Walk With Me
Christian discussion of biblical topics, and a dose of daily application. Yes the Bible is still relevant, and we find out more and more each day how relevant it has always been.
Walk With Me
Church Money Matters: A little rant
Hello everybody, welcome to today's episode of Walk With Me. I am your host, jj. It's so good to have each and every one of you here, all of you who listen and respond and send me emails. I love each and every one of you, not just because you do that, but there are so many podcasts out there and you guys took a moment to listen to this one. God led you here and God led me to you, so I love you and appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you all, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for the encouragement, thank you for the I'm going to say thank you for the vitriol, but sometimes you get vitriol. That's just the way the Internet is. But I still love each and every one of you.
Speaker 1:If you have any comments or questions and we're going to deal with the situation today that some of you have gotten at me about so if you have a question or comment or want me to talk about something, just email me at walkwithmebiblestudy at gmail walkwithmebiblestudy at gmailcom. Of course, and I will. Generally, if it's one or two people, I'll try to answer it, but if it's a complex question, I probably just do an episode on it, like we're going to do today, and if it's something that you want your name to be identified in, put your name in the subject matter so that I know you want me to have. You know, just put your name out there, that you sent the question. So, that being said, oh wait, before we get started, uh, shout out to the sponsors two bars and lyricists uh, there's, there's some big things going on in his life, uh, and his career. And thank him for all he does for this podcast. God has hopefully got a blessing for it. You know not. Hopefully god will bless you for it. And Exquisite Creations and the new LLC that the friend of, or the sister of, exquisite Creations is going to form. I'm going to help her form that Absolutely Big shout out to Iron Gate Ministries Getting started here very soon. Thank all, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Um, okay, so, like I said before, we're gonna deal with the situation that several of you have brought to my attention. Um, and I have, I did kind of look at it and kind of research it, and before we get started, this is all right. How do I start this? Well, first off, this is going to be more of a rant than a Bible study, but there will be Bible scripture in it. Okay, and this is not a subject that I would probably normally cover. There are much bigger podcasts, much better podcasts that cover this thing, or things like this, like Standard of Truth.
Speaker 1:April Chapman does a very good job covering stuff like this, or like shenanigans, like this involving the church, and she does it from a perspective of not trying to denigrate the fact that we all need church to make it, trying to denigrate the fact you, we all need church to make it. Um, so I, if, if anything, go over, give her a shout out, um, but here's the thing. Uh, so you guys have been asking me about this warren, not warren sap. Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. This marvin sap thing, all right, and at first I just kind of ignored it, like marvin sap, who what? Okay, and um, because gossiping is not really my thing. Um, but with so much, so many times, people were just hey, what do you think about this marvin sap thing? What about this marvin sap thing? So I, I, somebody sent me a link and of course I don't like to look at three second links because there's context is missing, um, so I had to go back and kind of look and find the longer videos and, um, okay. So here's the thing um, jj, don't play that, okay, um, I, I don't.
Speaker 1:As a matter of fact, I'm so strict on stuff like that because and I'll explain why in a moment I'm so strict on that that if I'm in a in a church service and the preacher starts asking for seed and and by seed they mean money I'm walking out. I'm never coming back. That's how serious I am about it. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't give. The Bible says God loves a cheerful giver. But here's the problem when the preacher starts asking for money, it's one of three problems, okay, a, people are just putting in a dollar. B, uh, no one's tithing or people, enough people aren't tithing. Malachi chapter 3 talks about tithing. And there's, there are malachi chapter 3 backs up stuff in the in leviticus and deuteronomy when it talks about bringing meat to God's house. 10% of your increase. Right, we're going to talk about that. And number three somebody's being greedy. So I'm going to work it backwards, because I was at first.
Speaker 1:I was like why are you saying these things? Because he went in complaining about it. It costs $2,000 to get renewed. And I'm like wait what? What kind of shenanigans requires $2,000 for your license to get renewed? Okay, you know what? I'm not familiar with the organization. I don't want to be familiar with the organization. So, okay, let's rock that out.
