Joshua Keith Craft

0:53 Well, what do you feel like the difference is between like you're saying how do you get that pull that out of me on the podcast? Well, I I just think it's a matter of like what you've uh how you've assimilated the information because we're doing a dialogue which is like we're trying to go through conversation to reach knowledge and I like whenever you have I like when you've plumbed the depths and then I get to come in there and be like, "Hey, did you did you ever turn left here?" And you're like, "Oh, let's see what happens." But you've already got like an extensive working of the pipes for a lack of a better analogy, man. Yeah, man. I think I I've been writing this like I did that series at the church and truthfully I've been writing this uh for, you know, two years or however long it's been since that series came out. I don't I don't want to talk about it. Like the reason I Yeah. The reason why I don't want to is not because I don't know anything, right?

1:45 It's because people it's such it's such an intense thing for people. Like it's such a it's such a battleground and everybody's already decided everyone's already decided forever where they stand. No, man. See, I want to I can't let you do that. I also don't like I had a guy um a few years ago when I did Elephants in the Room. Y'all were here, right? Yeah. Oh, I remember that. Yeah. I got some heat for a friend for your take on CRT. I posted and I was like, "Praise God, I go to a church that actually talks about how ridiculous this is." And she she's a PhD and a university professor. She was like laying into me about how not okay it was that you said that. And that's how I knew we were on to something. We can have her on the podcast. Um she Yeah, I could call her up. She's a good friend actually. Be interesting. It's uh like doing that. There was a guy that was in our church that was a super well-known political commentator, right?

2:40 And he's like, "Bro, I need to have you on everything. I need to have you on all my stuff. I need to have you be a part of this." And I was like, "No, I'm not gonna do it." Oh, really? And he's like, "Why?" And I was like, "Ah, it's just not it's just not really like the right time for me." I The guy was like he's like a full-blown like hyper hyperconservative way out there and I just don't want to be in a camp, right? So, I didn't I didn't tell him that. I just said, "No, thank you for the opportunity." I mean, it was a cool opportunity, but I was just like, "Yeah, I'm not going to do that." So, it's the same to me with talking about the prosperity stuff because you if you even say God wants you to prosper, it's like, well, prosperity gospel, we got you. We got you. You're a prosperity gospel guy. And then you everything else you ever say is like completely written off. Yeah. But but I also don't see any other way. I feel like I have to talk about this stuff. I think you have to like I feel I felt that way with Elephants in the room. I feel that way with the Vow of Prosperity.

3:36 Like I feel like that this is something I have to talk about, but I also don't want to wear like I've done so this is like the vow of prosperity stuff is thousands of I don't even know how many hours of research, right? And it's so dense like the the book the the little manuscript right now that I have is like 120,000 words. It's like a 500page book. Oh my gosh. Right. So people, so like when people get in my comments and they're like, "Hey man, you don't know what you're talking about. You should list Bible verses." I'm like, "Bro, I've got a 120,000word book that I've written on all the Bible verses that you're telling me that I'm not quoting." Yeah. So I don't want to be and I don't want to be like gotcha guy. I want to be a guy that's like genuinely having real conversations because I approached like I don't like the prosperity gospel. I don't I don't like people that preach the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel is a whole thing, right? I don't like that. But I also don't like the this idea that, you know, God just wants you to be poor or God doesn't care about you be prospering.

4:43 Um and but I but there's also like this weird hesitation in me that goes, man, like if you jump in here, there's this this water right here is full of sharks. Yeah. Yeah. And you're just inviting anger from everybody because the prosperity gospel people won't like it. And the the whatever that other side, whatever you want to call, poverty gospel, like those people won't like it either because I'm not propping up like I'm not propping up the prosperity gospel as like a thing. I'm like also saying that's bad. So, but then also the the idea that hey, God just wants you to be poor. I'm also saying that's bad too. Right. So, well, yeah, but here's the thing. I love that you just kind of jumping in the middle. I'm like, let me just You Yeah, but you said you said, and this is what I love. I I heard I heard another guy say this. You said, but I feel like I have to. You know who else said that? The Apostle Paul. He said, I am compelled to preach the gospel. Woe is me. And I'm not trying to put you on the Apostle Paul pedestal or anything like that. But I think that there's something to be said when you have all this trepid trepidation, but what you have more trepidation about is not saying it. To me, that's like God's bubbled something up in you. And I It's like jumping in the middle of a fight between two people and knowing they're both going to just start punching you now.

