Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome back to think deeper I'm Jack Wilkie, joined by Joe Wilkey and Will Harab. Once again, we are looking forward to bringing you a lucrative episode. Nice new adjective that we can only use probably once.
Before we get to that, I want to just recap. We had said a week or two ago we were going out to Victor Valley Church of Christ in California. I just want to thank them for having us out. And again, just put the push out there. We're getting our schedule set for 2024, Lord willing, and we had a great time. I think the congregation really enjoyed it. Just getting to go with these guys and talk now, of course, going across the country to California, that was a big commitment for Victor Valley, and so we really appreciate them doing that. On the other hand, here in the middle Tennessee area, we can drive to a lot of places. The expense would be a whole lot less for folks down here in the south. And so we would love to go and speak to more congregations, bring the Think Deeper seminar. And so reach out for my $10,000 retainer. Yeah, Joe's, $10,000 retainer. That's what we spend on food in a weekend out together.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Pretty much. I got to say, too, because I know California just they get a lot of grief. Their politics are rough, their taxes are certainly rough. That is beautiful country out there, man.
As far as prettiest and coolest places I've been, got to be top five, top ten, something like that. At least in the States, for sure. Just beautiful out there.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Absolutely. Hey, we'll come to the middle of Mississippi, too. I mean, we don't have to go to California, right? That is true. We did enjoy it very much.
[00:01:44] Speaker C: Probably won't make Will's top five or ten, but that's okay. People might, right? Yeah.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Our apologies. Mississippi. Just catching straight.
[00:01:52] Speaker C: Sorry, Mississippi.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Sorry. All right, Joe, why don't you take us into this week's lesson or lesson episode, whatever we're doing here. Whatever it is.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: Whatever it is.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:00] Speaker C: So we were talking, we've had this we've planned out the next I don't know how many weeks, and we're bouncing around ideas, and this is something that has been on our radar for a little while, and that is the idea of Christians and money. And the way we wanted to break it down was we were talking about it and had some concepts and whatnot. And I remember growing up with a specific piggy bank, and we had red for savings, we had green let me think about this. Yellow for God. And we had green for spending.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Right?
[00:02:32] Speaker C: And so it's kind of like, stoplights. And that's kind of how we wanted to break down this episode, is we have our giving, we have our saving, and we have our money to God. And I think there's concepts specifically for the Christian that comes into every part of it. We talk a lot about God governing all of life, that Christ is ruler over all things and that includes our finances, it includes our wallet, everything that we have there. And so we wanted to give some practical tips within this episode, some things that maybe have helped us or things that we think might be able to help you. We're going to kind of weave that in closer to the middle, but we're going to start with saving, then go into spending and then go into giving. And we have, I think, an interesting discussion within each that we try to fit into each that we think is going to be, as Jack said, a lucrative discussion. So fellas, we're going to kick it off with saving. And will, I'm going to shift it over to you as we get into this idea of money and God. I guess the question I'll kick you off on is we're talking about saving and this is something that Christians want to save because we want to make sure that we are smart with our money. But you always have the person that comes in that almost has the idea of it may be wrong to save, it may be wrong to be rich, right to have this lucrative savings account or whatever because we need to give it all away. Let me just start by with a general discussion on God and money. Is it wrong to be rich?
Let's start there.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: So before I answer that question, to continue to kind of set up the introduction here, money is an enormous part of everybody's life and so thus why we felt the need to address or to devote a whole podcast episode to it. I firmly believe that we should be having sermons and Bible classes about money and not just the generic vague, glorify God with your money, the lessons that don't really do or say anything. Christians need to know. Christians want to know questions like hopefully the ones that we're going to answer and address on this episode of what's the right move here? With my money in XYZ area, how should I save my money? How much spending is too much spending? How much should I be giving? We're going to be answering all these questions because we recognize, as you stated, Joe, with Christ ruling and having dominion over every area of our life, money is a big area of our life.
Nobody should ever denigrate it to the point, oh, it's not really that important. We as husbands and dads trying to feed our families and make sure that we are providing for our family. Money is on our mind a lot. And so there is a balance that.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: Has to be struck here.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: So let's start with that question, Joe, of is it wrong to be rich?
Scripturally speaking, the answer to that is no.
That one's pretty clear. I think the more interesting question that maybe we'll get to next is is it wrong to want to be rich, but people misquote first, timothy six, what is it, 17 all the time about? Well, money is the root of all evil. It's not what it says. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And so I think money and wealth has been demonized quite a bit within the church. And we've talked about that briefly before, I think, on this podcast, maybe in a point or two here or there, but no, I would answer very strongly that it's not wrong to be rich, it's not wrong to be wealthy. And honestly, the place that I always go, not to mention just the massive amount of faithful followers of God in the Old Testament that were wealthy, you think about Abraham, you think about Job, think about Moses, you think about Joseph, guys like that who are pretty well in the hall of Fame. As far as followers of God in the Old Testament, they were not slumming it, not really having enough to eat and barely getting by. They were very wealthy in livestock, silver and gold, that kind of thing. But the proverbs to me are the biggest indicator that wealth is not demonized by the Bible like so many just depict it as wealth is not something that is described as evil.
We don't have them on the outline. But I did want to bring up just a few proverbs in support of this idea because again, as we have belabored before, because sometimes we don't give the proverbs it's due justice. A lot of people really don't know that these proverbs exist, but verses like Proverbs 1311, wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished, but he who gathers by labor will be increased. That's Proverbs 1311, the same chapter, verse 22, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. They are clearly painting wealth in an incredibly positive light. A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children. Proverbs ten, verse 22, to do evil.
I'm sorry. The blessing of the Lord makes one rich and he adds no sorrow. The blessing of the Lord makes one rich.
Pretty clearly not painting wealth in the negative light that so many want to paint it these days. And then last but not least, Proverbs three, nine and ten, honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of all, your increase. So your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. We're going to get later on to the other side of that, the Luke 22 about building bigger barns, but so far clearly see it's not wrong to be wealthy.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Jack, I was going to add just ten, verse 410 four says, the hand of the diligent makes rich. Like diligence is good, working hard is good. That's a promise of it that you know you're supposed to work hard. Well, what are you going to get from it? And Proverbs is saying this is what you're going to get from it and it's not bad to want to get from it. The other side of it is one Timothy six verse you brought up 610, the love of money, the root of all sorts of evil.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: That's right, yeah, right before that, those.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction, wanting to be able to take care of your family, wanting to put a nice roof over their heads, those kinds of things. And the things that Proverbs is talking about working towards, that's not wrong, those who want to get rich. But you see this in this world today of kind of the get rich quick schemes.
I guess we could all probably talk about crypto and thinking, all right, we're going to ride this new coin to the moon.
In fact, I saw driving down the highway one day here in the Franklin area, brand new. There couldn't have been anything wrong with it, lamborghini being towed away.
But there's a lot of stories of things like that getting repossessed, of people who got rich overnight and then lost it all overnight.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Crypto will rise again.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: It will rise again. We're just waiting on some coin that nobody's heard of that's going to go a million times.
And crypto is just one of many examples. There's always been things where people think, okay, if this scheme just works out and that's not good for you. But then there's also the we had our episode on work, the workaholic thing. I'm going to put in a bazillion hours a week, never see my family, never do anything fun, skip church, whatever, get my priorities all out of whack. That's the kind of thing that he's talking about, saying, I'm going to get a good job, I'm going to work hard, I'm going to work for promotions, I'm going to start a business, I'm going to do any of those things so that I can have enough to feed my family, so that I can have nice things, buy them quality food and a good roof over their head and clothe them well. And all of those things the proverbs are talking about. And so that's the distinction we have here between two verses that sound contradictory at first, but they're really not when you see them played out in real life.
