The NXR Podcast - THE INTERVIEW - How Modern Missions Harmed The American Church with Eric Conn

00:00:00.000 Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with Right

00:00:04.540 Response Ministries. In this particular episode, I'm privileged to welcome back to the show,

00:00:08.860 returning guest, Pastor Eric Kahn. Eric and I, we're going to be talking about missionaries.

00:00:14.540 We're going to be talking about when to send them and when to bring them home. We're going to talk

00:00:18.440 about the church in general. What time is it? What phase of rebuilding Christendom are we currently

00:00:23.920 the end. We argue that we are in a consolidation phase, that we have spread our forces too thin,

00:00:30.500 not only abroad in the case of missionaries, but also domestically in the case of church planting.

00:00:35.680 We also spend a lot of time in the second half, the last 30 minutes of the episode,

00:00:40.100 talking about wealth and talking about the poverty gospel, talking about David Platt,

00:00:45.120 talking about John Piper and some really, really bad ideas that have crippled Christian

00:00:50.680 households and crippled our ability to be successful and influential, that we might

00:00:57.140 wield power, which is not icky, that's not a Christian idea, but wield power, which is not

00:01:03.280 inherently evil, using it in a righteous direction for the glory of King Jesus. These are the things

00:01:09.800 we're discussing. I think you'll enjoy the conversation. Tune in now.

00:01:14.620 Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:01:20.680 Hi, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin

00:01:29.320 with Right Response Ministries. And in this episode, I am privileged to welcome back to

00:01:33.200 the show, Eric Kahn. Eric, thanks for coming on.

00:01:36.760 Joel, thanks for having me. Always a distinct privilege to be in your company, even if it's

00:01:42.440 remotely on a podcast.

00:01:44.200 Thank you. So at the time of our recording, this will come out probably right after you

00:01:50.540 guys finish your new Christendom

00:01:52.620 conference. So

00:01:53.780 I believe this is going to come out on

00:01:56.400 Monday. Let's see, when does

00:01:58.440 the conference start? It's Thursday?

00:02:00.680 Yep. What's that? June

00:02:01.840 4th? June what? I think that's

00:02:04.540 June 6th. Oh, that's

00:02:06.400 6th. Yep. So yeah, Thursday is

00:02:08.400 the 6th, 7th,

00:02:10.780 8th, 9th, 10th. So it should

00:02:12.440 be, if you're listening, it should be June

00:02:14.240 10th. Juneteenth.

00:02:16.300 June 10th. Not Juneteenth.

00:02:18.340 Not Juneteenth.

00:02:19.240 it's never Juneteenth

00:02:21.420 June 10th, Monday

00:02:23.500 so we just finished the new

00:02:25.540 Christodome conference, what are you predicting

00:02:27.600 what are you hoping for the fruit of that

00:02:29.680 conference? Yeah, I think it's

00:02:31.600 going to be great, we've lined up

00:02:33.400 a number of good speakers

00:02:35.160 guys that we love, keynote

00:02:37.420 kind of for the whole event, Joel Webin

00:02:39.160 obviously, so you'll be there

00:02:41.680 talking about a number of great themes

00:02:43.520 I think that people

00:02:44.500 you know, have signed up and

00:02:47.400 and are coming to it has been a great encouragement to us.

00:02:50.080 So we hope that they're edified.

00:02:51.640 We're going to talk about a number of things,

00:02:52.960 including Christian nationalism.

00:02:54.640 We'll have Steven Wolf there.

00:02:56.160 He'll be talking about that.

00:02:57.140 Dr.

00:02:57.380 Joe Rigney.

00:02:59.200 We're going to be doing a lot of talks kind of based on his book on

00:03:02.620 emotional sabotage.

00:03:04.380 Just things I think that the church especially needs to hear.

00:03:06.820 So overall,

00:03:08.000 I hope really what this does is kind of further,

00:03:11.700 whatever this movement that we're all sort of a part of seems to be that

00:03:16.260 God is orchestrating.

00:03:17.400 for the revitalization of the church.

00:03:19.500 I think just giving people hope and encouragement.

00:03:22.000 If you look at the political landscape, especially,

00:03:24.820 but the way that people look at the church right now,

00:03:27.100 I think a lot of people are discouraged.

00:03:29.500 And so we're sort of hoping to infuse a little bit of that post-mill hope

00:03:33.740 and hope for the future for people so that whether they're going to move

00:03:38.500 to Georgetown, Texas, or Ogden, Utah, or be a part of a community,

00:03:42.220 or whether they're going to start one where they are,

00:03:44.100 just that people would be fired up about that,

00:03:45.960 seeing that this is a great time of opportunity for the church and men who are courageous and

00:03:51.320 who are going to be faithful in their context. So yeah, hopefully get to do a lot of networking

00:03:56.340 with our friends. We're looking at, I think it's going to be about a thousand people still have

00:04:01.340 tickets being sold. So lots of kids. We went this week to check out the venue. We're excited about

00:04:07.320 that. A lot of vendors, of course, we'll have Zach Gares' new book on hand with us as well.

00:04:12.040 um and that is recovering the anti-feminist vision of the reformers calvin vermigli and others

00:04:19.740 awesome so we're excited about that joel we get to talk about patriarchy and post-mill

00:04:23.920 right theology it kind of sounds like a joel conference yeah and uh you know we're not above

00:04:29.120 that yep yeah you can't be above that yeah that's i think you know conferences in large part uh or

00:04:35.000 at least the conferences that we host um in our neck of the woods that is you know one of the

00:04:40.780 major goals is that it would just be a white pill weekend you know like there's so much to be

00:04:46.660 discouraged by and uh it's easy to lose your spirits and so uh just to remind yourself it's

00:04:54.020 just like a it's a dose of optimism but it's also just a dose of sanity just to remind yourself that

00:04:59.600 you're not crazy and that uh you're not crazy by by just remembering that you're not alone that

00:05:05.780 there's, uh, that in any period of time, um, in the sovereignty and mercy of God, he reserves for

00:05:11.320 himself, um, faithful remnant of, of people. And so, yeah, you're not crazy. You're not alone,

00:05:17.980 but, um, but if we're going to make it, and we are going to make it, but if we're going to make it,

00:05:24.500 um, there does need to be, I think, some consolidation. You and I have talked about

00:05:29.160 this before. Maybe we could get into it a little bit here. Um, but this idea that, you know, I think

00:05:34.420 a lot of what the church did for decades in the church growth movement and the church planting

00:05:39.400 movement, thinking of like gospel coalition, Acts 29, you know, all these kinds of sojourners,

00:05:44.540 we spread our forces too thin and we divided to conquer. But what actually happened is we

00:05:51.920 divided and we were conquered. And we divided so much that some of what we were chopping off

00:05:59.640 to start a new church wasn't actually even viable. So it was just like kamikaze, you know,

00:06:05.440 suicidal missions where we would send out, you know, because, you know, you take a church and

00:06:09.980 it's like our church, we pledge, you know, at this church planting conference, we pledge to

00:06:14.180 plant 10 churches in the next 10 years. It's like your church is 80 people, you know, and, and then,

00:06:19.820 you know, you're, you're trying to break off leaders. And what happens is that everybody gets

00:06:24.100 uh, elevated to the position of perfect incompetence, right? So the guy who would

00:06:29.600 have been a good deacon, he's an elder, but he can't actually do it. The guy who

00:06:33.160 would have been a good elder, he's now, you know, lead pastor, preaching pastor,

00:06:37.120 the guy, you know, so at every level you, um, you're basically, you're promoting

00:06:41.200 people, uh, perfectly to the realm of incompetence and sending them off to die.

