Unhinged Christian
Welcome to Unhinged Christian Podcast, where we dive deep into the stories and perspectives that challenge conventional religious thought. Join me, Caleb Parker, your host and fellow seeker, as we embark on a journey to explore spirituality, faith, and humanity from a refreshingly open-minded perspective.
In each episode, I sit down with guests from diverse backgrounds and walks of life. From artists to activists, scientists to philosophers, we engage in candid conversations that transcend the boundaries of traditional Christian discourse. Together, we unravel the complexities of belief, doubt, and the human experience in the context of modern society.
Whether you identify as a devout believer, a skeptic, or something in between, Unhinged Christian offers a space for exploration and discovery. No topic is off-limits as we challenge assumptions, confront taboos, and embrace the richness of our shared humanity.
Join us as we navigate the intersections of faith, doubt, and everything in between. Tune in to Unhinged Christian and open your mind to a new dimension of spiritual inquiry.
Unhinged Christian
034: Wealth and Faith: The Balance Between Financial Security and Spiritual Reliance. With Pastor Ronson and Pastor Christian
What happens when financial security starts to overshadow spiritual reliance? Join us as we explore this profound tension through personal stories and the teachings of the Bible. We delve into the spiritual and moral implications of possessing substantial wealth and how it can subtly shift our dependence away from God. With biblical stories like the rich young ruler, we discuss how financial resources such as health insurance might impact one's spiritual journey, potentially reducing the need to lean on faith for basic needs. The challenge of maintaining faith amidst wealth sparks a thought-provoking discussion about the importance of addressing money's spiritual aspects in our church communities.
Balancing financial responsibilities with spiritual practice can often feel like a juggling act. We reflect on the difficult choices between working overtime to make ends meet and creating a life rhythm that honors the Sabbath and cherishes quality time with loved ones. This episode encourages self-reflection, prompting questions about our spending habits and lifestyle choices—do they align with spiritual values or merely offer the illusion of security? We also discuss the potential of forming money accountability groups to deepen our reflection and ensure our financial decisions resonate with our faith principles.
We navigate broader societal themes, discussing money's role in Christian theology, stewardship, politics, and healthcare. With insights from our guests, Ronson—a pastor and coffee shop owner— and Christian, a full time pastor. We examine the functioning of wealthy societies and the pitfalls of wealth concentration. The conversation extends to political ideologies, corporate responsibility, and the complexities of healthcare systems, all while maintaining a critical eye on how these issues intersect with our faith. Join us for an engaging and insightful exploration of how wealth impacts both personal and communal spiritual journeys.
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We're going to try and get this wrapped up, because you've got to get to the hockey game, sure, and so we'll start off with each of you introducing your names and telling us what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm Christian and there's that clap. It's going to be in there. Yeah, so I am a pastor, so I'm glad to be a part of the pastor crew on your podcast. I work at a church here in Kentwood and I do work with middle school and high school students. It's pretty awesome. I love it.
Speaker 1:Is that your full-time job? Yeah, that is, it is full-time.
Speaker 3:Yep, my name is Ronson. I am a pastor as well, but I don't get paid for it, so I work at a house church network. It's really small, part-time, but full-time. I run a coffee shop here in Grand Rapids.
Speaker 1:All right, so today we're going to talk about Christianity and money.
Speaker 2:Let's go.
Speaker 1:So where do we want to start?
Speaker 2:Man I Ronson, where do you want to start?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because last thing I heard you say was that, if I heard it correctly, was that you can't have a billion dollars and serve the Lord. Ooh.
Speaker 3:Did you hear that from us?
Speaker 1:I heard that from one of you when we left Manali's Unless I could have misheard.
Speaker 3:Personally, I would make that argument. I would definitely say the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but how do you like? Where's the line drawn?
Speaker 3:Sure sure, the billion dollars thing has not as much to do theologically and more just practically. If you are a billionaire, then you fundamentally. It's really hard to do that without stepping on people and taking advantage of the system. Sure, and so you're fundamentally taking advantage of a flawed system and taking advantage of the poor and vulnerable people who have allowed you to become a billionaire. So in that sense probably not, but I don't think that's. The essence of the question is how much money is too much to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I was thinking about this a little bit on the way over here and I was like man, like I really don't want to win the lottery someday, because I do think that it would. It would be crazy Like just having such a huge like sum of money Like I don't know. I know that it would change me and and so yeah, just kind of like from a moral foundation, like I've just been. One of the things I've discovered or just kind of thought about when I think about the Bible is like I haven't found any passages that really talk about money positively. Yeah, so that's just like a random, like a random foundation, and I think like we've got a lot of wonderful Christian books on money, but I've definitely found a lot that don't talk about it positively. So I would not want to win the lottery. That'd be scary. Having a million dollars Ooh, that's crazy.
Speaker 3:I think a great place to start biblically is like Mark 10. I mean the precedence of the rich young ruler. He's in three of the gospels and I think that's such a great passage because it's just demonstrating to what degree can you have money and follow Jesus from the perspective of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be my question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think so much of it goes down to the more you have, the less you can actually depend on God. And when we have so much, we can only theoretically depend on God, like, oh, I trust God, I trust God with everything, I would give God everything. But if you don't need to give God anything, if you don't need to rely for anything, if you don't need to pray for anything, because fundamentally all your needs are met, your ability to trust God is severely hindered.
Speaker 3:It doesn't mean it's impossible, but Jesus declares that the more you have, you can't really rely on me, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was praising God this past week for health insurance and because, like you know, I've just been going through some random, just like I have what's called like cluster headaches and, you know, super helpful to just get some diagnosis. But I was like man, if I was poor I would be praying a lot more. Like I haven't prayed about it, like it's been good, like people prayed over me, it's been helpful, but like the doctor has been able to give me a diagnosis, give me a prescription, give me a plan that provides me a path forward, if I was poor and couldn't afford, you know, you can see like you can see like okay, insurance paid this percentage, et cetera, et cetera. And I was like man, if I was poor this would have taken longer, you know, at least would have taken me at least two more weeks, you know, and I'm just being kind of generous to like that process of, like I still would have sought help, et cetera and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:But you know, just having health insurance you know it's a simple thing like that Like it definitely creates a different level of relying on God, you know. And so, even just through the past, you know, three weeks of having this like just small little medical thing. Like man, if I was at a slightly less medical access, slightly less, you know, economic access, it would have taken me longer. It would have been more of a spiritual journey. So yeah, it's just something that, like, I think you know, in the church, when we talk about money, we we don't always, you know, talk about the spiritual, just like the spiritual aspects of it as much as we should. We talk about it very practically sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we talk about being good stewards rather than stewarding your relationship with God, in the sense that if you can't rely on God for your basic needs, because your basic needs are more than met, then you have to rely on God in other ways or you'll have to just rely on God in thought, like your salvation, like, oh, I accepted Jesus, but I don't necessarily live for Jesus because I don't need to. It's more of like an intellectual ascent to trusting God, and I think that goes back to the premise of the Desert Fathers and everything that they were doing. It was when Rome accepted Christianity as their religion.
Speaker 3:Christians, who were in constant persecution and constant martyrdom, had to find ways to make Christianity difficult for them so that they could trust God, because suddenly they went from a faith that was built on persecution to a faith that is accepted by everyone. And so these people went out to the desert because they're like it is too easy to just be complacent. Now I need to experience something in which it is difficult. I need to give stuff up for God, because being a Christian means I don't have to give up anything now, if Rome is Christian, I don't need to give up anything to be a Christian, where before you gave up everything to be a Christian, and so they moved out to the desert to do that. And so I think we have to think about our lives today and say, like, do I have to give up anything to be a Christian? Like, actually, day-to-day, is this a sacrifice in any meaningful way that connects me to God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, caleb, how unhinged can we be?