5:57 Yeah. But if you're the baddest man in that fight, you're ready. And what I'm saying what I'm saying is like, dude, you don't you're you're terrible at predicting the future, just like all of us are. So you have no idea who's going to hear this, what state they're going to be in. Yes. Yes. You can get flack and you can get it because you know what? You get flack about virtually anything unless you tell people like here's a five-step process for how to like build your own business. And even then people be like, "Oh, you like if you talk about money, you're going to hear six steps, you clown. Sorry, you can't do anything in six minutes." But no, but you know what I mean. Like that the point is is that I think there's a lot of people that are that I I would say a that you're wrong in your assumption. I think that the people that are the extremes that are quick to just drop a comment with no investment. And you know, I get a lot of this now in what Garrett and I do. We're starting to get a lot of people who don't take any time to listen but see one thing and reach out and tell you their opinion. strong opinion about stuff they know nothing about.

6:51 Yeah. And you just say, "Okay, great." You know, go check this out and and then they usually won't. But there's a lot of people who are like, "Man, I I like to hear what you have to say. You've put in thousands of hours. Like, be a blessing to other people because I just want to launch in here and just start asking you questions." You know, I think everybody has an idea about what they about money that they've learned growing up, whether they realize that they got it from where they grew up or not. They'll have either loved the way that their parents did finances or the financial models that they were in or they'll have hated them and so they'll have done the opposite or they'll have inadvertently copied them. But we've all learned this model of money and then suddenly you be confronted with like well hey what does God say? And now this like this really emotional thing and then you've got people shouting like you know hey money is the root of all evil which is not what the Bible says. Uh and but people will misquote that and they'll be like money's bad. Jesus was poor and you know for somebody who's your average maybe not exeding skip scripture aka they they don't you know dive deep they haven't they don't know how to do that yet from a good meaning place they're like I don't know what to do and they feel lost and so I mean I think a lot of people are like you know it's better it's better to just you know air on the side of caution and you know money can be a money can be a trap and so now they're coloring money is bad and success is bad and prosper, right? It all gets lumped in. So, so I mean, where like where would you for somebody that's like a little bit afraid of making money because they don't want to go astray from God? I mean, that sounds like a uh the heart posture that's like, hey, that's not a bad heart posture.

8:22 Yeah. But, you know, it also is a fearful one, which I would say, well, you know, I would never encourage someone to be afraid of anything except for God, right? Well, I think um I wrote about this a lot. I'm writing about this a lot so I don't I don't want to on the podcast like we kind of got into this like I think early on in the podcast then we kind of went a different way because I was you never released it man we recorded the whole episode and you chose you didn't want to release it which is like which is very Josh I remember that I do it it hit the cutting room floor but uh there's so much that I've written I don't just want to like rehash what I've written but I want to encourage everyone that's listening to this you can go to my website you can go to joshcraft.com and you can go read my blog And there's already I mean I'm not even halfway through all the research that I've done. But there's already so much stuff you can read. I mean there's so much stuff you can read on what the Old Testament really says about prosperity. That's one post. What the New Testament really says about prosperity and money. And in those in those posts uh I exegete every so I looked at just just to use this as an example. I looked at every verse that I could find that the Bible uses for money, prosperity, success, so on, right? And I exegeted them. I looked at them in context and then I just put them all together in a table. This was like pre before people were using chat GPT for everything, right? So you can know I legit did the work.

9:51 You kind of have to qualify all that now because it's like, well, I sat down with AI and I asked it a bunch of questions and it wrote wrote a book for me. That's kind of which is Yeah. But you know what though? I love this about AI. People have a need for authenticity. So, as soon as they know it's AI, I'm seeing this with clients. So, obviously slop and garbage, but but people are disregarding it and that's not I just love that. So, I get an email that's written by AI, just delete it. I don't even read it. I'm like, this person could not take the time to sit down and write an email and I'm not going to take the time to read it anyway. Yeah. So all throughout scripture, all throughout the Old Testament, all throughout the New Testament, there are money is the I I don't have my notes in front of me right here. I could pull them up, but money is either the second or third most mentioned topic in the entire Bible. Okay. So, it's mentioned more than prayer. It's mentioned more than uh faith. It's mentioned more than uh almost everything exe.