00:06:46.460 And so as a compensation to that, and certainly we could overcompensate, you

00:06:51.020 know so we want to be aware of that and what what is the holy spirit doing and what time is it you

00:06:55.380 know the sons of issachar they know the times um but right now we believe in this moment not forever

00:07:00.140 so this is not a indefinite christian plan but i think you know there are phases of of this

00:07:06.820 glorious christian plan and and one of the phases that we're in right now i would say is uh same

00:07:12.940 phase that the stock market is currently in it's consolidation um consolidate it's time to uh to

00:07:18.980 rally the cry to some of our troops, men that we've had behind enemy lines, deep, deep in the

00:07:27.260 trenches and say, come home, come home. And it doesn't mean that, you know, it doesn't mean that

00:07:33.260 everything that was done was a failure. God has used many things. There are plenty of failures,

00:07:39.600 but there are also in his mercy and kindness, plenty of victories that we can celebrate and

00:07:43.960 be thankful for but i do think it's time to uh uh come home it's time to uh to say to you know and

00:07:50.200 there's a lot of guys i'm not just talking about church planters or missionaries or whatever

00:07:53.500 i'm talking about you know blue collar salt of the earth your average christian uh who is you know

00:07:59.640 uh the only the only sense of fellowship christian fellowship that that guy even has is his gc

00:08:05.760 and uh and his fellow you know anons on twitter you know it's like that dude like and i i get it

00:08:12.680 not everybody can, right? Some of you guys, you've got elderly parents and they're not able to move

00:08:19.060 and you have an obligation within the fifth commandment to honor thy father and mother and 0.99

00:08:22.500 you can't abandon them and send them to the glue factory. I get it. I'm not, this is not a one size

00:08:27.200 fits all. There are disclaimers. There are exceptions. But in general, what I'm saying is

00:08:32.820 that for the average person who doesn't have some of these exception clauses, like elderly parents

00:08:40.060 or whatever it might be, for the average person, I think it's a consolidation phase of Christendom.

00:08:45.980 We spread too thin beyond our qualifications. We sent under-resourced and under-equipped men

00:08:55.060 into the trenches alone. We've gotten slaughtered. Some victories, but a lot of casualties.

00:09:02.700 let's pull back get in those christian boroughs and let's get if we can big boroughs not just

00:09:11.220 a thousand boroughs right not just a thousand boroughs of 13 dudes um if we can we need more

00:09:18.940 than just moscow so i'm not saying one borough and i'm not saying a thousand boroughs i would

00:09:23.440 love to see in the province of god what if we had you know about about five dozen but like what if

00:09:30.660 we had 60 Ogdens spread across the country. That's only going to happen if people will play

00:09:38.620 nice with one another. You're going to have to have teams. And with teams, here's the thing

00:09:43.940 about teams. One reason that we don't like teams is because if you're on a team, not everybody

00:09:50.320 gets to be in charge. So I could be a lead pastor of a church of 40 people. But you could also be

00:09:57.460 an associate pastor or just a faithful deacon in a church of a thousand people. Like Ogden,

00:10:04.240 you guys right now, I mean, what the Lord is doing through you, you know, not trying to just

00:10:07.980 blow smoke, but genuine, it's not flattery. I mean it. What the Lord is doing through you right

00:10:13.140 now, you guys are, I think, on a trajectory to have a church in Ogden, Utah of about a thousand

00:10:19.720 people. And it matters. This is why it matters. It matters because you could have 10 churches of

00:10:25.780 100 and that's great i'm not trying to disparage that but in this cultural moment i believe one

00:10:30.700 church of a thousand is better superior for a few reasons one of the reasons is uh with with

00:10:37.360 consolidation not just a thousand people spread out but a thousand people together uh there can

00:10:42.600 be a gay pride parade happening in ogden and you and dan and brian can send out an email to your

00:10:50.620 church and say uh hey guys we need to see you in five hours all of you and then you show up with

00:10:56.840 a thousand people strong and you're holding hands surrounding the gay parade singing he lives to 0.99

00:11:03.440 tread the fields of hell glory hallelujah you're done yeah you're done lgbt progressives you're 0.99

00:11:12.720 done i'm sorry uh this is christ town get the hell out of here you're done yeah and and you can't do 0.91

00:11:20.000 that with churches of 50 or 60 people. Churches of 50 or 60 people are legitimate, valid, biblical

00:11:27.200 churches, so long as they're faithful. Praise God for them. I'm not trying to disparage that,

00:11:32.040 and I'm not saying that we shouldn't have any small churches. But what I am saying is that in

00:11:36.680 this cultural moment, I think we do need some more, we need institutions. Every institution

00:11:43.020 has discredited itself, including the church, shot themselves in the foot. And you know what?

00:11:47.220 that sounds cool in your you know naive libertarian mind but um the world doesn't work that way it

00:11:54.340 doesn't work that way i i don't have the time to look at web md and decide how to diagnose myself

00:12:01.320 every time i get sick i need doctors and i need pastors and we need um in media in in medicine

00:12:10.560 and academia and all these different, we do need, society needs institutions. And one of them

00:12:17.580 is we need the institutional church and we need large, successful, competent, high caliber

00:12:25.800 men led churches. We need some of those and it can't just be Doug Wilson in Moscow. God bless

00:12:33.100 them. God bless them forever. But gosh, we need a few more of those. So anyways, I say all that

00:12:38.780 to say i'm excited for your conference because i think one of the the fruits lord willing that

00:12:43.800 will come out of it is not just a white pill encouragement optimism dose sanity dose that

00:12:50.120 that that's to be sure but not just that for three days um but some people they they will come out of

00:12:57.340 this and they'll go back home with their wives and their kids and even some other families that

00:13:02.140 they're close to and they'll say uh three days wasn't enough we got a taste now we can't get

00:13:08.080 it out of our minds. We've tasted and seen, you know, that Ogden is good. And we're going to

00:13:14.860 move there. And we're going to reinforce the troops there so that instead of losing on every

00:13:21.520 battlefield, we're going to win on some battlefields. I think that's where we're at.

00:13:26.520 What do you think? Yeah, absolutely. I think the word that you use is consolidation. I think

00:13:30.940 that's absolutely right. Even King's Hall, season three, we've been going through that

00:13:35.480 history of Christendom. And particularly in Eastern Europe, guys like Skanderbeg and Hunyadi,

00:13:42.380 so the Polish, the Hungarians, one of the real problems that they face is that Christians were

00:13:48.280 infighting with each other. And so at one point, Skanderbeg and Hunyadi are trying to join forces,

00:13:53.720 and you've got a Christian king in the middle of them that sides with the Turks

00:13:58.700 and won't allow them to come together to defend themselves. 0.78

00:14:03.460 And so it spells ruin for those countries and for Christendom for periods of time

00:14:08.080 until they kind of get their stuff together and learn how to work together.

00:14:11.480 You know, some periods of working together, like the Crusades,

00:14:15.200 depending on which one you're talking about, like Third Crusade, First Crusade, that sort of thing.

