Welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast with host Darren Shear, an initiative of the R.T.W. Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. This is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business and sign up to receive free access to all issues of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at Christianityandbusiness.com.
SPEAKER_02On this episode, we're joined by Dr. John Thornton. John is the LP and Bobby Leong Chair of Accounting Ethics at Azusa Pacific University's LP and Timothy Leong School of Accounting, and he hosts the soon to launch Getting Rich Right podcast. Get more about that and sign up, and you'll get notified as soon as it launches. Go to getting richright.com to sign up. And that's being launched with Moody's Gary Chapman team. And he's also the author of the book Jesus' Terrible Financial Advice: Flipping the Tables on Peace, Prosperity, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Fascinating title. And he's a CPA with a PhD in accounting and served as the chair of the American Accounting Association's public intersection and chair of AAA's Professionalism and Ethics Committee. And his research on auditor independence, auditor litigation, and ethical whistleblowing has been published in top academic journals. And his TEDx talk, Flipping Rich, is one of several innovative ways he encourages people to handle wealth and in with integrity. And uh yeah, that that shock factor is definitely working for you. Very tasteful as well. Um, so John, welcome to the Christianity and business podcast.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, Darren. Great to be here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we got to meet uh a couple years ago at the Christian Business Faculty Association conference, which a lot of people don't know, but there is a uh Christian Business Faculty Association where they get together and there's hundreds of Christian business professors who are equipping the next generation of business leaders to not only just you know learn the difference between cash-based and accrual-based accounting, but as John is doing, teaching what does the Bible set have to say about business? So, John, what led you to start studying what the what Jesus and the Bible have to say about money?
SPEAKER_03Well, I happen to be a CPA and PhD now, but I um I started out as a Bible major. Uh I'm a dropout from a little Bible school up in the Portland area called Multnomah. Um, in fact, they are kind of famous from Multnomah Press. Um and uh so I've always uh I say always, uh I grew up in a family that loved God, loved, uh loved God's word. And uh so as I kind of grew in my discipline, my expertise as a CPA, and then um uh going on to get a PhD in accounting so I could jump into academics, um uh I always in the back of my mind really thought uh what matters most to me is how can I encourage people to understand what God really says. And uh in fact, I I think of my ministry uh in life as the second half of the Great Commission, where after being baptized, teaching them, as Jesus says, to obey everything I've commanded you. And so, since I understand money, um, and we have a great money story, I give it in Jesus' terrible financial advice. Uh, the reason the title of that book is his advice ruined the book I wanted to write on his behalf. Um, he just didn't say the things that I wanted to say. And uh in a in a nutshell, I had this great story of how we went through um uh lived at half of poverty income for about six years. Uh while I was getting my PhD, I was trying to free up time to be a I was a summer camp speaker uh and uh trying to free up some time and have a day job being a professor that covered my bills, but then freeing the summer up to speak to kids, to youth. And in that process, uh when I finished, I realized living off of half of poverty income, uh, my family had doubled in size, um, while my net worth doubled in size. I didn't go bankrupt at 8,000 bucks a year. Uh God actually prospered me. And a funny little thing to motivate yourself in budgeting, you you need a little bit of a lure. And ours was if we had a little money left over, we'd travel. We realized we'd been to Disneyland, Disney World, and Maui three times. Uh and so that was, so I thought, hey, here's this cool story. I'm gonna tell how, you know, God says, you know, follow him, you know, put him first, uh, and he's gonna take care of the rest. And and that's true, that's part of it. Um, but uh um, yeah, I'd heard, I was listening to people like uh Larry Briquette back then, uh was around with Crown Ministries, uh, some great stuff. And uh I thought the Bible was gonna tell me to get out of debt. And truthfully, one half of one verse in the entire Bible, the borrower's slave to the lender, the most preached half of one verse from Christian financial counselors. Uh, but I was really shocked with the Bible having 1,300 passages on wealth. One half of one of them had to do with debt. It's just not a big issue. A few other passages about debt, um, but it's usually telling the lender to be merciful to the borrower. So at the end of the day, uh Jesus' advice ruined the book I wanted to write. And that's why I named it Jesus' terrible financial advice. Uh, but yeah, his advice will totally turn from terrible, like exceedingly bad. Then you go through the terrifying stage, like, oh no, you meant that. And finally you end up with this uh terrible, like awesome, like the awesome day of the road, Lord, the terrible day of the road. Sorry, the terrible day of the Lord. And his advice is just awesome. And if we put it into practice, it totally revolutionaries, revolutionizes our lives.
