Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What you're hoping for out of your local Pop Christianity church.
I just want you to know that it's not going to happen. That machine does not achieve what God wants to achieve in your family.
Run your home and your dough like a biblical boss. Hey, welcome back to A New Year of Abraham's Wallet. It's the podcast where we help regular churchgoing dudes run their home and their dough like a biblical boss. I'm Steve Manuel and if you're new here, buckle up. This episode is going to be the red pill that you didn't know you needed. Today we're kicking off a brand new series called the Abrahamic Starter Kit. How to quit the Pop Christianity Merry go round and build a multi generational dynasty God's way. I'm joined by my old friend Jeff who's in Denver, Colorado. Are you there, Jeff?
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Not so old.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Oh, okay. He's just a friend.
He's a hat wearing friend.
This series is specifically for guys who are new to the podcast or maybe have met a dude who's doing some unorthodox things around his life. Maybe he's leading his family in a Sabbath or he's churning out kids at a striking rate and you simply want to understand in a concise way what is he thinking? What's going on? What is this whole worldview idea? This series is going to help onboard, you normal Christian church guy. It's going to be five or six episodes. Well, I'm not sure we're going to see as we go.
Zero fluff. And if you stick around until the end, you will have a completely different operating system for your marriage and your money and your kids and your legacy.
But before we can start building up what we say is the right thing, God's design, before we can start building the right thing, we're going to take a little time to tear down the wrong thing. And by that I mean there's a lot of folks who are tethered to a sinking ship that they assume can take them somewhere that it can't. It's not designed to.
So episode one, the church story is broken. So we're going to look at five massive lies that most of us swallowed in Sunday school or youth group or maybe from the latest best selling Christian living book. And we're going to put them side by side with what God actually designed in his word.
I just have to say up front, I'm not here to bash the church, far from it. I'm here to protect the church from those things that are crouching in the shadows that want to take it down. And I want to challenge a machine that is bearing bad fruit and again, does not square with God's design. I am not encouraging you to quit church. That's not the point of this. I'm simply asking you, as you'll hear, I want you to take back control of your family and to understand how the present religious system can be a threat to God's intentions for the family that you lead. And with that, I'm ready to go. Is there anything you'd like to say in introduction, Jeff, before we dig into huge lies against the family unit?
[00:03:11] Speaker B: I'm just the haberdashery guy.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good hat, by the way. Would you. Would you show the people. Look at. Look. Look who that guy is right on the hat. That's Abraham.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: That's right. I drew that with a couple sharpies, man.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Nice job.
And, and speaking of great family leaders, that's Cary Grant over your shoulder.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: He was well known. Good family leader. That's right.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: And did. Would you say that that image over your left shoulder for the viewer is a picture of an Abrahamic man running from the church institution, trying to mow him down or.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Yes, that's why I put it up. It's very. It's highly symbolic. Is that, you know. Yes, he's. He's running from. He's running from blasphemy.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Powerful, powerful. Thank you for. Thank you for including that. That's going to help. That's going to help everybody. If you ever get confused with anything it's saying, just go back to the image. I think it was mega church.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: You, Abraham, hat.
You're done. We're done. Let's wrap it up.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Yep. And with that, another exciting episode. Okay, let's get into the five big lies that threaten God's design for your family. Number one is that evangelism is your number one calling in life. I. I think that you can fall into this lie that comes from pop Christianity very easily because they are doing so much to try to engineer people, to try to think in terms of mission, get outside themselves to be kind of reach out kind of people.
And what it turns into many times is simply that everything in God's entire economy for the church, the scriptures gathering together, everything is about evangelism. That's the most important thing. Pop Christianity would say the Great Commission is the main thing to go and make disciples of all nations. And if you're not sharing the gospel with a stranger, you're not sharing the gospel with Some anti church person every day. You are a bad Christian.
All your Christian efforts should go toward outreach. And all your social circles should all include godless people. And your kids should be little missionaries. And you should look as much like the world as you can stand so that you might be an effective influencer for Jesus. That's the message.
God's actual design I'd like to contrast comes from the beginning. So let's just look at Genesis 1. God instituted the first institution made among human beings was not a church institution. We don't see that for a very long time. In God's story, the first institution is the family. God creates the family. And God says to Adam and Eve, I want you to be fruitful.
I want you to multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
Those are the marching orders for human beings following God's plan. And that's never going to change.
So let's just think for a second. How would Adam and Eve, let's see, let's put our thinking caps on. How would they multiply and fill the earth?
Evangelism was not one of the options for Adam and Eve. It was. They were going to be making babies. They were going to be leading a family. Would you like a mission? Go ahead and nod your head in your car or wherever you're listening to this. Yes, I do want a mission. Desperately. We want a mission for our lives. Being more and more comfortable and munching on more snacks is not why we were made. And every man knows that in his heart. I want a mission. I was, I was built and born for a mission. What is that mission?