10:49 But the number I know the number one most mentioned thing is is is God and his sovereignty and well the number one most mentioned thing is all these prophecies. The number two most mentioned thing is God and his sovereignty and who God is. The third most mentioned thing in scripture is money. Okay. Right. So as as you know the first thing I look at is like there's so there's so many Christians that they uh they they we we've I don't even know how long. Maybe it's for 40 years, 50 years, maybe it's 100 years, I don't know. We have such a hard time talking about this and a hard time uh embracing this. So, what people do is like what you're saying is they start by just rejecting the whole premise and they go, "Okay, there's money. There's all these dynamics. I'm just going to say God doesn't care about any of this." Right. Right. And and the the thing is what you know what's really interesting to me is the Bible talks about prosperity before it talks about money.

11:44 Um because uh there was a time where money didn't exist. And I I can't I can't say that the Bible predates money. I don't really know the Bible like that that the historicity of the Bible that well, but Well, dude, of course it predates money. It was from the beginning. Yeah. But I mean like the writing of the Bible when they said wrote it, right? You don't know if they had money in Moses's time. I can't Yeah. I can't sit here and say, well, you know, Job didn't have money. Like I don't know how that worked, right? But here's the thing. Well, the uh what we do know for sure is that human beings invented money, right? Right. Yeah. So, so why does God talk about money in the Bible so much? God talks about money in the Bible so much because he talks about something that we have a tendency to worship. And and it's when we worship money, we put money in the place of God in our life. Which means we we think about that thing more than we think about God. Right? Just from a simple definition. So people who are who people have a poverty mentality worship money just as much as people as who have a prosperity mentality because it's all they think about, right? It's just it's just in opposite ways. And so um people have a tendency in the church, man. I think people have a tendency to um not I don't think they run from the conversation. I think that there's just so much bad theology out there about money. Like the theology of money is so off and there's so much bad teaching and there's so much bad perspective and um it just gets perpetuated like anything else. So the problem and this is what I kind of have started to talk about in these in these posts. Uh the problem is tradition. That's that's always the problem. The problem going back to Jesus's time was not what was written in scripture. It was all the beliefs that got formulated based on what was written in scripture. So in Mark 7, uh I think I've probably talked about this a few times on the podcast. I'm going to talk about it a hundred times in the future. In Mark 7, there's this really interesting conversation that Jesus had with the Pharisees where he says that you have elevated your traditions.

14:01 Yes. Uh above the commands of God, thus making the word of God of no effect in your life. So, um and I said this, you know, we talked about this last episode, but like your thinking the only, you know, thinking your thinking or not last episode, we've talked about on the podcast. Your thinking is more powerful in your life than the Bible. That doesn't mean your thinking is more powerful than the Bible, but in your life, the only thing that matters more than the truth is what you believe about the truth. Right? So, um, what we've developed in history, not just in Christianity, what we've developed in history is all these traditions about money. And what a tradition is is just really simple. A tradition is a belief that gets handed down to people as a law. So a person at one point believed this and then because this person believed this, we all are now forced to follow it. So the example I always use is Thanksgiving food. I hate Thanksgiving food so much.

15:03 Dude, what's wrong with you, man? Come on. You're the only person I know that actually likes it. What is That's because I lived in a Anyways, man. I lived in a great normal house. I mean, I have great parents. I lived in a country where they didn't do Thanksgiving for Oh, that's right. I've never not live. Um, yeah, it Well, I mean, even the wor even the best British food is worse than Thanksgiving food. Shout out to all our British friends. Shout out to our British friends that don't listen to this, but just shout out be like, like, you know, I mean, man, all the British food I've ever had. I've I've never had like Rian's cooking or anything like that. Nick's Nick's wife is is British. So I I I can't say all the British food in the world, but all the British food I've ever had is awful. Horrible. Right. So of course in living in living in in the UK, you would love Thanksgiving food because the least the least good American food is better than the best British food. That's just reality.

