Joshua Keith Craft

0:52 One of my things I love that I look forward to about this this is this could be called like you know how Jerry Seinfeld did like co cups of coffee with comedians in cars getting coffee. Yeah. Yeah. That's like basically me and you cuz I literally I was like oh it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I've already had my coffee for the day. But I was like I'm getting ready to talk to Josh. I'm going to go get another cup of coffee. Man, I just love it. I've been drinking the same cup since uh like 11 this morning. So Well, I haven't had your black tar coffee. I can understand why. That's a slow That is a slow sip. You do not gulp Josh Craft coffee. I'm a sipper. I'm a sipper anyway. I'm not really a I'm not really a golfer. Yeah, you know, coffee is meant to be tasted. So, yeah. So, yes, talking about prosperity. Yeah, man. Well, where we left it last time, and I'm actually really curious to see because you're, as we've said, you're so deep on this topic, and I I love that we can just spin your mind up. So understanding prosperity and that that it is God's desire for us to prosper. I'm reading through the Old Testament and it's like uh I just finished the Torah the first five books of the Bible and it's it's wild to me that anybody could read that and see that as God establishing a people in the earth and what he says to them and think that God wants his people to do anything differently. Um, and I know you could sit there and look at like, oh, well, this person, there's been different people in the Bible who had it pretty rough. But by and large, when people were flowing with God, there was, you know, prosperity followed. And like we said, you think about Yeah. I mean, I think most people just don't take it that deep. They don't really I mean, I quote I quote this stat almost almost every time I preach now, but only 6% of Christians have a biblical worldview, right? So like% Yeah, it was it's 4% of Americans.

2:36 I recently learned Yeah, I recently learned I had the stats wrong, but it's not that much better. Yeah, they would gain 2%, man. So 4% Yeah. 4% of Americans have a biblical worldview, 6% of Christians. So geez, congratulations. Um, I think, you know, the the ultimate the fundamental challenge of modern day Christianity is nobody really knows even what it's about, period. Like they they just it's in in places like where we live in the south, it's cultural, you're a Christian, like you believe in God, you have this awareness of Jesus, you know, we live in um, you know, intellectually or ideologically or whatever, we live in what people call a post-Christian society. So what that means is that there was a time where people where most people in the west didn't know who Jesus was. Like they hadn't heard the gospel. They didn't know. Now that's not true. Now the majority of the majority of people in the western world have an opinion now. So it's not that they, you know, there was a time like our grandparents generation or maybe before that where it's like, oh, people just don't know, man. They haven't heard the gospel. And now we've done a great job of reaching the west.

3:51 There's still a lot of people that are unreached, but we've done a great job of reaching the west or now the problem is not uh people don't know the gospel. The problem is people have a lot of opinions about it. Do do you think that's the problem though is that they have a lot of opinions about it or that people don't actually um take it seriously? Oh, I think I think the general the general issue it's like if you think about America, the general issue is that the average person in America and the average Christian in America, there's not that much difference, right? So, so a Christian is just an American at this point. I mean, with the 2% difference in terms of your worldview, okay, so that's like a margin of error. So, 94% of Christians don't have a biblical worldview. 96% of Americans don't have a biblical worldview. Uh but at the same time, what I what I find really interesting is uh these people are all highly opinionated about what the Bible's about, what God's about, what Christianity is, what Christianity isn't. I mean, that includes Pat like biblical church, you know, and we get so much information from unsourced sources, right? Like unverified sources, I would say. So, you know, someone's listening to this podcast, they just like me or you. They like what we have to say and they're like, "Oh, yeah. I agree with that." Well, that's that's a totally wrong way to approach anything really. I mean, like even even if listeners just shut off.