And many of us, in absence of God's design, have thought maybe my mission is to just make my local church more successful. I can just volunteer and just help them along. And when I help them, I'm helping God's mission, aren't I? I'm challenging you. No, God's mission is that he wants families to multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. And so if you see this kind of language jump out at you at the scriptures like children are arrows in the hands of a warrior.
We see that God loves the idea of godly offspring. And this story, I mean, that's a direct lift from Malachi, chapter two, that what God is looking for is godly offspring.
Yes, that can include that you make a son, make a disciple out of a man that you met wherever and you discipled him and you led him to the Lord and now he is a son of yours spiritually. Yes, that can happen. That's not God's primary design. His primary design is in our homes and in our families. So one thing you, normal Christian guy, are seeing in your buddy that sent this episode along to you is that he is prioritizing his family over, over and above evangelistic efforts.
The bottom line in dealing with this lie is that your primary mission field is underneath the roof that you live in. It's the woman that sleeps next to you. It's the children in the next room.
Evangelism is real. It is a thing.
It is more of a consequence of a successful life. It's not. It's not the root, it's not the trunk. It's not the main thing of what we're about. It's kind of the fruit that comes along afterward. I believe it's the byproduct of a successful home life. And I have to give as an example, I don't lead people to the Lord or help people through conversions every week.
It's an unusual, wonderful thing that happens occasionally. I think I've led a guide to the Lord in the last year. Like, I've had like a guy a year in the last two years. And I think both of those guys who've who I have personally sat down with, had a conversation with and said, you need to give your life to Jesus, and I'm going to help walk you through that.
Both of those have come as a direct result of them seeing my home life about them seeing my family and asking questions and saying, what are you. What are you doing differently? And I simply open up the Bible and say, I'm following this playbook and Jesus has saved my life and he is in the process of training me to be like him and then leading them to the Lord. There. These weren't guys that I.
I have a mission to go to a bar every Friday night and meet three new guys. And I'm just trying to.
That is not what I'm doing. My. My main purpose in life and I could include my career in this. Why do I have a career?
Because I'm trying to fuel my family. I'm trying to take care of my family. I'm trying to lead. Why do I spend the time. Much of the time I spend in Bible study is because I'm prepping something that I want to present to my family. And I'm not. I'm not talking about quiet times, but yes, even some quiet times with God. I'm thinking, I want to get your heart on this God, because I want to present this to my family. There's so much about who I am and what I do that is engineered around I've got to lead my family well. So I, I think that's a major thing. That's a, that's a upside down kind of a thing, that sort of run of the mill pop Christians look confusedly at the Abrahamic family leader and go like, why, why, why aren't you doing the thing that we're all doing? And it's because we, we've. We've bought into a different story that upends this first lie that evangelism is the number one calling in life. Any thoughts or stories on that, Jeff?
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess it's not binary. It's not, it's not one or the other. It's just gone so far out of whack.
And I think the evangelistic bend, if you have it, to boil it down, it's get out there, get out there, get out there, get out there.
Okay, we see scriptural backing for some of that, but like you said, the most powerful thing is to have really, if our home is a little microcosm of the kingdom.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: What's going to draw people to God? The kingdom. And so when we're running a good microcosm of the kingdom, really the, the switch isn't let's get out there, it's can we get them in here?
And we get them into our family. I think of one family that, that we know well via our school, and they exhibit such a wonderful kingdom atmosphere that when they ran into this very troubled older teenage girl whose life was a disaster, she got in their orbit and came into their family.
And that's what's changing her life and the life of the people around her.
It's not so much the other way around. And I think, I think that's what you're saying. Invest in your family. Make it shine. Make. Maybe that's a good way to think of it. Like you want to attract the moths. Make your family shine. The light will attract them.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Yep. I, I'm thinking as you're talking, I, I spend some time kind of mentoring guys, spending time with guys one on one, one on two. And many of the guys that I come across are guys who have found me because of previous guys that I have spent time with.
I talked to Bob over there, and he said that there was a benefit of spending time with you. Maybe I could get some time with you.
Similarly, we have found that when people come around our home, when people come around our kids, there is such a different flavor of the way that we run our family and the way that our children are with us, that people immediately react, well, you're clearly doing something other than we've seen and I, and I'm including in that Church families, what do you got going on? What's your tip? Is there a book that you've read about parenting or family or whatever? And I would say, yeah, it's this big black leather bound book.
So I, I, I'm with you. I think that's a, it is a great witness. I think it is supposed to be, as you say, the primary light for evangelism is our families.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: And when we say that the Great Commission, where it gets overlooked the most is within our own homes because it says teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded. That's, that's parenting right there.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Amen. Yeah. The first, the first disciples that anybody has to make is of your children.
You have to make disciples of your children. I'll get to that in a second. Lie number two is that Sunday worship or the, the gathering of God's people is engineered again for outsiders or it's engineered to reach the lost. So pop Christianity says something like, we have to make our church gatherings welcoming for seekers. So you know all of the, all of the cliches that you think of short sermons, let's always keep it positive. Let's, let's not be critical in our sermons, which again, read the Bible. How much of that is critical? Have you ever read the prophets?