00:14:20.100 But it is interesting because, you know, it's something that Christians in America particularly 0.87

00:14:25.060 are like allergic to power and they need to not be because really militarily as a nation anybody 0.96

00:14:33.800 trying to get anything done in the world you have to have a consolidation of power which is going to

00:14:38.620 require competent men it's going to require economic resources political resources um in this

00:14:44.900 this idea for the boroughs and the conference right we get this from you know alfred uh realizing

00:14:50.400 that to create protection against the Danes and protection for his people to have a thriving

00:14:56.280 culture in what would become England, he had to fundamentally build robust fortress cities,

00:15:02.440 which are called boroughs. So it's got a wall, they've got military practice, they can defend

00:15:07.440 trade from raiding and looting and all that sort of thing. And because you have these strong towns

00:15:13.420 and you kind of link them together, eventually what you have is a strong, what would become a

00:15:18.000 strong nation. So I think really, it's just trying to encourage and teach Christians like you have

00:15:24.000 to pull resources. If you want to start a school like we've done here, it takes a lot of people, 1.00

00:15:29.160 it takes a lot of resources. Then if you think about like, well, I don't want the guys in my

00:15:35.500 church to have to work for the soulless ghouls of Global Homo. Well, that means I'm going to have 0.99

00:15:41.020 to create small businesses and medium sized businesses for those guys to work in. We need

00:15:45.660 economy. And so you're going to have to attract people with capital to invest, people to run

00:15:51.500 businesses. You still need the executive C-suite type mindset from people. You're going to have

00:15:56.340 to invest in meme coins. Yeah, exactly. Meme coins. Come on. You got to be able to build that.

00:16:02.980 If you're not invested in Brett on base right now, then you're not going to make it. I don't

00:16:09.600 know what you're doing. We now know what Joel's pet meme coin is. Brett is one of them. Brett

00:16:15.640 is already a lot is priced in it's still got you know i think it's got three to five x potential

00:16:20.960 but there's some others right there's some others you don't want to sleep on got 10x bitcoin let's

00:16:26.800 not forget about bitcoin is i think a long-term hedge against inflation oh yeah and it's going

00:16:32.460 to go up but there's some other coins my goodness man bitcoin i think dan would disagree with me i

00:16:37.720 think dan even said like 300 for this bull cycle so sometime by the end of 2025 300k

00:16:43.980 on bitcoin yeah i'm predicting like more like 169 to we're still good i mean it's what's sitting

00:16:52.560 around oh yeah it's fantastic i think it'll two to 2.5x i think dan is like more like 5x on bitcoin

00:16:58.280 i think two and a half times uh at the peak of this bull cycle which means within 12 to 18 months

00:17:04.220 and then i think there's some other coins though chain link chain link is kind of a normie alt

00:17:10.720 coin but i think when retail comes to the picture boom there's your capital and then you can move

00:17:14.800 to augen all right i'll stop that's right i'll stop right response ministries 2025 conference

00:17:23.160 is a go this is three days full jam-packed conference with eight main sessions three to

00:17:30.080 four hour and a half long panels and an all-star super based lineup of speakers 15 speakers in all

00:17:37.420 Who are they? Steve Dace, Jeff Durbin, Orne McIntyre, Stephen Wolfe, Brian Sauve, Andrew Isker, John Harris, Eric Kahn, A.D. Robles, Dan Burkholder, the Christian Prince himself, Dusty Devers, Ben Garrett, Zachary Garris, David Reese, and yours truly, Pastor Joel Webin.

00:17:57.100 Again, this is April 3rd, 4th, and 5th, 2025, and the early registration is open right now.

00:18:05.160 This is the longest conference with the most speakers we've ever offered, and yet it is

00:18:10.440 our all-time lowest price.

00:18:12.420 The early registration available today is only $140 for an adult.

00:18:18.160 So go to rightresponseconference.com.

00:18:20.900 Again, that is rightresponseconference.com to register right now because the early registration

00:18:27.760 will not last long. Yeah, so I think just kind of reteaching Christians about some of the spheres

00:18:35.640 that have been neglected, I think this is sort of the rod of pietism that's been in the church,

00:18:40.860 right, is that we don't really have a robust political theology. We don't have like an

00:18:45.780 economic theology worked out, if you want to call it that. But just thinking about the reformers had

00:18:51.620 to do the same thing, thinking through vocation in a holistic sense. Most of the people in your

00:18:57.260 church are not going to be pastors. How do they contribute to the vision for rebuilding Christendom

00:19:02.520 in a place like Ogden or Georgetown or Moscow? So I think having the infrastructure, and certainly

00:19:09.480 I think right now, obviously, we have New Christendom Press. You've got Right Response

00:19:14.140 ministries, media is an institution. It's a very important institution, particularly in our day and

00:19:19.060 age, when quite frankly, the front the war is being fought on is propaganda, right? And so if

00:19:25.920 you can counter that, if you can have ecosystems of media, institutional learning, stuff like that,

00:19:31.520 that's not tied to legacy media, which is dying and rotting and Jeff Bezos controlled and whatever

00:19:37.600 else, then you're going to have, I think, a way to build your communities. And I really go back

00:19:44.080 to say like 1 Samuel 22, what's happening in our moment? Well, you have David, he goes to the cave

00:19:50.540 of Adullam. We're told that his brothers and his fathers hear about it and they go to him.

00:19:56.160 So there you have like, yeah, it's natural that family is going to move to a fortress or stronghold

00:20:00.680 type location. But it's interesting in verse two of 1 Samuel 22, it says, everyone who was in

00:20:06.820 distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to him. And he,

00:20:12.360 that is david became commander over them and there were with him about 400 men i think it's

00:20:17.860 interesting number one because you don't necessarily need new york city size population i don't need

00:20:23.540 three to five million people to accomplish political cultural or ecclesiastical ends

00:20:29.720 that's right you know in this case we kind of have the lesson through david that god loves to

00:20:33.700 work through small bands of faithful men but they're potent right these will become the mighty

00:20:38.160 men. And I also think like, look, there's so many people in our culture who are disaffected.

00:20:44.960 They would fit in that list of people, right? To be in debt in a society like ours doesn't

00:20:50.520 necessarily mean that you're a really terrible person. When you think about inflation and the

00:20:55.480 way our society has fraudulently been built on consumer debt, right? So you look at people and

00:21:02.200 they're in distress and they don't have economic solutions. Even think about in the last 30 years,

00:21:07.140 how disaffected people will get. Say in the 1980s, you could buy a home for less than the

00:21:13.680 average annual salary in America, median income. Today, it's not the case. Your average household

00:21:21.500 price has got to be at least 10x of somebody's average annual salary, if not more. So I think

00:21:27.300 people are feeling that. And then what we're trying to do is say, look, you need to go to

00:21:31.980 one of these places where people can have your back because if you're going to build really

00:21:37.080 counter institutions counter cultures you have to have some inertia and some you know capital

00:21:43.960 across all those economic political ecclesiastical spheres amen yeah that's well said the cave of

00:21:51.540 with david is such a palpable um example of i think our our current moment that we're in right

00:22:00.780 now it's just um guys who are disgruntled indebted disenfranchised um because we live

00:22:09.900 in a world right now that really does hate men particularly white men um and even more so you

00:22:16.500 know white christian men um which by the way i you know i i've done this with i had jeremy carl

00:22:22.420 you know he wrote you know the war on on whites you know and uh anti-white discrimination um

00:22:28.560 um i i think that you know for the record i think they're two separate battles i think like a venn

00:22:32.780 diagram i think there's a lot of overlap so i'm not negating that um the war on christianity and

00:22:38.600 the war on uh western society i think there's a lot of overlap uh but i do see them as two distinct

00:22:45.520 battles and not just one um so i you know so i i think there's uh there really is a palpable hatred

00:22:51.900 towards christianity um and there is also a palpable hatred towards um whiteness uh to the

00:22:58.720 point that uh that you know you could be a white person who is progressive and liberal and hates

00:23:04.900 christ uh and yet still experience some some measure of vitriol and i don't think it's because 0.84

00:23:11.340 you're christian adjacent i think it's because you're white um so anyways all that being said

00:23:16.020 We live in a moment where there is a lot of animosity towards men, towards Christian faith, towards European Anglo descent, the Western heritage, all these kinds of things.