5:16 Yeah. Well, even if even if you're talking to me, don't just be like, "Oh, I really like Josh, so everything he says is good and the right thing." It's like there there should, you know, to me, I don't know where I learned this because I think it's a learned behavior. Maybe it's not learned. Maybe it's just the way that I am. Um, I question everything. I don't really care what the source is. Like I'm like I don't know if that's true. And so then then what if you question that though, you should do the work to find out whether or not it is true. The world we live in today is I'm going to question that. I'm not going to do any work to verify. I just don't I just don't like what you're saying right now. And this other random person that I agree with doesn't agree with you, too. Oh, okay. Cool. Let me let me let me ask you a question, though, man, because I've thought about this a lot. Do you really think that what the problem is is that people don't have a a a Christian like a biblical worldview? Because the implication there is that if we had more of a biblical like and maybe I'm maybe we're phrasing the same thing differently. What I'm saying is I don't I don't necessarily think it's just knowledge. And maybe you're not saying that either because when I when I hear you say that what what what you could oversimplify to say is like well if everybody just knew the Bible better then we would have the world would be completely different. And my point is it's not just the knowledge, it's what you do with it. Because like if you said to any right like if you said to anybody in America, hey, how do you lose weight? Most people are going to say diet and exercise, which is actually accurate. But yet we are, you know, we have or now you you do shots or take pills.

6:41 Well, okay. You can't help yourself, man. But you know Yeah. Hey, but a lot of people won't even do that. Well, but but this is my point. Like I because I've actually been working in this with one of my clients and like in heart disease and I I've gotten to talk to a lot of you know pretty big medical groups and doctors who are saving people's lives and working with people in like remote areas and it's wild to me because they can't they they know they can say the right thing to people and it's not going to make any difference because they won't change it. I was that's so crazy. Yeah. I was um maybe five years ago I can't remember now. Five years ago, I do blood labs, right? Do physicals and stuff. So, five years ago, I go to my doctor. They're like, oh man, your LDL, like your bad cholesterol is high, your total cholesterol is high. You need to take a statin. I'm like 33 years old, right? I'm like, I'm not going to take a statin. And so, I sit down with the doctor. I'm talking to him about this and I'm like, yeah, but it's cholesterol is just diet, diet and exercise mostly, right? They're like, yeah, absolutely.

7:42 But she goes, "The problem is that everybody knows that and they just rather would take medicine." So, right, he go she goes, "I'm going to go and prescribe this. I've never taken it." Right. And my cholesterol is great now cuz I eat better. So, I mean, like, uh, that's that's just I don't know if it's like modern as much as it is just human to be that way. That's exactly my point. So, and that's what I'm saying. Like, does God need us to have a a correct worldview in order to work with us? Because he's worked with in me for all time. Yeah. Yeah. Not at all. But you know, it's like Paul said, knowledge puffs up but love builds up. Right. Yeah. So, so love is the application of knowledge. Like if you are a if you live according to scripture, the ultimate the the fundamental expression of that is is love. It's like this radical love. It's the great commandment. Jesus said, "Love love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." this is the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets. And we've talked about that before on the podcast, but there's massive implications to that. Right.

8:46 So, the problem with knowledge is when you get smarter, you become way more judgmental. Right. Right. And so, you become arrogant. You become prideful about all the things that you know that other people don't know. And that's what a modern that's what Pharisees do. So, they they know everything about everything. and they're smarter than everybody and they're the best at writing comments and they're they're the best at, you know, backing up all their positions and giving all the information and they're the best at proving other people wrong. Um, and that's not really the approach, right? The approach is learning how to apply what you're learning to your own life. I mean, this is Jesus literally saying like take the take the log out of your own eye before you deal with the speck in someone else's eye. But now we, you know, the thing that I'm I'm more saying is the problem when you don't really have a biblical worldview is you can think that you're learning more and you're and and uh you think that you're learning more and you either think that your life is getting better or that you're living more in accordance with how you should live.

9:52 And if you don't understand application, then you don't understand you you're you're not properly utilizing anything that you know. I mean, you read books all day, you can learn from gurus, you can take in all kinds of information, but if a person never applies any of that, it's it's a waste, right? There's a there's a saying, I can't remember who said it. It was like Albert Einstein or Mark Twain or someone like that. They said, "A person who um a I I like to use this example, a person who does not read is no better than a person who cannot read." Right. So, yeah. Yeah. So a person who but to me I would extend that and say a person who doesn't apply what they're learning is the same as a person who doesn't learn anything. So what so the the obvious question is what's application in this respect in relation to a biblical worldview because and this because this does have to do with prosperity. Well this is back to what we were talking about. I mean if you if you most most people don't most Christians don't read scripture. Most people don't read scripture. Most Christians don't read scripture and they think that they understand what this is all about.

