Traditions on prosperity attempt to answer this question: “how can I embrace prosperity and deny the love of money?” Now that we understand the nature and origin of traditions, let’s look at how they have progressed throughout our history. Although we have defined prosperity in a bigger context than money. Most ancient thinking - like ours - about prosperity is centered around the accumulation of physical wealth.

Let’s start with the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, prosperity was seen as a sign of divine favor for following God’s commandments. From the beginning of Abraham’s journey, the Israelites sought prosperity - a promised land from God. God promised to bless them if they followed His commandments. There is no doubt that God enabled people all throughout the story of the Old Testament to achieve prosperity in all its forms and that it was a sign of God’s hand on their life. In the New Testament, prosperity is something meant to help others through generosity. The New Testament doesn’t deny prosperity. If the Old Testament tells us that prosperity comes from God, the New Testament tells us the purpose of prosperity. Every person who receives the “good news” and comes out of a poverty mindset has a responsibility. The responsibility attached to the prosperity God gives us is to help other people prosper. There are parts of the New Testament that are critical of prosperity. All New Testament criticisms on prosperity have the same core issue: prosperity without the purpose of generosity. The problem in the New Testament world was not rich people. It was rich people who did not see the purpose of their wealth attached to the responsibility of generosity.

non-biblical perspectives

What were the ancient non-biblical perspectives on wealth? What are the views of western and eastern philosophers who were living in and around the same time period? The Bible, eastern and western philosophy all converge to a singular point: wealth is a useful servant and a terrible master. Wealth is a double-sided coin. It can support a virtuous life, and create a more ethical world for everyone to live in. Or, it can corrupt us, and greed creates a worse world for everyone. The goal of living is to seek virtue and wisdom, prosperity is a tool, not an outcome.

In Plato’s Apology, Socrates declares that “virtue does not come from money, but from virtue comes money and all other good things to man” (Source). His perspective was that financial wealth was not essential for a good life, but the pursuit of virtue is. Chasing money without virtue corrupts the soul, but chasing virtue instead of money brings all good things into our lives.

In The Republic, Plato portrays both excessive wealth and poverty as threats to social harmony and virtue. His solution is to eliminate the majority of private property. He believed that “None must possess any private property save the indispensable,” and the leaders of society are told they already have “gold and silver of divine quality in their souls, so they have no need of the metal of men…since many impious deeds have been done because of [mortal] gold” (Source). Plato argues that physical wealth is not inherently evil, but must be held in check by justice and virtue. Wealth is a potential vice unless it is held in check by wisdom. Prosperity is only acceptable when it does not compromise ethical conduct, or the well-being of others.

Aristotle saw wealth as a means to an end. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he says: “The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else” (Source). Like his teacher Plato, and Plato’s teacher Socrates, Aristotle sees the pursuit of wealth for the sake of wealth as not good. Wealth was a tool that could enable virtue or vice depending on the ethics of the wealthy person. Wealth could support a good life, but a love of riches for their own sake was a “narrowness of soul” and did not lead to a good life.

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:12-13 NLT)

You may think I’m wrong in my interpretation of what Jesus meant here and here. Maybe I am. There’s often a vast difference between interpretation and Scripture, and tradition and truth. To understand this difference requires us to be willing to admit that we are incapable of truly seeing things with a Divine mind.

To repeat John MacArthur again: “I know I’m wrong in my theology, I’m just not sure where.” That’s why charity/love in our approach to traditions and interpretations matters. It seems that no matter how hard we try to lay hold of truth, there will always be a nagging problem. Our mind makes sense of things through the lens of interpretation. Postmodernism tells us that truth is not universal or objective. It is constructed in some way through the lens of human perception. Many postmodern thinkers suppose that truth is not absolute, and is always shifting based on biases, interpretations and power dynamics. However, at the heart of postmodern thinking is a self-defeating paradox: the statement “absolute truth does not exist.” If this statement is true, then at least one absolute truth does exist. That truth is not absolute. Which contradicts itself.

Truth and wisdom often go hand in hand. Socrates believed that wisdom was recognizing our ignorance of truth: “All I know is that I know nothing.”

Plato believed that truths were eternal “forms” that governed the physical world. He believed that the physical world was a shadow of forms. For instance, the “form” of a chair exists in all of our minds. So does the wheel. As far as we know, no one invented these things. People have created their own versions of these eternal forms, but what we create as a “chair” is the shadow of a form of a chair that is an eternal idea. Similarly, he believed that a person could approach the form of wisdom, but the physical world consists of shadows. A person could never be fully wise, because human wisdom is a shadow of the “form” of Divine wisdom.

Aristotle made this idea even more practical. He talked about the difference between σοφία (sophia) - theoretical wisdom - and φρόνησις (phronesis) - practical wisdom. Sophia is about understanding and thinking about eternal truths. Phronesis is about practically applying the knowledge of eternal truths to our lives. In Aristotle’s perspective, truth could be somewhat known. What matters more than knowing truth however, is the application of truth. In Aristotle’s mind, we become wise when we apply truth to our life through the pursuit of virtue, reason and the right kind of habits.

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The Stoics believed that living by virtue was our highest goal. Fully living by virtue was impossible, but there could be no better pursuit in life.

Augustine and Aquinas both argued that God is the creator of truth and wisdom. Through our pursuit of God, we can get closer to wisdom, but in our lifetime we will only partially grasp it.

The common thread we see through philosophy and theology is the idea that there is truth, and the pursuit/application of truth. Knowing truth is different from applying truth. Where postmodernism - the dominant approach for much of culture - seems to get it wrong is when it asserts that truth is not objective. Where postmodernism does seem to have clarity is on the subjective nature of truth. For human beings, truth is often unevenly, individually and subjectively applied to our lives. Truth will always be absolute, but its application will always be subjective. The postmodern idea of subjective truth then starts to make sense. Because even if objective truth exists, we are not able to be objective about the truth. That makes sense. However, that does not mean that truth becomes subjective.

This is where the pendulum often swings too far. Objective truth is like a bullseye on a target. Objective truth gives us a standard of measurement that is independent of our subjective application. The closer we align with truth, the better our lives become. A beginning archer can find hitting the bullseye difficult, but with training, they may be able to get close, or even hit it. Scoring more points, ie, living a better life. If we deny the existence of absolute truth, we don’t remove the bullseye. We give ourselves permission to move the bullseye to wherever our arrow happened to go. Even if we didn’t hit the target at all. In an archery competition, this could be frustrating, but is also not that consequential to life. However, imagine an archer in an ancient battle who had been trained to think that anywhere their arrow went would be the bullseye. They would be incompetent and at worst, useless to helping us to win the battle. Learning to hit the target isn’t about getting better at practice, its about instinctively developing the ability to hit the target when it matters.

Learning how to align our lives with objective truth matters because life is not a simple archery competition. The choices we make (arrows we shoot) have consequences. Good consequences are a result of actions aimed properly at truth. Bad consequences are a result of actions aimed improperly. If this framework did not exist, neither could the concepts of good and bad.

application is the problem

Another word we can use for the “application of truth to our lives” is tradition.

One of our key issues related to everything - not just prosperity - is not truth. It is the traditions - applications and interpretations - we have attached to truth. Many people have elevated their application of truth to the level of truth itself. In other words, like the problem Jesus described in Mark 7, we have elevated man-made ideas (interpretations) to the level of the commands of God. What do your traditions say about prosperity? In the context of your life, what do your traditions say about truth? Traditions, interpretations and applications are both unavoidable and subjective. When these things are not in alignment with truth, we have a decision to make. Will we cling to tradition like Pharisees? Or will we sacrifice the safety of our traditions on the altar of truth? This is why Paul said “the greatest of these is love” and Meldenius said “in all things charity.” No human being sees truth clearly, or applies it accurately. The human mind is not the Divine mind.

We don’t seem to have the ability to be precise in both our understanding and application of truth. One day, we will see things as God sees. We will transcend human thinking and imperfection. We will leave the world of shadows and enter the world of forms. Until that day, our understanding of truth will always be limited by our human mind. That does not mean it is not worth the pursuit. If wisdom is the ability to make finer distinctions, we must be able to draw a distinction between sophia and phronesis, Scripture and interpretation, truth and tradition. People who are unable to see this distinction think that traditions are truth. In order to understand what God wants to teach us about life, prosperity and everything else, we need to make sure that truth is given its rightful place above traditions. Not the other way around.

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.” / Blaise Pascal

“In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, in all things charity.” / Rupert Meldenius

What’s an essential?