00:23:32.760 And so you have the similar situation to where, you know, all that's, these are the kinds of guys that gather to David.

00:23:40.640 They're, they're guys who society has completely, completely disenfranchised and, and they don't really have any place.

00:23:50.960 And so, so they go to a cave and, and you, you know, you would think like, it's almost like surrender because that's really the only category.

00:23:59.460 i mean that's why i wrote this you know little book glorified blog you know but fight by flight

00:24:03.380 because i i really wrestled with that i was thinking like well i don't want to um i'm not

00:24:10.680 suicidal by the grace of god i don't want to just like just implode and destroy myself and blow up

00:24:16.680 my life and yet at the same time though i i i'm not i don't i'm not a quitter i don't and that's

00:24:23.840 what i felt like i only had two options it was die uh or or quit and neither of those sounds like

00:24:31.400 good options and so to have like this to be able to carve out new theological categories of like

00:24:38.280 advancing to the rear you know temporary tactical retreat you know in order to consolidate and

00:24:45.040 reinforce and then go and fight another day on a more strategic battlefield you know the decisive

00:24:49.960 point uh the strategic point winnable but also significant like these got this kind of language

00:24:55.420 was really really helpful for me and influenced you know the decision that i made for my family

00:25:00.180 and seven other families that followed me out of the state of california to georgetown texas to

00:25:04.620 plant a church and and it influenced my writing of this book and it's you know kind of what i'm

00:25:09.400 going to be talking about um at the new christendom conference uh but i think a lot of guys need to be

00:25:14.120 thinking like that it's it's not that all these men uh gathered unto david in a cave to die they

00:25:21.580 didn't go they weren't quitting um they weren't they weren't it wasn't surrender it was consolidation

00:25:28.280 they were going to a safe place a fortress where they could uh where they could um avoid a fight

00:25:36.780 no so that they could regroup and restrengthen to win a fight it wasn't to avoid a fight it was to

00:25:43.840 win a fight. It's really interesting, Joel, too, because you and I have talked a lot online and

00:25:49.040 offline about this concept. But as the world tends toward the globalization and homogeneity

00:25:56.820 of everything, one of the things that has happened is people are rightly turning back to what's

00:26:03.260 local, physical, real, what you can look in the face. And so there is actually a real strength

00:26:09.240 to having brothers whom you see on a daily basis whom you do business with right and i think this

00:26:15.580 is where it's helpful to also contrast sort of the rod dreher benedict option which was really

00:26:22.520 like build a monastery hide away until the storm's over and then hopefully rebuild culture which only

00:26:28.840 works that you know benedict uh benedict option only works uh when you have fighting men protecting

00:26:35.460 you. That's right. And contrasting it, I think Andrew Isker has been really helpful with the

00:26:42.700 Boniface option. And what we're trying to do is, no, we're regathering the troops. We're giving

00:26:48.040 them hope and purpose. And then our goal is actually to go on the offensive. We're actually

00:26:53.400 going to chop down the idols of the day. We're actually going to attack the things that are

00:26:57.500 disgusting and should be hated in our world. We're not just sitting here saying, well, we'll just

00:27:02.740 wait it out. Because I think the reality, Andrew has pointed this out right in his book, is

00:27:06.800 you're not going to make it if you do that. The world around you is hostile. And whether you like

00:27:13.240 it or not, you'd read C.S. Lewis and Prince Caspian. Caspian is like, they gather the troops

00:27:20.080 and he's like, what are we doing here? And the centaur is like, well, we're going to war. The 0.82

00:27:25.860 time is right. That's what we do. And so I think for us as Christians, one of the skins we have

00:27:31.740 to shed is this ideology of like pietistic pacifism right where we don't fight we just

00:27:39.240 you know basically we adopt all the core principles of the regime and we say that somehow we're still

00:27:45.080 christian no we actually have to be a counterforce against that so it really gets into this like

00:27:50.000 counterinsurgency mindset of we know the world's going to be hostile we know we're going to have

00:27:55.440 you know mostly i think in a lot of ways yeah they're going to be political ideological propaganda

00:28:01.160 to type combat that we have to get into, but that's important. And so we have to muster people

00:28:07.380 to do that assault, not just, you know, roll up the gates and hope that, you know, we somehow make

00:28:13.360 it. Right. Well said. Should we talk about missionaries for a second? Yeah, I think it's

00:28:20.800 actually a good tie-in because of where the focal point is. It does tie-in because that's what we're

00:28:24.740 saying. We're saying fall back, right? Not fall on your sword. We're not advocating for that. We're

00:28:30.820 not saying we lose down here uh commit suicide no we're saying fall back um because we want to

00:28:39.020 win the war we want to win the war that we're in it for the long haul um the church lives in the

00:28:45.080 light of eternity therefore it can afford to be patient like that's you know so we're not um

00:28:49.920 advocating for avoiding a fight we're advocating for being wise so that we might win a fight and

00:28:55.800 so just that's the principle that we're talking about it applies to individual households and

00:29:00.140 perhaps moving out of a blue state or whatever, or, or getting, you know, to a church like yours

00:29:05.200 or mine. Um, so it applies to the family. Um, it also applies, uh, to pastors and church plants

00:29:11.660 and stuff like that. Um, if God's blessing it, go for it, brother. Um, even if it, God's not

00:29:16.920 blessing it currently tangibly invisible ways that you can see, you may still have a deep sense and

00:29:22.620 wise counsel that says, stick it out. And that's fine too. Um, but at the household level, maybe

00:29:28.580 time to fall back. At the church planting level, it may be time to fall back. And if we're talking

00:29:33.160 about missionaries, it's the same thing, just another case study, but same principle. That

00:29:37.620 would just be the same conversation for church planters, but now applied instead of domestically,

00:29:41.840 we would apply it abroad. The principle applies there too. What do you think,

00:29:46.660 what do you think, Eric, about just the overarching evangelical, especially I think

00:29:53.620 Baptists and Southern Baptists, what do you think right now in regards to our current status

00:29:59.400 of what we've done the last 50 years, where we're at today, when it comes to foreign missions,

00:30:07.120 international missions? Good, bad? Yeah, absolutely. Well,

00:30:10.280 you know, one of the things, I think you and I would both. How do you think we're doing?