[00:09:59] Speaker C: This is hilarious. I was looking up as you guys were going, patheos.com has that proverbs 1311, wealth from get rich quick schemes quickly disappears. Wealth from hardware grows over time. And I was like, what is this new living translation?
Yeah, they got where we were going. I was like, what is this get rich quick schemes? I'm sure that's what Solomon was calling them. But yeah, as we consider kind of the biblical discussion, the other thing that I would kind of bring into this specifically as it regards or in regards to savings. We have Luke Twelve, and in Luke Twelve, it talks about the man going to build bigger barns, right, fellas, I'll challenge you a little bit. Or I guess I'll ask the question. Some people may see that and say this idea of saving, obviously saving is I don't think anybody's going to be like, oh, saving is wrong per se, but where's the line of building bigger barns? Maybe this gets us into a retirement discussion of really setting aside for retirement or whatnot, to kind of like build bigger barns later without really considering the present and without really relying on God or recognizing that this is all from God. Where's the line between saving and having a good biblical understanding of saving and putting away and not being stupid with it, versus the build bigger barns of Luke Twelve?
Where do you see the distinction there?
[00:11:18] Speaker B: So to me, as you read Luke Twelve, and I'll just read the few verses there because it's not very long. Luke Twelve, verse 16, jesus spoke a parable to them saying, the ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully, and he thought within himself, saying, what shall I do since I have no room to store my crops? So he said, I will do this, I will pull down my barns and build greater. And there I will store all my crops and my goods, and I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul will be required of you. Then whose will those things be which you have provided? So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. To me, the emphasis behind that parable is the fact that this rich man in this story was so laser focused on building greater wealth for himself, basically to the detriment of his spirituality, to the point that he wasn't considering eternity, he wasn't considering the life after this one. If you look at verse 19, what was his focus? You've got all these goods, just sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself, clearly giving no thought to eternity, clearly giving no thought to the spiritual side, because of course, verse 20, God says, fool, this, not your soul be required of you. And then Jesus providing the application of verse 21. So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. And I think that's the difference as you think about first Timothy six that Jack brought up, because the question of is it wrong to want to be rich, I do think is a very interesting one.
If a younger kid comes to you and says, yeah, I really want to be rich when I'm older, should we chastise him and say, that's not really a good thing, you shouldn't have those aspirations. So I want you guys to comment on that. But I think the difference to me is once again, the person who does pursue wealth and the person who does pursue status and prestige and a lofty bank account, lofty high paying job as the only focus as really just to make sure that they are luxurious in this life and enjoy themselves in this life. Yeah, that is a problem because you're not giving regard to all that wealth is going to be irrelevant after you die. And so to me, as far as Luke Twelve goes, at least, Joe, that's the point of it. So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. We got to be mindful of eternity. We have to be mindful of the fact that God is, it all belongs to God anyway, and it's all going to disappear one day anyway. And so that to me is a distinction that the rich fool here in Luke twelve was not thinking along those lines. We as Christians must be thinking along those lines. Jack, what do you have to add?
[00:13:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think about my dad. This wisdom he always gave us is that money is a tool. Like, money is not the thing you desire in itself. The wealth of building bigger barns, the storehouses, it's what you can do with it. And he had such a great perspective on it because he grew up incredibly poor. Single family household, single parent household, all of that. And Joe probably doesn't remember this as well I do, and our older sister does. We're little, I mean, like brink of bankruptcy all the time. He was starting a business, it was very tough times for a long time. He ended up that business. He grew it up to where he was employing, what, 60 people by the time he sold. That incredible growth. Incredible. And no, he's not making the Forbes list, but he did a great career for himself where he and my mom were able to buy land out here near Joe and me in Tennessee. They get to move out here, be near their grandkids, have a little bit of room for themselves, and none of that is bad, none of that's wrong. And his point of it, money being a tool, is it's what you can do with it. Well, what he could do with it is move to be near family, have his own plot of land so they can have family over, so they can host family Thanksgiving, so they can do things like that. But it's also the health care you can get for yourself. He can take care of his wife. It's making sure that everyone is well provided for. They're very generous, not just to their family members, but to preaching students, to missionaries, to things like that.
It's that view that he has, that money is a tool. That is the difference between this, I'm going to build bigger barns. The whole point of that guy's wealth was more wealth not, okay, I have this so I can provide for my family, so I can give to the work of the Lord what I can do with money versus just, I want more money. I want more and more and more. Because when you get in that cycle of more, there's no such thing as more. Never hits a point at which you go, all right, I've reached enough. The point of more is to keep going. It is an endless cycle you get stuck in. And I think that's what you see with this guy is more rather than, what can I do with this? And I think that's the more proverbs minded, biblical minded, is the money is a tool for which you can have nice things, do nice, just it opens up possibilities that aren't there when you don't have it.
[00:16:02] Speaker C: I think it was Rockefeller who said they came and asked him, one of the richest men to ever live, they came and asked, know how much is enough? When do you know you have enough? Just a little more. Just a little more. And now you're talking. A guy who in today's terms would be probably the richest man in the world still with today's money and just a little more. That's the problem is you never know when to stop. To your point, Jack, I think that's a great point and your point as well, Will. Money for the sake of money I think was the problem. And so the building bigger barns. Interestingly, he uses similar terminology. We can get into this discussion in a little bit in our spending, but this eat, drink and be merry. That's what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes. Like, I don't think there's any problem enjoying your wealth. It's a matter know, again, wealth for the sake of wealth, realizing that doesn't really give you anything. We have to be able to rich young ruler, right? We've got to be able to get rid of that wealth to give. We'll also get to that discussion a little bit later on, the giving portion of it. But wealth has to represent more than just money for the sake of money. It needs to represent maybe what it can do for you. And keeping that in context, I think that's a great point. Want to move the discussion, though, because the last thing we had on our saving outline was, hang on real quick.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Joe, I want to hit the retirement point, because you briefly brought that up, and we haven't really hit it as far as are there any problems with that mindset? Because let's face it, that's what a lot of men are striving for, is the idea of I want to work hard enough so that I can get to a point where I don't have to work anymore and, you know, have a retirement and income coming in and just chill?
Is that a problem? My take on it is it's going to similarly line up to what Jack just brought up. What is your goal in retirement? Is your goal to just sit on the couch and catch up on all the latest shows that you missed over the last 30 years because you were working? Is your goal to just sit down and watch the golf tournament every single weekend and not really do anything other than whatever pleases you? If that is your plan and if that is your goal and your thought during retirement, then yeah, I do think there's a problem with the retirement mindset. I do think that that is broaching over into unbiblical territory. Where I see the major appeal for retirement as a Christian man, is your time is freed up so much more because you don't have to work a 40 or in some cases 50, 55, 60 hours work week. Think about everything you can do with your time now. You can go and spend a lot of time with your grandkids, truly disciple them into being followers of Christ, taking an active role in making sure that they stay faithful. You might not have the time to do that if you're still working 40 to 50 hours a week at that age. If you're retired, though, those hours are freed up to where you can do that. You can serve the church even more. Think about elders and how much more, simply because of the time that they have, how much more efficient elders can be in shepherding and how much more proactive and involved they can be as shepherds if they don't have a 40 to 45 hours work week tying them down. But even if you're not an elder, all the ways that you can serve the church, going and visiting, helping out with door knocking campaigns, going on mission trips, just having people over, visiting, I mean, all these things, of course, can still be done by when you're still working. But man, the appeal to me for retirement, for the Christian, is all this time that's freed up to, yes, enjoy yourself, go play golf, sure. Go on vacations with your wife, sure. But man, take the time. Use the time to serve God again, to disciple the next generation, to serve in the church, to serve in your community. Even. So, again, we didn't really hit the retirement point. I didn't want to bring that up and see if you all had any thoughts on that. I think the retirement pushing and striving for retirement in and of itself is not wrong.