16:04 Well, dude, I I mean, this is massively opinionated. We're taking a hard left. So, for the sake of not like diverting to a whole food podcast, keep going on your point, man. You you don't like Thanksgiving food. So, no one likes it. I'm I'm saying like the I in my opinion, this is my theory, a lot of people don't like Thanksgiving food. The reason why we eat it is because in the 1800s, Abraham Lincoln, who's the president, made Thanksgiving a national holiday. And a part of making Thanksgiving the national holiday, they developed kind of a menu that was the 1800's version of what they ate in 1621 at the first Thanksgiving. It wasn't even actually Yeah. It wasn't even actually what they ate. It was just here's what we can come up with that's like the closest approximation. And then now it's like oh well this is what you do on Thanksgiving in America. And yeah, dude, that really wasn't the the goal. Okay.

17:02 The goal was, oh, it's the, you know, we're gonna celebrate this and we're going to celebrate what happened 200 years ago and this is kind of what they ate at that at that particular day, at that particular event between the pilgrims and the Native Americans, right? So the reason why I say that about Thanksgiving food is because most people probably, you know, if they didn't if we didn't have the power of traditions in our life and we weren't motivated by that, we would probably do a lot more things that we want to do. But the that the power but traditions are great. Traditions make us feel safe. Uh traditions are they're they're nostalgic. They they it's like we have Christmas traditions. We have family we have all kinds of, you know, traditions in our families. So, I'm not saying that traditions are are uh bad things. What I am saying is that tra traditions are peer pressure from dead people. So, it's dude, what a great oneliner that is.

17:57 Yeah. So, it's it's fine. It's fine if you want to be subject to that, right? That's that's your prerogative. But this is what Jesus was talking. So, this is my personal problem with the Catholic Church and this is my personal problem with the Pharisees. or this was this was my personal problem with the Catholic Church and Jesus's personal problem with the Pharisees is that the Pharisees believed that it wasn't just about following God. It was about following what they called the traditions of the elders. Okay? It's the same the same thing is true in the Catholic Church. So the Catholic Church, you're saved by yes, by grace, but also you're saved by following the traditions of the Catholic Church. So if there is any in you know my opinion as a uh amateur scholar I'm not a MD I don't have a PhD in divinity or anything like that uh if there's any approximation uh to what the Pharisees were it's the modern day Catholic church right because because of how much they buy into traditions right and how and how important traditions are as a saving aspect of Catholicism. So this is true.

19:08 This was true for the Pharisees too. So they approached Jesus in Mark 7 and they say, you know, your your disciples didn't wash their hands before they ate uh transgressing the traditions of our elders. Mhm. Right. So then Jesus says, "It's not what goes into your mouth that defiles you. It's what comes out of your heart that defiles you." Right? And you you you vile. He he goes down this whole road with him and he says, "You've made the word of God of no effect in your life because of your traditions." So traditions are just thinking and beliefs that we've put together and there's nothing inherently wrong with them, but there is something wrong with them when we when we elevate beliefs to the level of truth. So there's a difference between a belief and truth, right? Truth is something that's true regardless of whether you believe it is or isn't. Belief is something that only happens when you when you do it. So when I believe something, it exists. When I don't believe something, it doesn't exist. But that's not how truth works. So the problem with people, right, is that they've transformed beliefs about money, right?

20:16 And thinking about money into this is also what God says about money or beliefs about prosperity. Well, we won't even talk about that. This isn't even really about money so much as it is about prosperity, right? It's it's about the idea that God wants you to be successful in every area of your life, right? And that God that's very different though. So, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that's very different way you're defi. It's really good that important that you touch on those terms because prosperity because a lot of people when they think prosperity, they just think, "Oh, you're super rich, right?" And and that's like they'll have some number in their head or some person and they'll point at like Elon Musk and be like, "What's he going to do with all those billions?" you know, like look and and that's like that's like the extreme thought process that people run to. But you're saying like prosperity is is seeing fruit in every area of your life. It's winning in in every area. Yeah. And there's all these there's all these biblical words for that. But here's the thing, it includes money. So like you can't go, you know, um so like there was one time I was in the gym with somebody and we were talking about uh church or something and a guy comes up to me. He goes, "Hey, were you guys talking about church?" I was like, "Yeah." He goes, he goes, "You go to church?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm a pastor at this church uh down the road." He goes, "What church is it?" I go, "Elevate Life Church." And he goes, "Oh, that's one of those prosperity gospel churches." I said, "Okay." I said, "Let me ask you a question." He goes, "Yeah."