00:30:16.100 Yeah, well, I think the first thing I would lay out is like, you know, you and I have talked

00:30:20.580 about this, but, you know, the principle of sending missionaries is a good one. It's, you've

00:30:24.520 seen it throughout, you know, church history. So we're not, we're not saying that anything about

00:30:29.260 that being bad in principle. But what we are talking about and what I would address is the

00:30:34.520 order of priorities, the order of loves. And, you know, you have to start with what's closest to

00:30:40.660 you. You know, Paul does this. He says, he who doesn't take care of his own household is worse

00:30:44.400 than an unbeliever. So we have different obligations depending on how close and proximity 1.00

00:30:49.280 something is to us and close in terms of natural affection. So your children, obviously you owe

00:30:55.220 your children more than you owe my children or the children in a third world country, even

00:31:00.360 important as those causes may be, you have a first order priority there. So I think when we look at

00:31:06.040 major denominations like the SBC and you go, it depends which data you look at, but either way,

00:31:11.700 it's bad. If the SBC is losing like 80% of its kids, but it is still just really fixated and

00:31:18.740 focused on sending missionaries overseas. And then by the way, you look at those missionary

00:31:23.560 families coming home. And I know a lot of these people and I've heard the horror stories.

00:31:27.840 And you have missionaries who went over, their kids were left here, or they were put in strange,

00:31:32.620 bad situations, got exposed to all sorts of sexual immorality and drugs and you name it.

00:31:38.840 And they come back and the family's a wreck and people are in jail and marriages are dissolved.

00:31:43.280 Well, that's an example of we've misordered our priorities. And so you could think about this

00:31:48.120 just very, very simply, if your own household isn't in order, do you need to be worried about

00:31:52.760 the children in Afghanistan? You can think about this at individual households, states, countries,

00:31:58.720 nations, et cetera. And I think this is where America is particularly bad, not just the church,

00:32:04.200 but it's sort of this mindset of like, it's our job to police the world. It's our job to make

00:32:09.000 sure that people in a third world place are converted. But how ludicrous is it that we

00:32:15.720 haven't put a priority on our own children so again you'll have people who are like you know

00:32:20.760 giving to Lottie Moon and you're doing all those things that's great but then you're sending your

00:32:24.460 kids to public school and they're being lost and indoctrinated by the people of the world

00:32:27.960 and now they're pink-haired orcs you know it's like we and the main point of this if you think

00:32:35.020 about warfare you're never going to win a war if you don't have a strong fortress from which to

00:32:40.880 conduct the war from, right? If you don't have home base covered, and if you're not educating

00:32:45.840 your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, then you have no business going and telling

00:32:51.140 another family in another country how they ought to be doing it. Right. Well said. Do you think

00:32:57.660 there's any application at all in terms of what Jesus said when he sends out the 72, you know,

00:33:04.140 that if a town doesn't receive you, then shake the dust off your feet, that there is a point

00:33:10.580 a certain point where it is permissible to say, all right, that's it. I mean, that's what the

00:33:17.040 apostle Paul does with his own kinsmen, according to the flesh. You know, he does that. And it's

00:33:22.940 not that he stopped loving them. He loves his people. And even to the point, a lot more love

00:33:29.900 than I'm currently able to muster, but to the point where he says he would be willing to be

00:33:33.900 cut off. He'd be willing to go to hell if it might. Yeah, I could wish that I were accursed

00:33:38.200 right on behalf of my kinsmen that's right if it might mean that you know the salvation of his

00:33:42.800 ethnos his his actual people according to the flesh um and yet that so so you can't make any

00:33:49.500 argument that well paul you know is apathetic or paul just doesn't love you know this particular

00:33:54.160 group of people he did most certainly did and yet he hits a point where he says all right that's it

00:34:00.020 i'm done and hear me real quick i think you know this is a helpful disclaimer um paul is not

00:34:06.960 asserting that from that point on he has some kind of special revelation from the lord that

00:34:12.540 there would not be one convert among the jewish people um you know from from that point on and

00:34:19.120 we know this because you know paul is one apostle of christ jesus and there still remain 11 plus

00:34:25.460 one matthias so 12 other apostles who continue to minister among the jews you've got peter and

00:34:31.500 james and john you know there's they're functioning as apostles of christ but also

00:34:35.420 a board of elders at this church, a large church, a mega church in Jerusalem, a capital city of the

00:34:43.800 Jewish people and continuing to minister among them. And I think it's, I'm pretty sure they're

00:34:50.460 continuing to see, even if it's small, they're still continuing to see a steady flow of conversion.

00:34:56.940 So it's not as though, we know there's this partial hardening, right? That's Romans 9, 10,

00:35:00.880 and 11, a partial hardening upon Israel, according to the flesh would be my interpretation of

00:35:06.780 that.

00:35:07.020 So speaking of physical Israel, a partial hardening, but it's not a total hardening, 0.88

00:35:11.320 which means the Gentiles are flooding in, but Israel is still experiencing some conversion. 0.89

00:35:18.440 It may be more of a trickle where the Gentiles is more of a flood, but the point is you could

00:35:22.780 still do faithful ministry work among the people of Israel at that time and see some

00:35:28.240 fruit, and yet Paul says, not for me. I'm going to go ahead and pull back and focus on another

00:35:38.660 field where the harvest seems to be more plentiful. And I think that that principle

00:35:46.460 can be applied for the church today. And here's the thing, I don't think that it

00:35:54.420 must be applied as dogma. Meaning, okay, so if Haiti is particularly hostile towards Western

00:36:03.040 missionaries, then it now is a sin for anyone to go to Haiti. That wouldn't be my position.

00:36:11.040 But to articulate in a general sense, not a one-size-fits-all dogma, but as a general counsel

00:36:19.960 to say haiti is particularly hostile um and haiti has had western christian missionaries it's not

00:36:28.300 like we discovered haiti last month this is not an unknown people group you know in the amazon

00:36:34.600 that we just found you know a few days ago um no this is a group that has heard the gospel

00:36:40.440 again and again and again and again um and they are killing western christian missionaries

00:36:51.060 and extremely hostile and it's extremely dangerous and you uh you know man you you have an obligation

00:36:58.780 if you're married to your wife if you're a father to your children um and so as a general counsel

00:37:04.640 not a dogmatic command, one size fits all, but as a general counsel, missions to Haiti,

00:37:12.200 the current moment, may not be the best idea. What do you think? Is that just absolutely unhinged?

00:37:20.280 No, no, I think that's right. And again, it comes to balance and priorities, which comes first.

00:37:26.380 I think one of the things that when we read the Gospels, you know, I went to Southern Seminary

00:37:30.400 for a time. And obviously, you feel the sense of emphasis being placed on missionary work

00:37:39.600 overseas. It's a huge thing. And that can be important. But I think one of the things that's

00:37:44.880 helpful to remember, okay, you have 12 apostles, not everyone's an apostle. And so while everybody

00:37:51.360 is called, some people were called in Ephesus, they heard the gospel, they became part of the

00:37:55.760 church at Ephesus, and they never left. That's the majority of people. And so I think if we

00:38:01.220 understand, like, what does Paul say at the end of Ephesians 5 and 6? They're household codes.

00:38:06.060 You know, love your wives as Christ loved the church. Wives, submit to your husbands. Children, 1.00

00:38:11.360 obey your parents and the Lord. It's boring, normal Christianity that I think has been... 1.00

00:38:16.300 And slaves, obey your masters. 1.00

00:38:17.760 Slaves, obey your masters. Yeah, that's right.