It does become wrong if your goal is cool. I don't have to do anything for the next 20 years except chill and enjoy myself. Yeah, that's not a super biblical mindset.
[00:19:48] Speaker C: As wisdom and opportunities rise, because you should be getting more wise as you get older. Right? Like, obligations go down in terms of life and everything. And I think that's very important to recognize that when you are me 29, my wisdom is very low, my obligation is very high. About to have a fourth kid, right. I mean, I've got a lot going on, so the older you get, the more these start to shift. And I think this is where a lot of people in retirement just kind of they don't care.
And I look at that as what an opportunity is. You're talking about will to make sure that the wealth that we've built and maybe investing and everything else, I think all of that can be used for so much good in that time, and that's lost. We don't think about wisdom because we don't honor the old. And we've gone off on this on other podcasts, so I don't want to spend a ton of time on it. But I do want those who are retired, the listeners that are retired, I want them to be thinking about what does my retirement look like? Because if we're working unto the Lord, which we can see colossians three and four right into chapter four, and we can see in Ephesians six, right? If we're working unto the Lord, should we also not be doing our retirement unto the Lord? Like, when does the working unto the Lord stop? Maybe we're no longer the slaves, quote, unquote, to the to the master, but we still have obligations of us, and so maybe the obligations, as I said, they've come down. But I think that's an important discussion when it comes to retirement of I don't think it's wrong to save. I don't think it's wrong to want to be rich and to really be smart with your money, but make sure that we're not just sitting on it, resting on it, going, okay, you drink, we marry, and doing nothing for God in that time. Jack, anything else you'd add?
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Yeah, will read this proverb earlier about the wise man stores of wealth for his children. That's something that generationally we've got to get right, because it's gone the other direction. I mean, you see, like RVs with a bumper sticker that says, I'm spending my children's inheritance, and there's even Christians that say, I'm not leaving them a dollar.
[00:21:37] Speaker C: Sorry.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: So you're a fool. Proverbs just said, you're a fool. You have to be thinking, I want to set my children and grandchildren up for a life where they can focus more on the spiritual things, where they don't have to work 85 hours a week and never see their kids. All these things we lament about modern life yeah. Through strategic planning, parents and grandparents can help their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren in their faithfulness in that, and yet we've got this.
This is one of those where we talk about this a lot. There's a lot of things where we're like the first generation in history that thinks, this way, I'm going to spend it all. I'm vacationing until the day I die. No.
That is a horrible way to look at things. That is so selfish and so in your retirement and in your savings and all those things that you're planning for. Keep that in mind and you might run out of money. You might just be around long enough, whether whatever it is, that the expenses rack up and then you don't have anything to leave. There's no shame in that. There is shame in this. I'm going to spend it all and you don't get a dime of it because it's mine and I worked hard for it. Think bigger. Think long term. And so I think with your retirement, that perspective needs to come into it.
[00:22:51] Speaker C: Let me ask you this, not on the outline, but a different discussion kind of leading into it. And we've had I think we've talked about hard work and such.
However, a guy who works a 40 hours a week job, he gets by, doesn't have a much for retirement, is going to have to work for a very long time, leaving nothing to the kids just because they're barely making it. His wife has to work so they can scrape by. I mean, in that scenario, which is a lot of America, so I'm not judging them and condemning them.
Is that right, though? Or do you think that the Christian man should be working? Like basically that men should be entrepreneurs as much as possible? I realize maybe that's an idealistic view, and not everybody is, but there's a part of me that feels like, as we're discussing this and I recently spoke on marriage, I was thinking about marriage and how this idea of taking dominion and allowing your wife to stay home we have to get back to that. We talked last week about this epidemic of women cheating on men. And a lot of times that happens in the workplace. I mean, I'm a big believer in like, we need to have our women be able to stay home and be actual keepers of home. I think that's biblical. But we can't do it. When a guy is working just his 35, 40 an hour a week job, barely scraping by, he needs his wife. I mean, at what point do you think that becomes wrong where the guy's not saving for retirement, the idea of giving anything to the kids is out the window and his wife is having to work to support him. It's a different discussion, but I want your guys'thoughts on that.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: So my thoughts on it are if a guy's in that position and he has exhausted the resources at his disposal, that's literally, like, maybe he's tried to start a business and failed. Maybe he's asked for promotions and it's just not happening. Maybe he's tried to pick up extra hours and they're just not available, then, of course, in that instance, I don't necessarily think it's wrong. I do think that there are some guys that they. Are expending just the most that they can and it's still just simply not paying a lot and not giving them the resources to think inheritance wise. I don't think that's most people though I do think for a lot of guys they're given 60% when they could be given 90 to 95% to 100% of what their effort is. And I'm not even just talking about the 40 hours a week. I'm talking about things like looking for ways to step up at work and maybe get a promotion. I'm talking about maybe starting a side gig. And again, it's not to just try to climb the corporate ladder. It's to this point of setting your kids up for success, planning for the future so that you can again have more time in retirement to devote to your grandkids and things.
What I am going to encourage my sons to shy away from is the kind of plateau mentality with work like, oh yeah, I'm good, I'm where I'm at, yeah, I make my paycheck and we're good and we're not going to lose the house, we're going to make the mortgage payment, so we're good, I'm good. That attitude I do think needs to be steered clear from when it comes to Christian men because you do see guys that they're home at four every day and then they're just chilling, not really doing anything else and playing video games or whatever. I do think that's a problem and I would think the pendulum needs to swing more into the direction of find ways to especially keeping your wife at home. I think if your wife is working, you as a Christian husband, need to do everything that you can to make sure that she does not have to. Whether that be working more hours, finding another job, starting another business, whatever it is that I do agree with that. To me, you have to do everything you can to make sure that doesn't happen. Jack, what do you think?
[00:26:22] Speaker A: I think it's a manifestation of the money as a tool or money as an end in itself thing. The guys that we talked about, the workaholics that just want more and more and more, two guys might be working 80 hours a week and one of them it is to support the family, to make sure the wife can stay home or whatever the goals are that lead to that. And another guy's just working because boy, I just want a lot more money. Those are two different things, even though they're both one is not right, one should be encouraged, one should be discouraged. And so the other thing is it should be ideally to the point that you've got to put that hard work in up front and it might be years of that, but your aim is to get to the point where you don't have to do that your entire life.