SPEAKER_02One of the things I love that you're working on now is really diving into Luke chapter 16 to unpack the purpose of wealth. What is the purpose of wealth?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, this may shock you. Um, and it's coming from a parable that people don't understand too much, the parable of the shrewd manager. But Jesus' words at the end of that parable, he says, I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you'll be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Uh, an old professor of mine at that Bible school, a guy named Randy Alcorn, he's written some great stuff, a book called The Treasure Principle, I'd highly recommend. But he he says something, you can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead. That's the treasure principle. And again, I love what he's saying, but Jesus is really kind of saying that in this, that um we're told to store up treasures eternally. How do you do that? So Jesus not only says, here's the point, and by the way, this is the point of anything God has given you, not just wealth. Okay, but we sometimes talk about time, treasures, and talents, right? So some people low on wealth might be rich in time, right? But whatever God's given us, we want to use it for his glory. How do we do that? Jesus says, I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself so that when it's gone, you'll be welcomed into eternal dwellings. And I want to argue that that is it. That is the purpose of worldly wealth, to gain friends forever. That fulfills the great commission because if we rightly show people who God is and they end up there, then who's gonna be there to welcome you, right? You're gaining friends in heaven. If they don't see God through you, and if they choose to go a different direction because of that, then guess what? They're not gonna be there to welcome you, right? So it's not making any old friends, it's making friends that become disciples, the Great Commission and the Great Commandments. When we love God and love people, using that wealth as God intended, then all of a sudden people can see God for who he is. And again, guess what? They're there to welcome you, and of course, you know, God is there to welcome you.
SPEAKER_02So yeah. So this guy, he's he's marking down everybody else's debts. He was the master is upset with him, is is kicking him, kicking him out of the business, kicking him out of the household. And and so he goes, and and can you kind of unpack that that parable? And just for some of our listeners, it might not be as familiar.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's one of those less preached parables because it confuses people. It almost seems like Jesus is encouraging us to do something wrong with what we've got. But he he just sets it up and Jesus says, there's this guy who's getting chucked because of bad behavior. And so he he marks down his master's bills so he can get a soft landing when he gets kicked out. And the soft, and in the way he does it, um, he he says, Hey, uh, I'm too weak to dig, I'm ashamed to beg. What will I do? And so this is his crafty little solution. And surprisingly, that owner commends the manager for his shrewdness. And Jesus says, you know, the people of this world are really good with dealing with themselves. I wish those who followed me would likewise be shrewd enough. And I think here's the connection. And that's why you're, and I I mentioned what Randy Alcorn said about the treasure principle of he's getting rid of stuff he can't keep, you know, so he can get a soft landing. And Jesus says the same way with uh with you know, with you, nobody takes it with them. But believe it or not, you can use your wealth in such a way to gain friends forever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And that's what that's how he's setting it up. So again, I I hear different sermons on this, and I don't want to go too far into what it means. I'm so excited about this advice, though, because right after it, he tells us exactly how. He gives a really simple four-step plan that goes way beyond uh Dave Ramsey, for example. I like Dave's work. He tells people to be responsible, get out of debt. And that's cool. But what now?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I've been out of debt since I was 27 years old. That's when I paid my first house off. Okay. And so, you know, that all worked out. I get the financial stuff. That's me. Okay. I I am a CPA, I get money, but now what? Yeah. And that's what I'm excited about is that whole now what. And Jesus has this just really simple plan, four steps. Yeah. And I think that does it. Yeah. So uh so let me just give you all four real quickly, and then we can break into a little bit more. But Jesus, right after he says this, he tells us how it's just a couple verses. He's he talks about if you're trustworthy with a little bit, you'll be trustworthy with much. And by the way, if you're deceitful with a little, you're gonna be deceitful with much. So step one is just be worthy of trust. Okay. And