It's, it's rough stuff. It's like, I guess we're going to spend some more time with Isaiah again. You know what he's going to do? He's going to harangue us. I know he is, but he's God's mouthpiece. The idea of, you know, fog machines and dark rooms and let no, let everyone feel comfortable at all times.
Let me just contrast that with God's story about why worship gatherings are supposed to happen at all. Ephesians 4 tells us that if there are specially gifted people that are gifts to the body of Christ and the Bible, Bible teaches that, I believe that they're especially gifted people.
What are they gifted to do? What is their calling to do? Well, Ephesians 4 tells us that it, their job is to equip every person in the body of Christ to do what they're called to do.
Every believer to equip every believer for what they're called to do. And that would include, I would include in equipping the sort of just education about the Bible.
God's story. I actually do need to know a lot of details about things that happened thousands of years ago. For me to execute correctly today, I have to be woven into that story.
And we can say that these gatherings are primarily for hyping, celebrating and equipping families.
So, for instance, Titus 2 tells us the one thing that we know that women are supposed to be teaching.
They're supposed to be teaching wifing and mothering to younger women. That's the one thing we know for sure women are supposed to be teaching is they're supposed to be reproducing skills and encouragement and inspiration to younger women.
We know for sure. This is also in Titus 2, that older fathers are supposed to be teaching younger fathers and young single men about the glories of being an Abrahamic family leader. I mean, the Bible tells us that if you have lost people in the room who are listening to this teaching, which I'm not against, the teaching is just not designed for them.
They're going to be scratching their heads at some points going, I'm not sure I understand all of the implications. What's, what's all the backstory to all this. That's fine, you know, happy to explain it. But Hebrews 10 let me, let me throw out Hebrews 10 starting in verse 23, it says, let us seize and hold tightly the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is reliable and trustworthy and faithful to his Word.
And let us thoughtfully consider how we can encourage one another to love and do good deeds, not forsaking our meeting together as believers for worship and instruction, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more faithfully as we see the day of Christ's return approaching.
So this kind of passage tells us what these gatherings are for. Therefore, the body of Christ to worship, for instruction, for encouraging, and for looking forward to the day of Christ approaching. And I would go so far as to say talking about the end of the world and the day of Christ approaching might not be that seeker sensitive. So we gather to stir one another up toward love and good deeds. The New Testament pattern is 99% believers, sharpening believers, and the core, as we've already said of that family of God is families.
I'll just throw in that First Corinthians 14 says that if an unbeliever walks into a meeting and falls down saying, God is really among you, that is a bonus that is like icing on the cake. It's not the stated purpose of the gathering. That's 1 Corinthians 14 again.
So I just have to put that on its head. Because when you understand that our focus isn't the world and our audience for worship isn't outsiders, it's actually God himself and that we want our meetings to be for us, it changes the way you think about who are the leaders of God's people. My answer to that is fathers are the leaders of God's people. I could go on a tangent on that, and I might later in this series of episodes, but God's planned leaders are fathers. So who should be teaching the most regularly? I'm going to get to that in one second, but the answer is fathers. So the, the most common gathering of God's people on planet Earth should be the gatherings that happen with families in homes. And when we get together as multiple families for times of worship and instruction, that's exactly what should be happening.
Clear enough for you, Jeff?
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I, that word equipping, I, I keep coming back to it. That, that's the point. The, the point of the sermon really is equip. Like, equip me to do what I need to do. I always think it's a Sunday morning, should be a gas station fill up.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Right, Right.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: I'm on the teaching team at our, at our church and I like that we drive towards this equipping idea. Look, Sundays are for believers. They are for believers. At the end of our talk, we might go, hey, does some of this seem appealing to you? And you're kicking the tires. Can we invite you into following Jesus, Believe in this, like, but it's never the other way around. I think also, you know what, I don't know if you get tired of hearing this, but a lot of church leaders will talk about, you know, so many Christians have a consumer mentality about church and they just come and they get what they want. And if they don't get what they want, they leave. And I, I get what they're trying to go for. But sometimes the reason people leave is because they're going. I'm not getting anything here.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: I was, I was, and I know you've been involved in churches like this. I was involved in a church that was very seeker focused. And I would say seeker focused and first level, we'll just say early Christian equipping to some degree. But people would go, I can't. It's like Billy Madison. I can't sit in the first grade desk anymore. Oh, I guess you've got to find something that works for you. Yeah, I have to find something that equips me.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: Right, right. You can only sit through so many sermons which are, have you ever thought of God before? And the guy's like, yeah, do I. Would you want to say yes to Jesus? Yeah, I, I have and am now. Could you help me lead a wife and kids and discipline them and protect them from the world? Could you give me some strategy? Could you tell me what's out there in the world right now? And could you, could you tell me what God's word says about it? That'd be very helpful to me. And we're busy going, but have you ever thought of God might be real? They're like, yeah, yeah, I have thought of that. You know, a 10 year old or a 12 year old who has been walked along with a father that cares to lay a foundation of faith for those kids and they're hearing from dad at least weekly, they can get into very sophisticated things. Doctrinally, they can understand very sophisticated things from a ministry standpoint. There's a list of skills at the, at the beginning of Hebrews 6 that they're referred to as elementary skills. And they include things like how to repent. That's in this list.