You grow your skills, you grow your income, you grow your opportunities, whatever it may be, through that hard work up front and then you get to the point again, I was saying my own dad, we barely saw him until I was like five years old. And then he got the business to the point where it was a little more manageable. He still worked a lot of hours. It was not 40 hours, weeks. I mean, it was a lot of work but he'd be home for dinner most nights, things like that. That and then it got to the point, I don't know, by the time we left the house he was around a lot because he had built it up, managed it to the point where he didn't have to be digging holes, he had other people doing that for him. And that's kind of the ideal is you put that hard work in up front and that love of money get rich quick thing that we talked about earlier, there's a lot of people that at 20 years old think that's how it should be. I shouldn't have to go. Probably not. Probably not. You're going to have to build up the skill set, you're going to have to build up the experience, the resume, get the promotions, build a business, whatever it yeah, I mean there, there is a time at which that extra work is just going to be part of it.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Okay, so Joe's asked us a few tough questions. I'm going to turn around on him and ask you question.
Let's talk about debt for just a second. And we do have to get into the other categories. So we'll talk debt here and then maybe get into a Dave Ramsay discussion because he's obviously very well known and respected by a lot of people and then get into the next category. But as far as debt goes, there are the proverbs about Proverbs 22, verse seven, the rich rules over the poor becomes the borrower, becomes the lender slave. You even have Romans 13, verse eight that talks about owe nothing to anyone.
Joe, how do we feel about this as far as does the Bible forbid debt? Is debt something that is wrong?
Obviously I don't think there's a lot of Christians that don't have debt to some extent, whether that be a car payment or not. A car well, yes, a car payment, but obviously a house payment like a mortgage, that's debt and most people have that. So the question becomes is that all we need to have? And maybe we could rope this into the Ramsey discussion.
[00:29:03] Speaker C: Credit cards wrong, right?
[00:29:05] Speaker B: Are credit cards wrong? Because that's Dave Ramsey's take is no credit cards, no car payments, basically no anything except a house payment.
So again, these are the questions that Christians have. What should our response be and what should Godly counsel towards Christians be as far as debt goes? Is car payments wrong or credit cards wrong? Is a house payment wrong?
[00:29:26] Speaker C: Wow, thanks.
I wanted to be asking the questions today. Yeah.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: Well played, Will. High five on that.
[00:29:32] Speaker C: Yeah, that's good.
Do I think all debt is an idea? To be honest with you, I think Dave Ramsey has a lot of good points.
I think he's insanely idealistic in today's world with inflation, with everything else.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: He'S.
[00:29:52] Speaker C: Got great principles to live by. I do think the cash method and putting aside like an emergency fund as fast as possible, I think he's got a lot of great ideas. So this is kind of blending because obviously he's the big get out of debt guy.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: I mean, the debt snowball is just sound advice. Pay that and roll it over until you pay everything off.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: I mean, that's the smallest and up to the biggest. Yeah, I think that's a brilliant idea. So I think Dave Ramsey has a ton that he gets right. I do think the idea of taking on no debt, I don't think Solomon was having to deal with car payments back. Know, with house payments back then. That's just not the way that it was.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: Chariot payments, maybe.
[00:30:30] Speaker C: Chariot.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: That's a good point. Horse palace payments. Palace.
[00:30:33] Speaker C: Dude, you got a palomino horse. That's incredible.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Palace. Can you imagine the monthly on this thing?
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Wonder what interest rate he got.
[00:30:45] Speaker C: Yeah, insurance. Cost of fortune on this thing.
But I do think that not all debt is wrong, because it's an idealistic view to say that we're all going to be able to afford everything up front. These were different times back then. However, I think there are very clear times when debt becomes wrong and I think when debt becomes the master of you, which really is kind of that idea of Proverbs 22 seven, the rich rules over the poor. The borrower is the slave of the lender. When that starts to become a master over you and you're just making credit card payment after credit card payment to catch up and you have no handle on the debt that you have in your life. I remember watching a Dave Ramsay video maybe a month back of he had a caller that called in and this young couple that I think was younger than us, like younger than 29, I think they were like 20 maybe somewhere around there, they had like $240,000 in debt and he was just like, what? And you start looking at house payment, car payment.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: Well, not just that.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: Student loans too.
[00:31:40] Speaker C: Student loans, exactly. Student loans are killer. So, yeah, we can very quickly get it out of control with all of the spending.
You have to know when it's become master over you and when month after month, it's like, we are just keeping up. We're not actually getting ahead on these things.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: Well, I'll share my take and then Jack, I don't know if you've got a thought here, unless you're inheriting millions of dollars from your parents or something like that, I don't think anybody's going to be able to buy a house without going into debt for the house, you know what mean? Like, that's basically impossible unless you just want to rent an apartment your entire life, which financially, again, not the greatest thing there. And so, no, I don't think all debt is wrong. I also think, and this will tie into a discussion we'll have in a bit about kind of frivolous spending. I do think there is a certain amount of debt that is wrong in the sense that if you know ahead of time that you're going to have a really hard time paying it back or may not even be able to pay it back or keep up with the payments. Yeah, that's a problem if you're making $60,000 a year and you're like, man, I really want a RollsRoyce, let me just go ahead and take out a loan on a RollsRoyce. Yeah, that debt is not a good idea, you know what I mean? My philosophy with credit card payments is or with credit cards is I have a credit card, but I have the money in the bank to pay it back. Like, I just pay the whole thing every single month, honestly, just to rack up the Southwest points. That's pretty much the only reason I do it. In that instance, of course, I don't think there's a problem with it. Where I think you can get into problems with it is I don't have this money in the bank. However, I really want the new iPhone. I really want to go on this really nice vacation. I'm sure I'll figure out a way to make up the money somehow getting into dangerous territory, if that's your philosophy, you know what I mean? And so, no, I don't think all debt is wrong, honestly. A lot of it I think, has to do with the attitude, has to do with the mindset of I really want to kind of overstretch my limits here as far as my budget and the money that I have, because I want the nice things and I want to maybe even present that I'm richer than I am. Yeah, that is a problem. But all that, no. Jack, any thoughts before we move on to spending?
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Yeah, one of the just a couple of quibbles with Dave Ramsay. He's really bad at math. He told a lot of people. I mean, he's obviously good at math in some ways, but don't get into a house until you can do your 20% down and a 15 year mortgage. If I had taken that advice, I would not be a homeowner and probably would not be for the next decade. Minimum. We got an FHA at like, a 3.2%. Didn't have to put 20% down. We were able to when Texas housing spiked, we were able to sell that, make a really nice profit and get into way better land. Out here, the house is lesser. We took a step back on the house budgetarily, but we're saving tons of money living out here that if I had said, okay, I'm just going to sit here and nest egg until I can get my 20% and I can afford I've got my income to where I can afford a 15 year mortgage. The interest rates went from some people got it at two to what, eight.
You're never making that up. And there are a lot of people that did not buy a house because Dave Ramsay told them not to, who now can't and probably will not be able to for years to come. That's awful. That is on him. And it's a math thing. Again, your 15 years. Yeah, it's a little bit more a month and they say you get it paid off quicker, but when the interest rates were that low, it was worth it to you to just get into one, sit on that interest rate that's.
[00:34:57] Speaker C: Not going to be that big down principal faster.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, there's a million ways you can get out of that. But the other thing is, with the interest you're getting on that, you can get savings accounts that pay you a higher interest on your money, stash your payment in that rather than paying it off to the bank, you're making more interest than you're losing. But this is a little bit complex to do on a radio show. Right. And so it's just well, 15 years, that sounds really good. Same thing with credit cards. What Will was saying, if you're good for it to pay it off every month and you're not going over what's coming in credit cards. We have southwest cards. I'm starting to look at other ones. You can do ridiculous amounts of things.