then he says, uh, this little too much thing, right? How do we make it grow? Right. And you see Jesus doing these miraculous things, right? Uh of turning a few loaves and fish and feeding a lot of people. And yet that's how God uh does it, I think. He says, be trustworthy with whatever that is I've given you. This is a little bit bit. And so the second step, if you will, after we're being worthy of trust, is growing it from little to much. And then the next step, and one that I think some people who want to be really spiritual miss how spiritual this is. But Jesus says, um, if you haven't been trustworthy handling worldly wealth, who's gonna give you true riches? So, in other words, there really is a purpose of worldly wealth, okay? And and that's almost like training wheels. You got to handle that worldly wealth first. So you can never help somebody else out if you can't even figure out how to manage your own life, right? So that that's step three um is how do we get it? Uh worldly wealth from here to there. If you can't even handle it, worldly wealth, who'll give you true riches? And then the final step, and this one I really like, and I'm a little edgy here, uh, and and help help uh help me when I unpack this, uh, but stewardship to ownership. Okay, and and we'll come back to this, but Jesus basically says if you can't even manage somebody else's money, stewardship, right? Manage somebody else's money, who's gonna give you money of your own to manage? And again, it's almost like training wheels. You're working for somebody else, and then you get a paycheck. Now you've got money of your own. Right. What's that gonna look like? Okay, and so that four-step process, just being worthy of trust, little to much, here to there, stewardship to ownership is is what Jesus lays out is I kind of think it covers the whole range from cradle to grave of my wealth journey, if you will, from my poverty to now what would consider be considered by many uh a lot of wealth, but it presents new challenges. And Jesus gives us advice to cover the whole range.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think some people are probably hung up on it, because even if you open your Bible, the heading on that on that chapter is gonna be, you know, un the unrighteous steward. And then you're reading about unrighteous mammon. And so the conclusion is that money is why would I want to deal with something that's unrighteous? Like, see, there you go. Like it's Jesus is calling it unrighteous money, is is the way it's kind of interpreted. So the it's just kind of a necessary evil. What do you say to that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, and and by the way, I mean, there's a lot of ways to go south. They go the wrong way with money. And uh, yeah, that that King James translation is unrighteous mammon. Um, the NIV runs with and calls it worldly wealth. The only place in the entire Bible where that two words are combined, and we translate it. Uh, I'm no Greek scholar, I'm an accountant. Okay. I do have Bible Gateway, Bible Hub. I can see how 30 other people translated it. Right. But it kind of runs that, and and so yeah, people see that unrighteousness or worldliness and think, oh, I want to flee from that, right? Well, Jesus is just saying, use the stuff of this world, whatever I've given you, right? Use it for my glory. Right. And so um, money, economists tell us that money has uh three things you can do with it. It's a medium of exchange, right? So it just gets rid of the barter system, makes life easier to have transactions. Uh, it's a unit of account, so you can kind of be accountable or keep track. Okay. And then um it's a uh it's a uh store of value.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So you can store it up. Um, and uh so money itself, you know, and you people point this out often, you know, that it's not that money this bad, it's the love of money and so forth. I will say you that love of money loves to rear its head. So don't poo-poo that advice. But um, Jesus is actually saying there is one good use, and it's the only place I see that. 1300 passages on wealth, it's the only place when we get unrighteous mammon, there you have it. It's not anywhere else, but right here in this passage.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I also thought it was interesting that that same, I was looking at this because you you really kind of piqued my interest to dive into this before our interview. And uh I I looked into the Greek as well, and it's the same, it's a little bit of a sidebar here, but the same term used there for unrighteous to do to as an adjective to describe money is the same term used to describe the steward. Oh, I was I like that. I don't know why. I don't know, I I just thought it was curious kind of why um like why he would use the same term to describe the steward as as the actual money itself.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's a that's a great question. Good, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to say good food for thought.