The resurrection from the dead is one of these elementary skills listed at the beginning of Hebrews 6. I took my kids through that around age 10 and they were both, and they were both like, let's go. Got it. You know, and we did practicing for, can you help walk somebody through repentance, et cetera, et cetera. Again, if that stuff is happening underneath the roof, you don't have to have mastered all the skills of Hebrews 6 and teach that to your kids. But the things that you do know of God and you're finding, you're finding for yourself the goodness in Ezekiel and you're taking that to your family and going, they're not going to hit this on the weekend, kids, but you're going to get this at dad Church. That's happening right here.
It's very exciting to consider what you can build as a worship experience inside your home.
That is so. It's, it's, it's such light lifting. It just, it's really more about making it a regular rhythm than anything else. Okay, Lie number three. The pastor or youth pastor is the real spiritual head of your home.
This one makes my blood boil.
You drop your 6 year old off at children's church and your teenager at the youth group and somehow we've convinced ourselves that a 21 year old with a man bun and a guitar is supposed to disciple your children.
Because you don't know how or you don't have the wherewithal to do that.
Boo, boo on that idea. Deuteronomy 6 says, these words which I'm commanding you today says the God of the universe will be written on your heart and mind and you will diligently teach them to your children, impressing God's precepts on their minds and penetrating their hearts with his truths and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.
Let me just, let me just review a Bible verse here for you. Let's just take this apart with my very sophisticated theological training. Deuteronomy 6:7 says, Talk about God's words when you sit in your house.
Can your local pastor, who pastors, I don't know, 500 people, you think he can make the time to go to everybody's house and sit down with all their kids and review the same things?
No. That's your job. That's God's. You are the pastor in your home. That's God's intention. It's again, I'm not here to point fingers at you. Say you're doing it wrong. All I'm doing is I'm trying to set up the church system with God's design and I'm trying to lay them side by side.
It's not God's design that there be a dad who has really nothing much to say spiritually but then takes his family to this third party location and just go, these people will take care of us. They'll tell us what to say. If that's what you do with your family, you're out of the design parameters. That's all I have to say.
And can you spin that up in one week? Maybe not. Maybe you're going to have to take some time, I don't know, and learn before you can get there. But I'm telling you that it's God's design that you are going to be the pastor of your home. You don't have to build giant organizations. There's already an organization. It's called your family. And there's a pastor built right into every single one of them.
Ephesians 6:4. I'd just like to hit this topic again. If you think, well, that's one verse. I know, it's. Maybe that was. Maybe that old Jewish design went out of fashion or something.
Ephesians 6:4, a New Testament verse. Jeff says, fathers, bring your children up tenderly with loving kindness in the Discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Whose job is it?
Fathers?
What are you supposed to bring them up in with all this tenderness that we're so great at these days?
The discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Are you disciplining your kids according to God's word?
That's a yes or no question. Are you instructing your children according to God's word? That's a yes or no. That job belongs to you, not the professionals. So that's a huge one that I think really keeps men from switching tracks onto this Abrahamic family leader thing because they simply don't feel the onus on them or the agency to do this job of I am to spiritually construct people.
And if you see that you, that's your job, to spiritually construct people from the bottom up, brother, it'll, I can speak for myself. It'll change the little nighttime books that you read to your three year olds. And when you're rocking because you're thinking there's a report card coming up, at some point I'm going to stand before God and I know what he's going to ask.
Did you construct those kids? Did you give them a foundation? Did they know me? Did they know how to walk with me? Did they live according to my word? Because that was your job.
So it, it changes everything. As I said in the intro, it changes the way that you earn money. It'll change how much you think of building wealth. Because I don't think of building wealth in terms of someday I'm gonna get the biggest, fattest lazy boy ever known to man.
No, I'm thinking I'm trying to build a family that will last forever, that'll never be removed from the earth and it's going to continue to grow and, and I'm setting precedents everywhere by what I do. And I gotta, I gotta mind my P's and Q's when it comes to earning and saving and giving and investing. All of those things, they really matter. Not because I'm trying to win some, some imaginary prize over the next four years, let's see if I could get a million dollars.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: Woo.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: I got a million dollars. No, no, no, no. I'm trying to do something that far out lives me and has nothing to do with my, the level of luxury that my life is. Any other thoughts?
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I just say that, you know, not only is it the onus on us, but we're endorsed. I, I, I think often we miss that. We miss that. He's endorsing us. He, he's saying you are you are the person I've.
So may I ask a follow up question then? How are we to view the guy up front who is the pastor of that little gathering?
[00:30:07] Speaker A: That's a good question, Jeff.
I think we see the guy up front as part time help that we've brought in to do the lawn.