[00:35:37] Speaker B: That they are flown to Hawaii twice for free because of credit cards. Yeah.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: I mean, there's people that vacation all over the people on budgets like you and me, normal people budgets who vacation all over the world for free because credit cards are gambling on credit cards, make their money on the poorly budgeting. People who don't have the money, who get in behind on the interest and.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: Really get in trouble.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: The people who are responsible can take advantage of these things to unbelievable lengths. You just have to be disciplined. And so Dave Ramsey's thing is basically, well, you're not going to be disciplined, so let's plan around that.
Again, on a radio show, it's a lot to expect people to be, but so it's good basic advice, but you need to grow past it, is what I would say.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: There's nuance to it.
[00:36:21] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead.
[00:36:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I was going to say I want to get into the spending discussion briefly. Will and I are on the Gym podcast. Make sure you go and check out Godly young men if you have not yet for the young men, for the young women out there, I would say invest early from the saving point of view. Invest early because of compound interest. If you get in at 20 years old and are just putting a little bit in, you're going to be a millionaire by the time you're 60. So just from some sound advice, the earlier you can start investing in something, the earlier you can put it into an account. Get with some investment guy, whatever it may be. I'm not the smartest on investments, but compound interest is a real thing and if you get in at 20 versus 35, you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in difference, even if you're investing a little bit at a time. So do that. And I think, yes, work your tail off as much as you can when you're young to really maybe not a workaholic, but set your family up, set yourself up, do what you can. And the skills to your point, Jack, and we'll move on. The skills that you gain if you have a get rich quick scheme, you learn nothing there. The thing that I knew about my dad is even if he failed, the skills that he had and everything he had acquired up to that point were so valuable that even if the business ended up failing, we never worried that he would go find another job. In a get rich quick scheme, you lose it. It's like, well, it was a flash in the pan one time, there's no way I get it again. So build your skills as much as possible in that saving period when you're young and yeah, see how that sets your family for the future.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: To all the guys out there, I think we talked about this on the Gym podcast episode about age 20 to age 30, maybe 35. Those are your prime money making years. The times you're going to have the time, you're going to have the most energy and the most passion, the most zeal. Get out and work for it and sacrifice some things. Maybe sacrifice again your Netflix Binges and whatnot. Well, guys, we just spent 40 minutes on saving. We've got two more categories to get to. Joe, did you have another thought before we get into I was going to.
[00:38:14] Speaker C: Say we forgot to say this really fast.
We said this on the gym. You aren't more holy for being poor. Okay?
There's no holiness in being poor. And some people, some Christians look at it that way of like I'm the.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: Message that a lot of pulpits insinuate yes.
[00:38:30] Speaker C: Is what I would oh, you know, blessed be the poor type of thing. Yeah, that's not exactly what Jesus is talking about as the guy who's too lazy and is broke, but blessed be that guy because he's really poor. That's not what's being talked about in Beatitudes. And that's not what we should be aiming for as Christians is to be broke where everybody has to take care of us, whether that be through welfare or anything else. You're not more holy for being poor. I just wanted to get that out there as well. That doesn't mean you're less holy for being poor either. It means, I will say, if you are poor through your own laziness, that's a problem. If you're poor but you're trying to make ends meet, hey, it's not that you're worse or better than anybody else, man, that frustrates me when Christianity kind of puts that at a higher level. And any rich person, we get into the demonizing the 1%, like we're Bernie Sanders or something wrong. Do not demonize those people just because they're rich. The rich a lot of times worked for their wealth. They did things that you were not willing to do. Don't demonize them for that.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: We take the whole approach of money can lead you astray, and the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. So let's just run the other direction. No, that's not what the Bible teaches, but that's where a lot of people run towards, is, well, it's just better to not be rich. Not necessarily. Okay, spending.
[00:39:39] Speaker C: Let's get into spending.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: Yes, we've already kind of hinted at it with the discussion about frivolous spending with the debt and all that. So let's continue that discussion. And really, I guess the question is, what does good stewardship look like? If you are a married couple and you are trying to figure out, okay, what are we going to spend money on, day to day, week to week, month to month, where does spending get frivolous and where can it delve into, okay, you're being a poor steward of what God has blessed you with? Again, we already touched on it a little bit with the debt thing, but what else would you guys add to this discussion of spending that might be frivolous stewardship, that might be looked at as that's very poor stewardship, because we can all look at, again, the guy that's making $60,000 that goes out and buys a Lamborghini. Yeah, that's pretty poor stewardship, but that's kind of a drastic example. What are some maybe other examples of this? Jack, did you have something that you wanted to bring up here?
[00:40:35] Speaker A: I was just going to say you need your baseline, figure out what your bills cost, figure out your groceries, whatever, like those minimum things, and then you see what you've got left over. And I think it's really important to prioritize for yourself and your wife, because if you're not paying attention, money just goes out the door. You're walking through walmart, oh, they got one of these. I'll throw this on and then you just don't have it. Whereas if you're choosing and that's one of these other things as a husband, it's kind of like we won't spend it. And then if we want to go out to eat, we'll do that. Well, maybe my wife wants a new rug. Let's set some aside. Okay, honey, what matters to you or even just tell her, hey, here's some. Do whatever you want with it. We've got this in the account. We've got room for this.
Whatever you think we need, all right, do it. And that's kind of a proverbs 31 woman thing. She's able to take care of her house. I want to have that for her. And so you get your baseline, you figure out what you do have to spend, and then you figure out ways that address what both of you are interested in that you can add onto it. And that might be restaurants, streaming services, things like that, that were the first things that you got to cut out when things go bad. But when you have it, all right, what do we want to do? Is the question you need to ask and then figure it out from there to that point.
[00:41:50] Speaker B: To me, that's the whole point of a budget. People always hear budget and think, oh, spending restrictions, right? I can't spend money on this and that, and I just have to basically buy food and gas and pay the bills, and that's all I can do.
Yeah, the point of a budget is knowing where your money is going every single month. I take every single transaction that we what did we spend versus what did we bring in, and essentially, obviously, money to set aside for church and savings and retirement. And then after that, basically all I'm doing to check is not necessarily what did we overspend on or underspend on, because we have certain categories, but mostly, did we end at a surplus or a deficit? Because guess what? If we're at a deficit every single month and we're losing money, we're being poor stewards, we're spending too much money on restaurants and coffee and fill in the blank golf courses, whatever. But that's to me, the point of the budget is you know where your money is going, and you get to direct it and control it. And essentially, it's not a restriction mandate that a lot of people think that it is. It's simply you take control, you take ownership. And that's, to me, what being a bad steward is, is like, you're talking about Jack. Like, I don't really know where my paycheck goes. Yeah, it comes in, then it's gone, and yeah, I don't really know what happens to it. You're being a poor steward. You're not managing your money. You're not managing your families and their finances well. And I made this point me and Joe together, I guess, made this point in the Godly Young Men podcast episode about this. If you are a frivolous spender, and if you are not one of those guys that doesn't really pay attention to finances and just kind of lets his paycheck get y'all, spend it on whatever, you're failing your spouse, you're failing your family. You as a man have to understand financial accountability and financial responsibility, because if you don't, you've got a family that's relying on you that, again, you are failing. So that, to me, is an important discussion that all guys need to understand. Joe, how about you? What do you have to add?
[00:43:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say a couple of things. First off, we realize budget as much as you can. I think a budget is huge. This is stepping all over my toes because I am not great at this. One of the reasons I'm not great at this is because when you do own your own business, and I saw this with mom and dad, it's feast or famine. So I do realize that some of this can be idealistic, where you go, I don't know what I'm going to bring in every month. And that makes it very difficult to budget. Do the best you can.