Speaker 1:As we start to build a little theology of money or just kind of talk about the word you can be as unhinged as you want.
Speaker 2:Word. What's your perspective on money? Kind of like, you know, I know we probably all came from a little bit, you know different backgrounds, you know. Just kind of like, well, I would say for me because I'm not.
Speaker 1:I got to turn my headphones up. I have not been, I'm not a theologian, I haven't gone to seminary, I'm not a pastor, so I really don't know anything and that's why I brought you guys on here. But as far as I'm concerned, I think that money is not an issue, as long as you steward it properly. Yeah, because in Proverbs it does say wealth gained over time is a lot better than wealth gained hastily, like if you had won the lottery, yep.
Speaker 3:You think Jesus would say money is not an issue.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I know he says to the rich young ruler right, he says, go and sell your things and he can.
Speaker 2:And he also says that it's harder for a rich person to get to heaven than it is, or it's what's the quote easier for yeah, to go to the eye of a needle yeah I remember, like being in theology class and like I don't even know like who first said it, but I remember, like you know, being in a church where someone's like, oh, like you know that verse about the eye of the needle, and they talked about like, oh, like, there's this place in, like you know that verse about the eye of the needle, and they talked about like, oh, like, there's this place in, like you know Israel, somewhere where there's this like rock structure that they called the eye of the needle, and so like, have you heard this before?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a very prosperity gospel take on it and I heard it and then my professor was just like it's just 100% made up.
Speaker 3:Yeah when I took a trip to Palestine, israel, we went to that place and they're like this is just not true, this doesn't exist. And people say that to try to make the idea of wealth more easier to swallow, Like, okay, we can have money to this extent. It's hard but not possible. But what Jesus is saying is it's impossible. But then later he says but with God all things are possible. And so those things are in tension with one another. It is impossible to follow God's law of money, but all things are possible with God. So it really goes back to do you actually trust him with your life? Is he Lord of your life? If he asked you to give up everything which you did, this rich young man, would you do it and follow him? And for that man?
Speaker 1:no, he couldn't do it right yeah.
Speaker 3:No, but fortunately for us we don't have Jesus saying, will you give up everything to follow me?
Speaker 2:Like if we did, I think we'd have a lot less disciples of Jesus, because they would say, fundamentally, I can't yeah no-transcript and I was like OK, like OK, it's literally impossible and like kind of to, you know, for a wealthy person to have that sort of like maybe mindset and how they approach the relationship with Jesus and you know. But a couple of things you know, I do think. You know, I want to be like I love, like I love everything the church teaches. You know, I remember Ronson and I were part of a class and they kind of had like a it was like a wheel, it was a helpful, it was a helpful wheel Like, but I think in general it's a very american, um, you know, christian church wheel. That was like 25, you know, save 25. You know try to cut off debt, you know 20, try to live off 25. And then it was like what was the other 25?
Speaker 3:I don't remember yeah, but and it's all that is like but does that translate to every amount of money?
Speaker 2:right, yeah, exactly, so, yeah. So that's where I'm going with it.
Speaker 3:It can't possibly translate, because, in my life, say what you will about what percentage of each income, but I know that more than 50% of my income is going to my monthly housing payments and so, fundamentally, with the system that we're in, we can't just decide. No, I think that was a great concept for the 1950s.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:But the economy just doesn't match anymore.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:The cost of living and the wages that we have just are not the same and we can't pretend like they're not. So I think to an extent, we are right now, in 2024, experiencing a little bit more financial dependency. I think a lot of people who were more comfortable are experiencing uncomfortability financially, maybe for the first time, or just more uncomfortability than they've ever been. I know like that's kind of the boat I'm in, like I didn't have to struggle with money, like I had enough, and now I'm like Like I'm I didn't have to struggle with money, like I had enough, and now I'm like, oh boy, I don't always feel like I have enough money.
Speaker 2:I got that house. Gotta start. Gotta start tracking it.
Speaker 3:I get worried when my bills are coming around and. I'm looking. I'm like I get paid on Fridays and I'm like okay, well, the first of the month is on a Thursday, so I'm not getting paid until the next day, but the bills are coming out, and so there is a lot of trust that we need to learn to develop. We need to translate that into do you trust God to provide?
Speaker 3:Because I don't think in the Christian world today we even correlate my financial struggles to my relationship with God. Anymore we don't think about it. It's my relationship with God. And oh, I got to get my bills to pay, I got to get this lined up, I got to work for here. It's like there's no reliance. The only reliance I have frequently for money is my hours, like, oh, I'm working 45 hours, I'm getting some time in the half this week that will be, the reliance I need.
Speaker 3:It's like I need to translate that into do I trust God to provide, not just oh yeah, god's going to give me money, but it's more of that spiritual dependence. Like am I seeking the Father every? Day to provide for my needs, the daily bread that Christ has called us to seek every day. I know I don't.
Speaker 1:So there's also no complaints when you do get the time to have no, of course not, I fundamentally need that to survive, yeah, so oh, I mean all this kind of work a little similarly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like and you know I'm salaried, um. So for you, ronson, like when you feel that it's getting closer like the tension of like you know, your budget's a little closer, like and you have the opportunity to work over time, like what's your choice, I'm just like, if you're like man, I could take a sabbath or I could work overtime, yes, like, like, you know, like because I felt, I felt similar feelings you know, yeah, I mean you do it sometimes just on top of your job just to get more.
Speaker 3:It's out, it's out there on the podcast. Everybody knows it's public.
Speaker 2:It's's public, yeah, no, I mean at different times, yeah, and and I. But I felt that you know, for me, like working 40 hours, you know, my days are, you know, pretty much almost the same every week. Like I felt that tension of like man, I need to make a little extra money, like, like, like there's going to be something that's either going to not we're either going to not have money, like me and my wife Michaela, or I'm going to have to door dash, or I'm going to have to trust God. And I felt that tension of like God has a life that he wants me to live, you know, a life of rhythm, sabbath, date nights, all that sort of stuff. And if I door dash or do an extra side hustle, I'm cutting something out. And where do I trust him and where do I?
Speaker 1:you're cutting something out that could be life-giving. My question is where is the trust versus because couldn't? Working at date night can be a spiritual value for your life. Whatever that is, I wouldn't know.
Speaker 3:God's got someone, he's got somebody. Instead of cutting something like that out maybe it's cutting out something that you're buying cutting out your spending because it's easier to cut out things like Sabbath, cut out things like rest, cut out things like quality time, cut out time with God Like, oh, I work at 6.30 this morning, so I'm not spending time with God in the morning, and then I'm out late or whatever because I'm working.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to provide this or that and I'm cutting out things in my life that give me value, but I'm not cutting out the spending. I'm cutting out things in my life that give me value, but I'm not cutting out the spending. I'm making this all very self-reflective because I don't like blaming people Like the church cuts out this. That's not my vibe, so I'm going to make it self-reflective.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's spending I could be cutting out, but instead I cut out things that are meaningful. I think that's a huge point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, for sure, yeah, like do you really need Netflix?
Speaker 3:I'm on my mom, so or Wi-Fi.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I'll say for me I don't know, I had to cut out Wi-Fi for that reason, because I was trying to save money.