There are certain things that are essential to Biblical faith that everyone must agree on. Some theologians say that starts with the Nicene Creed. Some say that it is the Apostle’s Creed, which predates the Nicene Creed. These creeds are helpful starts to understanding what is essential. Creeds can be helpful to give us an interpretation of essentials, but a creed only has the power that the truth of Scripture gives it. Traditions, creeds and interpretations work a lot like shortcuts. Sometimes, when you take a shortcut, you miss the meaning of the journey. Each person who claims to be a Christian must decide for themselves how deep they wish to go in truly understanding their faith, or just taking someone’s word for it. When we hold on to traditions, we are taking someone’s word for it. They may be right, they may be wrong. Regardless, they won’t experience the consequences of what we believe, we will. That’s why we need to be careful about what we choose to believe. We may all define essentials differently. But I would encourage you to not consider everything essential. An essential is the difference between heaven and hell.

non-essentials + charity

A non-essential is a preference. For instance, is speaking in tongues essential to getting into heaven? Most Charismatics would say no. Yet, much of their theology is all about the “evidence” of the Holy Spirit working in our lives being speaking in tongues. It’s that actually the evidence? There’s nothing wrong with differing opinions on this issue because it’s not essential for “getting into heaven.” Wherever something is not essential to Biblical faith, that’s where we can embrace liberty. Non-essentials work like flavors of ice cream. In this metaphor, an essential would be you and I agreeing that we should eat ice cream. In order to be my friend, you’ve got to agree that ice cream is a good thing. That’s really not the problem. The problem arises when you and I both go to the ice cream shop and expect the ship to only serve our flavor and nothing else. Because our flavor is the tastiest flavor. Non-essentials are the preferences (flavors) that we prefer the essentials to be packaged in. If you like vanilla, and I like strawberry, we can still eat ice cream together without having to eat the same flavor.

Finally, and most importantly, in all things charity. Even if we disagree on essentials, we can learn to be kind, and tolerant of each other. Of course, this is the world in an ideal state. But the framework that Meldenius provides puts us on the right track in how we should probably think about essentials and non-essentials to our faith.

Whether its holiday foods, or our approach to the most serious things in life, our approach tends to be the same. We want to create boundaries and rules that keep us in a comfortable state. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Unless, like Jesus said, we start to substitute safety in traditions for the risk of fully following God. We can often think that traditions empower us, but in many cases, they actually limit us. Many people work really hard to do the “right thing.” And end up, even with the best intentions, creating traditions that get us .1 degree off course. Over a long enough period of time, these traditions can become detached from truth enough that they hurt us instead of help us. So we must - like Bereans - always examine rules, interpretations and traditions against objective truth. As well as remind ourselves that traditions keep us comfortable, and being comfortable should not be our goal.

It is important that we analyze why and how traditions happen. There are over 45,000 Christian denominations in the world - read: faith traditions. (Source) Within these denominations there are innumerable factions and perspectives. Which means our traditions can almost be unlimited.

There is only one truth. But at the same time, there are as many interpretations of truth as there are people on the planet. Spread that out through 2000+ years of Christian history and the perspectives easily become uncountable. That’s why when we navigate all these various traditions and interpretations, we can’t be Biblically illiterate. All truth claims must be held up against an objective truth. The problem many people have is that the traditions and truth claims we experience are so effectively presented that we take them at face value. When we do that, we aren’t just ignorant. We harm ourselves by applying falsehoods to our lives and repeating them to our children. We don’t just become followers of man-made ideas disguised as commands of God, we become leaders who teach these things to others. In the Matthew 15 account of the same story from Mark 7, Jesus says this to His disciples about what they should do with Pharisees. “so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.” (Matthew 15:14, NLT). This should be a concerning passage to us. When a person is convinced that their traditions are also truth, God leaves them alone to fall into a ditch, along with everyone that they are leading. That’s one of the reasons why we can say “in all things charity.” Because Jesus himself told us to leave the blind people alone and let him worry about them falling into a ditch. It’s ultimately not our responsibility to correct the bad theology and doctrine around us. It is our responsibility to correct ours and make sure we are not a blind guide for blind people.

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I’ve mentioned (more than a few times) that according to recent studies, only 4% of Christians have a Biblical worldview. I recently learned that I was not communicating that correctly. The good news is, I recently discovered that’s not true. Only 4% of Americans have a Biblical worldview. The bad news is, Christians aren’t doing that much better. Only 6% of Christians have a Biblical worldview. Unfortunately, only 12% of people who consider themselves “theologically defined born-again Christians” have a Biblical worldview. (Source)

What’s a “theologically defined born-again Christian?” A person who:

1. Have a personal belief in Salvation

   They believe they will go to heaven after they die because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their personal savior.

2. Have a high view of Scripture

   They generally accept biblical teachings on sin, grace and salvation as authoritative guides for their lives.

There are a lot of implications here. But for today, let’s say that 88-96% of us most likely interpret faith through the lens of traditions and interpretations that have been handed down to us. Not truth itself, but interpretations of truth. There’s a story I’ve heard my dad tell my whole life. There was a man whose wife would always cut the ends of the ham whenever she made ham. Now, I don’t really eat ham, but I do eat brisket. Burnt ends are some of the best tasting brisket you can eat. So, I imagine the ends of the ham are like the burnt ends of a brisket. I can imagine how it would feel to have your spouse get rid of the most delicious parts of the meal. This man asked his wife one day why she cut the ends off the ham. She said, “because my mother did.” He went to her mother, she had the same answer, “because my mother did.” He went to her grandmother, same answer. Finally, he gets to the great grandmother. She says to him, “because I never had a pan big enough for the ham to fit into.”

Not all of our traditions work this way. However, most do. They are convenient things that happened in a certain specific situation, that then became rules we have to follow. Why do we eat Thanksgiving foods on Thanksgiving? It’s definitely not because they taste good. We eat Thanksgiving food on Thanksgiving because when Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, it was the closest thing they had to what the Pilgrims and Wampanoag tribe ate at the harvest feast in Plymouth in 1621. I would hope, just like other progress we’ve made over the past 400 years, we could progress in our approach to Thanksgiving foods. If we can discover electricity, invent the internal combustion engine, the printing press, airplanes and the internet, we should - in my opinion - progress in our culinary tastes as well. Because Thanksgiving food is the worst type of food.

You may read these words and say: “that makes sense.” But the truth is, we are all Pharisees - slaves to tradition - in some way. People go to churches every weekend across America, observe the pastor of the church and say things like: “the pastor should know everyone in the church by name.” “The pastor shouldn’t preach on that subject.” “The church should only sing hymns.” “The only proper way to pray is to pray ‘in Jesus’ name.” “A church shouldn’t use instruments or sound systems.” “ A church shouldn’t be more than 100 people.” “A church should meet in a house, not a big building.” “A church should only sing Psalms, because those are the only ‘worship songs’ in the BIble.” “Christians should observe all of the Jewish feasts because that’s what the Jews did in the Old Testament.” All of these things are real things I can remember people saying. There are so many more traditions, these are just some of the ideas I can name off the top of my head.

I grew up in the Charismatic side of Christianity. In my opinion, Charismatics are one step below “snake handlers” in the Christian-weirdness-hierarchy. One of the things I heard in children’s church growing up was that the reason we prayed in tongues was for two primary reasons.

First, when you pray in tongues, you’re closer to God than everybody else, you have the secret knowledge and ability that no one else has.

Second, when you pray in tongues, the devil can’t “steal” your prayers. What does that mean? Well, in my mind, I thought prayer worked like a pneumatic tube at the bank. There were two tubes. One was regular prayer, the other was when you prayed in your “heavenly language.” If you prayed a regular prayer, your prayer might not get to God. If you prayed in tongues, it was like an indestructible prayer tube that the devil couldn’t prevent from getting to God. As if my prayers when I spoke in tongues were given priority access directly to the VIP throne room in heaven and sealed in a golden envelope.

Both of these ideas are Charismatic traditions that many people heard growing up that are also nowhere in Scripture. Charismatic theology does some gymnastics to assert these points, but there is no concrete Biblical backing to this tradition.

Some of you got nervous I was talking about glossolalia. Some of you got excited. Some of you are still mad that I insulted your favorite food - Thanksgiving food. Well, that’s actually impossible, because no one likes that. Traditions work a lot like flavors. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a flavor that you like. There is something wrong with saying “everything has to be my flavor, because my flavor is also God’s flavor.” The danger of traditions is that traditions often become more desirable than what’s written in Scripture. To become a Pharisee, all we need to do is want our flavor more than we want the truth written in God’s word.

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We all have traditions. Traditions are unavoidable, and in many cases they are good things. We have cultural traditions, family traditions, national traditions, holiday traditions and more. Is our goal to completely abandon tradition? That is probably an impossible proposition. I think our goal should be to clearly delineate the difference between tradition and truth. Why? Scripture + your interpretation = your traditions. Traditions are not inherently bad things. But when we hand traditions down as if they are truth, we create problems for those that come after us. It seems as though traditions are a part of how we make sense of the world and create safety and security within our lives and families. We all have beliefs and actions that have been handed down to us that we also hand down.