21:36 I said, "Do you think do you want to like have a great marriage? Do you want to have a great life? Do you want to uh, you know, win as much as possible and and make as much money as you can, you know, legally and ethically?" He's like, "Yeah, for sure." I go, "Do you think are you Christian?" He's like, "Yeah." I go, "Do you think God agrees with that? He's like, "I think so." I said, "It sounds like you believe in the prosperity gospel." What did he say? He just was like, "Oh, well, I don't know about all that." I said, "So, what do you think the prosperity gospel is?" He goes, "I don't know." I said, "Okay, so I'm going to finish my workout. It's pretty much like don't if you're listening to this and you see me at the gym, don't come talk to me, please." So, dude, go talk to Josh. He loves it. Like, like you like I always think it's funny how you put on this grumpy persona and then I see you talking to people and you're so loving and caring. Yeah. I'm not grumpy. I'm going to be very nice, but also I'm there to work out. I'm not there to have a conversation yet with all these I get you at the gym. No, at the gym I get you.

22:28 That's a whole I'm I'm Yeah, we're going down a different road. So, the food and gym podcast. Yeah. So, uh Yeah. And and uh and kerogginly introverts. Yeah. So, so, so the problem to me is there's like you're saying and you're you're illustrating there's there's all these beliefs that we have about money and there's traditions in fact in our life that we have about money and your your perspective on that is probably not based on scripture. It's probably based on how you were raised, the culture you were born into. Yeah. uh the success or lack thereof of your parents, uh how you how how you saw other people uh that were successful. It it it's based on the movies that you've watched. I mean, all all this different kind of stuff. It's it's based on culture and all of that. So, until we get to the point where we where we start to really understand um or we start to really ask ourselves, where do my where do my beliefs about this come from, we're going to have a really hard time having that conversation. And most people in general don't really sit down and assess the truthfulness of what they believe. They just really like what they believe just like we really like traditions. So like the example I'm using about Thanksgiving food is we don't sit down.

23:45 That's a great one. We don't sit we don't sit down on Thanksgiving and go, "Do we like this food?" We just go, "We eat this food. This is what we do." Like in my family, they can't believe that I feel this way. Right. I agree with your family, man. You know? Well, I I I've spent Thanksgiving with you. This past you were happy. This past Thanksgiving, I I was with my family. I love my family. I'm close to my family. But I said I was going to go to Garrett's house with y'all with y'all on Thanksgiving because they had steak at Thanksgiving. And my parents are like, you would go to a different a different place for Thanksgiving just because of the food that they have. It's like, well, it's not for all of Thanksgiving, but I'm going to eat there. I'm not going to eat it. I'm not gonna eat stuffing and green bean casserole and dried out turkey. I'm not gonna do that, right? It's too important. So, so I thought you were coming for the conversation and friendship, bro. I'm really now to discover to discover what's on as you know how I am in the gym. It's really important to me the the quality of the conversation. Um, man, ouch for me and Garrett. But but so we don't we don't really sit down and assess whether or not these beliefs serve us. These traditions are good for us. Like everyone that's listening to this, you have family traditions. You have traditions in your own life that you've created that are like rules for life based on whatever. And the question is, do you like them? Do they produce good outcomes in your life? And if you really want to assess the truthfulness of them, are they represented and reflected in what scripture teaches? And I don't And the hard thing for most Christians, right, is that they just listen to what someone teaches. Like, you're sitting here listening to this podcast and you're just going to probably take my word for it because you don't want to sit down and do the work, right? You don't want to sit down and go go you're you and and that's what we tend to do, right? If this is really that important of a topic for us, we should be the ones that search out what God has to say and really understand that. Not just in a particular verse that we like or particular school of thought or particular aic particular place. Especially in things like this that are that important. When we're talking about the prosperity of our life, like the quality of our life, we should really understand what the full council of scripture teaches on prosperity regardless of the traditions of culture. And so, you know, some of my hesitation in even exploring this and writing about this is uh my the it's cynical for sure. The belief that I have that most people just won't do the work and they'll just they already have an opinion and they've already decided what that is. Um, I wish that people weren't that way because most of the people that most of the people that are that way, their beliefs and their traditions don't serve them very well and they don't realize that they're not winning in life not because the Bible doesn't say it, but they're not winning in life because of what they believe.