00:38:19.720 That one's in there too.

00:38:20.860 And so I think for a lot of people, most people, you're not going to be called to be, you know, even if you take the gift of the spirit of being an evangelist, the reason it's a gifting is because not everyone has that.

00:38:34.000 But I was sort of raised into Christianity where it's like, if you're not street preaching and evangelizing and going on mission trips, basically, you're not really a Christian.

00:38:42.540 I think that's where we've gotten out of balance.

00:38:44.680 One of the other things I would point to, if you look at Mark's gospel, chapter five and verse 18, right?

00:38:52.880 Jesus heals the demon possessed man.

00:38:56.000 It says as Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged him to go with him.

00:39:01.080 That is with Jesus.

00:39:02.440 Jesus did not let him, but he said, go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.

00:39:11.080 So you see, that's going to be the case for so many of us.

00:39:13.700 like go home and tell your family, go home and still be a part of your community where you live.

00:39:18.480 And it's going to be natural that that is going to be the focal point for most people. Again,

00:39:22.780 doesn't mean that you can't support missionary work. It's important. We're grateful for people

00:39:27.760 who are doing that work, but is it going to be the first order of priority for most people?

00:39:32.240 My argument would be no. Yep. I think it's, yeah, I think that's well said. It's the same as

00:39:38.360 pastors, missionaries. I mean, that's what they are. Missionaries are pastors somewhere else.

00:39:44.340 If it's domestic, we call them pastors. If it's abroad, we call them missionaries. That's, you

00:39:49.220 know, there may be some exceptions, but in a general sense, that's most of it. And what I

00:39:53.260 was going to say is just, you know, missionary proper, capital M missionary, not everybody's

00:39:59.880 called to that. So, so we could, you know, cause I, some guys say, you know, I've seen this on

00:40:04.520 twitter right you know this is like there are different levels of jesus jukes this is like

00:40:08.780 jesus juke 5000 i mean this is special really special um but there's some guys that like

00:40:13.920 they're capable of a jesus juke 5000 this is what they would say they would say uh

00:40:18.400 they say well uh did you hear what joel webbin said uh imagine uh being a pastor a minister of

00:40:27.500 the gospel and being so unfamiliar with the gospel that he doesn't recognize that everyone

00:40:32.420 is called to do the work of a missionary it's like wow that i mean that's that's a special

00:40:38.060 twitter uh response right there five thousand yeah that's like level jesus juke level five

00:40:44.020 thousand incredible um well on unprecedented levels but my point is yeah um every man is

00:40:50.260 called to be a shepherd a pastor lowercase p in the general sense in his home but not every man

00:40:56.320 in the proper sense will be a capital P pastor as an ordained officer, an ecclesiastical office

00:41:04.620 in the local church. Most people won't be. And I think it's the same thing for missionaries. So

00:41:09.700 is everyone called to do the work of an evangelist in their everyday lives with their neighbors,

00:41:14.480 with their homes, their family? Amen. Yes and amen. So everyone, every man is going to be a

00:41:19.800 lowercase p pastor. Everyone is going to be a lowercase m missionary, but not everyone will

00:41:24.880 have the ecclesiastical office of capital p pastor proper and likewise not everyone is going to be

00:41:31.780 qualified to be a capital m missionary proper and and if we can't understand but guys just they blur

00:41:39.460 guys don't like to lose arguments so what do you do when you don't have the substance to support

00:41:45.480 your position you just you blur you just yeah he said you know and and you you you either can't

00:41:53.160 you actually are incapable of thinking in categories

00:41:55.300 or you pretend to be incapable of thinking in categories

00:41:58.700 because you can afford to do that

00:42:01.280 because some of these guys,

00:42:02.980 even though I think they can think in categories,

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00:42:09.040 And so they can pretend to be dumb 0.97

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00:44:36.760 your free 30-minute consultation today. Yeah, 100%. And Joel, I was thinking of some examples

00:44:43.300 of how you see the misplaced priority play out. I've been in churches where a pastor's being paid

00:44:51.380 $30,000 to $40,000 in the economy today in many places. It's not a living wage. Guys are working

00:44:58.300 two or three jobs. And yet the church would still send a $30,000 check each year to orphanages

00:45:05.780 overseas. And I remember seeing that and I asked a deacon about it and I said, what in the world?

00:45:11.480 I mean, our pastor, he doesn't have a living wage to take care of this church and you're sending

00:45:17.140 all that money to orphanages. And they said, listen, we'll keep him poor and God will keep

00:45:22.500 him humble. And I remember just being so disgusted by that. Like, shouldn't the first order a

00:45:28.200 priority? Like if you're sending missionaries, it should be because you have a bounty and an

00:45:31.760 overflow. Right. Right. And so that's what you're sending. And yeah, we should do that work. It's

00:45:36.160 great, whatever. But we can't, we're not even taking care of the guy who is serving us on a

00:45:40.580 daily basis. That seems wrong. The other one that I would say is, you know, you used to hear things

00:45:45.460 from guys like John Piper, you know, appreciate their work on missionary stuff. A lot of it was

00:45:50.140 really good, but he would say things like go send or disobey. And it's like, so it's kind of giving

00:45:56.800 you the flavor of like, you need to be like passionately involved in missions or you're a 0.84

00:46:01.180 disobedient Christian? What if I'm passionate about running a business in my local community 0.63

00:46:06.340 and employing 10 fathers and heads of household? What if that's my passion? And what if I devote

00:46:12.640 almost all my attention, time, and money to that thing? Well, in that category, if I'm not thinking

00:46:18.480 about missions all the time, I'm disobedient. Meanwhile, the same pastor had a really weird

00:46:24.280 position where he was defending, not defending his wife against an intruder. So I look at that and I'm

00:46:31.180 Okay, let's re-examine the priorities.

00:46:34.500 We should read the Westminster Confession of Faith on murder and what's required, namely the protection of life, would be the opposite command.

00:46:46.080 So, you know, and this is going to be hard, Joel, because for a lot of us, look, I was an SBC lifer for a long time.

00:46:53.140 It's deeply ingrained.

00:46:54.580 You take it for granted.

00:46:55.500 These are just presuppositions that we have that really like the height of being a Christian

00:46:59.960 is being a missionary and certainly don't want to denigrate people doing the work.

00:47:04.140 It is important.

00:47:05.400 But my encouragement to those guys would be maybe just consider the level of priority

00:47:13.000 being placed on things.

00:47:15.020 And you have to start with maybe we could be wrong.

00:47:18.680 Maybe we could be wrong and maybe it's really hard to do.

00:47:22.000 But if we're losing 80% of our kids, not just like how do we change the youth group program, but maybe we need to rethink some fundamental presuppositions about the way we're approaching church, ministry, and vocation all together.

00:47:37.340 Yep, well said.

00:47:38.920 In terms of money and generosity, this is something I didn't realize because I just didn't understand money until I was older.