SPEAKER_02I I'll have to uh I mean because the it seems like it seems like the the issue there is why it would be thought of as unrighteous is because of how deceptive wealth can be. Is that is that kind of what like you were talking about the here to there kind of um really getting to the point where we're not just um we're not just looking at things for temporary purposes, but that we like in the parable of talents, you can enter into the joy of your master and start to view things the way he views it, right? Going from stewardship to ownership, I think is what you're talking about as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, and I love the fact that you just brought in deceitfulness there, deception. Because um, when I did at one point, uh I just read the Bible and highlighted every passage on wealth. I know I could do other ways of finding it, but I just read through it, took all those passages, put them into a uh Word doc one time, typed them all in. 112 pages, 12-point font, single space. So a lot of stuff to look at. So as an accountant, as you might guess, I put it into a spreadsheet, double-coded it. The number one cat or the number two category of all the things the Bible says about wealth is it talks about deception.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So um I by the way, I find no place in the Bible where um God says he's gonna curse somebody by making them rich. But the wealth becomes a curse for us when we don't humbly submit it to his lordship. And so often um it just takes up your time. And that's why I think this four-step process is so important. I start with, or Jesus starts with, worthy of trust, right? And a lot of times, um, so this word right, and I think this is super important, right has two connotations to it. There's a righteous versus wicked, okay, and you kind of think of maybe the character component of a person. But there's also when you use the word right, there's a correct versus incorrect, right? Like two plus two doesn't equal five. That would be just an incorrect answer. There's nothing immoral about it, it's just wrong. It's not the right answer. And so that would be what I would call kind of the competence piece of the word right. And so if if you're gonna be worthy of trust, like a business person or an individual citizen, um, it's not just about character. I'll have people tell me, oh John, money confuses me. Well, that's not okay. You know, that, you know, oh, math is confused. No, no, no. You can add two plus two equals four. You can do that. Okay. I can teach you all of accounting in two minutes. I've got a little vignette on my getting rich right, the two-minute accountant. You just measure what you're worth, and here's your budget. You know, what we call a balance sheet and an income statement. So stop using the excuse that it's too confusing to you. You're simply choosing not to be worthy of trust. Okay. So you you can't just go with the character piece, you've got to run with the confidence piece too. I'm not trying to turn everybody into an accountant, but just the really, really basics, it's pretty straight up. And so I think that's what that worthy of trust thing is all about. And so that's the deception, you know, that's how you get rid of deception, right? Uh is trustworthiness. It's it's kind of the opposite of that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And it's it's it's almost like the same way that I wonder if Jesus is calling, he's referring to the guy as deceitful. He's referring to the money as deceitful, and he's referring to the steward as deceitful as well. It's like he just kind of kind of co-opted that concept to uh to talk to to kind of paint a picture that like he was operating just kind of in uh a worldly temporal type of mindset with money at one point. And then he got shrewd. And and that's that's kind of the the calling, right? Is to become shrewd with money and shrewd and in general, shrewdness as in looking to eternity, right?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. I mean, and that's one of those things. Uh uh, I've always found it challenging. I'm really good at money because I get it. I mean, I you know, I've got a lot of education in it. And so I can tell you how to get treasures on earth. It's a much, it's it's I've spent 30 years of my life trying to figure out those other treasures, the ones that Jesus says are worth it. Right? That's what Jesus has us going for. Right. And so when some people say, hey, money's just a tool. Yeah, I could kind of agree with that. It's a really super dangerous one. You know, don't let your baby play with the chainsaw kind of tool. Okay. But it is this tool. And so, yeah, what makes the tool deceptive? Well, yeah, again, back to is it you know, humbly submitted to God's worship? You know, and if it is, you know, then it's gonna be you're gonna you're gonna be digging for the right purpose. You're gonna, you know, your nuclear warheads point in the right direction. I don't know. Pick pick the size of tool you're looking for, right? Um, so yeah, I again I'm gonna just agree with you that I I love what you're saying about this unrighteousness with the servant, because if the person's heart's already wrong, how much worse that you arm them, right? That you give them a great tool to accomplish bad things. In fact, and I have this little um graph I use that it shows character on one axis and competence in the other. A person who has low character and high competence, they're just really good at being bad. Okay. That's what what uh what we call a menace to society, right?
SPEAKER_02Like, have you ever seen the movie Mega Mind? Uh my kids love that movie. Yes, yeah, yeah. He's great at being based. That's the one thing he's good at, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And so so that's not what we're looking for, right? And that's what happens when you get really good at money, but you're going the wrong direction with it.