Some months are going to be better than other months. When you do have a surplus, know where that's going to go or what you plan to do when there's going to be a lot of money coming in and maybe set it aside for later. I always think of guys that own their own landscaping company. I mean, in the summers you are raking it in. Well, what do you do in the winters? And, yeah, usually they go find something else, but you know what I mean?
[00:44:26] Speaker A: In the fall, you're raking it in. In the summer, you're mowing this guy.
[00:44:31] Speaker C: Okay, so anyway, I'm not fast enough to come with another stupid pun on the spot, so we'll move on.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: Do you want me to leave?
Don't get me started. Let's move on. Let's move on.
[00:44:47] Speaker C: Anyway, so my point is, yes, I realize there are going to be some people who are self employed. This makes it very difficult. I think it's important to understand what it represents to you and why you are spending money. And this is what steps all over my toes.
Know, my dad grew up jack, as you said, we're using dad as an illustration all over. So, dad, if you're listening hey, how are you? Shout out. Thanks for shout out. Exactly. Thanks for being he didn't have a ton growing up, and so when he got older, yeah, there was probably some frivolous spending spending on some things that he never would have gotten as a know, the toys, things like that.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:45:19] Speaker C: He now knows why he's doing that. Right. And that's something to check is to say, why do I need this thing? Well, it's probably going back to that for me. Eating out is a big thing for me. What does it represent? It's kind of the freedom and the time with my wife that I don't otherwise get. I mean, I spend way too much money on that. But it also represents, like, this is the only time to really slow down life is what it feels like. And so you have to understand it in your frivolous spending, why you're doing what you're doing.
[00:45:43] Speaker B: Well, and to the point that I brought up a second ago, Joe, if you looked at your finances every month and you're like, yeah, we're spending a lot of money on eating out and we're losing money every single month, you'd probably do something about it. You know what I mean? You probably see that as a big problem. But again, in the instance of making sure that you're not losing money every month, you're still putting some away for savings, retirement, that kind of thing.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:02] Speaker C: Then good for you.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, frivolous spending is subjective.
[00:46:06] Speaker C: I guess, but yeah, you have to know your heart. But I wanted to bring up a brief discussion on gambling.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: Actually, hold that thought. Let's push that to the deep end on Friday.
Focuspress.org plus. If you want to join Focus Plus get access to the deep end, we'll just give the gambling discussion a little bit more breathing room as we're running out of time already. Is there anything else in this section we need to cover before we move on?
[00:46:31] Speaker C: I want you to get in, Jack, to a discussion on strategic use of money for Evangelism before we, with our seven minutes remaining, get into the giving discussion.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: We can't do all this time on saving and spending and then like three minutes on giving.
[00:46:44] Speaker C: That's not a great we're going to have to maybe do a part two on this.
[00:46:47] Speaker A: No, because that'll be about 10% of the podcast.
[00:46:50] Speaker C: Oh, nice.
[00:46:51] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:46:52] Speaker C: We're tithing for our go ahead discussion.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: There you go. No, just the strategic thing is I've heard people do this. I've tried to do this taking some of the money, some of your spending money budgeting towards. I'm going to shop at the same local store every time. And it might be a little bit more than doing a Walmart pickup or whatever, but I'm really getting to meet people, go through the same lines, kind of become a regular and have name. When I was in ministry in the Dallas area, I had a coffee shop. I spent a few bucks every week to go get a coffee there regularly. I knew everybody who worked there by name. They knew me by name.
It opens up those doors of conversation, just things you can be involved in in the local community, whether it's having your kids in projects or whatever. And I think that's a good idea, actually, to strategically spend on things you might want to do anyway, or money you might be spending, as is grocery bill or whatever, and figure out, how can I do this to connect with people? How can I do this? Maybe evangelistically to encourage people, whatever the case may be. And so just a brief point, a thought of how can you use that stuff?
[00:47:52] Speaker C: Because you could have gone to you know, you could have just done the drive thru. It's convenient, it's fast. Everybody knows Starbucks. You could have done that instead. You invested in a local coffee shop and you ended up having some really meaningful discussions, spiritual discussions with people there, and they knew you and they knew the church you're involved with and such. I mean, I think that's such a valuable point. I don't want people to miss that. If you're going to spend the money anyway, maybe it might be a little less convenient. Maybe take the time to be strategic in how you're doing it. And we're also going to say be strategic in the boycotts as well. Brief point here. We've talked about this before. You know that we are very big on boycotting Disney. Your money does matter and where you spend it. We are one of the first ones that I'm aware of to say boycott Disney. This goes back to last year. So I'm going to shout ourselves out for being ahead of this. It is a train wreck. It's getting worse.
We've had the boycott discussion, don't Boycot, every last thing. I suppose we want to do it within the bounds of logic and everything else, but it goes back to the same point of just be strategic with where your money goes, because it does matter. Fellas, are we good to wrap up on the spending point? We had budget tips and whatnot people know.
Yeah, we'll go past that. Let's get into a giving discussion, a brief, somewhat giving discussion. First question. I've been asking all the questions. I will answer this one first. Do Christians have to give?
Do Christians have to give? And to that point, I think we have to be giving people. Yes, I do think that the charity, the charitable aspect of Christianity is rampant throughout the New Testament and throughout the to get rid of their sins and everything else, all the offerings, sacrifices, things like that, it cost them something. They had to bring something to God. David says, Why would I bring to God that which cost me nothing? So we have it Old Testament, New Testament alike, going back to Cain, abel job's, making sacrifices for his kids in the patriarchal time. I mean, this is a biblical concept all the way through.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: The ultimate example is the widow's Might. I mean, she had nothing and she gave, and so there's not anybody excluded from the work of giving in some way.
[00:49:52] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great point. So I guess we're all in agreement. I think every Christian has to give.
Is there, I guess, a specific rule? What about tithing 10%? Do we think 10% or should Christians be giving 20%? Should we not have any budget on it? 5%? What are your guys'thoughts so we've got.
[00:50:11] Speaker B: On here is tithing a requirement guideline, good idea or bad idea of those? I think good idea is what it most closely falls into. I don't think it's a requirement, as in for people who are not giving 10%. It's wrong. You could say it's a guideline. I think it's a good idea. 10% is a good idea. And something that I really appreciated, that my parents did when I was young, is they taught me anytime I would get birthday money or anytime we had a funny jack made the raking leaves pun. Earlier we had a leaf raking business that we did in the Falls, and we'd get $20 a yard or whatever, which, man, people were scalping us. $20 a yard. That's crazy. But anyway, anytime we would you weren't raking it in. That was not raking it in. Anytime we'd get paid like that. As kids, my parents taught us, hey, put aside $20. Put $2 aside. You got $10 for birthday money, put a dollar aside. And so that's something that I got into us as siblings got in the habit of. So I think that's a really good idea as far as nowadays, couples trying to budget, trying to figure out how much money they're giving, god loves a cheerful giver. We know that from two corinthians nine. I would lean more on the generous side than the not generous side. I guess I'll put it that way. If you're sitting here going, well, how much can we give? We've got subscriptions to Hulu, HBO, Max, Netflix, and Disney Plus and Peacock, so I can probably only give XYZ.
Your priorities are a little out of whack there, so I would lean more on the generous side. 10% to me is a great guideline. It's a really good idea. Somewhere in that range. What do you guys think?