00:47:45.980 um but you know i you know i i thought for a while that like if you have if you have money

00:47:52.460 anything extra at all you know and and doing your best to lower your cost of living you know and

00:47:59.340 being content with little lowering your cost of living to you know the absolute bottom and then

00:48:04.480 anything above that any surplus give it um and what i didn't account for was um well first

00:48:12.660 every single person whether they're a christian or not um if we're thinking in percentages the

00:48:18.340 amount of wealth that they will give in their lifetime is always 100 the only question is to

00:48:26.800 who and when because you can't take it with you you are going to give everything you have whether

00:48:32.740 you like it or not if not now then at very least you're going to give it away it will go to someone

00:48:40.320 else. It'll go to the state or some California, you know, boomer lady will give it to her dog,

00:48:47.640 you know, or, but it's going to go to somebody. It's going to go to the state. It's going to go

00:48:51.320 to your dog or it's going to go to your kids or it's going to go to charity. You're going to give

00:48:56.360 everything away because you have to, you have to. So if we're thinking, so the question of how much

00:49:01.380 to give, the Bible does address that, right? The Bible speaks of a tithe. So I'm not saying it's

00:49:06.220 insignificant. But we spend a lot of time trying to answer that question, how much. But some of

00:49:11.880 the questions that pastors have not really addressed when it comes to generosity is instead

00:49:17.040 of how much, what to give, I think it's important to think of when to give and who to give to.

00:49:27.020 And what I mean by that is not everybody, it is not always, I don't think it's set out explicitly

00:49:31.940 in scripture as a command that you must give weekly or monthly. And for some guys,

00:49:42.160 especially I think of business owners who are trying to multiply talents and trying to build

00:49:47.360 up generational wealth that transcends their life and even as a blessing, not only for their

00:49:53.340 own posterity, but other heads of households. Like you said earlier, other men in the church

00:49:57.980 are being employed and being employed well, not just $15 an hour, but we're talking head of

00:50:02.460 household salaries for multiple households being represented. In order to do that, John Piper's

00:50:09.500 understanding of money basically will ensure, if you follow it, if you follow John Piper's view of

00:50:18.180 money and what he would deem as Christian generosity, what it ensures is that you will

00:50:24.060 never have a successful christian man in the realm of business it basically it hedges against

00:50:31.240 all possibility of success it's like it makes me mad when i think about it it makes me angry 0.98

00:50:38.240 it is literally you're actually doing harm to christian households it is not a recipe for 0.95

00:50:43.000 generosity it is a recipe to ensure perpetual failure it is to ensure that christians are not

00:50:49.940 less influential, significant, successful in the culture at large, so that we keep losing down

00:50:56.700 here. It makes me angry. So here's my point. You're going to give it all. The only question

00:51:03.380 is to who and when. And so in terms of when, it is absolutely, I believe, permissible, right?

00:51:11.240 I don't think, for instance, I don't think that every single Christian in the New Testament was

00:51:17.460 giving and offering every single week because not everybody reaped a harvest or actually made money

00:51:25.740 on a weekly timeline. Sometimes in agrarian culture, there were people who may have only

00:51:31.540 made money a few times a year. Your first roots would have been like annual.

00:51:35.460 Exactly. So for some, it was annual. For some, it might've been weekly. For some,

00:51:39.120 it may have been monthly. And so there are certain things where as a business owner,

00:51:43.080 using that again as an example where it may be, well, I have this surplus right now and I could

00:51:51.220 give it. I could give it all. But you know what you could also do? You could invest it. And that's

00:51:56.800 not, it's not giving means kingdom. Investing means materialism, humanism, selfishness. No,

00:52:03.420 it's no, it's not that black and white. You could give it for the kingdom. You could also invest it

00:52:10.260 also for the kingdom. You could take that surplus and say, I could give it right now

00:52:14.940 to an orphanage or to the local church or whatever it may be. I could also reinvest it and turn a

00:52:21.040 profit, an even greater exponential profit on this so that at another time, I will be able to give

00:52:27.740 10 times the amount of money. And it's not just waiting 10 years, I'll give 10. I'm talking

00:52:34.700 exponentially i could give i could give x percent annually or monthly but i could give exponentially

00:52:40.880 more than that if i wait two years because right now we're in the process of doing this and

00:52:45.580 consolidating that and um i i think that there are perfectly legitimate arguments to be made

00:52:51.120 for thinking about but all that what it includes is uh it includes a christian doctrine of success

00:52:58.380 of winning, of power, of influence, of money, of wealth, of economics. And Christians have just 0.61

00:53:06.360 completely surrendered so much of that to where, yeah, we just, if you're not poor, you're not

00:53:13.800 godly. The Pharisees, right? At the time, I think in Jesus' day, it very much was this correlation

00:53:20.260 between wealth and righteousness. That person's rich. He must be favored by God. Well, in the

00:53:26.480 evangelical world, and now I understand the prosperity gospel is still alive and well in

00:53:31.000 many corners, but I'll say more specifically in the reformed evangelical world, we've done the

00:53:36.180 opposite. If you're poor, you're righteous. Yeah, it's really a poverty gospel. The other

00:53:40.600 thing I think is interesting here, Joel, is if you look at the boomer generation and the boomer

00:53:47.760 mindset, obviously they're still holding a lot of wealth to this day. But it's interesting because

00:53:52.820 a lot of them don't really believe in passing on inheritances to their children.

00:53:57.520 But I think it's like, this is how they assuage a guilty conscience many times. It's like,

00:54:01.840 you don't see your grandkids, you don't give your kids any money, you don't create a living

00:54:06.000 inheritance while you're still alive. You go to Hilton Head, and then what you do by yourselves,

00:54:12.580 and then what you do is you have like six Compassion International kids on your fridge,

00:54:16.200 and it makes you feel less guilty because you're paying $30 a month or whatever it is to these

00:54:21.040 kids. Meanwhile, you neglect your own children. Yet at the same time, Proverbs 13, 22 says a good

00:54:26.440 man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. Again, to your point, the sinner's 0.98

00:54:31.420 wealth is laid up for the righteous. So it's also interesting here, yet another, I think, 0.98

00:54:37.500 misplaced priority where the typical pietistic movement, you think about something like this,

00:54:44.420 like these guys who are leading, desiring God and major organizations giving away all their wealth,

00:54:49.280 and that's great you get free books whatever what about their children right what about the

00:54:55.620 inheritance like you created real wealth you should pass that on to children and you should

00:55:00.360 employ people and all of that is good but it seems like it seldom gets talked about as a real good

00:55:06.340 and i think part of it is also sort of the flattening of every other sphere under the church

00:55:14.840 like the only this was the same reason with church planning right when we were a part of

00:55:19.600 those movements where it's like the only real let's be honest the only really important job

00:55:24.760 was pastor right everybody else was just funding his paycheck or funding missions right um and you

00:55:30.400 you had churches where this was sort of the mindset yeah yeah and so i think the shift here

00:55:34.560 is sort of a chris wiley shift of let's recover the the productive household let's recover things

00:55:40.720 like generational wealth they're important no being poor is actually a disadvantage to

00:55:46.300 accomplishing cultural social ends and means you need again it goes back to the same thing you need

00:55:52.180 actual real resources to be able to accomplish those things so you can't be telling your people

00:55:57.120 that wealth building is bad and ambition is bad right or or that funding missions is the only

00:56:02.080 reason you make money yep agreed yeah because one of our missions one of the things that we're

00:56:10.380 trying to do is we're trying to press for the crown rights of king jesus over every single

00:56:14.900 sphere of human society and life and one of the things that is required to do that is uh influence

00:56:22.440 significance and wealth um so uh one of our missions you know it is very possible that you

00:56:29.280 know some you know business owner one of his missions could literally be now this doesn't

00:56:34.160 mean if he's a christian he should belong to a local church and membership and he should be

00:56:39.680 giving something to the local church and i would argue even that even in the new testament a tithe

00:56:44.140 applies in terms of the timing of when he gives that 10 i think there's a debate to be had and

00:56:49.280 what is most prudent for the church and its needs but also for him and his business and how he can

00:56:53.820 be a best uh best steward that wealth and it may mean that he gives 10 at the end of the year

00:56:59.080 rather than giving 10 every week that said apart from that tithe which i do believe that he is

00:57:06.120 mandated to give to the local church, it could mean that the rest of his wealth, and this is

00:57:13.120 not something other than the kingdom, it could mean that he keeps the rest of his wealth in the

00:57:18.920 business, not giving it to a charity, not giving it to an orphanage. He keeps it in the business

00:57:26.040 and he does it so that his business can be... Think about this for a second.