Speaker 3:So I'm one of the only Cutting out Wi-Fi.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't have Wi-Fi.
Speaker 3:That's the desert fathers. Right there, man, you're.
Speaker 1:That's how you modernize.
Speaker 2:So you're just living off the mobile hotspot.
Speaker 1:Yep Word, or if I have to edit, I go to like the coffee shop. Okay, okay, wow, which is more social anyways.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't see you at my coffee shop though, do you?
Speaker 1:have Wi-Fi.
Speaker 3:Do I have Wi-Fi?
Speaker 1:You never know, you never know.
Speaker 2:They have a market of Wi-Fi. It is to work from home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got like 40 pastors there a week. Oh, I'll have to stop then. It's a good time, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think about like my budget, and you know I'm like man, you know there's only, you know there's only a few things I could cut out. You know, I think cars is, you know, a classic example of something that Christians really should take a lot of theological a, that Christians really should take a lot of theological, a lot of reflection before they purchase a car. I think cars is kind of a classic one of like that's a money sucker.
Speaker 3:Or even just using cars.
Speaker 2:Like, do you need to drive that much? Yeah, yep, for sure, for sure, do you need that, do you need that? So yeah, and I think, like in general, we sanitize, you know, just the idea of purchasing a car. You know like we, somebody got a new car, great, we just, you know, celebrate and then like, oh cool, he got a new car. But uh, you know, I think like that's something that maybe we should.
Speaker 2:You know, I've just heard about different people and different Christians who have like kind of almost a money accountability group where, before they make like a big purchase, something that's in that range of you know, over a thousand, over 2000,. You know where they meet with some Christian brothers, christian sisters, you know, and they kind of talk and they're like, man, what do you guys think about this? Like, is this a choice I should make? This is how it would affect my budget, this is, you know, kind of how I would see this living out, and you know they they might meet, you know, quarterly, annually, things like that. That's kind of something I might want to recapture.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's a great question. Enough is enough. Another factor about money is it's easy to look at money as a thing, but what we're really talking about is security in things, because money is going to give you the security of, if anything happens, of my basic needs, but it's also going to give you things, and I think, thinking about what are the things I have? What kind of car am I trying to buy? What kind of groceries am I trying to buy? What kind of lifestyle am I trying to live? Those are things, and those things ultimately reflect our reliance on.
Speaker 3:God Like do we need that to be satisfied? Because if you can't be satisfied in your life without those things, then there's your satisfaction coming from Christ. I think that is so much of what Jesus is getting. After is less about oh, you make this amount of money. It's like, no, your lifestyle is not satisfied until you have this amount of things in your life. And you know I like stuff, so I have guitars, I have stuff like that, like I like stuff. So it's very I have stuff like that, I like stuff. So it's very convicting to me to think about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a passage in James and I think this James passage really kind of just struck me when I was just learning more about what the Bible says about money, and I really respect everything the church teaches. I really do love you know God Owns it All is a wonderful course. It kind of teaches you these different principles. I love kind of the you know the wheels of different things people teach. I think it's only applicable to certain people, right, and I think it's helpful, as helpful as you, like you said we talked about stewardship, so I really do love all these things that talks about, uh, just like the God has heard the cry of you know, just uh, people that that are, that are being that they don't have in the amount of money. And, man, you want to, you want to pull it up. I might not have it, um, but man, it really paints this picture of like, of like. It's very convicting. Um, man, maybe we'll cut, maybe we'll cut this here and I'll get this better.
Speaker 3:I don't have enough service in here to pull up a passage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the service in here is pretty bad. I think it's all the concrete.
Speaker 3:It's all the concrete. You know, I thought about bringing my Bible. Instead, I brought my iPad.
Speaker 1:I have one right there on the edge of my what translation you got over there esv yes, oh, let's go.
Speaker 2:This is gonna be some good stuff I I.
Speaker 3:I think I've told you my thoughts on the esv before what you don't like it no it's. It's really good for um. The language is trying to provide the one-to-one word. I think it's a really good, reliable translation when it comes to 99% of scripture. I think it does very, very intentionally poorly when it comes to the role of women in ministry and as Wesleyan pastors we're very affirming of women in ministry and the ESV has an agenda to soften that edge.
Speaker 1:Oh, I am very not, but that's a different conversation for a different day, I think.
Speaker 3:We'd be Wesleyans. That's, that's one of our big things. We're the first denomination to ordain women, and it's through, it's through us. So.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, I mean like James five, and she's given this like warning to the rich and, uh, you know he's like challenging the rich, like come now, you whip you, you rich. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. And I'm just like, like in the church, we just sanitize that, like, if you like, yeah, you know, like it's just saying like there's, there's misery, you know, coming up upon you, there's misery if you have riches and don't trust him right you're adding stuff there, that's right.
Speaker 2:But the bible is just making it clear like money's not a positive thing, like you know, let's just kind of take a biblical perspective on it. But your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded. Your corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You've laid up treasure in the last days, which is something you know we didn't think about more. Like are we just laying up treasure? You know when Jesus could come back in any moment and behold the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which have kept you back by fraud or crying out against you. So I'm thankful, I'm thankful, like I'm thankful. I'm not a manager, like I ain't making the decisions about how much people get paid. But if I was, I'd be like that verse.
Speaker 3:It would speak to me, yeah yeah, yeah, you know, I think about the way that money is talked about in the Old Testament versus the New Testament. You brought up Proverbs earlier and my theological and biblical perspective is that the perspective of people understanding God developed over time.
Speaker 3:And so there are ideas in the Old Testament that do not reflect in the New Testament, like that passage on beware of the rich, like beware of the fire and brimstone coming upon you. And then Proverbs would be like, oh, money earned over time is a sense of Godliness, and just like you're not going to see that in the New Testament, I think it's people's understanding of money developed into the future. I think anybody who's taking a positive view on money, who's a Christian, is pulling it from a fundamentally Old Testament perspective, where they had less of an idea of reliance on God, because when you're in poverty and someone and that you know, your nation is in poverty and there are rich among you, the rich are the ones blessed by God in their perspective. Now, that was the perspective of the rich young ruler. That was something I studied a lot was they saw him as being blessed by God. So when he came and said Jesus, what can I do to inherit the kingdom of God?
Speaker 3:Everyone would have been already thinking this guy's already inherited the kingdom of God. He has all that he needs. He's young, he has money, he has inheritance, he doesn't need anything. God's already blessed him. And what Jesus is saying is like no, my blessing is not that my blessing is so much more Will you give that up to receive my blessing? And back in that day they viewed the kingdom of God. They viewed the blessing of God as physical, immediate, now reality. They don't talk as much about eternity as we do in today. Even the New Testament doesn't talk about eternity as much as we think it does. It does. But its main focus is what is Jesus doing to us today, and the blessing of money is not something that is seen as. This is what Jesus is giving to you today in the New Testament, and no one can change my mind about that. You just won't.
Speaker 1:So you're not a prosperity preacher. Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 3:No, I don't even get paid to preach, oh look at that. I preach four times a year roughly Because I do Bible studies and different sorts of discipleship in the house church.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and I mean in various Bible studies. I think like what I've come to, just like, like I just when I just read what this, what I feel like the scripture saying, what the heart of scripture saying, I think the thing that I've kind of landed on is that I feel, like in the in the light of Jesus, in the light of the new Testament, like money is talked about pretty negatively. Like it's talked about, you know, as the root of all evil, you know, and just corruption, things like that, just pay your taxes, etc, you know, just talk about pretty negatively, just kind of, yeah, um, but like in what you can see from the different patches, like I feel like at best, you know, it's kind of seen as a resource to be utilized as best as you possibly can, with love being your primary motivator. But it's so funny We've got friends who joke about trying to make a lot of money and stuff like that. But I feel like, in general, scripture doesn't necessarily have a very positive light on it.
