00:16:22.560All right, well, let's settle the account for this lower amount.
00:16:25.400And he settles all these accounts making friends.
00:16:28.720And this is what Jesus says in the parable.
00:16:30.180He makes friends for himself elsewhere before the bridge is fully burned with his master
00:16:37.720so that now he has one bridge is burned.
00:16:41.420He's got 20 new bridges with all these other people.
00:16:43.540and then jesus says you know um make um make friends for yourself with uh with multiple people
00:16:51.120and and the the moral of the story is is he actually says um and and he says this as as
00:16:57.260though it's a condemnation an indictment right this is not positive it's negative he says
00:17:01.820for the sons of the darkness are more shrewd than the sons of the light yes and the obvious
00:17:08.240implication is that jesus is implying and it should not be so right it should not be so so
00:17:14.420jesus is is not advocating for well you know what um if you're poor if you're sick if you're weak
00:17:22.520if you know as long as you're pure then um well that's great um jesus of course he's the sinless
00:17:30.860spotless son of god he never advocates for um for sin but he does allow for this this category
00:17:39.840that is not sin but it is shrewd and he says look there's some things you can't do like it is true
00:17:47.880that you know going back to the basketball league analogy it is true that um that when it comes to
00:17:53.700the unbeliever right a lot of the teams in this league are cheating and we're not allowed to
00:18:00.400blatantly cheat we're not allowed to steal kill you know and and sin in order to get ahead so yes0.76
00:18:08.140we are playing we are forced as followers of christ and and being you know submissive to his
00:18:14.960law we are forced to play by the rules but within that grid within that framework of the timeless
00:18:22.720truths and and blatant clear explicit commandments in scripture it still leaves a lot of room for
00:18:30.000innovation creativity strategy these kinds of things and if christians are under the guise of
00:18:37.280i'm just being obedient but their obedience is actually um what it's not true obedience it's it's
00:18:44.020a uh my point is christians sometimes have their conscience bound too tight there are minister
00:18:49.840ministers can do it financial advisors aka dave ramsey looking at you they can do it there are
00:18:55.440plenty of experts a religious expert a minister a financial expert dave ramsey plenty of experts
00:19:02.800authorities in every single sphere that i think for decades now for a couple generations have
00:19:10.120been wrongfully binding the consciences of believers so tightly that they have not it hasn't
00:19:17.680just kept them out of sin it's actually kept them out of innovation it's kept them out of strategy
00:19:23.280And it's actually hamstrung our team to where the sons of darkness, like Jesus said, are now more shrewd than the sons of the light, and they keep prospering and increasing more and more.
00:19:37.480And we find ourselves perpetually the borrower.0.97
00:19:41.120The very verse that Dave Ramsey is using, the advice he gives actually ensures that Christians remain the borrower and that the non-Christian remains the lender.0.98
00:19:51.380And I'm not saying that, we're not sitting here, we can say what someone does, right? And we can0.93
00:19:58.480say that with a clear conscience. We're allowed as Christians to discern and make judgments. The
00:20:02.780spiritual man, the letters to the Corinthians from the Apostle Paul says, the spiritual man makes
00:20:08.760judgments about all things, though he himself is not subject to any man's judgment. So we actually
00:20:14.080can make judgments about what someone does, what someone says, and what their counsel, what their
00:20:19.860advice produces right we're not going to sit here and make a judgment about someone's inward
00:20:24.200motives correct so i'm not going to sit here and say that dave ramsey is working for the enemy and
00:20:28.760that he's he's malicious and that he's actually trying to like i'm not saying that i i'm going
00:20:33.880to be charitable and i actually i'm not just being charitable i think it's true right gun to my head
00:20:38.340uh do i think that dave ramsey that his um his intentions are pure and that he's actually trying
00:20:44.060to help people yeah i think so yeah um but is it actually helping people not really i think he was
00:20:51.180helpful for a time um in the 80s 90s early 2000s with boomers and gen x when it came to one thing
00:20:59.840in the realm of finance and it's only one thing it's not the thing it's one thing which was getting