So there's a. When I bring a guy in to do the lawn, he's doing my bidding and I'll tell him I wanted the, the hedges to be trimmed a little bit this week or I'll say I there's this one little edging piece that I'd like for this to be a little farther away from the drive, etc.
Very similar. And I'm in charge.
So I think it's very important for dads to realize when you go to the church house, you are not handing off the authority of your family to that guy up front. You are still in charge.
You're sitting there, we're all sitting here and we're listening to a guy who presumably has put some hours into study that we haven't. Great.
And we want him to, to illuminate the scriptures. And we go, well that's a great point. That's something for us to talk about. I really like that or whatever it's. It is. He is, he is equipping us. Hopefully he's equipping us to follow Jesus and to execute our roles better.
I think that's really important because many, many churches, they are so anti patriarchal and anti the whole God's design for family that they won't speak to children about obeying their parents, they won't speak to fathers about leadership, they won't speak to mothers about submission, they won't speak to parents about in service and in love, disciplining your children, etc. Well, you really don't have a lot of use to me. If the best that you can do is tell me the background on the book of Hosea, I can find that information somewhere else. We want to gather as multiple families so I can look across the room, which I always do on Sundays, point at a guy when there's a great point made.
And I love it when somebody's equipping me and inspiring our family.
There are many times when the guy up front makes a point with which the pastor of this family disagrees.
When that happens, we don't storm out of the place. I'm willing to do that if it's egregious. But we're talking about minor points. I'll simply lean down and speak down the aisle and say we don't believe that. And then I'll elaborate later in the car or at home.
But we are there to get teaching about God's word. And if there's ever too much of Mr. Minister and not enough of God's word, we, we're probably not going to stick around for long because we want someone to teach us the scriptures. The Bible teacher answers to the fathers in a church. And so I'm listening. Not critic, not, not with pointing finger, but I'm listening critically going, yeah, does this all check out? Yeah, this is right.
And I want to be instructed in God's word. That's how I see it.
Okay, Lie number four.
Lie number four. This is a big one. If you're going to become an Abrahamic family leader, there's a lie in pop Christianity community that tithing to the institution is the main function of finances in your home.
That is to say that the, the institution would be happy for you to turn down your lifestyle. Maybe you could get a smaller house, you guys, I mean, how much house do you really need? They'd be very happy for you to turn everything down and give them more money if you give them, if you tithe to the local institution. Hey, I think we're, I think we're done here. I think you did everything that God could ever want of you financially.
Just consider this. Now you're here.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: You're.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: You're listening to a guy who has been a professional. I say professional just meaning. I got my paycheck from parachurch organizations, missionary organizations, and on a church staff for over 20 years. And I'm just telling you, the modern church needs your 10% to pay the mortgage on the worship center and the staff salaries, which are huge.
I don't mean you get paid a lot to work at a church. That is definitely not true.
But when you lump them all together, it's a big nut. And they have to meet that budget.
So they will proof text Malachi 3 and Acts 5 and scare you into automatic withdrawal and make it seem like a relationship with God is not right. Unless you are regularly giving us your money. If you are giving us your money, hey, there's a pretty good chance you're a disciple maker. I mean, we're pretty impressed with you. You're a very special kind of a person.
Literally, that is how you are seen on the databases of many, many, many churches. Many successful churches think of you as a great Christian. If you're giving them your money, they, they are really not interested or Equipped to deal with you having financial problems outside of. I'm not sure how to give digitally. Can you help me with that?
You will be getting a call in a matter of hours. If your problem is I'm not sure how to give to you digitally, that we can solve that problem.
But the biblical pattern is generosity. Well, of course.
Is the. Is there a biblical pattern of tithing? Well, absolutely there is. It's actually much more than 10%, as we've talked about here before.
Is it caring for widows and orphans and giving money to Christians who have less than you?
Absolutely, yes.
Is it building household wealth, family wealth, so that you can be radically generous and strategic in building the kingdom of God where you are?
Yes. I don't hear much taught on that in the church. It's why we started Abraham's Wallet, because we don't hear much taught on here's the best way to use your Roth ira. I don't. They're not going to give the time for that because their main goal isn't to set you up for success as a family, because they don't believe.
I think I can say this fairly definitively.
Your church might be the exception, but I can say fairly definitively they don't believe that the family is the most important expression of God's kingdom on planet Earth.
They are. They build their machines because they more or less think that the church, the God, the church institution is the most important institution. It's not. I don't think you can justify that, biblically speaking.
So their message to you is be sure to give to keep this thing going and remember all the good evangelism that we're doing around here. You're not, as you said, Jeff, you're not doing it. Well, you should, but we're trying. You should give us the money. We'll do this stuff as opposed to.
The main thing is that your family is kept together financially and we want to help you grow that so that you're solid and you can be an engine of generosity and you can be an engine for building things that are kingdom focused that we might never think of. So forcing a pre cross temple tax on New Covenant believers so that the machine can keep running.
That's a far stretch for me. And I think it's one of the lies that we buy into that keeps us into that pop church mindset and out of the Abrahamic mindset you had.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: Said to me years ago. It's really stuck with me.