Speaker 1:But here's the thing, and I tried to look at the big picture and I tried to um, really, I try to get people to benefit, that is out. But you're not going to turn around if they lock the doors or close the doors or let anybody out until I get $40,000. That is typically insane. And there's no, there's no way I can fix my face to say that no way, no way, not, especially if I'm wearing a Rolex and another gold bracelet, each worth at least $6,000. And I'm just saying that because I have a keen eye for these things. I don't wear jewelry myself, but I used to, so I kind of know how these things price out and I may be on the very low side because I have not yet accounted for inflation.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's go back now, because the other situation is you're not preaching tithing in your church. Yes, walters, yes Walters, I know a thousand times. Yes, I know, I don't ask for anything because I'm not your pastor, but you, I, everybody, your pastor, everybody needs to be tithing 10%. As a matter of fact, if you read the way God says it, you bring your 10% and if it's late. In Leviticus 27 and 30, it talks about how you're supposed to bring a tenth of everything you earn, which is the increase, right, but if you're late, like I was just saying a moment ago, it's 31. If you're late, you're supposed to bring an extra fifth, so that's an extra 20%. So if you're not preaching that in the church, then you're doing yourself a disservice, you're doing your congregation a disservice, you're doing God a disservice. You're doing God a disservice. You're doing, you're just not. And I get it.
Speaker 1:Preaching tithes is a hard thing to do. It really is. I understand it's a very hard thing to do, but you have to tell these things. And if you're a pastor and you're not talking to anything, then I know that, as a matter of fact, you cannot be preaching against it, because not paying your tithes is a sin and it's basically stealing from god, from god. Malachi 3, 3 and 10.
Speaker 1:Like I was mentioning earlier, will a man rob god? Yes, you'll rob god in his tithes and offerings. All right, and some people have a formula for doing that. I'm not going to do the formula whatever, but listen, if, if everybody is paying their tithe, then everything is functioning correctly. And if everybody's paying their tithe and you still having a forty thousand dollars shortfall, with all the amount of people you have in there, there's something going on with the stewardship of that money. Now, that's just what I. I'm sorry. I'm sorry if that's not the case, but that's what it tells me.
Speaker 1:So, um, demanding forty thousand dollars from the congregation, are we not leaving until we get forty thousand dollars? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, run, leave, don't look back, leave it like sodom and gomorrah, don't even look back, don't turn into a pillar of salt. Let's go, step out, run and and here's the and this kind of brings me to um, brings me to the first one, because you know, I I don't know what it is. I really don't know what it is when, when people just put a dollar in the plate, and that's just that's the thing that bugs me. Y'all been putting in the same dollar since y'all was little kids, and um, and again, I can say this because none of you guys are offering me anything.
Speaker 1:I can say this this is a rant. Okay, you guys are putting in the same dollar, even though the same dollar today is worth 20 cents from when we were putting it. When we were putting in a dollar, a dollar is worth a lot more, but now that dollar is worth 20% of the previous, of the dollar we started off putting in. We don't go to a restaurant, we don't go to Corral, the Cracker Barrel, we don't go to any of these places and just give them a dollar. We don't even give them a dollar tip. We have all kinds of tipping schedules 10%, 15%, 20% and that's just beating our flesh that will die. How much more so should we be giving when we're actually getting our spirits fed? Now, if your spirit's not getting fed, then you probably need to go to a different restaurant, so to speak, and that's just how my rant is on that restaurant, so to speak, and that's just how my rant is on that.
Speaker 1:Um, so yeah, this is so much that right there told me so much about what was going on. And then, like I said, it's kind of hard for you to demand that much money when you got that much money on. And, like I said, there are much better podcasts to go in depth in that, and I know that the gospel music industry is not what it used to be, with streaming and all of that. I get it, and I know that there's some gospel artists that have turned into pastors. But I don't mess with them because you can tell that they're in bad doctor and you can kind of well, let me just put it like this the spirit will tell you. The spirit will tell you, uh, when they're in bad doctor. But and this is a big tell, a big tell, a big tell like no other you go out back and your car is worth more than every house on the block that is neither here nor there.
Speaker 1:Hold on a second. I'm not saying that God can't bless you. I'm not saying that God can't bless you. I'm not saying that if you're a pastor, that you don't have nice things. That's fine. You can work for your nice thing, you can. I know pastors who are living on a retirement that they've worked at a job for 30 years while they were pastoring. I, if I end up being able to do that, I hope I can do that kind of thing. But here's the thing your job is not to fleece the congregation. The congregation is not your piggy bank. That time goes to the church and therefore from the church to the edification and building of the kingdom of God. Yes, you should get paid out of it. I'm not going to say you're not supposed to get paid out of it because you're supposed to be able to live.