10:57 Right. Right. So when you're saying um you know I don't know how a person could read the Bible and read like the Torah, the first five books of the Bible and not see this. Well, they you know number one they don't do it. But if they did do it, there's all these uh preconceived things they've already been taught already. So like one of the things that we imagine, right? Just use an example. One of the things we imagine is like the poverty of Bible characters. So we imagine that Jesus is using all these people who are just like normal people living their life. Okay. So let's just talk in the subject of money or prosperity like financial or physical prosperity. So Job in the book of Job like God says uh in in Job that he restored his prosperity and doubled his former possessions. I mean if God didn't care about and I'll say this up front but I'll probably say this as we continue to talk about this stuff. If God didn't care about money, if God didn't care about prosperity, if God didn't care about possessions, the Bible wouldn't mention that being a blessing for somebody and a reward.

11:59 So like, yeah, that's fair. So the Bible says Job went through all this and then what did God do on this side of eternity? God blessed him, right? Uh Abraham, the Bible says in in uh Genesis, Genesis probably like 13, Abraham became very wealthy, right? um Isaac, who's Abraham's son, it says in in the Bible that Isaac became rich and his wealth continued to grow until he was very wealthy, right? Um Genesis Genesis goes on, Jacob, who's the son of Isaac, the man Jacob grew exceedingly prosperous. David David talks about how he made provision for the house of God all in abundance which you know people say if you use today's money when when they were starting the temple when David started the temple he gave $6 billion in today's money geez to build the temple and even the original Israelites when they left Egypt what did they get a bunch of gold and and jewelry given to them by God told him to ask for I mean yeah which is wild it's like God is very concerned with our provision vision, you know, so and those same people used that to to make to give as gifts to to form the first sanctuary in the ark of the covenant and then they got even more when they were plundering.

13:16 So it wasn't like God was like that was the only reason. Yeah. Yeah. So the the the the four the four most mentioned words for wealth, prosperity, riches in the Old Testament, right, are number one Tova. Tova is mentioned 850 plus times, right? Right. more than more than any other word for prosperity in the in the Old Testament. So it means good in in five ways. So practical, economic or material good, abstract goodness like pleasantness, beauty, desirability, uh things that are expensive, moral goodness, and philosophical good. So in the first the first and most most often used word for wealth kind of encompasses everything that we would per we would want. Yeah. you know, tova and then chayil is the second most used one. It's over 200 times physical wealth, right? That's what that word means. So, when the Bible says um in Proverbs in Proverbs that a a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, it uses the word chayil, right? Okay. Which means physical wealth and the ability primarily the ability to grow your dominion, right?

14:26 Then there's the third word which is Baraka. that's used like 70 times and that's to endue to give power for success, for prosperity, fertility, fruitfulness and longevity. And then uh the third or the fourth most mentioned word in the Old Testament is this word tsalach which means to thrive and to be well and to accomplish everything that you were supposed to accomplish because of God's favor. So, so there's this um I mean in Proverbs 10, right? You go on, I mean, you look at Proverbs 10. Proverbs 10:22 says, "The blessing of the Lord makes you rich and God adds no sorrow with it." That word is not even one of those four words that I just mentioned. That's a word tsalach or sorry, ashar and Assar means specifically or osher means specifically to become wealthy in money, possessions or influence. So right, Proverbs literally says, if you look at the words that the that the author of Proverbs uses, it says that when God blesses you, you are financially wealthy or you have a lot of possessions. I mean, that's what it says. So So then people go, "Well, I don't know about all that." It's like, well, you're you're probably not ever going to know about all that, right?