The big church house wants to presume that giving to the church house is Giving to God.
And that's a dangerous spot for a number of reasons. I mean, there's whole, there's, there's probably episodes and episodes you can do on this. But I forgot my family. What I have felt, we have felt, and I really love this is that when you break away from the well.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: We gotta tie that.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: What are we giving? It's going to this place.
We're going to give some to the place because we believe in what they're doing, but we have this whole other chunk of dough that we get crafty with and we go, ooh, we love what's going on with these, this ministry doing this poor people thing. We love that. We just heard about these people to awe. Then, then suddenly, I mean, I, I can't tell you how fun and creative it is, of course, wife to come in and go, okay, this is how much you made this month? Because income varies. This is how much you made. We made this month.
We got this much. What are we going to give to. And we. Well, we got this letter from this guy who's doing this ministry in Boulder at this thing. Okay, great. That's really kooky and super fun.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: And it's not, I guess it's getting away. I want to kind of paint a little more carrot than stick.
There's some real joy to it as opposed to, I don't know. We wrote the check and we sent it off and they're going to do what they're going to do, but it's off our plate. Okay, we did what we were supposed to do. There difference there.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: Yes. That's such a great point that if you, if you see the, the agency that is behind your giving dollars and you go, well, whoever is kind of the man in the kingdom should probably be the one to distribute this. So who is the man in the kingdom of God? That guy. Let's give him a big bunch of money and let him go do stuff with it.
That's you.
That's, that's, that's one of our main messages around here is that that's you.
You're the man with the kingdom of God.
You are the ambassador of the kingdom of God under your own roof. You're the one that's building disciples. You're the one that's shepherding a wife along and leading her.
And so if you want to give to the local church house, because you go, man, I just believe in what they're doing and this is so good and fruitful for the kingdom, write them a big check. That's Fantastic. But to lazily give that agency away and go, all of my dollars go to the local church house. They can figure out what missionaries need it and whatever else.
No, we. We mustn't do that.
I'm. I'm thinking of so many cool opportunities around us right now as you're talking.
One is I just learned that we.
I think the largest Christian broadcaster that reaches. That reaches specifically Muslim communities and broadcasts in Arabic. It's on this, like, secret shortwave deal, and they're online. It broadcasts out of Cincinnati. It's a. It's an organization in Cincinnati. They're called Call of Love. And it's so exciting. If you. You just do a little bit of poking, you start reading testimonies of. Wow. Like, Muslim wives who surreptitiously listened to a couple of broadcasts and they found out God came in human form through Jesus and he loves us. And I can put my faith in him. I know that they'll kill me if I tell anybody, but I could put my faith in him right now. And, you know, people who are having, like, these amazing experiences with the Holy Spirit, knowing that my family were found out, you know, all sorts of awful things are happening. But Call of Love is right here. And I'm like, I. I mean, I guess I could go to the local church house. Would you guys be willing to put them on your list of. Don't. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm giving them money. I'm giving. That. That's under my. That's under my authority.
[00:42:28] Speaker B: Okay, sorry, real quick. And it also gives the opportunity to. I think you've described it this way, like a giving slush fund that you sort of have in your pocket.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:42:36] Speaker B: Quote unquote, to where, if you're thinking, well, all of our tide just went to the big. The big. The big show.
That doesn't give you the opportunity, standing in line behind somebody who. Some lady paying out her pennies for her groceries going, ooh, we got you. We got you, honey. We can take care of that.
[00:42:54] Speaker A: Oh, man. That's right.
Last. Last lie of the pop Christian story that I would like to pop today is that children are a burden or they're a hobby or they're a season of your life. It's kind of part of your responsibility as a human being. If you want to be a good American, have yourself to 0.3 kids.
You know what? They're yours until they're 18, so do a great job until then. And then you put a postage stamp on the rear ends and Send them out into the world and it's been great, and maybe we'll see you at Thanksgiving sometime.
God's message is blessed is the man whose quiver is full of children, Their arrows in the hands of a warrior.
Children are the only family asset that you get to take with you into eternity. You can buy family land. You can buy a great family estate. You can set up perpetual trusts. And you can do all sorts of wonderful things with your money.
And that's our family assets. However, having babies and turning them into disciples that you'll take with you and present to God bodily. I made this person for you, Lord.
Massively important. I would even go so far as to say central to your whole design as a family leader. Let's Remember back Genesis 1.
Multiply.
Fill the earth, Subdue it. That's. That's the job. And what does God desire? Malachi? Two godly offspring.
So children are not a burden. They. They are.
They're the point of your life in many ways. And once you get good at making them, you're supposed to keep making them your whole life in all sorts of ways. You go find yourself a Timothy who wasn't born to you. But this is a young man that I found. He wasn't fathered or he doesn't know how to follow the Lord. I'm looping him. I'm going to parent him the same way as I parented my kids. We're going to get on with it. This is. This endeavor is what qualifies you as an elder among the people of God so that people could come to you for advice and say, how did you do it? You've managed your money so well. I see the way that you disciplined your children. They didn't hate you for it. They seemed to love you when they were in their twenties. How can I discipline my kids when they're five years old so that they love me in their twenties the way that you do? Et cetera.