00:21:04.080out of debt but as it comes to the lay of the land economically today the way money works today
00:21:10.320for younger generations millennials gen x gen alpha and not just getting out of debt but all
00:21:16.280the other categories of money building wealth yes um are his in intentions to hamstring our team
00:21:22.320no um but is the result the effect of the counsel he's giving doing precisely that in many cases
00:21:29.320yes so here here's the big idea for episode one three episodes that we're going to be doing with
00:21:35.600with this this series on finances we want christians to be rich right money is not the
00:21:42.020root of all kinds of evil the love of money is so we want christians to wield money as as one
00:21:48.320form of power to that's neither a vice inherently nor is it a virtue inherently but it is a tool
00:21:56.080we want christians to be able to wield this sword to push back the kingdom of darkness and push for
00:22:02.260the crown rights of king jesus the kingdom of light and to leave an inheritance not only for
00:22:06.780our children but our grandchildren as the proverbs say a wise man or a good man leaves an inheritance
00:22:11.820for his children's children so this is episode one i want to start here we did the dave ramsey
00:22:16.640thing uh but now kind of a 30 000 foot view the death of the american middle class that's what i
00:22:24.220see happening i know that's what you see uh joe we see the rich getting richer yes and we see not
00:22:29.600just the poor getting poor that's happening right the poor uh used to be uh financing their car um
00:22:36.320now they're financing burritos yes right we're talking about um exorbitant predatory forms of0.93
00:22:43.000usury yep which is a very jewish thing yeah not all jews are doing it um it's not all jews but0.93
00:22:50.200it kind of is always jews um but there's a lot of white guys uh is white as the driven snow with a0.56
00:22:57.220european heritage to scotland and ireland uh tracing back 14 generations and they're doing0.51
00:23:02.440it too everyone at some level the wealthy regardless of religious affiliation or ethnic
00:23:07.960um a lot of the wealthy is guilty across the board making the rich richer and making the
00:23:14.040poor poor but it's not just that that's been happening for a long time over the last 20 30
00:23:18.200years something else is happening it's not just that the poor are becoming poor but those who
00:23:23.360were previously not poor are becoming poor the middle class is evaporating so instead of uh
00:23:29.380lower class middle class upper class what we are quickly uh seeing in real time and and i'm i'm
00:23:35.800talking this is not like oh in the next 50 years 100 no it feels like in the next five to 10 years
00:23:40.880there will be no middle class that that seems like a real plausible possibility is it in a very
00:23:48.160short window of time, the middle class of America will no longer exist. It will be the wealthy and
00:23:55.840the poor. So the death of the American middle class, there's a lot of reasons for that. Let's
00:24:01.360start here. Your parents were told to keep their housing payment below 25 to 30 percent of their
00:24:07.160total income. I just want to ask you point blank, is that still realistic for families today?
00:24:13.260the average family no no gen z like if gen z is listening to dave ramsey uh you cannot get a
00:24:20.840mortgage that's going to be above 25 to 30 percent of uh your income i hear that and i think um not
00:24:27.180necessarily his intention but in terms of what it will actually do uh you just effectively told
00:24:32.940gen z that they're not allowed to own a house and that they're going to be building someone else's
00:24:37.080wealth for the entire course of their lives right is that fair yeah that's right so what what does0.90
00:24:43.080gen z need to do because they need to own homes yeah it's probably going to be more than 25 300.69
00:24:48.060yes but there are ways of doing this it's still shrewd and wise so let's start their house how1.00
00:24:55.700does a 25 year old today newly married he's a christian wants to have a quiver full of children
00:25:01.780right how does he get a house joe uh one he needs to be willing to spend more than 25 to 30 on his
00:25:09.660house payment. He has to. Has to. And why? Why is that worth it? Because long-term, you're growing
00:25:17.560an asset versus throwing your money in the trash when you're renting. Right. Renting is gone. Money's
00:25:22.260gone. It's a lease. When you lease anything, you only get to use it for a short time period.
