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The Financial Services Authority (FSA) publishes a handbook. This handbook must be complied with by all banks, building societies, insurance companies, financial advisers, investment houses - almost anyone, in fact, who has anything to do with financial services.

The handbook is available on-line on the FSA website. This is just as well - if you printed it off it would form, I'm told, a pile of paper 12 feet high. The interesting thing about it is that there are relatively few rules in it. For example, this week I have been studying one section (as part of my job - I'm not that sad OK?) which is called Systems and Controls, known to its friends as 'SYSC'. It runs to a positively slim 70 pages but has only about half a dozen rules in it. All the rest is explanation of how these rules should be considered and applied by financial organisations. It includes catchy little snippets of wisdom like:

Anyway, it got me thinking about how many thousands (millions?) of pages of legislation, rules and codes of conduct we humans have put in place in order to help us behave decently towards one another. Many of them are necessary - we live in a complex world with difficult problems and the drafting, interpretation and enforcement of legislation is a weighty task for serious people. I know I'm hopelessly naive, but I couldn't help thinking how cumbersome it all seems compared with what the Bible says about our relationships with one another.

It's all distilled down to 10 rules, and Jesus captured the essence of these in just two:

‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’

Mark 12: 28-31

Jesus was also forthright about financial probity:

‘Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’

Mark 12: 17

And as for the FSA's current pre-occupation with 'treating the customer fairly' here is a synopsis:

'Don't collect any more than you are required to...don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely—be content with your pay'

Luke 3: 13-14

There is other good, concise guidance in the Bible about how we should treat each other both personally and in business:

'Let your "Yes" mean yes, and your "No," no'

James 5:12

'Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.'

1 Peter 3:8

I suppose my favourite religious aphorism is from St. Augustine who said "love God and do as you like." It sounds permissive and straightforward until you stop to consider what it means. The point I take from it is this: the more you love God, the more "what you like" looks like what God likes.

I'm not a Biblical scholar - far from it - but then the Bible wasn't written for scholars (or not only for scholars). The guidance it gives to us ordinary men and women about how to treat each other personally and in business is not rocket science - it's clear, concise and remarkably timely.

Which, after a week immersed in the FSA Handbook, makes a refreshing change.

Blessings from all of us at St. Andrew's Taunton

NOTE: I am the webmaster of St. Andrew's Church, not clergy or a reader. I write as 'a man in a pew' and so you should not assume that I necessarily know what I'm talking about, or that what I say reflects the views of other people in our church. To read previous weeks' FWIWs please click here.