They're not a burden. They are massively important. They should drive your calendar, they should drive your checkbook, they should drive your career, etc. They'll never. I have to just throw this in here. They're not going to outweigh the importance of your wife ever because she's your partner and the two become one.
But we value children very highly. Of inestimable value. Are they. They're more important than any job opportunity you'll ever get. They're more important than any team that you could join or hobby that you could pursue.
I think that's a major flip in the pop Christian messaging. Because just think of it again. You walk into the church house, what's the very first thing they do? They split you all up.
Little kids go over here, youth go over here. The adults go over here. So we can have adult time as opposed to. No, this is a. The. The church house esteems you as a family unit. We esteem. These children are underneath your leadership. We value them desperately, not for kickball and hot dogs, but for developing them into disciples of Jesus. So I think that's another kind of red pill thing. What.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: What.
How would you parse out? Because you're saying we esteem children.
Most important, they did a.
And then in the culture, though, we would say that there are certain things where we, not the phrase might be overvalue children.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I get you.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: So how would you delineate?
[00:47:04] Speaker A: Well, I think what you're describing is the kind of like the target T shirt that says, you know, print little princess or queen or whatever.
And there is a.
There is. It's not that they're overvaluing children, is that they're giving children authority that they're. That they shouldn't have.
And so when we read the scriptures in our relationship to children, it's about training and disciplining them.
So God gives children parents, and they're supposed to create a very small, defined track that that child runs on and the child learns skills like obedience. Probably the most important skill for a child to learn is obedience. And it's mom and dad's job to. We could go back to the good old Great Commission, make disciples, teach them to obey.
Was what Jesus says about making disciples teach them to obey. Well, many Christians don't know how to obey. They've never even been taught to obey. And so putting your child in a situation where they don't think they have to obey because they're the lords of the man or not you.
That is. That's a violation of God's design. God's design is that the father is the leader of the home and that. Well, we can look at First Timothy 3, and it says specifically his children obey him.
So there's a misordering, which I understand your question about overvaluing them. It's like engineering your whole family around the kid that violates God's design. That it's. It is dad who is supposed to be leading the vision for this family, curating a culture.
And it's his job to train the kids to start following in God's ways, which is a much more serious and mature endeavor than let's build the house around Disney characters. That, that, that doesn't make sense for, for somebody that wants to be serious in the kingdom of God.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: And maybe the difference also is the, the family team's idea that you are, you kid, are a part of this team as opposed to our job is to create a good version of you to shoot you off into.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: That's right, the world.
[00:49:24] Speaker B: No, no, no. You are part of this. And that's what we're trying to.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: That's right. And we're trying to develop a child who will carry forward what we understand to be God's calling for our family into the next generation. That takes a lot of intentional training in all sorts of ways. Financial and others.
[00:49:43] Speaker B: More than travel baseball.
[00:49:46] Speaker A: More than travel baseball. All right, Jeff. Those are the five lies that I see coming against the the would be Abrahamic family leader and that I think that you kind of have to deal with if you want to jump ship from that. A pop Christian story. I'd like to pause for effect.
And now I'd like to say if the pop Christianity playbook was working, we would see amazing fruit. Right?
Here's the fruit of the pop Christian story.
The evangelical divorce rate is identical to the world.
It's between 38 and 42%. 70 to 88% of kids raised in evangelical homes walk away from the faith by the end of college. So says Barna and the Fuller Youth Institute.
Places that have had wall to wall evangelical churches for 150 years, places like Western Europe or the American Northeast, still have sky high crime, poverty, fatherlessness.
If the tree is producing that, maybe the root of this tree is poisoned or there's something that's not quite right with what's going on here.
I just want to make the point that what you're hoping for out of your local pop Christianity church, what you're hoping it to produce just by virtue of it existing and having a meeting on Sunday mornings. I just want you to know that it's not going to happen.
I just want you to know it's not going to produce what you want for your life and family. It can do a lot of. A lot of good things. I'm not saying that we punt the whole thing to the curb. I'm saying that that machine does not achieve what God wants to achieve in your family.
And the things that you want for your children when you imagine them being parents. And you want them to retain your values and your worldview, your Christian worldview, you want them to maintain faith in God, you love the idea of your children with their spouse, someday praying in the living room with their children. You love that idea. Those things don't happen by farming out your family to the local church. They just don't.
So I just have to say I was. I was the guy that maybe you are listening. I had served institutional Christianity exemplary for decades when I realized that my dink lifestyle I had with my wife wasn't leading anywhere. I was on a church staff and I had no idea where I was going with my family story. I did not know what my path should be.
We were not particularly interested in having children. I mean, it wasn't. We thought that it would probably happen at some point, but, you know, it's no big deal. Whenever it happens, I'll just tell you. The church that I was working at at the time, they just wanted me to keep going and keep giving and keep volunteering.