SPEAKER_02Right.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02So so let's unpack some more of these steps in this uh this rich right plan. Um yes. So how do you get to what at what point do you want to jump on there? Because you've already talked about the the worthy of trust and some you've kind of Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So let me jump on the next one. How do you get from little to much? Um when you again, when you want to see what the Bible actually talks about related to wealth, um uh there is this wisdom-wealth connection. Okay, and uh even though temporal treasures aren't what we're going after, um, look, uh, the Proverbs, the number one thing, the number one rule of thumb related to wealth uh in all of the Proverbs is simply if you do something, you'll have something, don't you won't. Diligence versus sloth, right? So if you can't get yourself up in the morning, if you won't get your seed planted, whatever, you're not gonna have anything when it's harvest time, right? Uh the number two step, it actually ties two and three just by count of number verses. So I don't know if that's good theology or not, but I always think if uh, you know, a lot of heresy comes from pinning everything on one verse, you know. So I always think if it matters to God, he'll yeah, he'll probably repeat it, right? Yeah. And so the kind of tied for second is righteousness versus wickedness. So uh don't cheat people to get ahead. Do it right, take your time, you know, and so forth. But if you handle wealth righteously, it says the righteous person, you can knock them down seven times. They keep popping back up. The wicked person, they look like they've got this meteoric rise, but they disappear overnight, you know, never to be heard of again. It says they don't pop back up. And so the Proverbs say, you know, uh, unlike you might hear in business school, um, I joke, if I asked my students, do you have to cheat to get head? They'd probably respond, no, but it helps. Okay. Well, Proverbs says, no, it doesn't help. Okay, and that rottenness in you ends up causing that whole thing to collapse. Okay, so even products are righteous, right? I mean, uh, I'll just say an iPhone, it works. It does what they said it was gonna do. Okay, and we as business people, we've got to deliver on what we promise. Don't overpromise. Promise what you can really deliver on, and then deliver that, you know, meet expectations. So that's uh, and the rest of the little to the much. The last thing is just generosity versus stinginess. The proverb says one person gives generously has even more, the stingy person withholds unduly comes to poverty. And so that's how you get from little to much. And I'll I'll say one more thing. Um, Jesus loves using seed, uh kind of a parallel with money. And there's another parable about a rich uh man who is a fool who has this big crop and he decides to put it all in the barn. Plenty saved up. Which, by the way, doesn't that sound like what we're trying to do in financial planning? How soon can you get it so you can spend the rest of your life doing nothing?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Jesus calls that person a fool. And so I think here's why. When we talk about uses of money, it's like seed. Seed you can eat it, store it, or plant it. Right? Well, same thing with your money. You can pay your daily bills, you know, eat it. You can store it, and you got to put away some for a rainy day, whether it's retirement or whatever happens, a slush fund, uh, you name it. But to the extent our faith allows us, we want to plant a big field, right? So get it out there, get it working, invest it, right? That's the only way, the only way you can get more, right? You can't get more seed by eating it. You can't get more by putting it in the barn. And that's why I think Jesus partly calls this guy a fool or why he uses that arrangement in his parable. Um, get out there and use whatever God's given you for his glory. So that's kind of this number two step. Yeah, how do we go from little to much? You got a plant.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, and how important is it that people first of all view themselves as stewards? Because if you know, you look at this guy in this parable, and if you're a business owner, you're like, if one of my people ever tried to cheat me like that, um I mean, like one of the one of the guys I interviewed not long ago uh was the um he he was part of the Archer Daniels Midland scandal uh back in the 90s. And he um on the way out, he started embezzling money, which you know he ended up going going to prison, uh, but he had to take care of his family, uh, which is why what kind of led to him him doing that. And I mean, it's it there's it's not apples to apples comparison, but if you don't view yourself as a steward, if you think you're the owner, then this parable, these concepts just don't even really make sense, right?