26:43 Yeah. But part of I think part of the just to contradict you a little bit not in what you said but in in that viewpoint I think if you look at all of time even going back to the Israelites and whoever God's always worked through a man and and has risen a man up that will influence other people right we see that over and over and over again even to today and could it be that there's some laziness on the people's part sure I mean you know there is but nonetheless I look at like you have a platform and and a position in the church where you can give people good godly wisdom on money. And I think that that's part of it. It's like, okay, if they're not going to, you know, not everybody can spend thousands of hours researching money or maybe they've done some and they've missed some things or they have some blind spots or from a place of earnestness, they've just gotten it wrong cuz like, okay, Thanksgiving food is not life and death. I think it's hilarious your views on it because I actually love Thanksgiving food. It's like Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It's gratitude, all the people you love, and phenomenal food. I just I don't know that it gets any better.

27:37 I agree with half of that statement. Half of that statement is true. We're going to have another day for this podcast where we talk about Thanksgiving. But but like so but that's not like a heaven or hell or a life or death issue. Like that boils down to preference. And like a lot of people I'm sure I never heard what you just said before where I was like that was just their idea. I had always heard the thing of this is what they ate the first at the first uh Thanksgiving meal with the pilgrims and the Indians. So that's why we eat it. And like the pilgrims brought their their hunting skills and the Indians brought their gathering skills and like everybody sat down. Praise the Lord. They they you're grateful together. Obviously that story took a little hard left turn few years down the road, but it started off well. Well, yeah. I mean, and really it was just an approximation, right? Because they couldn't some of the stuff they didn't know and they couldn't make anymore and whatever. I mean, it's 200 years 200 years before. Yeah. Right. It's like folklore got passed down like maybe this was accurate and it's a giant game of telephone. But so like with money like you said it is so important and the Bible does say so like if I had to say to you Josh what are you know what are like three things that people you know need to know that are absolute truths because you're remember we're talking about money because that's where people that's the most central but what you're saying is prosperity is that God wants you to win in every area. I would 100% argue for that as well. I think there's scripture after scripture from the very beginning if you understand that the purpose of life is that God wants a people in the earth.

29:00 The purpose of life is God introducing himself to creation and gradually dwelling closer and closer with us. That's the whole story of what we're in. Yeah. Now, as part of that, he then chose a people in the earth because he chose to work through people to bring his glory about. And he said, "You will be, you know, blessed when you come, blessed when you go. You'll lend and never borrow." Like, it's so obvious that he was trying to make his people stand out. Now, we are his people today. So, if you can accept everything I just said, okay, we're supposed to prosper. But like what do you think people believe about money that is like is holding them back because like you know what I mean like if you had to summarize it. Well I think um the first yeah more than what maybe what people believe about money um I think the first thing you have you let's talk about from a positive perspective. So the first thing that a person who wants to do prosperity and money God's way uh should believe is that God wants them to prosper.

29:56 Right? So it is a part of God's plan for your life for you to be prosperous. Uh Genesis chapter 1 uh God says to Adam and Eve he says go into all the world uh multiply fill the earth subdue it and take dominion. Right? Later on in the book of Proverbs, the Bible says that it is a god, a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. The Hebrew word there is hyal. That's the Hebrew word for inheritance. And the way you translate that Hebrew is the ability to take dominion. Okay? Right? So, an inheritance that that a godly person leaves to their children is the ability to go take dominion. With all due respect, and I'm not talking from the perspective of, hey, I understand everybody's issues and everybody's got problems and all that.

30:50 With all due respect, if you if you as a person are not winning financially, you will not teach your children how to win financially. And I don't mean right I don't mean winning financially in terms of being a millionaire. Although that's perfectly possible given all the investment vehicles that are out there for all of us to be able to take advantage of. What I mean is doing doing life God's way financially, right? And if you do life God's way financially, the Bible says he blesses you. So the first thing you have to you know the the sec well I'll finish. I'll give you another verse. John 10:10, Jesus says, "I've come that the the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, and I've come that you might have life and life to the full." And abundant life, he uses this word abundant life. It's a Greek word, perissos. perissos means more than remarkable. And and when you look when you exegete this, there's what people say is, "Oh, well, that just that just talks about eternity, right?" Right.