Interpretations are how we make sense of truth. And interpretations combined with truth in some way seem to create traditions. We all have interpretations. It’s how the human mind works. There’s nothing wrong with having interpretations. There’s nothing wrong with having traditions. Traditions are where we tend to get rules from. Proverbs 29:18 gives us this perspective that when we don’t follow rules, we run wild. But when we follow God’s law, we live a joyful life. Most of the traditions and rules that we create come out of our intention to live a good life. However, there is something wrong with doing what Pharisees do with traditions. Pharisees make their interpretation of truth more important than the actual truth.

The Pharisees were fond of using this term: “the traditions of the elders” when telling people what they were required to do. This sounds similar to the Catholic idea that we are saved not just by grace and faith. They believe that our salvation requires the following of “sacred tradition” that has been handed down through the centuries by church leaders. That’s why in the Protestant church there are“ordinances” and in the Catholic church there are “sacraments.” There are seven sacraments in the Catholic church; baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist (comunion), reconciliation (confession and penance), anointing of the sick, holy orders (ordaining priests, etc to serve the church) and marriage. Each of these sacraments have different requirements for different reasons. Baptism is something required by Catholicism for salvation of all Catholics. It’s one of the reasons why Catholics practice infant baptism. This tradition mostly comes from the interpretation of Church fathers like Origen and Augustine. Protestants believe that baptism is not required for salvation, and should be chosen once a person is old enough to make the decision. The Protestant tradition of baptism is different than the Catholic tradition of baptism. Catholics believe that if you are not baptized as a “sacrament” you are not saved. Protestants believe that baptism is important, but salvation is grace and faith alone. This thought may be an oversimplification for some Catholics who are reading this. Theologians have debated this for centuries and that’s not the topic of this book, but it is worth mentioning. Because where there is not Biblical clarity, interpretations are created. To paraphrase Jesus in his discussions with the Pharisees, He is trying to tell them - and us: “Don’t get so focused on your own traditions and rules that you miss what God actually wants.” Does God want infants baptized or people baptized when they are adults? Is that His focus or ours? God wants everyone to be saved and reunited with Him. I’m not sure how much he cares about our human traditions and interpretations. If we’re not careful, we can think that following traditions and rules is God’s desired outcome. Traditions, interpretations and rules are not bad things, but they can be dangerous. Because if we get too focused on them, they prevent God from doing what He actually wants to do in our lives.

I have a theory that no one actually likes Thanksgiving food. There’s a reason we only eat it one day a year, and that’s because it’s awful, and it’s a tradition. If we actually enjoyed things like stuffing, green bean casserole and cranberry “sauce” we’d probably eat it more often. I say “sauce” in quotes, because the majority of us eat congealed jelly from a can that we cut into disks and call it “cranberry sauce.” Think about the average American household on thanksgiving. It’s a bunch of people who don’t want to be together, eating food they don’t want to eat. Why do we do this? Because we have to. It’s called tradition. I have a personal definition for tradition: peer pressure from dead people.

Life’s been lifin’. Podcast is going amazing. I’m taking some of this content and Nick and I are talking about it there. Make sure that you’re subscribed on your preferred platform.

I’ve got a literary agent for the first time in my life. I’ll have to tell that story sometime. But I’ve been spending most of this year writing a new book (not the Vow of Prosperity…yet). Hopefully it’ll be out by 2026. Along with the twins we’re having in May. Did I say life was lifin’?

I’ve still also got so much to write about on the Vow of Prosperity. If you’re new and reading this, welcome! I’d encourage you to start at the beginning of the VOP section on the site to get caught up.

“When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful.” (Proverbs 29:18)

The truth is, we’re all trying to navigate the love of money. Especially if we want to do life God’s way. I believe that we have the best of intentions. Like Proverbs 29, we are trying to do our best to not run wild and accept God’s “law” in our lives. The majority of Christians want to do what God says. So, what’s the problem? Ask yourself this question: “how many of the rules you follow are actually written in Scripture, and where are they written?” This can be a dangerous question. Like me, you’ll probably see how much of what you do is based on what other people have said that Scripture says. Many of us have created rules for life that are not based on truth, they are based on another person’s interpretation of truth. We go to church, we hear the Pastor tell us what to do, we go home and do it. However, there’s a step we miss. A step that the Bereans didn’t miss. We don’t verify the “truth” we are being handed, and carelessly do what someone told us to do because they happen to be some kind of authority figure.

Let’s go back to Jesus and his discussion with the Pharisees in Mark 7.

“8 For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”

9 Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition.

13 And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.” (Mark 7:8-9,13 ESV)

The Pharisees are the bad guys of the New Testament. Believe it or not, like most things, they started out with good intentions. Their intention was to please God by following all of the laws written in Scripture. Then, they made a mistake. Their mistake was in believing that their interpretation of Scripture was the only true interpretation. In their minds, they were smarter, wiser, and followed God more intentionally than everyone. This entitled them to require everyone to interpret Scripture their way. The truth is, Pharisees have always been around. You can see them in every church tradition and denomination that exists.

Pursuing deeper knowledge is an incredible thing. There are way more benefits to having knowledge than not having it. One of the problems with pursuing knowledge however is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:1 (NLT): “while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church.” Other translations say that it is knowledge that “puffs up” but love that “builds up.” All of our search for knowledge and truth must be balanced with a desire to use our knowledge in service to others. That’s where Pharisees - ancient and modern - tend to make their mistakes. There’s nothing wrong with seeking knowledge. The problem arises when we begin to think that our knowledge is now something that needs to be imposed on others. Pharisees weaponize their knowledge. Instead of using what they know to encourage, inspire and uplift others, they use it to criticize, judge and damage others.

Why was Jesus so hard on the Pharisees in Mark 7 and throughout his life on earth? The Pharisees spent most of their time telling people about all the traditions(rules) they needed to observe that weren’t written in Scripture. In Mark 7, the word tradition is παράδοσις (parádosis) in Greek. It means a set of beliefs and actions delivered or communicated to another person. The problem Jesus seemed to have with the Pharisees is that they were handing down their own beliefs and actions, not the truth behind those beliefs and actions. In some cases, the difference between truth and traditions can be slight. So slight that for many people, they don’t think it matters.

Think about life in the context of a journey. If we take a road trip from Dallas - where I live - to LA, that’s roughly 1200 miles. For the sake of this example, let’s say that the journey is a straight line. If I start the journey, and deviate one degree off course, by the end of 1200 miles I would be 21 miles off target. One degree doesn’t seem like a lot. After one mile, it’s only about 92 feet. That’s noticeable, but easily fixable. What about in aviation? If we were taking a plane flight from NYC to Tokyo, that’s a journey of around 6700 miles. If we were one degree off course, after a mile, we’d be 92 feet off course. After 1200 miles, we’d be 21 miles (113,800 feet) off course. At the conclusion of our 6700 mile journey, we’d be over 118 miles (620,900 feet) off course, and depending on which direction, we might end up in the ocean instead of Japan. In 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The journey between the earth and the moon is a distance of over 238,900 miles. Over that distance, if the Apollo astronauts were one degree off course, they would have missed the moon by over 4000 miles (22 million feet). The moon itself is only 2,159 miles in diameter. The space between the astronauts and the moon would have been almost twice the size of the moon itself. In fact, if Apollo 11 was just .1 degrees off course, they still would have missed the moon by over 400 miles (2 million+ feet). What if you were .1 degrees off on your road trip to LA or your flight to Tokyo? You’d only be around 2 miles (10,000 feet) off course driving from Dallas to LA. You’d be 12 miles (62,000 feet) off course on your flight from NYC to Tokyo.

This phenomenon took place on a 1979 plane flight from New Zealand to Antartica. In the 1970’s, airlines began marketing guided low-lying flights over Antarctica as unique sightseeing experiences. These trips were popular and guided by famous explorers like Sir Edmund Hilary and Peter Mulgrew.

Before the flight, the crew corrected what they thought was an error in the flight coordinates, changing the flight’s course by two degrees. As they approached Antartica, the pilots descended to an altitude of 2,000 feet and switched to autopilot. Because of their two degree change, the plane was 28 miles to the east of where the pilots assumed they were. This difference put them directly in the path of Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises 12,000 feet above the frozen landscape. Outside of the windows, the clouds blended with the snow-covered volcano and created a whiteout. This deceived the crew into believing that the volcano was the Ross Ice Shelf, an expanse of floating ice. They believed they were flying over flat ground. As they flew closer to the volcano, the slope of the mountain sounded the ground warning alarm. The terrain of the volcano was so steep that it was only a few seconds before the plane crashed into the side of the mountain, killing everyone on board. This terrible tragedy was caused by an error of two degrees.

Growing up, my dad taught me that “wisdom is the ability to make finer distinctions.” The journey of our lives is much more like space travel than a road trip. The distinction between truth and traditions can seem small, but over the journey of our life, even minor mistakes have far reaching consequences.

Have you subscribed to the podcast? We’re talking about a lot more than money, and if you like what I write, maybe you’ll like what Nick and I talk about. Episode 5 on truth just dropped yesterday.