Speaker 1:Remember that was the purpose of the tithe. The purpose of the tithe, back in, when it was first instituted, was when it came out of Egypt. Levi, the tribe of Levi, did not have an inheritance, so they had no way of tilling land and getting cattle and stuff like that. They were supposed to be devoted directly to the ministry. Okay, look it up the book of Levi, leviticus. It tells you the tribe of Levi was not supposed to do any work except the ministry of God, maintaining the tabernacle, maintaining the spiritual condition of the state of Israel or the nation of Israel, the children of Israel, israelites, however you want to put that, the children of Israel, israelites, however you want to put that. So therefore, god did not want them to have to have the additional stress of working a job or working the field or running herds and stuff like that. That's what that 10% was for. From every other tribe, everyone else in every other tribe was supposed to pay 10% to keep that tribe alive, keep the tabernacle going.
Speaker 1:Yes, tithing is important. Tithing is mandatory. God is not slack towards that. I have seen people who paid their tithes and they got blessed with God and blessed with God and then didn't pay their tithes and those blessings went away. I can tell you from personal experience that it happened. So, yes, tithing is important and if your church is paying the tithe, your congregation is paying the tithe. You shouldn't have this kind of like sudden shortfall. A church of that size, you have secretaries, you have business managers, you have other people that are running the infrastructure of the church and that should be keeping you from getting these sudden whammies. Like $2,000 reinstatement fee, I can't even imagine what that would be like and I can't imagine having to deal with that. Or you need $40,000. And I'm telling you guys, I'm telling you walkers, I kind of toned out, I kind of buzzed out or grayed out after he said $2,000 reinstatement fee or renewal fee, I didn't even get trying to figure out what he needed the other $38,000 for that was irrelevant to me at that point because the church should have been paying that and the church would have been able to pay that if the tithing was where it needed to be, the tithing and offering was where it needed to be if he was the pastor or an assistant pastor.
Speaker 1:The church, that's what the church is supposed to be doing, the organization of the church is supposed to be doing, and I'm not'm not passing any judgment. So I don't want you to think oh, jc's over there judging, hold on. First off, judgment begins at the house of the Lord, and if the righteous of skin be saved, where should the sinner and ungodly appear? So we got to start with us. That being said, I don't there's again, I don't know all the facts, I can't really make a judgment, but I'm telling you that this is where I would look If I were to make a judgment what's going on with the finances? What's going on? Who's keeping track of who's paying tithes and who's putting in offerings? Because one thing I really do like about the church we go to is that we keep track of your tithes and then, at the end of the year, they get your printout and that you can write it off on your taxes. It's been a godsend every year, otherwise we'd be owing taxes. So I'm telling you here's the thing If you are in that church, oh, and I'm going to talk about something else too. If you're in that church me personally I would have gone. I would have been gone. But let me tell you what we talked about earlier. I just briefed on it.
Speaker 1:When people use the term seed in referring to money, my friend, that is not seed. My brothers and sisters, that is not seed. Stop blaspheming God, because the seed is the word of God. When Jesus spoke of seeds and sowers and fruit, it was not about money, the seed, remember. He was talking about the sower, where the sower went forth to sow and some of the seed fell on rocky ground and some of it fell in shallow earth and some of it fell in good earth. That was not money, because that seed, that word of God that went out there and got in these people's hearts, because the ground was the heart symbolizing other people's hearts that was supposed to, uh, that was supposed to be things that developed fruit. It developed a, uh, a more robust way of living for God, and it also made sure that it also explained to us what would happen if our hearts ever got out of that good state. In fact, I'll read it Matthew 13, 3-9.
Speaker 1:The same, and he spoke many things unto them in parables, saying Behold, a sower went forth to sow and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside and the fowls came and devoured them up. Now, wait a minute, hold on. If this is money, why would you throw the money on the wayside? And what could be devoured of the money? Well, now are you talking about people skimming off the top, exporting money, embezzling money. That doesn't make sense. But let's continue.
