text Against Life Insurance?

QUESTION: Does not this text rebuke life insurance: "Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me." (Jer. 49:11.)

ANSWER: It does not teach that we should neglect the helpless. God cares for them through human agency. He awakens the altruistic spirit of compassion and charity in Christians who found asylums for orphans and homes for widows. He also gives most people sense enough to save part of their earnings and make deposits in the savings bank or some reliable life insurance company, instead of living from hand to mouth in utter disregard for the future. The Bible nowhere teaches improvidence, though infidels say it does, and therefore its teachings are impracticable and irrational.

— Steele's Answers pp. 208.

Sanctification & the Lodge

QUESTION: Can a sanctified person retain the experience and carry insurance in a fraternal order, although he never attends the lodge or takes any part in the proceedings?

ANSWER: I infer that the new experience is subsequent to joining the order, which he has found not promotive of his spiritual life, and for this reason abstains from its meetings, but continues to pay the dues, because of the loss of money already paid for insurance should he now cease. Knowing, not from experience, but from observation, that membership in such orders is not helpful to the spiritual life, I would suggest to this brother that no financial loss, however great, can outweigh any spiritual loss, however small. Always give the spiritual and not the material side the benefit of your doubt.

— Steele's Answers p. 188.

Joining Orders Just to Get Insurance

QUESTION: Can a Christian man rightfully join several orders just to get insurance, absenting himself from the meetings?

ANSWER:  In the long run there will be no financial gain in so doing. Better put your savings in the savings bank, after giving the Lord his share.

— Steele's Answers p. 172.

Life Insurance

QUESTION: Is it right for a sanctified person to carry life insurance?

ANSWER: I fail to see anything sinful in it. Like fire insurance, it is a device by which men help one another, the long-lived help those dependent on the short-lived, the widow and the fatherless. In this way, "the strong bear the burdens of the weak," though not in the form that Paul intended. I do not think that he would have condemned it.

— Steele's Answers p. 171.

Can a Methodist Preacher Sell Life Insurance?

QUESTION: Can an ordained minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church be an insurance agent and not break his vows to God and the church?

ANSWER: Yes. He may have lost his health and be obliged to desist from preaching, or he may be a local preacher and preach without salary on Sundays and get his living, as Paul did, by secular work on week days. Insurance is as honorable as tent-making. We need more local preachers of the Pauline type in America. They are a tower of strength to the Wesleyans in England preaching in the streets and hamlets distant from the centers of population. 

— Steele's Answers p. 90. 

Life Insurance

QUESTION: Should the father of a family keep up his life insurance if he is able?

ANSWER: Yes, by all means that are honorable.

— Steele's Answers p. 74.