15:42 Like, well, I I think but I think where people trip over that and and from a place of a good heart. I But I think there's a big difference between the reason for following God being prosperity and the result of following God being prosperity. Exactly. And that's where that's where it all it all lies is if that's the reason or if that's just the result. Because I think it's Yeah. Go ahead. No. And I think the problem so the problem that we have with other people is um we do something we do this we do something really easily I think with other people that we shouldn't do and that's we judge their motives. So we look at a guy like you know one of the people that's easy to point out in the when we talk about prosperity is a guy like Kenneth Copeland. So you look at Kenneth Copeland and you go wow he's you know allegedly this guy has $700 million in personal wealth plus right supposedly. Okay. Right. So, okay. Well, then what people do, so you know, there's nothing wrong with talking about that, talking about how wealthy this person is, but the problem is whenever we start to say, "Here's why that person does what they do, right?"

16:46 So, so the judgment on Kenneth Copeland culturally is that the reason why he's in ministry, the reason why he does what he does is because he's trying to just enrich himself, right? And the truth is none of us are ever going to know whether or not that's true about anybody. It's also not our place to Right. Exactly. But that's where but that's where like you're saying. So what the what scripture teaches is that prosperity is a gift from God and an expression of his personal blessing and favor on me or my family. That's that's what the Old Testament specifically talks about as it relates to prosperity. prosperity of any kind, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, whatever. So, it's a it's it's a a it's a proof on a level that I'm living life God's way, right?

17:41 But then but then that that's that's a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. An old testament perspective. But then, so then what people do that don't have the same level of like let's say prosperity or money that another person has is they go the reason why that person's prosperous is not because God's blessing them, but because they're immoral, unethical, right? Or they're doing they're doing something wrong. And that's where we take a left turn into a place we shouldn't go, and that's looking at another person and deciding what their motives are. Because it starts with doing life God's way leads to prosperity on this side of eternity. But then what people do is they look at someone who's prosperous and they go, "Oh, they didn't do that because they did life God's way. They pretended to do life God's way, right, so that they would be prosperous." And that's where people get sideways in in their own life and in terms of in terms of removing the removing the beam out of their own eye before they deal with the speck in someone else's eye is if I have a biblical worldview. So this is back to what I was saying. If I have a biblical I feel like if I have a biblical worldview on prosperity, I'm not going to judge another person's prosperity because what I understand is that a one of the reasons why God why a person would have prosperity is because God has decided to prosper them. So who am I to say whether or not that person shouldn't have should or shouldn't have what it is that they have? Or worse, who am I to decide why they have what they have?

19:20 right now. I think what's so interesting though when you say like prosperity is a mark that you're doing things God's way. Um I tend to agree with you and I think that what a lot of people would say like well I tithe and and that that as if that's the only thing that's involved in that. But I think part of the development that God would have for a person is that you do learn principles as well, right? I mean, there's a there's it's not it's um you know, you can tithe and then if you never plant seed and you never water it like God or and you you don't like do anything in your fields, God can't pour out the windows of heaven like he talks about in Malachi when they actually were dependent on God for the rain. And that's like a really oversimplified example. Yeah. But the reality, right, the real like you're coming from this place of like most people would would tithe, right? The reality is only 9% of Christians claim to tithe. Really? 9% only 9% claim to tithe. Not even we don't even know if they actually tithe.

20:14 Only 9% say, "Yeah, I tithe. I put God first." Jeez. So, so like Buddy the Elf whenever he saw the Christmas meter. That's shocking. So, you're saying like people go, "Yeah, I tithe and I I don't have prosperity." It's like, "No, 91% chance that a person's not tithing that's listening to this, right?" And so, uh, so, so then you you get into all this debate on the tithe, right? you. So, so because like that's that's where that's where to me the biblical worldview thing comes in, right? Okay. Because the problem is I don't think how the problem that I generally have in life, right? The problem that you have, the problem we all have, I don't think how God wants me to think, right? So, I have to acquire a different level of thinking that doesn't agree with me. And I have to allow myself to be challenged especially by the word of God, especially by something that is uh objective fundamental inherent truth.