Speaker 2:I feel like in general, that's kind of what I've landed on in my own personal theology and when I think about money, when I think about how I personally use money, when I think about how the. When I think about how I personally use money, when I think about how the church should in general use money, I think of it just as like. I think we just need to view it as a resource. It is a resource to be used. I think scripture is very clear about the it really I do think scripture is clear that it's the root of all evil. I remember I was in a gathering one time and this guy was like he's like some of you guys are going to go out and make so much money, you're going to be rich and you're going to give that money to the church. And he's like the bible just says that the love of money is the root of all evil yeah, I you know I'm making like well over six figures, but I hate it.
Speaker 2:I can't stand it. Nobody just stumbles into that. They made intentional choices, that they made intentional choices that led them to a life that they can now have a very wealthy lifestyle. I mean, some people trust funds, whatever. And so he made a huge theological leap there that there's not intentional choices being made that bring you to a place where you have this huge amount of wealth. And it was just so funny because I was sitting there and I was like huh, we try to take this passage that talks about the love of money being the root of all evil and make it sound as if it's just kind of talking about a pursuit of greed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think Jesus I think we talked about in the church about stewarding money is the most important thing you do. As long as you steward your money well, when it comes to just giving money to the church, giving money to other things, then you're okay with that money. But I think Jesus challenges everyone to say I don't think that most people can steward their money spiritually. I think Jesus pretty much declares I don't think you have it in you to have a lot of money and follow me. It's possible. But I think he challenges everyone to say to think you don't have what it takes to spiritually give your all to me and have a lot of money.
Speaker 1:Yeah so do you guys kind of support the poverty?
Speaker 2:gospel. We're getting practical here a little more practical.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's the best word I can come up with is like poverty gospel yeah no, I possibly is not inherently spiritual, but it gives you the opportunity to trust god, right, right I I support a couple things.
Speaker 2:There's a, there's a, so there's a wonderful book. It's kind of like a small book, um, it's called daring to live on the edge. You guys ever seen this one? No, it's written by. It's kind of like a small book, um, it's called daring to live on the edge. You guys ever seen this? One no it's written by this guy, lauren lauren cuttingham. He's a. He's like the founder of youth, of ywam youth, with a mission.
Speaker 2:Um not sure if he's, I'm not sure he's alive I don't really know I don't know, my parents just forced me to read this book at some point and when I was like in like eighth grade and I like didn't, I didn't know anything.
Speaker 2:But but it's just this wonderful book that, uh, it just talks about, you know, it walks through some principles about giving tithing, things like that, and then it talks, you know, just about story after story after story of, you know, lauren's life and missionaries that he knew that just stepped out in faith and they were, you know, bringing the gospel to unreached places in the world.
Speaker 2:They were, you know, just radically loving people that were just desperate for Jesus and doing crazy things for God, and time and time again, like they would just do it and like recognize that God was going to work out the finances, and time and time again he just would, um, and you know it. Just you read it and you're like so encouraged, you know, and I think sometimes, like, like it's just one of those this is something I do support that Christians and I would say churches too, cause I do work for a church um, do need to just be a little bit more bold in how they spend money, how they approach money and and faithful that God is. He's going to pay the bill. He's going to pay the bill.
Speaker 3:He's going to provide the way you know and, On top of that, match your lifestyle with that Right Want less, want God more and want things that are not God less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and so I have a question. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you said that with these missionaries, they relied on God for their finances. Who's financing them?
Speaker 2:Man, I'm digging back to eighth grade book, right, right, I'm just saying like the money has to come from somewhere.
Speaker 3:The money does have to come from somewhere.
Speaker 2:It does have to come from somewhere.
Speaker 3:And honestly with everything I said. I do know very wonderful Christians who make a lot of money, amen. I know doctors who are Christians who make a lot of money. And if you're a doctor, you know I want to get into this to help people you know you're making six figures no matter what you do and there's a risk, there's a huge risk.
Speaker 3:I wish more Christians would know for their soul that hey, if you're taking this career path, you know you're going to make a lot of money. You need to steward your soul in order to do what you think you need to do there, and it's more than possible. I know wonderful Christians and they give so much to missionaries. They give so much to the church and they steward their life well.
Speaker 3:But that's a challenge still, because they don't have any needs or dependencies at all. So they need to really trust God, they really need to know God and make that the biggest priority in their life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:The more money you have, the more you need to be giving to God. Not your money, giving your life to God, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so and what do I support? Like, practically, you know, people aren't coming to me for financial advice.
Speaker 3:No they're not coming to me. That's why I'm here. Yeah, we're pastors, so we're not making a lot of money.
Speaker 2:I tell people all the time like, hey, I'm down to go through your Excel sheet with you. So many people don't even have an Excel sheet. Practically they don't even have. You know, money comes in, money comes out checking account, that's what than that. You know I, I, I have a little bit of a reputation that, like, I use every dollar, I like it. It's great, I track every expense. You know like and and it's helpful for me. Um, and so, practically like you know, if more people were asking me for advice, you know if, if I had more opportunities you know I really do.
Speaker 2:You know, just, I want to support just a theology that says, you know, at best, money is a resource. How can you live at the lowest kind of possible means that you would still feel, you know, like this is the life that God is calling you to right. So I bought a house at the right time. I'm so thankful that I bought a house at the right time. I'm so thankful that I bought a house at the right time and it is in the perfect part of Grand Rapids where I'm like. It has given me opportunities to do enough.
Speaker 2:Ministry Ronson and I used to live together. We had people over our house. It wasn't. It's not big but it is. It has been the right choice that maybe I like there were times within the past four years maybe I could have gotten something bigger, hypothetically, or but what do I support?
Speaker 2:Like, I support the idea of trying to live at kind of the lower, you know, kind of where you can, you know, have what you need to do, ministry to support your family, you know, have a place to sit. You know like, like, have dishes, all that stuff, but just at best see money as a resource that you can best use to do good, um, in the world around you. And currently, you know I'm just making ends meet. I got all the surprise say we're just making ends meet, um, but I want you know Christians to to be bold and to really trust God that he is going to provide in miraculous ways If you feel called to be a missionary, if you feel called to take out a step in faith where maybe you're going to do a pay decrease, to talk Honestly, my wife did that recently and we were like, okay, took a pay decrease.
Speaker 2:Yeah, change jobs. Oh, okay, I thought Sorry.
Speaker 1:Vol decrease.
Speaker 3:Yeah, change jobs. Oh, okay, I thought Sorry, voluntarily got paid a lot, I made too much Sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah so.
Speaker 3:She's faster as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so we did that. You know, like change the job, stepping out into a different role, kind of change some things in my life expecting kids. So it's exciting we're my life expecting kids so we're excited.
Speaker 3:It's exciting we're expecting twins. Man, it's, it's amazing. Yeah, a lot of money that goes. You don't want to focus on money all the time, but then you're having twins and you're like how am I supposed to not focus on money all the time?