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On to today’s thoughts //

¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” (1 Timothy 6:10)

I really like the Greek word for love of money. It is φιλαργυρία (philarguría). A friend of silver. Some of my favorite philosophers growing up - Chamillionaire and Paul Wall - said it best, “my money gets jealous.” You might not think that you love money. But how tight do you hold onto it? How much do you think about it? How much of your focus does money get compared to the other types of wealth you have? For most of us, we spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about money. I believe that’s because we love it so much, but we have a hard time seeing it, or admitting it.

When I was 16, my life savings was $1000. I remember how great it felt logging into my bank account and seeing three zeroes that I had earned and saved for the first time. I loved it. I loved my money, and I loved seeing it in the bank. So, I gave it all away in an offering. Fast forward to age 21. I’m graduating from college, I have saved up $10,000 through my time in school. I loved that too. So the weekend I came home from college, I gave it all in the offering. When I started working, I started giving a third of my income at church. When I got married, my dad - who is also my pastor - knew how much I was giving and told me that I shouldn’t give that much, and it was unwise. I mostly kept doing it anyway. A few years ago, I gave $100,000 over the course of a year for the first time in my life. Every year since, I continue to get closer and closer to giving $200,000 in a year. Why am I telling you this? To brag about how much money I don’t keep? No. I’ve discovered a secret along the way. Giving $100,000+ hurts just as much at 38 as giving $1000 hurt at 16, and as much as giving $10,000 hurt at 21. Every time I am generous, I am both feeling and fighting the love of money within me. Silver and I would be best friends if I let that happen.

Unless we can admit the problem, we have no hope to cure it. The desire for financial wealth is more often than not, a trap. We often don’t realize that we are in that trap. Sometimes I have gone into my savings account to give. I have foregone vacations, or nice things in my life so that I can give. Do I recommend that? No. But it helps prevent me from becoming too close with my money.

Here’s another secret. Most of the people that have the biggest problem with talking about money in a spiritual context are in love with money. They don’t like what I’m writing about because I’m talking about money. And their definition of prosperity is money. They don’t like going to church because the church is going to talk about money at the offering time. Go read a Google review of your local church. The odds are there will be plenty of people saying “all they talk about is money.” Especially if that church is seen as a megachurch. Have you ever decided to buy a car, and you have set your mind on a specific model. In the next few days, you see that car wherever you go? It feels like suddenly, everyone is driving a car. In psychology, this is called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, or the frequency illusion. It is the false impression that something is happening more frequently than it actually is. It’s not that the thing has become more common, it’s just that your brain is paying more attention to it. This phenomenon takes place because of two psychological effects:

1. Selective attention - Whatever you think about, your mind will unconsciously look for when you are not thinking about it.

2. Confirmation bias - Everytime you see what you think about, it reinforces the feeling that it is “everywhere.”

What does this have to do with money and churches? If I have already convinced myself that a church “just wants my money.” I will find all the reasons why that hypothesis is correct everytime I go to a church. Just like If I get a green car, I will see green cars a lot more.

People who are friends of silver always have a hard time when you ask them to not be friends with silver. The problem is not how often the church talks about money. The problem is how often we think about money. And because we think about money so often, all we hear is “the church” talking about money. One thing you’ll see in many people that think like this is that they are rarely generous, if at all. And if they are generous, their generosity has strings attached that allow them to control things with money. So, even when they give money away, they are still friends with it, because they are controlling its use. Remember earlier when we talked about substituting man-made ideas for God’s commands? About ten years ago, I spoke a message on tithing in our church. I feel bad for every 20-something that has to get on stage in a main church service and share. Why? Because many of the “adult” armchair theologians come out of the woodwork to correct your theology almost as soon as the words come out of your mouth. If you’re a person who goes to church and feels the need to address or correct the speaker on what they said, how they said it, or otherwise debate with them about your perspective on what they should have done, let me help you. If they didn’t ask you for your opinion before they preached the message, they definitely aren’t asking for it after they preached it. The motto of the church isn’t “have it your way.” That’s Burger King. If you don’t like the music, change the station. I digress…

So I preached a message on tithing. And a man I had never met, who was significantly older than me approached me in the lobby. He let me know that I was wrong about my stance on tithing and I must not have studied very well for my message. If I was going to preach from the platform in a church service, I should really make sure I know what I’m talking about. This guy must be a lot of fun at parties. I said: “can I ask you a question?” He smiled and said “sure.” I said: “tithing is the Old Testament standard, and you say that’s no longer required, so that must mean that you live by the New Testament standard then?” He looked at me blankly for a second and then said something like: “I’m not sure what you mean?” I said: “Well, in Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4 the Bible says that the people in the church sold their possessions and gave everything to the church so that no one in the church had needs. You must practice that style of generosity.” He said: “I’m going to have to study that a little further,” and walked off. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little smug after that conversation. I don’t tell that story as a “gotcha” to show how much I know. I tell that story because it represents the majority of interactions that I have had with you-don’t-need-to-give Christians. Past, present and future, I will say things from a stage that are worthy of correction. This just wasn’t one of those times.

What’s the goal of any generosity from God’s perspective? To get us to not be friends with money. Some people have taken this to mean we should hate prosperity. That’s what we’ll talk about in this section. First, we need to understand the core problem we have. This core problem is the desire within us to love money. To focus on all the things we want, not the things we actually need. So ask yourself how good of a friend you are to your silver? How tempted are you to love money?

It seems as though we can answer the question: “Does God want me to be rich?” In the affirmative. However, the definition of “rich” matters. What is your definition of prosperity? What is God’s? Are they the same?

^“3 If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness,
⁴ he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions,
⁵ and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.
⁶ But godliness with contentment is great gain,
⁷ for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.
⁸ But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.
⁹ But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” (1 Timothy 6:3-10, ESV)

Make sure you really read these verses. We can think that we understand God and prosperity. But Paul gives us a truth; the more we think God agrees with us, the less we understand. There are many teachings on prosperity. Some of them are more biblical than others. In verse 5 is where Paul makes a clear statement. The goal of pursuing God is not the gaining of prosperity. “Godliness,” or seeking to live according to Biblical principles is important, but so is our motivation for doing so. Intention matters.

Before we go any further, let’s all make an admission right now. We’re doing this together, it’s ok. When you saw that God wanted you to be rich, you got really excited. Because, like me, you have a secret. You probably love money a lot. Naturally, I do too. How do I know? In my experience, when many people hear the term “prosperity” their first thought is money. When you saw this book title, you probably didn’t think that it was about the vow of prosperity related to your emotional, mental, or spiritual state. Some people don’t even like the word prosperity. Because it makes them think about money. If we’re not careful, we can begin to see following Jesus as a means to an end. Proverbs 10 tells us that the blessing of the Lord makes us rich. But that does not mean that the purpose of seeking God’s blessing should be wealth.

In verse 6, Paul says “godliness with contentment is great gain.” The word for contentment there is the greek word αὐτάρκεια (autarkeia). That word means: having enough of everything, not requiring support. Other translations use the word sufficient. This word is only used twice in the entire New Testament. Once by Paul in 2 Corinthians 9:8, and once here. Remember 2 Corinthians 9:8? That’s where we got our primary definition for prosperity. “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

Prosperity - I have everything I need, and I have enough to meet other people’s needs.

Don’t just read this, pay attention to it. Sometimes when we read the word “need” we confuse that with “want.” Biblical prosperity is not having everything you want. It starts with having everything you need. Then, you have enough to meet other people’s needs. Need. Not want. There’s a big difference when we think about that. Let me ask you another question. How broad is your definition of wealth? When God talks about prosperity, sometimes He talks about money. But much of the time - as in Paul’s case - He’s talking about everything. Not just one thing. In his book The Five Types of Wealth, Sahil Bloom describes five key components of wealth: time, social, mental, physical, and financial. I would also add spirituality as a kind of wealth. Think about your life in the context of these things. These forms of wealth are meant to work together to form a prosperous life. When God is talking about having what you need, and enough to meet other people’s needs, do you have that in all five of these areas? To have true prosperity means that we have a balanced approach to life that gives us wealth in every area of our life. When we look at wealth, do we view it the same way as God? Or do we merely see wealth in financial terms?

Sora did a number on the AI image this week. Hilarious. So I’m keeping it.

It seems as though we can answer the question: “Does God want me to be rich?” In the affirmative. However, the definition of “rich” matters. What is your definition of prosperity? What is God’s? Are they the same?

“3 If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness,
4 he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions,
5 and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain,
7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.
8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.
9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” (1 Timothy 6:3-10, ESV)

Make sure you really read these verses. We can think that we understand God and prosperity. But Paul gives us a truth; the more we think God agrees with us, the less we understand. There are many teachings on prosperity. Some of them are more biblical than others. In verse 5 is where Paul makes a clear statement. The goal of pursuing God is not the gaining of prosperity. “Godliness,” or seeking to live according to Biblical principles is important, but so is our motivation for doing so. Intention matters.