31:49 Yeah. zoe life type thing. Yeah. No, it doesn't. That's not at all what Jesus said. That's a belief that got that got put together and substantiated because because what people do and we could probably like end this episode here and then we'll come back we'll come back on these other ones because what people do and to come back to traditions. What people do is they go okay I'm a godly person. Let's just talk about it from the perspective money. I'm a godly person. I feel like I do things God's way. I'm not very financially successful. Therefore, God must not want that for me. Right? When the truth is probably somewhere in the earlier statement that you think you're doing things God's way when you're really not, right? Because if you do things God's way, so Jesus said, "I've come that you might have life and life abundant life." perissos is a Greek word and it means more than remarkable in every area of life. Okay?

32:46 the the thing we the thing that we have to wrestle with as as Christians especially is what happens what do we do when our life doesn't line up with what scripture says. So when when this when scripture says here's what you should have in life if you do things God's way and I don't have those things in my life. There's one of two responses. Either I can say you know what scripture doesn't actually say that or I can go I'm probably not doing things God's way. Yeah. I I do want to I do want to dive into that more because I think about the person that's tithed, you know, maybe their whole adult life and just been broke and that's going, "God, you know, I've been a tither. I've been a giver. Like, what's going on here?" And, you know, they've been paycheck to paycheck their whole life. I think it'd be really interesting to dive into money God's way because we like to make it very simple and we forget that there's multiple principles at play such as stewardship, right? And so, I I would be really curious to dive into that more with you.

33:49 And so, so that's what we'll get into on the next couple episodes. That's a little teaser for everybody. But the first thing is that I want to land the plane with everybody on today is God's word gives you permission to prosper. Like God wants us to prosper. God wants us to win. It's all through scripture. And the first thing that we should do is go, okay, no matter what my perspective is before that, and you can go read about all this on my website, but no matter what my perspective was before that, I'm going to choose to agree with God's word. I had I had a the We'll end with this story. I had a theology professor in high in college that um we had a we had I went to ORU in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And at OU, we had like older people take our classes all the time. So, it's a bunch of 20some year olds in a college theology class and we had like a 50some year old lady in there with us, right? She just didn't have anything to do. So, she came to take theology classes, which hey, good for her.

34:47 Yeah. So, she at some point we're having a discussion and she raises her hand and says, you know, the Bible says that cleanliness is next to godliness. And so, if you have a mess, like if you have a mess in your house, in your car, in your life, then then that shows you're not close to God. And so my professor is was like, "Okay, where does it say that in the Bible?" And we didn't have Google or like a computer in front of us. I mean, we had Google back then. I didn't go to the school in the 70s. But I was going to say, "How old are you, dude?" We didn't have the internet didn't exist back then. We didn't have Google in 2008. Um, anyway, uh, you had Yahoo or whatever. Yeah, we had Ashks. Um, there you go. So, so he goes, "Where does it say that in the Bible?" And he gives her like it felt like an hour. He's like, "Look, he just he was gonna write it out." Yeah. He goes, "Look at the Bible. Tell us where it says that."

35:38 That's awesome. And so she just flipped through the Bible. I mean, I felt like she looked at all of Proverbs, everything. And she goes, "Well, I don't see it in here." He goes, "It's because it's not in the Bible." And he said, "If your beliefs don't line up with the Bible, you throw out your beliefs. You don't throw out the Bible." Man, I love that he made the he took the time to make that point because here you are all these years later talking about it. Samuel Thorp, man. Dr. Samuel Thorp at ORU is my first he's my favorite professor. Um, and that's true in our life. And I want to encourage everyone that's listening to this to to like think about that as it relates to your perspective on money, prosperity, anything that you disagree with, right, about what God says. If your beliefs, and this is the biggest challenge for Christians, especially people that have been in the church for a long time because they think they know everything, think they've heard everything, they think they've seen everything. And the Bible fundamentally brings change to our life. If if my life if I'm reading the Bible and my life is not changing, it's because I'm not applying it to my life. I my life should always be changing based on what the word of God says. So the fundamental law of God is he wants us to change. So, if something's not changing in my life for the better, it's because I'm not applying God's word to my life.

36:56 And if if I have beliefs that are false or if I if I read something in scripture or I see something that God says and I go, I'm not sure I agree with that, I have to throw that out, not throw out what the word of God says. And what so many people have done specifically on the subject of money and prosperity is they've thrown out the Bible because they have a certain belief system. And that's that's what we're going to talk about. 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.