SPEAKER_03Well, so uh I'm gonna say yes in that um uh let me jump to four. Okay. Uh I'm gonna jump over, I'll just I'll say three really quickly, just how uh uh step three in this, okay. So being worthy of trust, can you grow a little to much? Can you get it from here, this world to eternity is step three, and we can come back to that to this step four, stewardship versus ownership. And I wanna I wanna um say something here because I think on one hand, uh Christian circles, we we get it really right. This idea, uh Ron Blue, I think it's tagline, God owns it all. Okay. No argument. I mean, God created everything, therefore it's his. Anything he's put in our hands is simply because he chose to do that. Um, and yet, uh agreeing with that, I want to come back and say, and yet he's given me stewardship roles where I'm managing somebody else's money, and ownership roles where I'm managing my own. Probably the simplest one is I oversee probably the biggest uh accounting ethics endowment in the world. It's 18 million bucks. Okay. Well, um, I personally feel called to share the gospel and take care of widows and orphans. Okay, I cannot use the Liang accounting ethics endowment to feed widows and orphans. Just can't. It's not my money, it's not what the guidelines are. The steward, the owner has put restrictions on what that money uses for, is used for. So I need to make the biggest impact I can about accountability from a Christian perspective with that money. But then I get a paycheck, and I say, when I go from being a steward managing somebody else's money to an owner managing the money that God's given me, now there's zero layers between me and God as far as what I do with that. There's no excuses left. I can't say, hey, God, I can't do that because such, you know, I got to go to work today. God says, no, I gave you so much, I gave you enough that there, you know, this is what I've made you the owner of. You have no excuses. You can't say, oh, it can't be used that way. So that I can share the gospel. You know, I want to find a church whose pastor really gets the gospel out, or I want to fund my friends who are missionaries who are really good at that, right? And the same thing uh for feeding widows and orphans. I don't run into many widows and orphans, and this is why this is such an important concept and kind of completes this four-step plan of Jesus. Owners need good stewards. Okay, so Compassion International, World Vision, I don't know. They there's there's organizations out there who run into lots of widows and orphans. There's churches in places that really have people to help. Church I go to has some pretty old folks there. We got a lot of you know, widows that need some help. Okay, so I want to fund that. Yeah, and how do I know if they're the right ones to fund? Same model. Are they worthy of trust? Can they do a lot with a little? Can they get it from here to there? If I just feed an orphan, they go to hell. I don't want to be harsh about saying that, but look, uh, you know, I took care of a secondary problem. So I want them to know that I'm feeding them because Jesus encouraged me to do that. Who's this Jesus? Well, Jesus loves you, right? And then I get a uh, you know, I get to share the gospel uh as uh one famous person said, I get to roll wrap the gospel in a sandwich, right? Yeah, and so you know, um anyway, so so that's why I think this whole process, um uh I also get disturbed. People play games with stewardship and ownership, right? Well, so how come I'm steering a pinto and you get a steward of Porsche, right? And and I don't even want to play those games very much, but um too often I hear people say they're stewarding money for God, and I think, boy, I'm not sure if he's so excited about how you're doing it. You know, now that's not my job to judge, but it's God's job to judge, right? And so I think we just need to know well, what is God aiming for? And once we know that, we dig into the scripture, we see what he has to say. I think Jesus lays out this great plan that when we love other people as God has loved us with the wealth he's given us, and again, sometimes it's my wealth to be used. Uh, sometimes maybe I'm pushing somebody else's wealth around that direction, but I can only push it so far because it's not, I'm the steward. And Jesus, again, he uses these very words. He says, if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who's gonna give you property of your own? And so even though God does own it all, um there's this thing we call risk-free investments in the financial world. There's a risk-free investment in Proverbs, he who gives the poor a lands to the Lord. That's what I call a risk-free investment. God's good for it, He's not going bankrupt. Okay. Now, yeah, I'm not gonna go too far with this whole metaphor, okay, because I there I think there are great reasons to be thinking about it both ways. So overarching, yes, God owns it all. But from there, I still think he gives us ownership roles in some places, stewardship roles in others.