Before we go any further, let’s all make an admission right now. You and I are doing this together, it’s ok. When you saw that God wanted you to be rich, you got really excited. Because, like me, you have a secret. You probably love money a lot. Naturally, I do too. How do I know? In my experience, when many people hear the term “prosperity” their first thought is money. When you saw this book title, you probably didn’t think that it was about the vow of prosperity related to your emotional, mental, or spiritual state. Some people don’t even like the word prosperity. Because it makes them think about money. If we’re not careful, we can begin to see following Jesus as a means to an end. Proverbs 10 tells us that the blessing of the Lord makes us rich. But that does not mean that the purpose of seeking God’s blessing should be wealth.

In verse 6, Paul says “godliness with contentment is great gain.” The word for contentment there is the greek word αὐτάρκεια (autarkeia). That word means: having enough of everything, not requiring support. Other translations use the word sufficient. This word is only used twice in the entire New Testament. Once by Paul in 2 Corinthians 9:8, and once here. Remember 2 Corinthians 9:8? That’s where we got our primary definition for prosperity. “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

Prosperity - I have everything I need, and I have enough to meet other people’s needs.

Don’t just read this, pay attention to it. Sometimes when we read the word “need” we confuse that with “want.” Biblical prosperity is not having everything you want. It starts with having everything you need. Then, you have enough to meet other people’s needs. Need. Not want. There’s a big difference when we think about that. Let me ask you another question. How broad is your definition of wealth? When God talks about prosperity, sometimes He talks about money. But much of the time - as in Paul’s case - He’s talking about everything. Not just one thing. In his book The Five Types of Wealth, Sahil Bloom describes five key components of wealth: time, social, mental, physical, and financial. I would also add spirituality as a kind of wealth. Think about your life in the context of these things. These forms of wealth are meant to work together to form a prosperous life. When God is talking about having what you need, and enough to meet other people’s needs, do you have that in all five of these areas? To have true prosperity means that we have a balanced approach to life that gives us wealth in every area of our life. When we look at wealth, do we view it the same way as God? Or do we merely see wealth in financial terms?

Last time we talked about how poverty is a mindset, a way of thinking. And Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead and preached good news to the poor. Jesus could have cured poverty with a miracle. Why didn’t he? Because it’s a mindset. Click here if you didn’t read the last post or want to catch up.

In John 10:10, Jesus says this: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” The Greek word that Jesus uses here - περισσός (perrisōs) - means: That which is not ordinarily encountered, extraordinary, remarkable. Beyond what is necessary, to overflow, to make over-rich. Jesus says he came to the earth so that you can have a life that is not ordinarily encountered, extraordinary, remarkable. God wants us to be “over-rich.” He doesn’t just want to meet our needs, he wants us to have more than what it necessary, and to live in a perpetual state of overflow.

1) permission to prosper.

For some of you, you are seeing for the first time with fresh eyes that it is ok for you to want to win in life. God is not mad at you and I for wanting to be prosperous in every way. Go back to the question I asked when we first started this journey. Do you believe God wants you to have:

1. Less than enough

2. Just Enough

3. More than enough

What you believe about this question is important. I hope you decide to agree with God about it. He wants you to always have more than enough. One of the signatures of God is abundance - more than what is necessary. In Genesis, Abraham just wanted one son. God told him that his descendants would outnumber the grains of sand on the earth, and the stars in the sky. Abraham never asked for that, but that’s what an abundant God does. In Luke 6:38, Jesus says that when we give, it will be given back to us “pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.” When Jesus fed the 5000, he started with five loaves and two fish, and they didn’t just feed all the people. They had twelve baskets left over. When He fed the 4000, they had seven baskets left over. In Malachi 3:10, God says this: “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!”

In Joel Osteen’s book Your Best Life Now, he tells this story:

Years ago, a famous golfer was invited by the king of Saudi Arabia to play in a golf tournament. He accepted the invitation, and the king flew his private jet over to the United States to pick up the pro. They played golf for several days, and enjoyed a good time. As the golfer was getting on the plane to return to the United States, the king stopped him and said, “I want to give you a gift for coming all this way and making this time so special. Anything you want. What could I get you?”

Ever the gentleman, the golfer replied, “Oh, please; don’t get me anything. You’ve been a gracious host. I’ve had a wonderful time. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

The king was adamant. He said, “No, I insist on giving you something so you will always remember your journey to our country.”

When the golfer realized that the king was resolute, he said, “Okay, fine. I collect golf clubs. Why don’t you give me a golf club?”

He boarded the plane, and on his flight back home, he couldn’t help wondering what kind of golf club the king might give him. He imagined that it might be a solid gold putter with his name engraved on it. Or maybe it would be a sand wedge studded with diamonds and jewels. After all, this would be a gift from the oil-rich king of Saudi Arabia.

When the golfer got home, he watched the mail and the delivery services every day, to see if his golf club had come yet. Finally, several weeks later, he received a certified letter from the king of Saudi Arabia. The U.S. professional thought that rather strange. Where’s my golf club? he wondered. He opened the envelope, and to his surprise, inside he discovered a deed to a five-hundred-acre golf course in America.

The story is told that one day a beggar by the roadside asked for alms from Alexander the Great as he passed by. The man was poor and wretched and had no claim upon the ruler, no right even to lift a solicitous hand. Yet the Emperor threw him several gold coins.

An attendant was astonished at his generosity and commented, ‘Sir, copper coins would adequately meet a beggar’s need. Why give him gold?” Alexander responded in royal fashion, ‘Copper coins would suit the beggar’s need, but gold coins suit Alexander’s giving.”

If these stories illustrate the power of human abundance, what does God’s abundance look like for you and I? God isn’t the God of “less than enough” or “just enough.” Ephesians 3:20 gives us a glimpse into the mind of God: “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” If you want just enough for you, you don’t want what God wants for you.

2) the power to prosper.

“You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.” (Deuteronomy 8:18, ESV)

The Hebrew word for wealth here is חַ֫יִל (hayil). It means financial wealth, strength and influence to have and grow your dominion. When we apply Biblical principles to our lives emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically and financially, we gain the power to take dominion and grow that dominion in all of those areas. Our problem with a lack of prosperity will always be attached to our ignorance, or unwillingness to do life God’s way.

3) purpose for prosperity.

As we have discussed, 2 Corinthians 9:8 gives us guidance for God’s definition of prosperity:

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8, ESV)

In my current research, I believe the best way to define Biblical prosperity is: I have everything I need, and I have enough to meet other people’s needs.

The NLT version of 2 Corinthians 9 goes on to say:

“10 For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. 11 Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God.”

Ephesians 2:10 tells us that God we are “God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Matthew 5:16 tells us to “let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.” Without prosperity, these things would be impossible. Prosperity is required for generosity. And when we are generous, God gives us more so that we can always be generous. This is where a lot of the “rich people” I know tend to struggle the most. They think prosperity is all about them, their family, their dreams and their desires. They think that the purpose of their wealth is for them. They believe that they have permission to prosper, but they often misunderstand that God has given them the power to prosper. And they especially misunderstand the purpose behind their wealth. That’s still a poverty mentality.

But there’s also the mentality that says we shouldn’t desire prosperity. A lack of desire or drive to prosper is also poverty thinking. It is not virtuous. Not desiring prosperity is small minded, selfish, and even sinful. Biblical prosperity isn’t selfish, and it isn’t “me” focused. It is the desire to live in an overflow so that you can always be generous. If we are not pursuing prosperity, then we are also not pursuing generosity. If we are not pursuing generosity, we are not living life God’s way.

Some of us have overcomplicated the idea of prosperity. We think that because some pastors have used money poorly, we can’t give to the church. We think that because some people have been selfish in their prosperity, that prosperity is bad. We have allowed our own “man-made ideas” to take the place of the commands of God. Jesus didn’t say that the poor will always be among us as a resignation. Once God lifts your thinking out of poverty of any kind, you have a responsibility to help other people.

The Bible does not qualify poverty as a good thing, but it also tells us that we have a responsibility to give to the poor. If you are emotionally healthy, you have a responsibility to give to those who are struggling emotionally. If you are physically healthy, you have a responsibility to model, and help people become spiritually healthy. If you are spiritually thriving, how can you help others in their journey? Once you are prospering financially, how are you giving financially to the poor through your local church? But it doesn’t just stop there, how are you helping the “poor” in your world hear the good news that they have permission, power and purpose in prosperity God’s way?

We all have a lot of thoughts on money, next time let’s talk about where our thinking on wealth and money came from.

Jesus’ mission was not just to change our state of being. It was to change our thinking. In Matthew 3:2, he says: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” What is Jesus wanting when He’s asking for repentance? He uses a Greek word μετάνοια (metanoia). This word wasn’t a religious term until Jesus used it in a religious context. It was a philosophical word that meant to change your perspective, to change your mind. Later, it took on a deeper meaning relating to our moral and spiritual transformation, but that doesn’t mean that it lost its original meaning. Repentance is fundamentally a change in how we think.