21:13 Right. Right. So, so most Christians won't do that. Right. But then even beyond that, so 50 to 75%, it's hard to figure out, but 50 minimum 50% of Christians give nothing to a church. Right. Right. And they got a lot of reasons for that. they got, you know, it's like these churches, you know, moral failures and they feel like the pastors, I mean, we really haven't had a lot of stories of, you know, what's interesting about that with money is we really haven't had a lot of stories of like pastors stealing money from churches uh in in in modern church. What we've had a lot more is like moral failures. M but there's is the nice Christian way of saying that he like stepped out on his marriage and slept affairs or you know ethical ethical issues that aren't related to money or moral moral problems. Um, but then what people do is they didn't they didn't like extrapolate that and go, "Oh, that guy's stealing money from the church." When right, there's not really like from a case study perspect. There are some people that have for sure, like I'm sure, but from a case study perspective, the odds are higher that your pastor is going to commit an affair on his wife, then he's going to steal money from the church.

22:26 We'll quote you on that. That That's not one you want to be quoted on. That's fine. I mean, I we just Yeah, I don't we weren't we we were talking about it before we before we started recording, but I was saying uh that's a Oh, whatever. I started saying it. So, I was talking about how uh outside of a really big deal outside of how much I love my wife and um am grateful for our relationship and want to do life God's way, cheating on my wife seems like a lot of work. So, I would never do it just because I'm too lazy. But but the reason why I'm saying that is Courtney's security is skyrocketing right now. The odds of me cheating on my wife as a pastor are higher than the odds of me stealing money from the church, right? Um but people treat it as if in the in the modern church world that we live in, if your church has more than a couple hundred people, you're probably stealing money from the church.

23:19 So let me ask you this then, man. Like cuz I I hear I hear you and like I think I don't know that anybody's going to argue with you on what you just said. And if they do, they that I feel like that's just sort of no one's going to win if you start arguing about like, well, what about this? Like that's kind of a pointless conversation. But for for a lot of people, let's let's let me give you a few presuppositions so we can talk to a specific person because I've had people ask me this. Let's say there's people out there that are like, I don't think tithing is necessarily biblical, you know, and and like in the New Testament, because that's what a lot of people say. They'll say, in the New Testament, I don't think it's biblical. like how would you cuz I heard and the reason I'm asking this I heard your dad he gave the tithing talk like at church a few weeks back and I sent him a message I was like man I loved what he just he went up and he talked about honor and I you know your dad's just amazing on honor and I thought it I just I it really spoke to me even though I've been a tither and a giver for years and years. Um but like I just loved it. So, like, but if you had somebody out there that from a place of a right heart was like, I don't know, Pastor Josh, I don't think it's like, I'm saying Pastor Josh now because, you know, putting your pastor hat on for you. Uh, I don't think it's biblical, like New Testament biblical. Like, what would you say to that?

24:29 Um, I think there's two problems to me. There's two problems that are really hard to overcome with that thought process. The first is that um the theologically, okay, this is like kind of shared among denominations and theologians and all that. The New Testament doesn't cancel the Old Testament. Yeah. Right. And that's what a lot of people think. Right. So, a lot of people think that the Old Testament's like Bible 1.0 and then the New Testament's Bible 2.0. And if you're a Mormon, the the Book of Mormon's the Bible 3.0. Right. Right. Yeah. But like the the the it's a wrong it's a wrong premise to think that the Old Testament no longer matters because the New Testament's here. Like Jesus himself, he said he didn't come to abolish the law. Okay? Said he came to fulfill the law. So the law is still there. So the Old Testament represents the law. The New Testament represents the fulfillment of the law. Right?

25:24 um that doesn't mean the law and you can read Paul, you can read throughout Paul's writing talk about and talk about how and Paul does a great job of navigating that better than I could just sit here and do this on this podcast talking about how the law and grace work together and all of that. So to to think that Old Testament thinking is canceled out now because the New Testament is u uh an an oversimplica oversimplification at at best at worst it's uh completely idiotic to think that. So um so that's the first problem. the the second issue. Okay. So, people and most of the people that I know that I've talked to about this, they say, "Well, the tithe is an Old Testament law, right?" Okay. Yeah. The tithe is not an Old Testament law. The tithe, the first tithe predates Old Testament law, right?

