Gary North

And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat (Gen. 3:12- 13).

The blame game began very early in man's history. It is still as popular as ever.

When God returned in judgment, Adam and Eve had to give an accounting for what they had done. We use the word "accounting" as a way to describe a person's summary of what he has achieved or not achieved. In a narrow sense, this is what account books are supposed to do for us. They enable us to put down on paper or on a computer screen a specific objective indicator of what we have accomplished. It also indicates objective failure.

Adam's response to God's question is a familiar one. He immediately blamed his wife. In effect, he was blaming God for having provided such a wife for him. His wife had been given to him in order to serve as his helper. But, somehow, she did not help him. She lured him into sin. It was mostly her fault.

God does not answer Adam at this point. He turns to Eve. He asks her why she had done this thing. She imitates Adam. She identifies the serpent as the source of the bad advice.

God does not bother to ask the serpent anything. The serpent was not directly accountable to God. The serpent was part of the creation. The serpent was accountable to Adam. This is why he initially approached Eve. He did not want a direct confrontation with Adam. He preferred to tempt Adam's subordinate. Once he successfully lured her into sin, she tempted Adam. The serpent had attacked the weakest link in the chain. God declares judgment against the serpent.

Then God moves back up the chain of command. He condemns the woman. Then he condemns Adam. The rebellion started at the bottom, and God brings judgment at the bottom. It was a bottom-up rebellion, and God imposed a bottom-up judgment.

This rebellion changed the nature of man's relationship with God. The story of mankind up to this point was the story of grace. Through their sin, Adam and Eve moved from grace to wrath. From this point until the final judgment, the story of the kingdom of God is the story of the transition from wrath to grace.

This transition was made manifest to Adam and Eve by God's trial, for this is what Genesis 3 records. God cross-examines them, and then He declares judgment against them. He imposes negative sanctions on them. This was preliminary to the wrath of God at the final judgment. This was a down payment on the wrath to come.

The response of both Adam and Eve to God's questions is indicative of a man's response in general to any accusation against him, whenever the accusation is true: he attempts to delegate responsibility downward. He wants to deflect the wrath of God or him to someone under his jurisdiction.

He was initially in a position of authority over this person. The person made a mistake, and his superior does not want to take responsibility for this mistake. When it was not a mistake, but rather deliberate, he is even more eager to avoid responsibility. He assumes that his initial transfer of responsibility downward completely absolved him for any participation in the mistake or rebellion of his subordinate. Even when the individual has been lured into the mistake or the rebellion, he wants to blame the subordinate. Everyone wants to avoid responsibility. At the same time, everyone wants the benefits of such delegation.

This is another way of saying the people want the benefits, but they do not wish to bear the costs. They want to take responsibility for successes of their subordinates, and they want to transfer liability for failure to those subordinates. There is an old saying: "Success has a hundred fathers, but failure is an orphan."

The subordinate does whatever he can to identify someone even lower on the chain of command to whom liability can be transferred.

There is no escape from the division of labor. There is no escape from hierarchy. There must always be a transfer of responsibility downward. This is because nobody can do everything. Everybody who wishes to achieve anything of significance must find subordinates who will cooperate with him. He needs to find people to whom he can safely delegate responsibility.

Once he delegates responsibility, he cannot avoid the consequences of mistakes or outright rebellion by those to whom he has delegated responsibility. He is responsible for delegating responsibility wisely. If he has delegated responsibility unwisely, he will suffer the consequences. In other words, there is never a complete transfer of responsibility. The authority to transfer responsibility itself involves responsibility. The power to delegate creates a liability.

Each person in the hierarchy must take responsibility for the actions of the person under his authority. He must find a way to build in safeguards against bad decisions by those under his authority. He is expected to monitor performance of those under his jurisdiction. In other words, he has to exercise judgment in order to avoid the negative consequences of any review by his superior in the future.

BUDGETING AS ACCOUNTING

Household budgeting is a form of accounting. Husbands and wives must make periodical reviews of their spending. They must make reviews of whether this spending is furthering their goals.

If we want to use the example of Adam and Eve in the Garden, red ink is the equivalent of green leaves. The green leaves revealed to God the nature of the violation. The red ink reveals to husbands and wives the violation of the principle of counting the cost.

Jesus said that we must count the costs. We must not take action before we count the costs.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish (Luke 14:28-30).

This being the case, we need to budget in advance. We also need to have a system of accounting in which we judge whether or not the execution of our plan has been cost-effective. We have to find out whether we are spending more than we earn. We must also find out whether or not we are drawing down our savings because we have misjudged our expenditures.

Counting the cost is basic to all of life. Jesus gave the example of an imminent war.

Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace (Luke 14:31-32).

This involved counting the costs of starting a war. If the person in charge of the nation judges that the cost of the war will be greater than the cost of making peace, he is supposed to make peace.