Jesus establishes clearly that the way out of poverty is to hear the good news. To repent, to change your thinking. God created this universal concept and idea that has been repeated and restated by just about every religious, philosophical and spiritual school: when you elevate your thinking, you elevate your life.

This line of thinking seems insensitive when we apply it to finances. So let’s apply it to our mental, emotional or physical state. If you are emotionally broken and traumatized, how do you get free of it? Therapy and counseling? That’s one way, what’s the main goal of going to therapy and counseling? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one of the leading therapeutic methods in the world and has its origins in ancient philosophy. CBT is all about learning how to think differently about our lives and experiences so that we can ultimately live better lives. What about physically? If you are physically obese, can someone cure you of it? Or do you need to learn to rethink your relationship to food and exercise. The physical “state of being” of obesity is a result of a mindset - a way of thinking. Until the way of thinking changes, the state of being won’t change. That’s what makes poverty different from the sicknesses, diseases and death that Jesus healed. Poverty of any kind is a state of being that is the result of a way of thinking. The “good news” is that you and I can change our thinking. And when we change our thinking, our state of being will change. My dad has said it this way: “God will do for you what you cannot do for yourself, but he won’t do what you can do for yourself.”

Despite the truth of the problem being how we think, there are plenty of people who think that their emotional, physical, spiritual, mental and even financial state is not their responsibility to fix. Its someone else’s fault, therefore it is someone else’s responsibility. Jesus knew this, and this is why He said to us “you will always have the poor among you…” (Matthew 26:11). Why will we always have poor people among us? Because as long as humans are on the earth, some of them will have poor thinking. And their poor thinking will keep them poor emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and financially.

Some of us can believe that God will heal people and raise them from the dead, but when we hear that God wants us to prosper materially, our response is: “God doesn’t care about that.” Or maybe we have misquoted the Beatitudes for so long that we don’t know what the Bible actually says. Some people may say that Jesus himself said “blessed are the poor.” Those people will find themselves squarely in the 96% of Christians who do not have a Biblical worldview. Jesus said in Matthew 5:3; “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The Greek words Jesus uses in Matthew 3 are, πτωχός (ptoche) and (πνεῦμα) pneuma. When put together, these words mean “spiritually inadequate.” Blessed are those who realize that, by themselves they are inadequate to succeed on their own.

Well, maybe Jesus actually believed that poverty is a good thing. If poverty is a good thing, we should congratulate the next homeless person we see on the street. If poverty is somehow more spiritual than prosperity, why wouldn’t we celebrate them for being closer to God than those of us who have enough food to eat, or a place to live? That makes as much sense as congratulating a morbidly obese person on their heart disease and inability to go up stairs without losing their breath. I’m not saying that to make light of these people, I’m saying it to illustrate how our ideas on prosperity, poverty and God make no sense. Even if we didn’t have the Bible, the modern Christian approach to prosperity is foolish and illogical. The idea of poverty making us closer to God comes from Benedictine monks in the 16th century who took vows of poverty and were supported by wealthy benefactors. We’ll talk more about that later. But, even for the monks, a vow of poverty would have been impossible without the prosperity of others.

Poverty is meant to be a temporary condition attached to not living God’s way.

There’s one of two ways for us to live. We can live according to truth, or we can live according to lies. We can do things God’s way, or we can do things the wrong way.

Poverty of any kind is a symptom of a larger issue; either we are living life with the wrong motives, or we are not doing something God’s way. Poverty is not God’s blessing. Poverty - emotionally, spiritually, mentally, emotionally - is a warning sign that we are not thinking right about that part of our life. This is a good time to mention, prosperity is not the same as having a lot of money. So if you have a lot of money and you’re reading this, you’re not off the hook. Yes, according to Proverbs 10, the “blessing of the Lord makes rich.” That doesn’t mean that God’s blessing is the only way to get rich. Prosperity means having money. But having money doesn’t always mean we have prosperity. If poverty is a mindset, so is prosperity. A person can seem like they are prospering and still not have a prosperous mindset. People who think in order for them to win, someone else has to lose also have a poverty mentality. God is not the God of the zero sum game. It is a poverty mentality that says that in order for us to win, someone else has to lose. Or that in order for you to have a lot, someone else has to get a little bit. This isn’t about unbridled capitalism that is often destructive. That would be like saying that in order for you to be physically healthy, someone else’s health must be sacrificed. God invites us into a world where everyone can win. And that’s what the good news is about.

So, what is the good news that needs to be preached to the poor? More next time.

After the last post, there were quite a few people more than willing to show me how foolish I was to assert that Jesus was financially wealthy. The truth is, we can’t know for sure. Most people have just taken what they have been told as truth. Instead of searching Scripture - like Bereans - to see what it actually says, they prefer to defend a traditional position. There is nothing wrong with tradition. We’ll talk about it a lot more some other time. There is something wrong with assuming that what we have been told is true without examining whether or not it is. The idea that Jesus was poor is an opinion based on how some people interpret the facts of Jesus’ life. The idea that he was rich is an opinion based on how some people interpret the facts of his life too. The problem with the opinion that Jesus was poor is that there is more evidence that he wasn’t.

You might have a lot more questions or thoughts now. Questions about a camel and the eye of a needle, a rich young ruler walking away sad, and the love of money being the root of all evil. I will do my best to get to as much of that as I possibly can. However, there are some questions that only God can answer. But we still have a lot of ground to cover.

There’s a statement that Paul makes in 2 Corinthians 8:9 that’s worth thinking about as it relates to the wealth of Jesus.

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” // 2 Corinthians 8:9, ESV

So many people read this verse and take it to mean that Jesus was rich in heaven and came to the earth to live in poverty so that we could become “spiritually wealthy.” As you have no doubt seen, when we simply look at the face value English translation of a verse, we often miss the true meaning. So what is Paul really saying here about Jesus? The word that Paul uses for rich in 2 Corinthians 8:9, for both Jesus’ riches and ours, is one I listed in chapter 1.2; πλοῦτος (ploutos): To make someone rich both materially and spiritually. To be granted abundance (more than you need in every area of life).

If you disagree with the perspective that Jesus was rich on the earth, this is a verse you might use to support that point. The only problem with that logic is that it doesn’t change what Paul says in the second part of the verse. Maybe Jesus was never wealthy in His time on earth, and lived his life as a homeless nomad. The evidence doesn’t seem to point that direction, but let’s say that He was. Paul doesn’t just stop there, he tells us the purpose of Jesus’ poverty. No matter what we believe about Jesus’ prosperity in his time on earth, we must arrive at the conclusion Paul makes in the second part of the verse. “so that you by his poverty could become rich.” Let’s make that clearer using the definition of πλοῦτος:

““For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich (both materially and spiritually, and had more than he needed in every area of life), yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich (both materially and spiritually, and had more than he needed in every area of life) .”

In the church tradition I grew up in, this was rarely, if ever taught. Everything was about the potential wealth we would accrue in eternity. If you did something virtuous, you were getting “jewels in your crown” in heaven. Your life might be really awful right now, but one day you’ll walk on streets of gold, and live in a mansion in heaven. What is so interesting to me is how much we equate heaven with prosperity and wealth. We seem to do this automatically, without even thinking about it. There’s this theology that has been developed that in some way sounds like this: “your life on earth will be horrible, but one day, when you get to heaven, it will all be worth it.” There won’t be any crying in heaven. There won’t be any physical pain in heaven. There won’t be any poverty in heaven. Only mental, emotional, physical and spiritual prosperity.

Is this what Scripture teaches? Or is this another one of those “man-made” ideas being substituted as an idea of God? Scripture clearly tells us that God isn’t just talking about eternal, spiritual prosperity. He’s talking about prosperity on earth. Human beings have created this idea that it is somehow either/or. Either you can prosper right now, or prosper in heaven. God doesn’t work like that. God is about both/and. You can prosper right now, and you can prosper eternally. Both are not just possible, both are planned. But God has even more in store for us than that. That’s the “and” part. We haven’t even started talking about John 10:10 yet and how God defines abundance. We’ll get there.

Poverty is often preached as a good thing. Poverty has been transformed into spirituality. There is a doctrine that we have created that says the poorer you are, the closer you are to Jesus. We’ll talk later about where that comes from, but it doesn’t come from Scripture. The idea of poverty as spiritual - or beneficial in any way - is completely antithetical to any kind of Biblical thinking about life. There is not one place in the Bible, not one place in the Old Testament, New Testament, or the life of Jesus where poverty is presented as a good thing. Human beings have imagined poverty as a virtue, but that’s not a God idea. The Bible doesn’t say Jesus became poor, so you should be like Him. It says he sacrificed his riches, his own life, so that you could be rich. Now and in eternity. At the beginning of his ministry, he steps into the synagogue, opens up the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and quotes it:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free,” // Luke 4:18, NLT

These are the first public words of Jesus. Later on in the story, he actually adds to what Isaiah had written. Matthew 11 tells the story:

John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen—the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” (Matthew 11:2-5 NLT)

good news is preached to the poor?