Speaker 1:Some fell upon stony places where they had not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth, and when the sun is up, they were scorched because they had no root. They withered away. Now you tell me, how does money wither away? I mean it's there. How then could it? Oh, you mean you put it in bad investments. Okay, that's not quite the same thing, because now we're talking about with it away and left it, died off. But what's happening here is the word is the seed, and if it doesn't get down in your heart, the first trial you come across, you just sort of fall out, you backflop, back, block. But let's continue.
Speaker 1:Some fell among thorns and the thorns sprung up and choked them. Tell me, how can money be choked? It can't, it just can't. If you put dollar, if you put a dollar in a in a basket and left there, it won't won't do anything but it won't be choked. But other fell into good ground and bought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. He who have ears to hear, let him hear. So that seed fell upon good ground. In other words, it went into the hearts of some good people and it went into the good hearts of good people and it went into the hearts of good people and the person used it and fertilized it with their walk with God and that began to bring forth fruit in their lives and they began to bring other people to God. That's what that parable means.
Speaker 1:It has got nothing to do with you putting a $20 bill in the office or me demanding you putting a $25 fee. That thing aggravates me and this is about as close to a brand as you'll get me to have. There is no reason we should be doing that. That is shenanigans. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the word seed in the Bible and we shouldn't be doing that. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the word seed in the Bible and we shouldn't be doing that. That is some Gentile pagan stuff, that is absolutely some Gentile pagan stuff.
Speaker 1:And if you're in a place that does that, I'm telling you guys right now walkers, find you some other place to go, find you some other place to go, find you somewhere that actually teaches the word of god the way it's supposed to be taught, rightly dividing the word of truth. And again, I'm not. I'm not your pastor. I mean, if you're anywhere close, I invite you to come out every sunday. Well, I'm not even the pastor there yet, so let me just. But either way, I don don't care, you just come out and listen. But it is what it is.
Speaker 1:We should not. We should not be misleading entire congregations because we're trying to engage in filthy lucre. That's what makes it filthy. God gave us money. We don't have the money is not evil. It is we who are evil when we start chasing that money, when we start misusing that money, when that money becomes a status symbol.
Speaker 1:Being a pastor is not about having a status. Being a pastor is a servant, a servant status. We are, we serve the congregation and we serve god and we serve our family and we serve everybody. We come in contact. You know why? Because jesus was also a servant. Jesus did not walk around talking about how he was a great grand poet and give me some money. No, as a matter of the arguments that he had about money, he was saying the poor are always going to be poor. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. You didn't hear Jesus pass around his robe talking about give me a $20 seed or give me an ephah seed no, he didn't. So why are we doing that today? That's shenanigans. That is the devil that's deviled and crept into the church and now we just let him sit here and run our church.
Speaker 1:But I have ranted enough. I have ranted enough. I have ranted enough Again, there are much better podcasts that handle things like that. Jamal Bryant, they're much better. Joel Olsen they're much better podcasts to handle that kind of thing. And, like I said, the one podcast I prefer is called Standard of Truth, and we may have doctrinal differences that is what it is but I feel listen to her, I would refer you to her and she will definitely get into some of the social issues that are plaguing some of the church. I know this is not a plug for her or that she asked me to do. It's just. I came across that podcast one day a couple years ago and I've been listening almost all the time since. So listen, walkers, this podcast is purely about Bible scripture, but thank you for allowing me to have this little rant about that situation asking me about it. But in the future we're going to go with that other option.
Speaker 1:But listen, the answer to all of our questions when it comes to how church should be run everything from top to bottom, left to right, front to back it's going to be in the Bible. If it ain't in the Bible, then it shouldn't be in the church anyway. Okay, don't come to me asking and I've had some people asking me about a skirt with flits Don't ask me that. First of all, that's the question you should be asking your pastor. Second of all, what does the Bible say about it? Okay, I love each and every one of you. Second of all, what does the Bible say about you? I love each and every one of you. Thank you all so much. Thank you all for your questions. If you have any other questions, send them to walkwithmebiblestudy at gmail. If you come across somebody today, tell them you love them. That's probably the only positive thing they'll hear today. If you've seen the way this world is so negative. Be positive in somebody else's life. God bless you See y'all on the next one.