Speaker 2:yeah, right and uh. So there were a lot of things that kind of just went into our life decisions, jobs and where she was feeling called and things like that. Um, and like that's in general, kind of the idea that I support that. You know, have your Excel sheet, view money as a resource. Try to live as low as you can. Like I don't necessarily support, you know, new cars because people will say like, oh, I can buy a new car and it's, I'm not going to fix it, right, and if you do the math, it's just not true. Like, if you do the math, it's just not true. Like, like, if you do the math, it actually doesn't necessarily math out that if you, you know, spend all this money on a new car that you're going to, what you're actually paying for is kind of a peace of mind, you know essentially.
Speaker 2:Um and so, and so I kind of, you know, have these different personal things that I would kind of believe in. Like you know, I was, like you know, thinking about things like in general I love camping, Right, and so people would be like, oh well, christian, go buy a camper. I'm like, no, I'll probably stick to a tent, you know, cause I think I can enjoy life in a tent. I don't need a camper, like you know. Like I'm good, I'm good with the tent. Like you know, I don't need a with just this. Are you good with just this? And just kind of live your life that way.
Speaker 2:And when you have opportunities to radically give, like for me personally, like whenever somebody asks me to give, I'm going to give them something. I don't apply that to like people on the street and that's like that's kind of Holy Spirit led. But when my college asked me to give to the scholarship fund, I'm like I'll give them a little something. You know, if, if somebody you know comes up to me and they're like, hey, I'm funding, you know, you know you get everything right. You get mission strips, open houses, all this stuff, I'm like I'm gonna give a little something. You know, I kind I already paid a lot to my school. I give them a small amount, but I'm going to give them every single time they write me.
Speaker 3:Are you serious? You're giving when your school writes you? Of course that's insane. I'm all for being generous, but if IWU asked me for anything, I gave you. So much.
Speaker 2:They took the work out to write me a letter. Where did?
Speaker 3:you guys go to school. We went to Houghton.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I went to Houghton College.
Speaker 2:Up in the UP. So the school I went to is actually in Houghton, New York. It's actually closer than Houghton in the UP.
Speaker 3:The mileage is closer.
Speaker 2:The mileage is actually closer. I love saying that because people will. I'll be at the movies. I'll be wearing like a you know a Houghton shirt. I'll be walking around with people and people are like H and people of course get very disappointed and I'm like nobody knows Houghton around here, but it was. It's a small Christian school, very similar in comparison to like a cornerstone or or you know a Christian school uh, here in Grand Rapids, and I loved it. It was great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I went to Indiana, wesleyan. Um yeah, great, great school as well. It's like Houghton, but three times the size and, yeah, three times cooler, and I'm kidding, they're both wesleyan colleges. Wesleyan church has five colleges and I was the biggest one and houghton's the one that wants to be the best this is. This is why, houghton people, we just stay quiet I'm trying to talk smack, I have no, I have no college beef at this point in my life yeah, so, but yeah, um, but just the practical aspects.
Speaker 3:Of practical aspects, I think the more money that you make in your life, every pay, raise, every, whatever it is. I think you really need to evaluate your life and say am I stewarding my faith? Well, um, am I depending on God? Am I going back to God? Am I transforming my life to be one that is marked by the love of Christ? Because the more you make Jesus heavily suggests, the less you will do that.
Speaker 1:But is there a chance that you would? Isn't there a way you can not become complacent, even if you're making more money?
Speaker 3:Of course, but I think Jesus is suggesting that that's really difficult. So the only thing is I'm saying is, if you're making a lot of money, think about that. Jesus suggests that this is going to be nearly impossible. Do you have what it takes to do something? Nearly impossible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I also wonder what is considered being rich, because if you take the average, American take the average American compared to the rest of the world, we're pretty rich.
Speaker 3:Well, I don't. I never liked that comparison because, yeah, take the average comparison next to the rest of the world. They're not paying the same amount for anything in the rest of the world.
Speaker 3:So, it really goes to your context. Cause if you're like, oh, you know you're making, you goes to your context. Because if you're like, oh, you know you're making, you know 40 000 or 50 000 a year, um, in your you know you're considered rich for the world but just like you know, in america, I feel like I'm just above poverty and being just above poverty, telling someone who's barely above that, oh, you're pretty much rich, don't complain yeah, that's true, that's that's just not true.
Speaker 3:The cheapest apartment I've ever seen in town here was $900 a month, like there's. I've never seen anything below that. So it's like don't tell someone who's making above the brink of poverty that they're rich because you know, I feel like, yeah, I mean, there's a whole bunch of like interpretation, right?
Speaker 3:Midwest right. If you, if you're living out on the west coast or on the east coast or something like 50,000 is absolute poverty, like you're living out on the West coast or on the East coast or something like 50,000 is absolute poverty. Like you're not getting anything, like you can't live in a house. You don't have house. You have, like an apartment a quarter of the size of this one.
Speaker 1:So much for me. We move into New Hampshire.
Speaker 3:Are you moving to New Hampshire?
Speaker 1:I wanted to, but not anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like the Midwest is comfortable. I mean it's expensive, right, it's expensive everywhere and that's going up, regardless of what political persuasion you believe in is going up and that's just a reality we have to accept.
Speaker 1:I think Michigan's economy will hold on tight, though, because we're right next to Canada, so trading is easier. We have the big lakes, we can ship things.
Speaker 3:I mean. I know nothing about this yeah, I don't go too deep in that.
Speaker 2:we're here no, we can.
Speaker 3:We can go political for a second, I can give you political opinions that I have a lot of, but my my background and experience and profession would not suggest that I'm an expert in that, so I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in it, oh, I was going to say because we kind of you are on the unhinged christian podcast.
Speaker 1:So because I I we did kind of cover your guys's radical ideas of money so we could move on to something else. Or we can just call it quits got a nice 40 minutes in your your call.
Speaker 3:I feel like. I feel like christian, and I did a very good job at explaining what we believed, and I don't think I'm gonna say anything additionally. I'm just gonna keep going in circles.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:If you let me go for 40 minutes, I'll say the same stuff in different ways for 40 more minutes, right?
Speaker 1:I think I hit it. Yeah, we don't need to go in circles. If you guys are good and don't want to talk about anything else, we can call it good and I'm having fun.
Speaker 3:I'm okay with talking about something else, but Sure, yeah, let's hit one more.
Speaker 2:Ronson, you're on the podcast, okay.
Speaker 1:You're here, okay, well, you are too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is Christmas podcast now yeah, we see money very similar where you know we politics we don't necessarily see exactly the same way. So so you're here, might as well just answer like maybe how does money inform kind of your, your political leanings or just kind of things like that, or just some of your perspectives on money? Um, it's been tough for me to kind of think about sometimes, you know, because I think, uh, well, I just think both political parties, I think government just gets money wrong in general it it's just sin institutionalized. But he shook his head, yeah.
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, I am for more wealth distribution and more money distribution.
Speaker 1:Is that a nice way of saying socialism?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, you know, if the trickle-down works, we'll let the trickle-down work, but it's proven for the last century that it fundamentally does not work. Yeah, we're still waiting. If the trickle-down works, we'll let the trickle-down work, but it's proven for the last century that it fundamentally does not work. We're still waiting to see a trickle-down. So you know, for me I'm like someone's, like, oh well, the trickle-down actually works really well. I'm like, bet, let's do that Wait, explain trickle-down.
Speaker 3:Like putting the money more on top, giving billionaires more tax breaks, breaks so that they can expand their business, to allow money to go down to the everyday person. And we just fundamentally know that's not how it happens. You're seeing CEOs in every single company large companies.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about small business, every single large company.