And they loved the idea that they had access to every evening of mine and my weekends because I didn't have any kids and I didn't really have any desire to do so. I just didn't understand this story. And that machine, the machine of the local church was happy, was delighted to take all of my giftings, all of my energy and churn through them for its own sake.
That was my story. And I just say that if that's you and you think, look, I'm a Christian, I'm going to church. What do you want from me? Again, all I want you to do. What I'm inviting you to do for this series is to contrast God's design with what the local thing is doing, which I assume is what you're doing. It's kind of the best option you found. And I'm going to be inviting you to jump tracks and to change tracks and to change your pathway and say, I think God's design is for me to step into what we refer to as Abrahamic fatherhood. And I'm going to explain that later in the series, but I thought it was necessary up front to poke some holes in the kind of accepted story out there.
Anything else in conclusion, Jeff, before I wrap her up?
[00:54:14] Speaker B: I think what you're saying is it can be a nice supplement, but it's not the meal. Yes, that's about it. And I think with a little bit of empathy, we can also say we, you and I both know these church places. This is how they were brought up. They don't know any better. Nobody's ever told them any better. And so, you know, don't go Burn the place down.
Show some. Show some understanding and grace. But that also means, you know, talk with your pastor and go, hey, what about this? Have you thought about this? Sure. Seems to say this. How can you be doing this? Sure, they may respond. Well, they may not. You and I both read a book years ago called Pagan Christianity. And there's a lot of great stuff in that book. And one of the primary things is that this guy, Frank Viola, says the problem with most church services, he talks about the service itself. I would talk about the broader institution, is they just train you for passivity and not activity. What you're saying is. Yeah, I mean, a little passivity on a Sunday morning is fine. I am receiving something that's only okay. Only okay if it turns to activity. If it doesn't turn to activity in your home, in your little. The kingdom that you're helping build, it's worthless. It's just. It's like whatever you eat that just.
[00:55:32] Speaker A: Passes right through you that's so good. I can't hear that without also throwing in.
One of my old favorite books was James Rutz's the Open Church. When he says in the opening pages of that book, he says that the.
The present expression of the church where everybody that does the talking is up front, and it's not you.
Everybody who does is any. Any presenting, any praying.
It's all not you.
And so what happens is that you get conditioned over time. We are an army of training mutes.
And whenever spiritual matters come up, we instinctively close our mouths and we go, I'm not trained to do this. Nobody's told me to talk, so I know how to listen when it comes. Oh, Deuteronomy. Okay, I'll get out my notebook and I'm ready to write.
No, that's not how it works in your home. You're going to have to start talking and I'll just say, as maybe a.
An olive branch to you guys, you don't have to start talking about theology at your home. But you know what you could do tonight to start leading your home spiritually?
You could after dinner or during dinner, you could open up your Bible and say, I'm going to read a few verses from John chapter one. I'm just going to read them to. To my family. And you could even say, if you're not ready to do any of this, I'm not even going to ask any questions afterwards. I'll maybe say a quick prayer afterwards. I'm just going to read a few verses from John chapter one. It's going to talk about Jesus coming into the world. I'm just going to read them. It might be for some of you the first time your children have heard you know the name of Jesus come out of your mouth. Because I mean, what, why do I have to talk? I bring my kids to the church house. So we are very much into getting you back on the saddle and going like you've got a, you've got a job to do and you can do it.
[00:57:32] Speaker B: That one small thing that you're talking about doing, it seems like, it seems like a small step. Well, quote Neil Armstrong, that's one small step for you. But it will be a giant leap because what it does, it's, it is to your point, it's switching your mind from I am a passive person to I am now an active person. And it's that small little thing. I picture it like stepping over a threshold. Once you're over that threshold, you're not where you were before. You're somewhere totally different.
[00:58:03] Speaker A: So good.
So here's the deal, bros. You don't have to hate the church, you don't have to blow up your life or become a hermit. But you do need to repent of believing a man made story that is in some ways opposed to God's story.
And if what I just said over the last hour makes you mad, great.
Get mad enough to open your Bible and you can prove me wrong. And I would love to have that discussion with you if what I said makes you feel a little bit hopeful and maybe even seen. I know guys who have gone to church for years and thought there's something more, there's something more. And these people aren't touching on it. I don't know what that hidden story is, but if something springs to life and you get a little bit hopeful, then I want you to stick with us for the next few episodes. And we're not going to just critique the broken system. We're going to give you the exact roadmap thousands and thousands of and thousands of men have already used to build wealth and get their wives engaged in their homes and keep their kids in the faith and aim at that multi generational Sabbath table with grandkids singing psalms that is like the good, the picture of the good life.
Next episode we're going to be asking the question every red blooded Christian man has wondered, but maybe been a few afraid to say out loud. Is marriage and kids actually God's plan A? Or did Jesus and Paul basically tell us that singleness is just as good? We're going to reclaim Genesis 1 and First Corinthians 7 for the married multiplying dominion, taking men God intended. You're not going to want to miss it. And until then, run your home and dough like a biblical boss. See you next time.