SPEAKER_02So you're so you think that he there's some, and I have somewhat of uh an issue with kind of our cultural obsession with leadership as well. I think everybody wants to be a leader and nobody wants to be a manager, or nobody, it's like and it's very well-known leadership gurus saying, don't be a manager, be a leader, because leaders only care about things, or or managers only care about things and leaders care about people. And and there's a similar tension here with stewardship and ownership, because the the reason why I think there's an issue with this issue of emphasize or over-emphasizing leadership, ownership is because God is the leader. And at every at every turn, we are the steward and the manager. I mean, that's the main character in all of these parables virtually. I mean, find a parable where there's a a leader that is being depicted, a leader in the sense of like a general patent, you know, take the hill type of uh leader. I mean, the if and if if there was that type of character, it's gonna be personifying God, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, and so um, and uh yeah, I want to agree with you on that in and at one level. Um, I also want to come back. Um, uh, there's one thing I missed in this overarching framework about getting rich right. And that is what I consider the two big problems of money. And the first one is um, it owns you, what I call the master problem. And most Christian financial counselors, the advice we give you is how to keep from being owned, like get out of debt, you know, be responsible, that kind of thing. Uh, when I wrote Jesus Terrible Financial Advice, it was really aimed at that same master problem. I was just talking about love and fear, because if you love money or fear it, either way, it owns you, right? So that's a really big one half of the problem. The other half of the problem we have with money is instead of it owning us, we own it. Okay, I'm so I'm tying back to this ownership thing for a moment. But when you own it, you now have a ruler problem. Are we gonna rule like Jesus as a humble servant or like the Gentiles who lord it over other people? So I would argue that every time we spend a dollar, we rule. So somebody made coffee for me this morning. You know, thank you to the priest at Starbucks. Okay. Um, if I even if I say I'm a poor person, well, you still, where'd you get your groceries? Yeah, you know, I love shopping the 99 cent store. Okay, somebody still brought food for me. So every time I spend a dollar, I rule. And by the way, that is why we were put on earth, right? I mean, the the mandate to humanity was to rule, right? And so um Jesus' disciples didn't understand how it was going to work. Jesus did. And Jesus humbled himself and became a servant. And um, to me, one of the most fascinating, again, we we could go to leadership forever. I know you're uh uh an old Air Force officer. I used to teach the Air Force Academy, you know, we taught leadership. We, by the way, I was in the management department, we taught management as well. But um when we um sorry, when we when we go down that pathway about ruling and what does that look like and what does the leading look like, when I see Jesus, and right on the on the night he's betrayed, we have this really amazing experience or a thing where Jesus says, knowing that God had given him all power, put all things under his authority, he and I I ask people, finish that sentence. If God gave you all power, put everything under your authority, right? There's leadership, right? Here it is, what happens? Jesus said uh the Bible says Jesus got up, wrapped a tower on his waist, and started washing the disciples' feet. And I think he did it to demonstrate what leadership really looks like. Okay, because up to this point, his he had been serving people constantly. He just served in such a way it was a miracle, right? Oh wow, he fed 5,000 people, he's calmed the sea, he healed leprosy. Nobody's gonna get confused that Jesus is serving when he's down there on his knees washing feet. And so Peter doesn't even understand it. Jesus says, You will, let me explain in a moment. But so that is how we lead, and that is how we rule. So when God has put wealth in our hands, I think our responsibility is when we're running our businesses, that is the power God has given us to serve the people He brings into our lives. Right? And so, um, yeah, so again, I I I don't want to ruin a word. Um, just C.S. Lewis one time talked about ruining the word gentleman. You know, gentlemen's the landed aristocracy, you know, and you can play with it another way and say, well, you know, wasn't aren't you courteous? And so whether you want to use the word steward and owner or just say, just choose Jesus' words right here, managing somebody else's property, manage your own. Um, even when Ananias and Sapphira um they gave their money, by the way, very generous people, right? They didn't have to give it. That's what Peter said to them. You who uh who got you to conspire against the Lord, right? But here they're quote being generous with their stuff, okay? But it said it was yours. You didn't have to give it to anybody. And so I'm gonna say that God actually gives ownership to people. He just does. And now, granted, that does not mean he's not the Lord of our lives. So we can never get rid of the primary overarching thing that Jesus is Lord, right? But I still want to argue that there's money that there's no bounds on it because it's completely mine, because he's given it to me, which I can then give back to him, right? David says, I will not give to God that which costs me nothing. Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give his cow, right? David said, No, I'm I'm I'm bringing the cow. And so um, I think it's the same thing. Uh, that ultimately um that is how we glorify God. That is how we get treasures in heaven. When people see us handle wealth the way Jesus handled his life as a humble servant, bam. Yeah. So that I know that's not the end all in this stewardship ownership thing. And I'm I'm glad we're thinking about that God does own it all. I don't want to throw that out at all. I just still say I see two roles in my life. One when I'm working for somebody else, and one when I'm now I am now the the final say, at least legally, within the US system, and I think a lot of systems in the world across history of now that's yours, you decide.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I think there's that there's definitely some tension because we wanna we want to emphasize the being faithful and really uh doing such a because when you're an owner of something, when you're a business owner, you're you you think about that business a lot more than the typical employee does that doesn't have an ownership stake in it. Uh at the same time, if as a Christian business owner, we really need to look at our businesses uh from a stewardship standpoint that God has entrusted this the business to us. Uh so we don't want the kind of the negative connotations that come along with being, you know, where Jesus in the the the passage about the good shepherd, like just being the hired hand. Um we don't want to take that approach. At the same time, uh I like I do like how you uh talked about the um the the this tension, the the ruler, what was it, the ruler problem and the uh and the master problem. The master problem, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. So money masters it and then uh yeah, so we own it, it owns us. You know, uh two things, very big, both huge issues we've got to deal with. Um hey, I'll I'll ruin one more thing for you. Uh years ago, probably a decade ago, I bought the stewardship bible. Uh the word stewardship wasn't in it. Uh, just so you know, it would depend on the translation. I mean, I found uh, you know, administer, administrator, manager, servant, slave, um, satrap. And uh and I thought, oh, you know, this is really disappointing because I was gonna go go to town with stewardship and I was getting the stewardship Bible. I thought, darn, it's not in there. What's with that? So uh anyway, uh you know, again, these are words. We're trying to get ideas across, right? But as long as we don't forget that there's this lordship issue, and God is the Lord of all. And um, even at the end of the day, and and you talked about so many parables, in the end of the day, what do we do? Uh uh, you know, uh, we just say, Hey, I'm an unworthy servant. Yeah, anything we have is a gift from God. And now, he gave it to us with no holds barred, then I guess we're the owners, right? I mean, again, if you give it a gift, you say, well, hey, it was my gift in the first place. So anyway, I don't want to go too far with it, other than just saying um uh there's a lot to understand here. And I think if we get those four things, to me, it runs in the problems I have now that I didn't have before, right? Because when you, if you think your problems stop once you have the wealth, uh besides it making you arrogant and uh putting your trust in it instead of God and those typical obvious things I think most people understand. I could give you so many more problems with wealth. Like um, it changes um I can't to I won't. Right? I could help you. Um it takes more wisdom. Should I help you? Uh, there's a book out there called When Helping Hurts. Sometimes we don't help very well and we cause more problems than what we've got. And so it just takes so much more wisdom when you have something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so I think that's why God didn't make everybody rich to start with, if you will. I mean, we could have been fabulously wealthy, every single person, right? Just like we're so wealthy in error, we don't realize we've got more than we need. Why did God choose not to do that? I think he was he knew that we would not mature. And he wants to grow us up into his kids, you know, who are who are fully mature. And in that process, um, you know, um, it there's just a lot of challenges that come with handling wealth right. And I think this model that Jesus gives us, I think kind of gets all kind of the whole range that I see that I run into as my life has kind of progressed in down this path.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, I think you've got a great model here, and it's obviously rooted here in the word, Luke 16. I think everybody's gonna go pull out their Bible right now and uh perfect do 16, 10 to 12.
SPEAKER_03There you go. I you don't need to buy my book. Uh, read what Jesus said.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and definitely go to getting richright.com. That is the website. Sign up and you'll get notified whenever the podcast releases, which will be very soon. Uh, so is that the best place for people to go and hear more from you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they uh if you want to contact me, um uh yeah, I love to talk to people. Uh tell me your story. Uh, tell me, you know, give me your questions just yet. Just all one word, getting richright.com. Excellent.
SPEAKER_02Well, John, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your wisdom and for how you've just devoted from that first conversation I had with you. There's not too many people I meet that are just so thoughtful about uh what the Bible says about business, about money. And it's just such a critical area that affects all of our lives in such an enormous way. So thank you for the work uh that you're doing, the scholarship that you're doing.
SPEAKER_03Well, thank you, Darren. And I again appreciate your ministry. I love how you uh have got your purpose right, you know, our all of our purpose to bring glory to our Father. And uh so uh may God bless you as you continue on that path. And uh yes, so thank you for your kind words as well.
SPEAKER_00We hope you've enjoyed this episode. And if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and Business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.