In Luke 4, he quotes Isaiah to say that captives are released and the oppressed are set free. Then in Matthew 11, the lame walk, the blind see the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the “Good News” is preached to the poor. Some translations translate this as “the Gospel is preached to the poor.” Again we need to look at the Greek. The Greek doesn’t use the word “Gospel.” It uses the word εὐαγγέλιον (euangélion). In the ancient world, this word was primarily used in warfare, to announce that a victory had taken place, but it also means that the messenger views themselves joyfully as the bearer of the good news. The word literally means “good news” in greek, and the word “gospel” is an old english translation of this word. When Jesus said this, He was saying something different than we think. Why? Because in the world today, “The Gospel” is different than the “gospel” back then. The Gospel we know - the Good News - is that God loves humanity and has provided a way to overcome sin and death through Jesus Christ—who lived a sinless life, died in our place, and was raised, offering forgiveness and eternal life to all who believe.

Jesus could not preach this “Gospel” yet, because it hadn’t happened. He was preaching a different good news. Good news about healing, deliverance, and freedom from captivity - and poverty.

Because of Jesus, the lame could walk, the deaf could hear, the blind could see, the dead were raised to life, and the poor people were…preached to? Couldn’t Jesus just heal poverty like He did everything else? He healed every disease, He raised Lazarus from the dead, and delivered people from everything, except poverty. If the evidence shows us how much money and resources he had, why didn’t he just solve poverty by giving it all away to poor people? That’s what a lot of people - including Judas - would recommend. Jesus gave the poor good news because He knew, just like we do, that more money doesn’t cure poverty. Being lame is a state of being. Being deaf is a state of being. Being blind is a state of being. Being dead is a state of being. Poverty is not a state of being. The government might say it is, culture might say it is, our human thinking might say it is. But God doesn’t say it is.

More on poverty on friday.

First, Judas

Judas is the bad guy. But is he really? Think of your worst enemy. Would you put your worst enemy in charge of your personal finances?

He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. (John 12:6. ESV)

Yes, he’s still the bad guy. However, he did handle the money for Jesus and his 12 friends. One of the reasons why we see Jesus as a homeless nomad is because of the lifestyle He and his friends seem to have had. The Bible tells us that Peter, Andrew, James and John were fishermen. Matthew was a tax collector. Luke 5:11 tells us that Jesus’ followers “left everything and followed Him.” I assume that means they also left their jobs. Judas was the one who Jesus assigned to handle their collective money to fund the lifestyle and ministry of these 13 people. Imagine if you and your friends could get up and go where you wanted when you wanted. Also, imagine that you have a friend along with you who is your personal treasurer.

The ancient world didn’t function economically like ours does today. The majority of people didn’t carry money around with them. They also weren’t paid on a regular basis like we are now. People would be paid when they sold something, like during harvest time. Or they would barter and trade. If a person earned a salary, they would be paid in a few large installments over the course of the year. Perhaps quarterly. A Roman soldier for instance would be paid 75 denarii three times yearly. People would budget their daily, monthly and yearly expenses to account for being paid irregularly. This meant that a person’s wealth was not in a bank account.

Most people’s wealth was in what they owned, like livestock and property. For instance, at that time, an entire city would collectively own two oxen. The people of the city would share these oxen to take care of their land and farm for the year. People did have coins and tangible money, but most people did not carry it around with them. If a person regularly carried a money bag with them, it would have been because they were wealthy. Almost no one carried currency on a regular basis. In addition, if Jesus was poor, do we think that He could have afforded Judas to “help himself” to whatever was in the bag? It is true that Jesus knew that Judas was stealing, but if Judas was able to have that level of freedom with Jesus’ money, and Jesus and his friends were still able to do everything they needed to do without ever having an issue we know about, it is most likely because Jesus had plenty of it.

Jesus’ house

Did you know that Jesus also owned a house? At least, it seems like He did. Mark 2:1-2 says this:”And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.”

The entire chapter of Mark 2 tells us that Jesus’ home during this time was in the city of Capernaum. This crowded house full of people eventually became known as Peter’s home. A Cathedral was built over the top of it that is still there in modern day Capernaum. This house is estimated to have been two or three times the size of the average home in Capernaum at the time of Jesus.

The average home would have been a single room dwelling around 200 square feet for an entire family. That’s about the size of a small bedroom in a modern home. I’ve been to Capernaum myself and seen these homes. Jesus’ house was something completely different than what was in the rest of Capernaum. He had a complex. The large dwelling consisted of ten rooms built around three courtyards. In the north courtyard most of the domestic activities took place. Animals were kept in the courtyard to the east, and the southern courtyard, which was next to the harbour, was presumably used for fishing activities such as mending nets, selling fish and other activities. Later in the century, the east courtyard was used as a place for religious gatherings.

It is estimated that the total square footage of Jesus/Peter’s home would have been somewhere around 2,700 square feet. Jesus’ house was 13.5 times larger than the average home where he lived. The Greek word for crowd used in Mark 2 is ὄχλος (óchlos). This word means a crowd, throng, multitude or mob. Most often it is used to describe large crowds that followed Jesus (Matt 4:25). It is the same word used when Jesus fed the 5000 (Matthew 14:19) and to describe a crowd that gathered so large on a shore that Jesus had to speak to them from a boat (Matthew 13:2). What kind of “crowd” could fit inside of a small bedroom where a person is preaching? It seems to make sense that in order to fit a multitude of people in your house, and to preach to them, you’d have to have a relatively large house. That’s just logic. Large houses aren’t cheap. They never have been. The average home size in the United States is somewhere around 2,480 square feet (Source). If Jesus were living in America today, using the same math, his house would be 33,480 square feet. The median price per square foot of homes in the United States is $224 (Source). If you lived in a 33,480 square foot house in 2025, it would cost you somewhere around $7.5 million without factoring in materials, location and other factors.

“Wait a second” you might be saying. “What about Luke 9:58, where Jesus says: ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’” When we look at the context of that passage, Jesus is not in Capernaum, he’s in Samaria, 50 miles from His home, about an 18 hour walk. When he says that, there is clear contextual evidence that Jesus is referring to His present state of affairs, not making a blanket statement about His lifestyle. Why would Mark 2 say Jesus was “at home” if he didn’t have a home?

People can say this is just my opinion and interpretation. To me, its where the evidence and context most likely points. The truth is that we can’t really know if Jesus owned a house. In my estimation, it sure seems like he did.

Finally, there’s Jesus’ clothes

“23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided his clothes among the four of them. They also took his robe, but it was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. 24 So they said, “Rather than tearing it apart, let’s throw dice for it.” This fulfilled the Scripture that says, “They divided my garments among themselves and threw dice for my clothing.” So that is what they did.” (John 19:23-24, ESV)

Why does John go into such detail to describe Jesus’ tunic? In the ancient world, people would usually wear three different pieces of clothing. A loincloth, like underwear. An inner tunic and a large outer cloak like a jacket. Jesus’ inner tunic was what the soldiers were gambling over. These Roman soldiers weren’t gambling over Jesus’ tunic because he was the Son of God. They didn’t care about who He was, this wasn’t a religious relic to them. Why would they gamble over who got to keep a used piece of clothing from a man who for all they knew, was just another criminal they were executing? These soldiers gambled over Jesus’ tunic because it may have been the most expensive piece of clothing they had ever personally seen.

A standard tunic, woven out of two pieces of fabric in the Roman Empire in the first century could cost anywhere between 4-6 denarii (Source). It is hard to estimate how much Jesus’ seamless tunic would have cost. On the low end, we can estimate that a tunic would have cost between 10-20 denarii (Source). On the high end, a soldier’s tunic - one of the nicest that a common person could buy - would have cost 75 denarii (Source). Given that the soldiers were gambling over Jesus’ tunic, it can be assumed that it was nicer than their 75 denarii tunics. How much would Jesus’ tunic be worth in today’s money? Let’s look at household income one more time. A soldier would make 225 denarii yearly. The median American household makes $80,610. If a soldier purchased a tunic for 75 denarii, that would be equivalent to ⅓ their yearly salary, or $26,870 in today’s money. That’s how much the tunic would be worth if it cost the same as a soldier’s tunic. What if it was worth 10-20 denarii? That would mean on the low end, Jesus’ tunic would be somewhere in the $730-$7010 range. On the high end? Some historians say that Jesus’ tunic likely would have cost 100 denarii. 44% of a soldier’s yearly income, or $35,468 in today’s money.

I don’t know how you picture Jesus or his life on earth. But when we start to study his material position while He was here, we get a considerably different picture than what many of us have understood or been taught. Do we know if Jesus was materially prosperous on earth for sure? Of course not. If we follow the evidence and study the history, it is pretty difficult to believe that he wasn’t.