Speaker 3:Their margins of the top are getting bigger and bigger and bigger and they're making more and more money. Now the bottom is making just as much or less than they were before, while prices of everything go up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so fair enough. Like I, definitely, like you know, I don't necessarily like hold my political leanings, you know, with a, you know love for the idea of trickling down economics or things like that. But at the end of the day, here's here's where we might actually disagree a little bit, is I, because I think that in general, like you know, we, I believe that one person the CEO, the board, et cetera is more likely to make wise choices with their money than an institutionalized government.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree with that.
Speaker 2:And so, but it's. But I think the jury, I would say you know, not the political parties would say but I would say the jury is out on that. But I lean, you know, towards the faith. I have more faith in a board, 10 people, et cetera, and I use the example of Chick-fil-A. Right, like, chick-fil-a is a wonderful organization. I love Chick-fil-A, I worked there for a long time and they do wonderful things with their money. I mean chick-fil-a, I worked there for a long time and and they do wonderful things with their money I mean, they literally give so much of it away.
Speaker 3:You know right, and they treat their employees very well. They treat the employees very well and their employees get paid well their employees get paid very well.
Speaker 2:It scales up very nicely like they're getting benefits even at like a local exactly, but so maybe I just have too much faith because it's a vast majority of large businesses are not even close to right exactly no car.
Speaker 3:Look at car companies like Ford if you look at Starbucks, you're seeing these companies where the CEOs are making billions now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my personal experience has never allowed me to give that up. I have so much faith. Maybe an evangelist is going to come across, the CEO of the car company you mentioned.
Speaker 1:Would we be better off to put our faith in the government? I?
Speaker 3:think we tried this political system as much as we can, and it's not working for the poorer have never been more poor. The middle class has never been poor, more poor. The rich has never been richer, and that's a fact. You can't debate that, people. There are more billionaires who exist now than there ever have been ever. You, you can't debate that. So there is this amount of money in the world.
Speaker 2:It's just going up, it's not going down, and so Well, people are going to, of course, you know, point to the fact that there's opportunity, you know, and then there's more opportunity.
Speaker 1:There's more opportunity for me to become a billionaire.
Speaker 2:And we use the example of doordash right. Like I, as long as you got a phone and a car and an internet connection, you can make you can make?
Speaker 3:you can make fifty thousand dollars an hour.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know that's what all the ads say. Yeah, so, and people will point to the opportunity. You know I mentioned those three. Things are not easy, like if you're poor, like having a car, internet connection, phone, etc.
Speaker 3:Like those things are not easy having a car and if everybody did it for delivery service right use for delivery service, etc.
Speaker 2:All that stuff. Um, that's an interesting world we live in, like the fact that like people are growing up in a world now where there is a sort of opportunity, where you know you can have just a few things and live and make enough money to to survive, but for me I I am nowhere close to the opinion that we should allow the system to exist on the opportunity that I can become incredibly wealthy.
Speaker 3:I would rather a system that inherently makes us all. The entry point is way easier for anybody across the board who doesn't have the resources. So, personally, I won't say how I'm voting, but when I vote, what I'm thinking about is how is this going to impact the most vulnerable people? What party is going to have a greater chance of influencing the poorest of the poor, of reaching people who don't have the resources that I have? I'm not voting for myself because I have everything I need. I don't need the government support. Who I believe the government needs to support is people who did not get to grow up in the way I got to grow up.
Speaker 3:The people who don't have resources. So I'm going to vote for the party that I believe is going to bring more resources for that demographic of people. And, fundamentally, you know who I voted for in the last election.
Speaker 2:I mean, this one was a tough one for me. It was a tough one for me. It was a tough one, I was probably back and forth, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was back and forth up until 20 days before, and then I just had to just kind of think about a couple of different things that would affect me and different people and just some things like that. And of course, you know, money is not maybe the biggest thing that I'm necessarily always think about when I'm voting. I mean, we actually can vote with our money, which is something that Christians don't talk about enough, because they vote. You know, kind of one issue on certain things like that, but another way you could vote is just by giving money.
Speaker 3:Another way you can vote is giving a million dollars away to everyone who votes for Trump, Like must it? Did he do that?
Speaker 2:He did give money away to people and he created a raffle in pennsylvania. That's crazy.
Speaker 3:I had no idea he did that. That's. That's pretty insane. You can vote with your money. That hasn't. That hasn't been debunked that's real no that's real. He gave his check to someone. That's wild yeah, I mean there's more in that you can go, but yeah so.
Speaker 2:So here's a random thing, but, um, another reason why I just really I I put more trust in people than the government kind of distribution is because I remember when I was in high school, the owner operator of the Chick-fil-A where I worked at was very transparent with a few money practices of the organization and one of the things that he was just kind of open and honest about was, you know, we maybe had like three mid-level managers, you know, maybe like a kitchen manager, front manager and a marketing manager, and he was very honest that as the owner, he was never going to take home or take home profits. That was more than three times uh, that was more than what the three of them were making combined.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so it was a very, very transparent business practice, and if that was the business model of, say, like Ford, the owner of Ford wouldn't be making like $60 million a year or whatever he's making, while their lower managers are making like 50 to 70 grand. Like that just wouldn't be the case.
Speaker 2:Right, right. And so I remember, like in high school, just kind of hearing, hearing that kind of tucking that away and being like man, that's a really honorable business practice, that's incredibly honorable, and if that was across the board, I would be a hundred percent for that.
Speaker 3:That would be the best. But you know people are like oh, socialism doesn't work. But then this, this is working, though you know it might be working for the honesty of Christian's manager at. Chick-fil-a, but that's not working across the board.
Speaker 1:Right, but I think one of the other problems is when you tax the billionaires and you put certain people on certain levels of income, on welfare or aid they have to qualify for it Right. So, it takes away their incentive to improve their life, and then they just stay relying on the government.
Speaker 2:I mean it's a start. It is a start and I, I personally, you know people need to rely on the government.
Speaker 3:There are people with fundamental disability like look at homelessness. Homelessness, mental health and disabilities is skyrocketed in homelessness and those people need to rely on something.
Speaker 1:They can't Right. Right, I'm not saying, but I'm saying for those, like in between, people that could make it out, right now there's no incentive to do that because they say it's like 40 grand's the limit. If they make 41 grand, all of a sudden it's like well, you're, you're out of our bracket, so we can't help you anymore, right and I mean I when every what you're saying is 100 true, that too, I think it is.
Speaker 2:It might be lower than 40, yeah I.
Speaker 2:I think it's close to right, that was just a number that I was guessing well, and I, and and because I personally see this like, without getting into huge detail, you know someone, someone in my close family, you know, lives in this dynamic of like. I see the benefit that you know kind of the governmental program is able to offer you, you know, but it does limit their opportunity. You know where, if they were to take, you know, step one, two, three, four that they would in general be kind of excited for. That would kind of bring them to a place in their life where maybe they're working full time et cetera, things like that, they would start to lose this and and I've seen this dynamic where they can't do it, they can't take that step because they would lose.
Speaker 2:You know what the government is. I'm so grateful that the government is providing and giving them to pursue their lifestyle. So I go back and forth with this because I see it, you know, and I know that, like man, not every instance is the same, not every circumstance is the same. It's different for every person.
Speaker 3:For me. I don't go back and forth in any way. I think there needs to be vast improvements on the public access.
Speaker 2:We just need to write the law better. Yeah, there needs to be vast improvements on public access to healthcare.