00:25:27.780You never walk away. Never. Most of the time, you never walk away with an asset. And so you're
00:25:33.460looking at building someone else's wealth when you're renting. And so you also have to have a
00:25:39.420long-term view. Unfortunately, today's culture does not have long-term views, whether where
00:25:45.640we're working, who we have loyalty to. Employers no longer have that same thing where, hey,
00:25:51.160we're going to hire this person and you're going to be with me for 20, 30, 40 years the rest of
00:25:55.380your life. You're with my team now the rest of my life. Right. And you see that on when folks
00:26:02.360need a pay raise or a promotion, they have to jump to another company and jump back. I hear it all
00:26:08.040the time oh i gotta jump to a competitor and come back and then i'll get a promotion and pay raise
00:26:12.100and that is horrible the retraining of employees is very costly we have a culture of bouncing we
00:26:18.240have a culture of lack of loyalty and so employees are worried rightfully so will they have an income
00:26:25.320or can they afford it but if they look five years in the future having a fixed rate mortgage when
00:26:31.700with inflation pay raises should go up okay or if they bounce and they increase their income and
00:26:37.720they have a fixed payment it'll come down to the 25 it'll come down to the 15 smart smart yeah
00:26:44.760but you have to have long term that's so simple but it is undeniably true and that's being that's
00:26:52.500being missed so it's not just oh you'll be ahead 30 years from now when your house is paid off
00:26:55.640like don't miss what joe just said um what you're saying is that yes inflation on the whole right
00:27:01.640now is is the increase in inflation is exceeding the increase of of raises with earnings that's
00:27:07.640true but if you get locked in with your house payment then that's not inflating right so so
00:27:13.220your groceries still are your gas still is but on that house payment you're locked in it's fixed
00:27:18.240yes and it's not just this will be you'll be better off 30 years later at the end of your
00:27:22.500mortgage when your house is paid off no what you're saying is that it could be anywhere from
00:27:26.140three to seven years you could only be you know a quarter of your way into this 30 year note yes and
00:27:32.680at that point your wages have continued to grow um the cost of everything else aside from the
00:27:39.240house because that you're locked in everything else might be growing at a quicker pace than
00:27:43.680your wages but on the house side of the equation yes that's fixed and so even if your wages are
00:27:49.680only two three percent per year growing um you might have bought the house year one and it was
00:27:56.18040 right and we're not saying that's great nobody's celebrating that correct but it is what it is but
00:28:01.860by year seven with your wages increasing now it actually is in this range of 25 to 30 percent
00:28:07.780not by year 30 but by year seven yes um which is real possibility a no-brainer and so so with that
00:28:15.200um real quick i think it's worth getting into to this question um can you just flesh out for the
00:28:22.560listener what's the difference between productive debt because because that's the thing christians
00:28:27.340because dave ramsey kind of one-shotted an entire generation of christians they hear debt and they
00:28:32.920hear they basically hear sin they hear the conscience has been wrongfully bound too tightly
00:28:38.280they hear debt and they always think debt bad debt bad debt bad so can you just real quickly
00:28:44.540explain or or even not so quickly because this is vital so take as much time as you need sure
00:28:49.760productive debt versus destructive debt yeah yes so there's lots of kinds of productive debt
00:28:56.680it's not just purely financial productive that is an aspect but there's also skill set there's also
00:29:03.800culturally important debt talk about me personally for a second i've had multiple major surgeries on
00:29:11.160my intestine, I would not be alive without doctors. Right. I have had surgeries on my eyes.
00:29:16.740I would be blind without doctors. I'm glad doctors take on debt. I'm glad the surgeons took on debt
00:29:24.420so that we have quality surgeons that can go in when emergencies happen. I know I can go get the
00:29:30.420help. So it's not it's not just finance. There is finance. There's culturally important things that
00:29:36.120we need opportunistically. So yes, I want the highly trained, highly specific skills that have
00:29:44.280a lot of money to go get that. I need them to go take on debt. Airline pilots. I want them to be
00:29:50.860really skilled airline pilots and it's expensive. I also want them to be really male, really white1.00
00:29:57.280and really old. The two colors you want to see with your pilot is gray and white. Preferably.0.85
00:30:04.040right it's like hey we've got a 25 year old lesbian black woman who's going to be the pilot1.00
00:30:08.960yes you get off that plane so but but you're but you're right all that kind of skilled labor1.00
00:30:14.080whether it's a surgeon whether it's a pilot whether it's whatever um very few of these
00:30:18.400people are able to enter that field debt-free yeah and if it and and you want the very best
00:30:23.920of the best right i don't want my pilot you know so i i made the you know the whole dei joke but
00:30:29.200let's take that aside let's say both of them are white dudes all right uh they're both male they're
00:30:33.040both white and they're both thinking about being a pilot i don't i don't want the only people able
00:30:38.420to enter that field to be those people who are trust fund babies whose parents were rich right
00:30:42.400because there might be some other guy who actually is smarter who's more talented more gifted whose
00:30:47.480parents just weren't rich and i want him because he actually has the potential to be the very best
00:30:52.800pilot yeah right my family's going to go on vacation i'd like to get there in one piece
00:30:57.460I want that guy to be able to have an opportunity to fly my family's plane.