26:18 Who was the first tithe? The first tithe was Abraham to Melchizedek. The Bible says God gave Abraham a tenth of all the spoils of what he did. And theologically Melchizedek represents kind of a prototype of Jesus as this high priest, right? He's Melchizedek's a very interesting character in scripture. Yeah. Talk about in Hebrews. Yeah. And and Yeah. So there's this reflection in the New Testament of uh if you go and read the book of Hebrews, it talks about how Jesus sits in heaven as the high priest like in the order of Melchizedek. Okay? So Melchizedek's the first and Jesus is the next one or the the fulfillment. Um, and the Hebrews talks about how he receives our tithes. And uh, Jesus talks to the Pharisees about how they're careful to tithe, right? And he doesn't say you shouldn't tithe. He says you're careful to tithe. You're careful to obey all the laws and all these other things, but you you you clean the outside of the cup, not the inside of the cup. So, but just because God is concerned throughout the New Testament on your heart and on the inside of the cup doesn't mean the outside of the cup doesn't matter. So, so what people tend to do and again this all all this comes back to biblical worldview for me because if a person is um struggling with this thought process, they should really devote themselves to reading scripture and see what scripture has to say and execute scripture and go as deep as they want to go and ask God as many questions as they can ask him and they'll find God's answer. The the the thing is um whether or not they're going to choose to apply that to their life. And so a person who says, "Well, the tithing is tithing is a New Testament, a New Testament thing, right? Or an Old Testament thing." Um, they're misunderstanding what even giving is about because what a person who says that to me is trying to do is they're trying to figure out what their minimum is. So what's what's the minimum that I have to do to God? Like I was in youth ministry for a long time and one of the questions that youth youth min youth people like kids in youth always ask is how far is too far like with my girlfriend?

28:23 Like at what point would God not be happy with what I'm doing now? Like can I make out with her? Like what's the what's the limit? And this is how adults approach their relationship to God is what's the minimum thing I have to do in order for God to be happy with me? Right? Well, the good news is that God's already pleased with you because he's given you a gift of grace. And we talked about grace last episode. People can listen to it. God's given you this gift of grace. But um there's there's there's two realities that we live in, right? One is the eternal reality and one is the temporal reality. So one is life that we're living right now. One is life in eternity. God's grace guarantees our Okay? Right. Um but God's grace doesn't guarantee anything during the span of our life. So the temporal reality is the quality and this is a a real a core belief that I have. The quality of my life on this side of eternity is based on how well I obey what God says to do.

29:29 And if I do what scripture teaches, I'll have a good life. Right? If I don't do what scripture teaches, I won't have a good life. But I could still go to heaven someday. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, so people who are low-level thinkers, they deal in minimums. So, when a person is saying, well, the tithe is an Old Testament thing and we don't have to tithe anymore. What they're saying is that now that minimum is not required, right? Which, hey, if you want to think that way, that's that's probably the definition of a poverty mentality, right? Uh because you're thinking in terms of how little can I do and still please God. Yeah. Um to me, so let's say though it's not about a requirement. Like a tithe is not a requirement to get into heaven. So I guess if that's a person's premise, like sure, but God's not really concerned with that. Um what God establishes uh here here's what I here's what I think. what God establish has established with the tithe is the minimum the minimum standard of what it means to honor him financially right not that doesn't mean it's a rule that every Christian has to follow although on a level I feel like it should be like if you look at you know one of the things that's uh really fascinating to me about the Mormon church is the Mormon church controls $3 trillion of wealth they have the largest private investment fund in the world behind the cath Catholic Church now, right? One of the reasons why that is, so think about how much how much uh uh how much Mormons can shift things, right? In terms of that, like they basically own the state of Utah. Okay?