Speaker 3:I think, fundamentally, the poorest people in this country are not getting good healthcare. They're relying on soup kitchens and the goodness of people who are creating these organizations to provide for their basic needs. While we can provide for basic needs, we're just choosing not to. I have a friend who works at a coffee shop. They're a part-time barista like 20, 30 hours a week, and they got their Medicaid. Is it Medicare or Medicaid? One of them is for senior. I think it's Medicare.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know the difference, but anyways, they got their health insurance denied by the government because they made too much money last year and they're working 20 to 30 hours a week at a coffee shop.
Speaker 2:We need to write the law, but you're making too much money to receive healthcare.
Speaker 3:You have to buy your own. It like what. They're part-time in the coffee shop. They can barely swing rent yeah yeah, and do you?
Speaker 2:do you know like, like was shopping around for health care easy for them? Is that challenge?
Speaker 3:I mean it's, it's not hard, but it's like a hundred or plus dollars a month, sure, if you're of good health, if you have any pre-existing conditions or anything that you rely on medication for, it's going to be more, and so you know it well. Hopefully you're healthy and have an additional hundred or so dollars a month to spend. It's not hard to get to pay for healthcare, but I mean to get it, but it is expensive, it's an expense of money you don't have Right right and the cheaper plans.
Speaker 2:They don't really do as much for you.
Speaker 3:When we could have a system that provides that, that for people. You know I am 100% for universal health, universal health care in this country.
Speaker 1:I would be, too, if I didn't believe that the government was inherently evil.
Speaker 3:I would be too. The government is absolutely inherently evil.
Speaker 2:I would be too, if our doctors wouldn't just quit and up and leave because they're getting paid less money.
Speaker 3:See the doctors might you know, I'm not afraid of doctors quitting. They're all making six figures.
Speaker 2:I'm not afraid of them somebody's gonna hey, somebody's gonna step up. It might not. They might not be as good.
Speaker 3:I can't make four hundred thousand dollars a year anymore I'm quitting, and someone's like oh, I can make two hundred thousand dollars a year to be a doctor.
Speaker 1:Sure, let's do it yeah, but then with a lack of doctors they might lower the the qualifications to become one sure right, which then the? Health. Healthcare is just as bad if you have terrible doctors.
Speaker 3:It might not be. Just a lot of the basic healthcare people need does not take the full qualifications a doctor may have. You know, like if you just need something really, really basic, you're still paying like $300 for a doctor. I had like a toenail that was super ingrown. It was very, very painful. I had to get that toenail just lifted out and removed. They numbed it, they lifted it out, they cut it. It was very painful but it was completely numbed Pretty much a job of scissors $300.
Speaker 2:Not a specialist. This is a physician.
Speaker 3:This is a family doctor cutting out $300 out the door. It took him five minutes and it's like that seems unnecessary.
Speaker 1:I had to have glass taken out of my toe and it was three grand. Yeah, yeah Three grand and it took probably 20 minutes.
Speaker 3:Well, you need the special occasions, just like. They just have the equipment and like. So all I'm saying is a lot of a lot of care that could be done does not need the level of specialization that doctors have. We need that specialization. My stepfather is a nephrologist. He does a kidney doctor. We need people like that fundamentally for those issues, but at the same time, there are better ways to do healthcare. It's happening all over the world. We're just closing our ears and pretending like it's not happening. All over the world it is. Other people are not concerned about healthcare in different countries in the world. Other people are not concerned about going broke if you get a disease, if you break your arm, whatever. That's where I think the country needs to store better money in. Yeah, I'm not an expert in that, though Neither am I.
Speaker 3:This whole section. We're pastors. These are opinions formed by our own personal research. I'm not professional. I'm not going to claim to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm thankful that the specialist I saw last week was incentivized to whatever incentivized that specialist to be a part of that field, whether that was money or not. Yeah, it helped me and it provided me a lot of relief. And if that person was not there at that time and that place and wasn't trained the way they were, I could be in a lot of pain right now.
Speaker 3:But you know, doctors aren't the ones who are like. You're like oh, doctors get paid less money. Not really. What we're looking at is big pharma and owners of hospitals and stuff who are making billions. And yeah, they might be making millions over a few years if you're a doctor, but if you're a higher up in the hospital, if you are in big pharma selling medication that takes pennies for hundreds of dollars to poor people who need it, that's the biggest part of the question. That needs to come way down.
Speaker 1:I also think that part of the problem with big pharma is our food.
Speaker 3:Oh, for sure so.
Speaker 1:I think they're in cahoots together, that's just my conspiracy theory and I think that food is meant to make us fat, sick and nearly dead, so that we rely on Big Pharma.
Speaker 3:I mean, that was my theory that the roads were so bad in Michigan, because all the cars were made here. If the roads stayed really bad then the cars would get beaten up.
Speaker 1:But Whitmer fixed our roads.
Speaker 3:So you know what, there we go.
Speaker 1:Well, she didn't around here.
Speaker 3:No, she did. That's why I can't get anywhere. It takes me 30 minutes to get home because every single road in my exit is closed.
Speaker 2:They're doing a lot of work right now.
Speaker 3:They're doing a lot of work and the highway to get over here is the nicest highway in town.
Speaker 1:Which one did you take? I-96? Yeah, that one is nice 96 is so nice.
Speaker 3:131 is beaten up, but they worked on it for like three months. So they're working on the roads. They're doing their best.
Speaker 1:They're doing good, Just taking their time which is fine Good things take time. Yeah, anyway, we'll end there, but I just want to know what translation of the Bible do you read?
Speaker 3:Ah, so I am. If I am preaching, I am doing an Ivy. If I am leading a Bible study with uh more discovery base, I'm doing NLT. Um. If it's more of a deep dive, I'm doing an IB. Or uh NRSV, um, because, because I think NIV is that perfect middle ground of understandability to word-for-word translation, because what you need from your translation is to comprehend the words. If it is not as close to the Greek as it was, then you're understanding it more and the idea of scripture is to understand it. And it might not be the exact word for word from the Greek, but if you can't understand that as much, then it's not a translation that's working for you. And I understand the dynamics of translation and I get that opinion primarily from the classic IBS book how to Get the Most from how to Read the Bible for All Its Work.
Speaker 3:How to Read the Bible for All Its Work, great book that book heavily suggests that the NIV is one of the translations you should be reading for preaching, for biblical study, because it has that really good middle ground. And again, I don't like the ESV, because not because it's a bad translation overall it is a little cardboard because it's a closer one to one. Every word is closer to the Greek, word for word. But our language doesn't line up with Greek at all and so it makes a very clunky read, a hard to understand read.
Speaker 2:And, if I can, just I got a funny point on that.
Speaker 3:Oh, if I can just be so direct, I think the ESV is intentionally sexist and that is public information. You can research that it's from a board who wants to diminish the role of women in ministry and they've changed words, you know, like Phoebe to, instead of being Paul's partner in ministry, she is a helper at that church. There's a lot of examples like that. You can. You can look it up yourself. You know. Look up ESV, women in ministry controversy. You'll get article after article, video after video. You don't need my help to do that and I take issue with that because I am an advocate for women in all levels of leadership in the church ministry. The Wesleyan church, our director, superintendent, was a woman for a long time. So for for for me, for Kristen like that is really important, and so that's the reason I don't like the ESV of the translation itself. Totally cool with it. I had more than one ESV in my house. Um, I just don't like it so funny story about the esv.