[00:51:50] Speaker A: I call it a guideline in that it just kind of gives you a baseline to be roughly in that range. Sometimes it might be lower if you can go over great. I've always looked at biblical giving. I've used the illustration. It's probably not original. To me is just the open hand of everything you have. Just put it out there and there's going to be times where God, there's an opportunity to give more. And you should just not clutch tightly to that, but say, okay, it's open, take what you need. And whether it's a mission opportunity, whether it's somebody really in need, just a quick benevolence work or whatever, have that open hand where you're willing to go above and beyond what you had budgeted for. Because the other thing is, when you have an open hand, god can take stuff out of it sometimes and he puts it back in. You see that happen. And it's a real blessing when you're open with money that God does take and give and you have what you need. He's watching over his own. I think that's a very Matthew Six principle. He takes care of us. And so, yeah, I think 10% is a good guideline. It's not a requirement. It's just a good idea to start thinking in that range and then from there, yeah, just give and take it's. Give as you are.
[00:52:58] Speaker C: Prospered.
[00:52:58] Speaker A: Sometimes you're not prospered enough. You're not prosperous. Enough to the point where you can do 10%. Okay, give what you can.
But again, have that open hand mindset of I'll give. And even if I don't feel like I have it sometimes, but the opportunity is there. I'll give and trust that God will make that up to me. And he does. I mean, he watches over for obviously not like give everything away, but just within reason. If an opportunity arises, don't be stingy with it.
[00:53:23] Speaker C: Well, I think that's important, kind of that biblical discussion of the Pharisees like Corbin, I think it's called, of, hey, well, I have ties to God. Don't give everything away. Make sure that you're taking care of your family first and foremost, because you do see people that give and give and give and give and that's fantastic, but they don't really hardly have enough and then they have to have people give to them. There's nothing wrong with taking care of your family. That's a big reason why you make money, as we've already put that out. So make sure that you're giving. I love generous people. I think that's fantastic. I think we all should be. But make sure you're being smart with it and taking care of your own first. And so I think there are times where you can cut back if you're really struggling. But this gets us into the last part of the discussion that I am excited about. I don't really want to cut this one short, so we may just go a little long on it.
When should we, or rather, what should we as a church be doing with our money? Because let me set it up. The thing that came to my mind, and I want you to both get into maybe some points you brought up. Thing that came to my mind is, look, we have a church, let's say $100,000 in the bank. They've been saving for a long time. It's been around for a number of years. They got $100,000 in the bank, don't really have plans for it. It's kind of a nest egg type thing. I personally, I've been involved in churches like this. It's difficult to give because you're going, all right, mine's not going toward any mission work. It's not going toward, look, the building's paid off. There's all sorts of things.
[00:54:40] Speaker B: They're just sitting on it.
[00:54:41] Speaker A: You're saying we're paying the preacher, but.
[00:54:43] Speaker C: You'Re sitting on it. I'm just growing your bank account. I'm not interested in growing a church's bank account. I'm interested in my money going out to help further the work of the kingdom or the church, as we always say in the giving discussion on Sundays. Sometimes furthering the work of the church for these churches means building that bank account from 100,000 to 150,000 over the year. I don't agree with that. Personally. I want to know that the money we're putting in. However, you can't have a church that has 2000 in the bank and then if something happens on the building. So I know there's wisdom to why we keep some of that money in the bank. At the same time, I think there's a balance to be struck there, if that makes sense.
[00:55:19] Speaker B: This is why I'm very appreciative of, and I think most congregations actually do this, of handing out a very detailed list of, like, this is where the money is going.
As far as this is what we received contribution wise last year, this is where it went, this is what we plan to do with it this year. I think that's great because to your point, Joe, the idea of, well, I'm going to give my X amount of dollars every week, and I don't really know where it goes. I know the preachers paid, I know the building's taken care of, but maybe we do one mission. Maybe we have one mission work we fund, and that's about it. Yeah, that's so I have that thought of I appreciate the elders and congregations that do that, that provide details as far as this is where your money is going. I also would say this is why I think a lot of Christians and I think it's a good idea, support works of the church in ways that is not just giving on Sunday morning. Works like Focus Press that are very reliant on people saying, hey, I'll pay $10 a month for Focus plus, hey, I'll subscribe to the Think magazine. I'll donate one time here and there. Works like us, and we're certainly not the only one, but works that are not necessarily you dropping a 20 in the plate on Sunday morning. I think that's really good. And I think we as Christians should look for ways to, I guess, should look for outlets to use our money for those purposes for things we believe in. As far as the congregation that's just kind of sitting on the money, look, I've also been a part of congregations where they spent a lot of money on the building, but it wasn't for call it structural major issues. It was, let's beautify it a little bit, let's install an elevator that's useless. Let's kind of add to our marketing appeal.
That to me, we talked about frivolous spending. That's frivolous church spending, in my opinion, and I don't want to necessarily get us down this rabbit hole here, but this is why I think members should have an active involvement in knowing where the money is going. Not so you can dictate anything. But money can be spent in a lot of different ways. And simply always trying to just add to our market brand appeal of, again, beautifying the building. Not even structural air conditioning type of things, but just let's make it prettier. Let's do this, let's do that, when it could be spent in so many other better opportunities and outlets. I think we have a little bit of reason to gripe about that. If that makes sense. Jack, what do you think as far as what should we be doing with church money?
[00:57:50] Speaker A: There's that quote about one of the founding fathers of, well, this is all going to work great until the people realize they can vote themselves money out of the treasury. I think that happens with a lot of churches, is some people figure out, oh, there's a lot of money in this church account, or there's a lot of money coming in every week. What can we do with it? How can we make this? What part of the building do we want to use the most? And so we'll really upgrade that for ourselves. Or I'm going to step on some short term mission trips. I mean, we've been on somewhere. It's kind of like, what are we doing here? Why are churches paying for this? This is an hour a day of door knocking and then, all right, let's go to the amusement park. Hang on. Now I'll get a vacation paid for workers worthy of their wages. All that and missions should be supported, for sure. I do think there's very much an industry of taking that church account and, well, here's a part of the world I'd like to see. I mean, I've seen the kind of thing where, man, everybody signs up for the mission trip to name tourist destination, right? Not as many people sign up for the one to Central America, that kind of thing. And so that's something that churches, especially elders, really need to keep tabs on, is what are we doing with this very much as a deacon role as well. Have a deacon that you trust, that is multiple deacons that are advising how this is being used. Because it's very easy for people to just start voting themselves, vacations, voting themselves, all kinds of things that really the church work money should not be going to.
[00:59:23] Speaker C: I think there's a few things that fall on this list. I do think there's legitimate short term I'm not a big fan of short term missions, though. I've been on a few of them myself. I think when you're going down to help build a school or whatever, help build some homes, and you are working around the clock in Mexico yeah. That's a different thing than what I've done in terms of going to Europe or whatever else. And you do a little bit. I mean, yeah, when churches are doing that, I'm calling myself out on that one just as much, though I did pay for my own way to get over there. But, yeah, we need to be smarter about that. I would also say, here we go again. Potshots at VBS taken. People spend thousands of dollars making this VBS, turning the church into a Star Wars land.
[01:00:06] Speaker A: Come on, people.
[01:00:07] Speaker C: Is that really I mean, we can't help Lil Miss Betty so and so with $50 on her electric bill. It's like, boy, we better get together and talk about this, but then when VBS comes, it's like, oh, six grand to put in an X wing. Okay, I guess we will. Drives me nuts, man. Drives me what are we doing? What are we doing? And let's step on a few more toes while we're here. Maybe will, I don't know if you want to take this.