Similarly, when the head of the household recognizes that a particular expenditure is greater than the benefits that will result from an expenditure, he is to instruct his wife not to make the expenditure. He is not to let red ink flow. His goal is to have more money at the end of the accounting period than when he began.

The example of this is Jesus' parable of the three servants. He tells the story of a rich man who transfers wealth to his subordinates, and then departs for a long journey. At some point, he returns and demands an accounting from his subordinates. All of his subordinates were required to return more to him than he gave them when he departed. He expects a positive rate of return on his investment. He had transferred the investment capital to them, and they are responsible to return more to him than he transferred to them. When they are successful at this, he rewards them with even more responsibility.

And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities (Luke 19:15-19).

This parable tells us that what we are really aiming for is greater responsibility. We want to be in a position to exercise greater dominion over our sphere of jurisdiction. We want to increase the realm of our jurisdiction.

This is not how most people think of profit. They think of profit without thinking of responsibility. They think of increasing their profits without increasing their responsibility. They want to get something for nothing. The parable tells us that the goal is not profit; the goal is greater responsibility in the kingdom of God. We are constantly supposed to be increasing our zone of responsibility.

So, we must pay close attention to our expenditures, in order to have more capital at the end of the month or quarter or year than when we started. The fact that we have more money at the end of the time period indicates that we have increased our level of responsibility. This is what progressive sanctification is all about. This is what Christian maturity is all about. It is not about escaping responsibility; it is about increasing personal responsibility.

Adam, in answering God, attempted to deflect this responsibility downward. Eve, in answering God, also attempted to deflect this responsibility downward. This was contrary to what the parable of the servants tells us we should do. Our goal is to increase our responsibility, not decrease it. Our goal is to make better decisions, and these decisions have to be motivated by our understanding that we are responsible for the outcome of our decisions.

BUDGETING FOR RESPONSIBILITY

Keeping a household budget is an objective way of a determining whether or not we are successful in increasing our level of personal responsibility. If we find that we are not increasing our net worth, as measured by the digits we call numbers, we know that in all likelihood we are decreasing our responsibility. In some cases, this is not true. When we purchase capital, which includes education, we may have to borrow money to do this, but we are not doing this in order to decrease our responsibility. We are attempting to increase our responsibility.

Household budgeting is an objective and necessary way to increase our level of personal responsibility. The biblical principle is this: we must master the little things of life in order to prepare ourselves for attempting to master even greater things in life.

We master our household budgets in order to extend our influence beyond our household. We are not to build up capital simply to spend on consumption. We are to build up capital in order to be in a position to exercise leadership outside the household. This is what the parable of the servants teaches.

So, when you set a household budget, you must discipline yourself to do the accounting necessary to determine whether or not you're sticking to your budget. You must also be aware of expenditures that are keeping you from meeting your budgetary goal. This is why a systematic program of budgeting and recording expenditures and income is so important.

This is the first step in a young couples experience to train them in the discipline of responsible leadership. They get control over their budget. This means that they get control over their expenditures. This means that they must get control over their emotions. If they are present-oriented, this compromises their ability to lead. Leadership requires future-orientation. Setting up a budget and sticking to it is one of the most important disciplines in achieving future-orientation.

Present-orientation is the affliction of the lower class. Extremely future-orientation is the outlook of the upper class. Your class position is not primarily a matter of your money; it is a matter of your perspective on time. Some medical student may not have any discretionary income at all. We do not think of him as a lower-class person.

The husband lays down the law. He has the final authority to establish the budget. His wife is a partner with him in managing the household budget. She may even be the person who runs the numbers. But her job is not to assert her independent authority over the budget. Her job is to make the best use of the money.

The husband delegates responsibility to her to keep household expenditures within the range of the budget. Her job is to meet or beat the projections of expenditures. This is a joint effort.

If the wife is unsuccessful in sticking to the budget, the husband must intervene and help her to readjust her spending habits. If she repeatedly is unable to do this, he has got to take over the budgeting. It may be that he will have to keep her away from the credit card.

The numbers testify to us, loud and clear, whether or not we are successful in disciplining our spending habits. This is why people do not like to set up budgets, and why they do not like to keep careful records on how they spent their money. They do not like responsibility. They do not wish to increase their responsibility. They do not wish to exercise leadership. So, their spending habits keep them in the position of subordination. They are constantly worried about paying the bills at the beginning of the next month. They were about money. They worry about the day of reckoning. They worry about bill collectors calling them on the phone. They don't like the day of reckoning. They don't like it, because they do not like to count the costs. They do not like future-orientation. They do not like the self-discipline required to keep expenditures at or below budget carrier estimates.

This is why household budgeting is so important for young couples. It enables him to get control of their lives by getting control of their spending. If they are not willing to do this, they are headed for trouble in their marriage.