Speaker 2:The esv has a wonderful reader's bible, um, and I've like searched on google, I've like tried to search around and you know, so the reader's bible doesn't have like the verse, uh, notes, uh, so it'll just like maybe have like chapter and, and so it doesn't have the verse. And so one of the only bibles that I was able to find that was pretty affordable, uh, that had a really nice reader's edition, was the esv I will say the esv has the best branding of oh they have great branding, great translation, who is even a quarter as much whoever's doing their marketing is just amazing.
Speaker 3:It's wonderful someone gave me this gift. It was like this big collection series of an esv. It was like the Bible broken up in individual books and all the print.
Speaker 2:It's so beautiful. They had the beautiful cover, yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's wonderful and it's an ESV, so I don't read it, but it's wonderful because the ESV team if you look up like nice leather-bound Bibles with cool prints and stuff. Oh, they're beautiful, they're beautiful.
Speaker 2:They're catching up, they're catching up, they're catching up.
Speaker 3:I have some good NIVs, some good NLTs, but they don't look as nice as a nice ESV.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I have an ESV study Bible from like 10 years ago, that's still just. This Bible looks so much cooler than all the other ones. So when I am just trying to do more long reading, like if I'm trying to read for a more extensive time, I actually do turn to the esv because I'm looking for that bible that doesn't break it up, always with the verse numbers, sure. And then, um, my, I've discovered I actually am using the niv a little bit more recently, because I've just noticed I'm like when I'm trying to remember a verse, all the little verses that I've memorized, they're all in niv, yeah, and I'm just like.
Speaker 2:Oh, sometimes I'm like the verse I was thinking of if I just looked it up in niv, I would have gotten there so much quicker. Um, and because the nlt just changed something, it's not exactly the song I learned as a kid and so you know, the niv just kind of gets me really good there my only problem with the current niv translation, um, is that they use the word forbearance instead of patience in uh, the fruit of the spirit, and love, joy, peace, patience, kindness.
Speaker 3:You got bored over there. They use love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, and I'm like I don't know what forbearance is. Why did you choose?
Speaker 2:this. Pastors will preach on that. Pastors will preach on that.
Speaker 3:Patience was great. I loved patience. I know what that qualm with the current and I like patience better.
Speaker 1:I also read from the message quite a bit.
Speaker 3:Again, I do. Oh, the message is great. Grow up. The message is great because it is communicating the most understandable text. It is for people who do not know scripture. They are getting scripture put in their words. We are growing up with scripture all around us and we have this ear for what scripture means. We understand these words. We understand the sentence structure because we were immersed from it when we were young. If you don't have that, it's weird and foreign.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's true Even the.
Speaker 3:NIV sounds uncomfortable because that's not how we talk the message. Eugene Peterson did a beautiful job.
Speaker 1:He did a great job, yeah, and he even calls it a paraphrase. He does say paraphrase Because it is a paraphrase.
Speaker 3:But for me he calls that to water down people who are opposed to it, because paraphrase is a style of translation. The NLT is a paraphrase style. That means phrase for phrase, like the fruit of the spirit is love peace, patience, kindness. They're going to take that phrase from Greek and translate it where a more rigid translation like the ESV is going to take the translate fruit, translate of translate to the same word. So yeah, it's a paraphrase, but paraphrase is a style of translation, so I don't know, oh, he likes it.
Speaker 2:He likes the message.
Speaker 1:He likes it, I just think that he adds a little bit sometimes.
Speaker 3:Everybody adds a little bit sometimes. I think that's we're in denial of that. When it comes to translations, they all have a bias, because every translation of the Bible is being created by people funding that there are churches, there are networks, there are organizations who are giving money for this translation to happen.
Speaker 1:Who funds the ESV? Is it the Calvinists?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, crc is a big part of that. Baptist is a big part of that. That makes sense. Yeah, that's a huge influence in the funding of the. If you look at the board of the primary funders of the ESV, they're all super hard reform bros and that's okay. They can have their translation. They need to have a translation, I translation, they need to have a translation. I know some great, super hard reform grows.
Speaker 3:We live in West Michigan, so I'm just saying I don't prefer that. So every Bible translation has a bias. Hopefully that bias is as minimal as possible, but they all have people who are giving them money. And if you have a bunch of Wesleyans giving money to a translation of a Bible, you better hope that your treatment of language around women is favorable, right, so they're not going to make the translation say something about women. It doesn't. You know, they might make it like stand out like Phoebe, a helper, a helper and former coworker and pastor of this church, right, you know, instead of just saying a person who was there at that church, stuff like that. Anyways, that's not really even my expertise either.
Speaker 2:Well, I do got to say, like there are some. If you look this up, there are some nice new Bibles. These days it's filament. I got a filament Bible. I didn't even know this, but, like you, open up the front page and, like you, it's got like a QR code that you like link to your phone, downloads, an app and it is like an amazing study resource like they're.
Speaker 3:Just with the technology we got today, it's getting good I think you can you can go to the page I have to have my phone out while I'm reading the bible.
Speaker 2:It's inherently five points so you can go to the page. Like. The page at the top is like a qr, but it doesn't look like a qr, like the number just has a little carrot next to it. It'll recognize it and then it'll like give you resources on it.
Speaker 3:It's really cool. I do like carrots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too, and I have found NRSV. They do great study Bibles. Yeah, nrsv is great, very good study Bibles.
Speaker 3:That is the ESV for people who don't like the ESV. Honestly ESV for people who don't like the ESV, Honestly one of these days.
Speaker 2:I want to go back to one of those teen study Bibles where you're reading it and then all of a sudden, halfway through you're reading John, it's got a story about some testimony from this guy, matt. It just breaks up the section and then all of a sudden it's like and this reminds me of my friend Matt, who this happened to him, yada, yada yada. My friend Matt, who has happened to him? Yada, yada yada. Those Bibles were great. I'm going to get one of those again.
Speaker 3:Last year I read the story. No, it was the beginning of this year, it was January of this year. I read the story Bible all the way through.
Speaker 3:Oh is that a blue one? No, it's white. Basically it is an NIV. That is just they take sections of it to highlight the narrative of scripture from Genesis to Revelation, but they only take parts of it. So, like you know, you get to the arc. There they're going to skip all the dimensions of the arc because that does not translate to an easy narrative. They print it in a style like it's a novel, so it's your standard novel size print. It has the perforated nice edges of the book. It's got no chapter markers, no verse markers. It's like chapter one this, chapter two this. But those are like chapters, are like broad system. So it's, it's really cool. So you're reading through it and then they'll add, like in italics, they'll add their own paraphrase of the section they might've skipped.
Speaker 3:Um and so you know it's still longish, but it's like a quarter of the length of the actual Bible, um, but it has the whole narrative. I really enjoyed reading that. I mean it skips stuff that sometimes you're like, oh man, I missed that story, like did I just miss it? But like the point of it is, it's like it's a really cool way to just engagingly read through the whole Bible as a narrative. And so I read that this year?
Speaker 2:I love to check that out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can buy them for $1 at any used bookstore.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you they were really big story bibles, it's called the story. Okay, there's a few like I've seen. I've seen one that's kind of got like a blue binding type thing and I think I know what you're talking about. But there's there's a few different ones out there.
Speaker 3:I did read it sometime at kcc and then ronda told me that they read the story as a staff at kcc, like a decade ago oh cool nice all right.
Speaker 1:That's where it's gonna end. Sounds great, perfect time. This was all right. This was fun. It was fun. We'll have to do it again sometime. That'd be great sounds good sweet all right, everybody. Thanks for listening. Bye, love you.