[01:00:30] Speaker B: We're at the end of the episode, Joe.
[01:00:32] Speaker C: We're taking shots here. Letter rip lectureships. Let's invite 40 speakers in and pay them their fee so we can have a couple of people come and get encouraged here. What are we doing? Like, churches spend exorbitant amounts of money on lectureships, and I think it's all to be part of the lectureship circuit. Like, wow, we're a destination for lectureships, and people are coming to here, and it's almost like we have some tourism board at the church that decides that if we put lectureships in, that's going to cause people to come and visit our congregation.
And I know that's horrible. That's cynical. Everything else. I know it's to build people up, but it's like, how many more lectureships do we need? We've got a bazillion of one lectureships for people to travel to. And people spend like churches spend so much money on that that's, like could you imagine if we had really put this into evangelism of the community? If we had looked to see what other things that we really could be doing in our area or the church members that actually need it instead of thousands of dollars on lectureships.
[01:01:31] Speaker B: We talked. I think this was on our Focus Plus deep end edition of one of our more recent episodes about what's preventing churches from basically pooling a bunch of money and starting a local school controlled by the church so that parents can pull their kids out of public school so that you can give them a look. Again, we're home school advocates here, but for some people, that's just not going to fly. And so, hey, band together, pull the money together, and give them an alternative, a really good, solid alternative to public schools. Why can't we do that? Because we're spending money on all this other stuff. And so, again, I think there's nothing wrong with a couple and a family saying, I want to spend this money on this lectureship and go be spiritually encouraged. No problem. Here. It is what it is, right? What we're talking about is the exorbitant amount of congregational spending on constant edification, constant encouragement. This, lectureship that, lectureship when there are so many more practical things we could be doing, like doing some kind of schooling program for kids, like talk about short term mission work. How about a short term mission trip within your community, if that makes sense. Like, really put that money towards how can we go out and help people? How can we go out and serve? How can we go out and pay for eight guys, ten guys in your congregation pay for them to take a week off of work so that they can go and serve the congregation so they can go and doorknock do XYZ? No, our attitude is we pay a minister for that. These are some of the problems that we just want to bring up as we get ready to wrap this episode is let's start thinking very critically about how much money congregations are spending and where the money is going. We're not sitting up here saying, we've got all the answers on where the money should go. That's not it at all. We're simply asking and encouraging everybody listening. Let's think about a little deep. Let's think deeper, right? That's the whole point of this podcast. Let's think a little bit deeper. Let's ask the questions of, is that a good use of the money to send the youth group to Six Flags where they go to a gospel meeting also, and so they call it a spiritual trip or a mission trip or whatever? Is that the best use of money? Again, all these things we brought up lectureships, short term missions, all these things. We're just encouraging people to ask these deep questions, to think a little bit deeper on this because we're encouraging everybody to give. We think Christians should give. Where the money goes is important. Guys, anything to yeah, go ahead.
[01:03:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to address something because I've seen this accusation of hypocrisy brought up. We started the episode by, you know, Think Deeper seminar, went out to California, if you want to have us to your church. And then we're at the end, hey, lectureships, paying these guys. Let me tell you the difference.
I was around some lectureships growing up. In fact, I went and picked some guys up at the airport. Guy flies in. Flights are not cheap. And as Joe saying, literally 25, 30 guys in a weekend, go pick him up from the airport, take him to the building, he speaks, get him back on a plane, fly home.
What we do was a little bit different. We came in Friday, Saturday, Sunday. We ate with the folks. We spent a lot of time with the folks. We were there all night, late Friday night, all day Saturday into Sunday. And then after it was done, we met with a couple of church leaders to kind of workshop with them. All right, how are we going to help you guys implement some things? We're going to follow up with them. It was very much workshop, and I think that's something it was more than.
[01:04:46] Speaker B: A pep rally, right?
[01:04:47] Speaker A: That's something we really want to do with our focus. Press lectures, seminars, meetings, whatever we put on is really help you solve some problems in your congregation, really sit down, get to know you, give you some pointers, give you some things that we've learned along the way and not just leave. And it's like, oh, that was fun. That guy came in that one time. But no, literally, let's set up some things. And that was what we were meeting with those church leaders for. What can change as a result of this?
We really wanted to drill down and say, let's leave you with practical stuff so it's not in one ear and out the other. Oh, we had a fun weekend together. There's a big difference between, all right, let's bring in a guy to speak on one thing and hey, let's come in and troubleshoot where we are as a congregation and figure out how. And so we really do try to be something different. And again, as we said, it was very generous of them to bring us across country.
We don't have speakers fees.
People are always generous to give us something out of it. This is a thing we're trying to do to help the church, and I think that's a little bit different than the man. Let's have every big name brother in the church out for a weekend and 30 people. And I remember a preacher friend of mine took over a church that had one of those things going, and he said they spent $50,000 on their lectureship the year before. And immediately he went in and trimmed it down to, like, ten, just from not doing that much, from asking guys to speak twice instead of once, from asking things like that and taking that money, $40,000, and putting it into other works of the church, rethink these things. Figure out what we're trying to do with these events beyond just having an event. Because we're at the point now where in the churches of Christ, holidays aside, almost every single weekend of the year, you can point to some major seminar, major lectureship, major thing going on with a bunch of guys flying across the country back and forth. It's this big circuit that, again, is fly in, give a speech, fly back out. What are we accomplishing with all that? And so I did want to get to the difference, because I'd seen that accusation, oh, these guys are anti lectureship and they want you to come speak. We really are trying to do something different with it.
[01:06:50] Speaker C: That's a great point to make, fellas. Anything else that we want to get to? I think this is going to wrap us up, unless you guys have anything else that you want to add here. So saving spending.
[01:07:01] Speaker B: One thing that I would encourage would be the last thing I'll say.
You read on Facebook a lot and you hear people say, man, why don't they teach kids in school this stuff about money and how to save and how to invest and taxes and all this stuff? You could ask the exact same question about parents. And so I want to encourage all the parents. Make sure you're teaching your kids this stuff. Make sure you're setting up the piggy banks for your kids when they're young. Make sure you're teaching them about giving and why Christians have a responsibility to give. Make sure you're teaching them about investing and saving and debt and taxes and all these things. Man, that's some of the most important information that they're going to need to learn throughout their lives. Especially again, to belabor the point for guys as they're supposed to be raising their family as they're financially responsible for their family. Man if you got a ten year old if you got a twelve year old if you got an eight year old, start teaching them these things up until when they leave your home because it is so important, it is such a major part of our life. Again, thus the reason why we felt, let's devote an episode to it. And so that's all I had to add, Joe. I don't know if you have anything else you want to wrap us up with.
[01:08:02] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I think it used to be balance your checkbook. It's no longer balance your checkbook necessarily, but they still need to have an understanding what the checkout looks like, right? Exactly. To my point.
[01:08:12] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:08:13] Speaker C: Yeah. So looking at it, look, we're going to throw this out to you guys. What tips, what tricks do you have?
What things would you add to this discussion? Do you disagree with us in some ways? Maybe you disagree with us, of course, to our deep thinkers. Let us know in Facebook or whatever else. To those on Patreon. We will get to your discussions, of course, on Friday, as per usual with that fellas. Anything else? All right, we will wrap right there and we'll talk to you again next week.
Channel.