00:57:29.860 um we we so underestimate the power the potential power of a household what what is amazon other

00:57:40.100 than house bezos right what is meta other than house zuckerberg right i mean think about that

00:57:47.880 like you know spacex and twitter and you know tesla house musk that's all it is it's a house

00:57:56.220 it's a house that has children in some cases a wife they're not you know haven't divorced her

00:58:02.000 and sent her away or let's be honest statistically she divorced him um and took his money you know 0.95

00:58:07.660 half of it and sent him away but my point is if there's any decency at all there's a wife

00:58:12.840 there's children but then just like abraham's house there are servants thousands abraham had

00:58:18.940 300 something but you're talking thousands maybe tens of thousands in the in the case of someone

00:58:24.200 like Elon Musk or someone like House Bezos. But here's the deal. We're trying to press for the

00:58:30.300 king rights, the crown rights of King Jesus in all the earth. I wonder how much missions you could

00:58:36.980 get done in terms of pushing forward the kingdom in every sphere of life, not just churchianity,

00:58:42.460 but a full-orbed Christianity. If Jeff Bezos was a solid Christian believer with a full-orbed,

00:58:52.140 robust, you know, reformed Christian view, not pietistic, not churchy entity, but all of life.

00:58:58.360 How, how much, how much sway do you think he could have? Like how much sway does he have for evil? 0.86

00:59:03.820 But like how much sway does he currently have when it comes to, it's not like the guy's just

00:59:08.520 determining the shipping price for Amazon products. Now that dude, if you don't, if you don't realize

00:59:13.820 that dude is pulling levers, political levers with high up civil authorities, like that is a ton

00:59:20.180 of power. Christians could have that power, but we literally have a doctrine. We have created a

00:59:27.520 doctrine to ensure that we don't have that kind of influence and power. We've said, you know what,

00:59:33.760 this guy right here, if he keeps going in that direction, he might actually be successful and

00:59:39.340 make a difference in the world. Got to cut that crap out. Every penny you have over your basic 0.99

00:59:46.040 needs, give it to a third world country. That's a black hole economically, and it'll disappear and 1.00

00:59:51.500 never see the light of day again. Hashtag Jesus. Yeah. Nobody wants to, of course we're losing.

00:59:57.720 No wonder we're losing. Yeah. Well, nobody wants to ask is, you know, is that type of giving even

01:00:04.840 that effective sometimes, but having worked in the many different nonprofits in the nonprofit world,

01:00:12.220 uh a lot of those organizations are terrible and they're bloated and they exist to create

01:00:19.180 shells for people who are just trying to offload money for tax purposes um it's not what you think

01:00:24.600 it is and so yeah once again it's like this is regime evangelical leadership and when i say

01:00:32.980 regime either they're controlled by the regime or they're bought the regime narrative and their

01:00:37.240 fundamental aim is to keep christians poor and powerless yes and that's working and you know i

01:00:43.860 think there are a lot of pastors who probably don't realize like this is a regime thing they

01:00:47.620 don't even think in those categories or terms but you've sort of got to wake up when it's like

01:00:52.640 hmm that's weird david platt is telling me to be poor and live this radical life and he's not

01:00:58.380 that's really weird and then you look at the church throughout history

01:01:03.860 this is the other comparison to be made and it's like yeah i'm all the modern leftists want to

01:01:09.560 point to the failures of the church church did a lot of good the reason you know what a hospital

01:01:13.340 is is because there were people called the hospitalers and they had guess what money

01:01:17.660 and you know tied to the crusading era with the templars as well they had money

01:01:23.020 they were able to use that money for great good and protecting people who didn't have medical

01:01:27.920 care and stuff like that and a lot of other things but again it all comes back to power

01:01:31.980 and money. And I think, you know, so a lot of this is tied to, I would say like if everybody

01:01:37.800 would read some David Chilton on productive Christians in the age of guilt manipulators

01:01:44.200 and be reading material like that, Rush Dooney had a lot of good material on, you know, wealth

01:01:48.560 and it's like, it's not bad, but people are allergic to it. And by the way, all the people

01:01:53.360 who are telling you not to pursue wealth, guess what? They're wealthy regime people who keep the

01:01:59.100 power and want to keep you subservient. So I think you're just getting people to wake up to that.

01:02:04.520 Amen. All right. Well, I feel like that's been helpful. We've talked about Christian Burroughs.

01:02:08.400 We've talked about, you know, consolidation and different moments. What's up?

01:02:14.100 And meme coins.

01:02:15.080 And meme coins. We've talked about meme coins. We've talked about, but Christian Burroughs,

01:02:18.420 consolidation, it's time to come home. Know what time it is. What phase of Christendom are we in?

01:02:23.280 how can we recalibrate, regroup the cave of Adullam, right? We're not going there to lose

01:02:28.980 the fight. We're going, we're avoid the fight. We're going there to regroup so that we might

01:02:33.040 win the fight. And we've applied that to missions. We've applied it to church planting. We've applied

01:02:37.800 it to individual households. We've applied it to economics and Christian men being industrious

01:02:43.540 in business and how that, you know, how that does that coincide with the command to be generous to

01:02:49.320 the local church and all these kinds of things. I feel like, I feel like we got it. I feel like

01:02:53.620 it's a wrap. Any, any final thoughts, Eric? No, that's great. And hopefully, yeah, like you said,

01:02:59.400 with the conference, with a lot of material you guys are putting out, I think a lot of people's

01:03:04.460 eyes are being open. I think that's a hopeful thing. People are realizing this was sort of

01:03:08.560 intentional or not, but for a lot of people, it was a scam. It was a way to harm households in

01:03:15.260 the church. I see a lot of people waking up. I'm really encouraged by the number of Christian

01:03:19.800 businessmen you know, but we've connected with a lot of them through podcasts, guys like Max D

01:03:25.480 down in Paris, Texas, doing a lot of great work to actually build up households and to use power

01:03:31.700 and money for righteous ends and purposes. So that's really encouraging. And I would just

01:03:36.900 encourage people to be a part of companies like that, be a part of communities like that,

01:03:40.740 because it will inspire you and encourage you to continue building for your generations.

01:03:46.880 Amen. All right, Eric, thanks so much. And for the listener, the New Christmas Conference has

01:03:52.760 ended, but for you and I at the time of our recording, I will see you next week.

01:03:57.660 Sounds great. Thanks, Joel.

The NXR Podcast - June 10, 2024

THE INTERVIEW - How Modern Missions Harmed The American Church with Eric Conn

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