31:12 Right. Um why is that? One of the reasons why that is because they're they're good stewards, but also they require in in the Mormon church, you're require everyone's required to turn in how much money they make, and they're required to tithe 10% on that to be considered a member of the church. So, they show W2s. They Yeah, W2s, everything. I mean, if you're a business owner, you're like, I don't have a W2. Well, you got to show us your K1 or whatever it is that you have to show us how much income you have coming in. and if you're going to be a member of the Mormon church, you're you're going to you're going to be we're going to check you and we're and require you to tithe. Now, that's pretty legalistic, right? In in Islam, they do that. In Islam, you're you're required to give a percentage of your income. Um and so on a level, right? I think that the church would be better served if everyone who came to any church in America was required to show us their income statements and were required to give 10%. Otherwise, you weren't allowed to call yourself a Christian. Now, because you think that would vet people out as far as who's really serious.

32:13 Yeah. Who really who really? Because because the question for me of the of the tithe, right, is um are you going to honor God or not? Like the simplest, easiest way to honor God is to put him first financially. Right. Right. So God says in Malachi 3, this is what it means. He he says you you've dishonored me. He's not talking about you've disobeyed me. Right. Right. If we have an honor for God, then at minimum, we're going to go, "Okay, God, how can I honor you?" And and the question uh that we have to answer is what can I really do for God? I can't can't really do a whole lot for him. Everything in my life is a you know, it's CS Lewis talks about that that like us asking God what we can do for him is like a like a child who asked their father for money to go buy a birthday present for their dad. Like Yeah. just that's only only a fool, right? This is what CS Lewis says is only a fool would think that he's helping the dad out by going and using the dad's money to buy the dad a present, right?

33:16 So So what's the point of all this? The point of this is do you do you honor God with your life? And and human beings like we created money. God didn't create money, right? Human beings created money and and we're the ones that give it value. We're the ones that assign value to money. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so Jesus and and I've always seen this, right? Like Jesus says in Matthew 6, what you do with your money, where your treasure is, there your heart will also be. So what what we do with what is most valuable to us, which in the world today, one of the most valuable things that exist is the money that we have because of what it means to us. What we do with what is most valuable to us shows us what is first place in our life, right? what is what is most important and um and so when I under and that's a concept more than it is this um oh you know what are the list of rules I have to follow in order to make God happy right it's more of like a revelation of it's just true right or like understand yeah or like because there was one time one time I I talk I talk a lot about I end up talking a lot about money talk a lot about tithing and stuff so one time I was guy comes up to me in the lobby after church and he says, "Hey, you know, you you you you talked about tithing today, but that's Old Testament.

34:40 That's not New Testament." And I said, "Okay, well, what does the New Testament say about giving?" He's like, "I don't know." Like, "All right, cool." I go, "Well, here's I said I said, "You you you don't believe in tithing, right?" He's like, "No." I said, "So, you must believe in the old in the New Testament standard of giving." And he goes, "What is that?" And I said, 'Well, in Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4, the Bible says that the people in the church, they sold land, they sold property, and they gave so much so that there were no needs in the church. So, that must be the level of generosity you subscribe to. Yeah. He's like, "Well, I don't know about that. I don't know if I've ever seen that in the Bible." I said, "Well, I'd love for you to read it and tell me which one of those you want to land on." Right. So, so here's the the the the question and again the I disagree with the premise entirely because the question is how much can I keep for myself?

35:31 Yeah. Right. How much of this how much of this belongs to me? And the thing God's the thing God's always trying to teach us, right, is life's not about us. It's not about me. And so I have a there's a spectrum of giving that I can live on. I can minimum 10% honor God. That's the absolute minimum, right? Or I can give everything away. I get to decide, right? There's not a there's not a version of this where you don't you you get to you get I'll say it this way, but it's not this extreme. There's probably a better way to say this. There's not a version of this where you get to say that you follow God and you don't you don't honor him financially, right? and and at least do a minimum of 10% because the tithe like there's a great book called God and Money that people can read and in that book they talk about how um a tithing is not should not be seen as a requirement. It should be seen as the minimum standard of generosity.

36:30 Yeah. Like the minimum standard of doing money God's way is putting him first financially. Thank you for listening to The Dialog. Make sure to like, share, and subscribe. And also, if you think someone else would enjoy this, please send it to them. If you want to get in touch or learn more about me, what I think, speak, and write, you can go to joshuacraft.com. Or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.