​​6 “And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering, 7 and he shall offer it before the LORD and make atonement for her. Then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female. 8 And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.” (Leviticus 12:6-8, ESV)

If a woman or her family had the resources, they would be required to sacrifice a lamb, pigeon and turtledove. If they did not have the money for a lamb, they would sacrifice two turtledoves or two pigeons. What does this have to do with Jesus? Mary was a Jew, and was bound by this law after he was born. Luke 2:22-24 tells us about her and Jesus’ offering.

22 And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) 24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” (Luke 2:22-24, ESV)

The Bible alludes to the sacrifice for Jesus being one made by a family who could not afford a lamb. This would seem to make it clear that Jesus and his family were poor. To confirm this, we should look at the chronology of Jesus’ early life.

There is no definitive date for his birthday, but Scripture tells us that Jesus was born during the last years of Herod the Great. Most historians agree that he would have been born somewhere between 6-4 BC. On the same night Jesus is born, local shepherds visit (Luke 2:8-20). Leviticus 12 tells us that a male child is required to be circumcised eight days after their birth. It also says that a woman is not allowed to enter the temple until “the days of her purifying are completed,” 40 days after she has had a child. After those 40 days, she would be required to bring the offering. Luke 2 tells us that Jesus was circumcised eight days after he was born and says “when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses…” they took their offering to the temple. All of this happened in the first 40 days of Jesus’ life.

The story of the Wise Men in Matthew 2 most likely happens months, or perhaps years later. First, when Herod realized that the wise men had tricked him, he killed all the children in Bethlehem who were two years old and under, and Joseph was warned in a dream to flee to Egypt before Herod gave his order (Matthew 2:13-17). Second, the Wise Men did not find him in a manger. Matthew 2:11 says: “And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him.” Third, Herod gave the order to kill children under two, not just infants. If the Magi had visited Jesus during the 40 day purification period, and Herod gave the order to kill children, why would Joseph risk his life to take him to a public temple ceremony? Why would any person who had a child go to the temple at that time? When we add this to the fact that Mary and Joseph were in a house, and Herod didn’t just kill infants, it is highly unlikely that the wise men came in the 40 day window of Mary’s purification and offering.

Most historians believe that the timeline looks something like this:

Day 1 - Jesus birth and shepherds →

Day 8 - circumcision →

Day 40 - Temple visit →

Months later - Magi arrive → Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt →

Years later - Jesus, Mary and Joseph return after Herod’s death in 4BC.

It is entirely plausible, and even likely, that Mary and Joseph were poor, until the Magi showed up. Then, they had enough resources to fund their life in Egypt, as well as Jesus’ ministry for over 30 years.

In spite of all this Biblical clarity on material prosperity, there may be a question that is still present at the back of your mind. “Wasn’t Jesus poor?” After all, that’s what many of us have heard our entire lives. The vast majority of religious imagery, teaching and theology presents him this way. For many of us, our perspective on Jesus is that he was basically a homeless nomad who was ostracized, misunderstood and rejected.

The fact of the matter is, no one really knows. The only way for us to accurately know how Jesus was perceived and whether or not he was homeless or not would be to be there ourselves. There’s no way for you or I to verify with absolute accuracy Jesus’ prosperity. However, there is evidence. And when we take a look at the evidence, there is a lot more evidence that points to Jesus being materially wealthy than being poor.

Let’s also not forget the lesson of Mark 7. There is the evidence, and there is what you and I believe about the evidence. What do you believe about Jesus? And how does that belief affect how you approach your life? Wars have been fought over the answer to this question, families have been divided over the answer to this question. Much of our approach to Jesus is about what we believe, more than what we see or experience. But Scripture doesn’t just give us a blank slate to project our belief onto. Like painting a picture, there are rough outlines that God leaves for us to fill in the gaps with our belief. So what are the outlines on Jesus’ own life and prosperity? Let’s start at the beginning, with the wise men.

the Magi

1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem,

2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;

11 And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:1-4, 11)

First, when you read this, did you think of three wise men? Why? Does the Bible say that? The reason why we think of three wise men is because of a Christmas song written in 1857.

“We Three Kings of Orient are,

Bearing gifts we traverse afar,

Field and fountain,

Moor and mountain,

Following yonder Star.”

However, the idea of there being three wise men doesn’t come from any kind of historical account, or from this song. It comes from church tradition. In the eighth century, almost a thousand years after the birth of Jesus, Christian thinkers began to postulate that there were three wise men. Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar. Why did they do this? We don’t actually know. We just know that they did. Their names first appear in a chronicle called the Excerpta Latina Barbari. This chronicle is a Latin translation of a lost Greek manuscript. This makes the history of these three wise men difficult for historians to trace. What is clear is that the idea of three wise men is a “man-made idea.” There’s nothing wrong with ideas, but there is something wrong with us taking them as fact.

What do we actually know? We know that there were wise “men” plural. And we know they came from “the east” and followed a star. We also know that Herod the Great was the king of the whole country, and these men were significant enough in Herod’s mind to make two things happen. First, they were able to get an audience with the king. Second, the presence of these wise men troubled the entire city of Jerusalem. Then, in verse 11, Matthew tells us that they opened their treasures (plural) and gave Jesus gifts.

First, these wise men came from the east and they followed a star. If we look at what is east of Jerusalem on a map we see a city that you may be familiar with. Babylon. Once the center of the Persian Empire, it became a key part of the Greek/Macedonian Empire under Alexander the Great. By the time of Jesus, the Roman Empire had come to govern Judea and Jerusalem, and their rival empire, Parthia, controlled Babylon. Not much is known about the Parthian Empire, except for the fact that they were based in what is now modern day Iran, and their power and wealth was rivaled only by Rome. The Parthians were constantly at war with the Romans and frequently beat them in battle. The city of Babylon during the time of Jesus was still a powerful and influential city. It would have been the greatest city to the east of Jerusalem. The Parthians were believed to practice Zoroastrianism, the state religion of the previous Persian Empire (Source). In Matthew 2, the word the Bible uses for “wise men” is the greek word μάγος (magos) is where we get the English word “magi” from. μάγος was the term for priests and wise men in Persia and the Zoroastrian religion. Magi specialized in the study of astrology and were known as enchanters, magicians and priests. In a country where religion was intertwined with the government, these men were the chief advisors and educators of Emperors. They were king-makers who both educated, and selected the rulers. They paid no taxes, and were endowed by the kings, nobles and Emperors with the riches and most valuable land in the empire. For these nobles, these gifts would guarantee good standing in their religion, as well as within the empire. The magi functioned as the “hand of the King.” And if you had favor with the Magi, you would also have favor with the most powerful people in the Empire.

Second, there were “wise men” plural. Think about the wealth and influence of these men, and then compare that to what you imagine the journey of the three wise men looked like? Babylon was 1200 miles from Jerusalem. In this part of the ancient world, if you were going to take a 1200 mile trip, and you were that wealthy, you didn’t just get on a camel and go. You would travel with an entourage. Most likely, it would have taken them two months to take this 1200 mile journey, and their wealth - along with history - shows us that they would have travelled with a large caravan of people. Even if there were only three magi that made the trip, we can almost be certain that many people came with them to support them on their journey.

Third, Historians have difficulty calculating the population of Jerusalem around this time, but its population could have been as low as 35,000 people, or as high as 70,000 (Rome and Jerusalem, Martin Goodman). Josephus Flavius, a Jewish historian in the first century, claimed that Jerusalem had a population as high as a million people. Imagine the city where you live, what people would have to show up in your city to trouble the entire city? How famous, influential or powerful would they have to be? That’s how powerful these men were in the ancient world. Not only would they be influential enough to get an audience with the most powerful person in the country, they would also have enough influence to trouble a city of potentially a million people. If there were only three of them, they must have been the baddest dudes on the planet. Peter J. Daniels, an Australian Christian billionare commissioned a team of historians to research the Magi. It is believed by these historians that there were over 300 magi that travelled with an army to protect the treasure given to Jesus. (Source). It is thought that the trouble of Jerusalem came because they thought they were being invaded by an enemy army.

Fourth, they brought treasures. The greek word that Matthew uses for treasures is θησαυρός (thesauros). This word means “royal treasury, the place where the most valuable things are stored.” Think about the crown jewels of the United Kingdom. It is estimated that they are worth anywhere between $4 and $6 billion. That might be the closest comparison to what they would have had. How does that compare to your mental image of the three wise men? These men came and they gave gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus. How can we accurately calculate the value of what they gave? Gold would be the easiest. Today (2025) Gold is valued around $3000 an ounce. A pound of gold (16 ounces) would be worth somewhere in the range of $48,000. Let’s take a look at that relative to the median American household income. As previously stated, the median household income in the United States is $80,610. A pound of gold would be almost 60% of the median American household income. In the Ancient Roman world, workers were paid most frequently in coins called denarii. During the first century, Roman soldiers were paid 225 denarii per year, and the average worker would have been paid less than that. A pound of gold would have cost 1,125-1575 denarii, 5-7 years of a Roman soldier’s income (Source). If we do the math based on the American’s income, it comes out to between $4.8-$6.7 million for a pound of gold. What about frankincense and myrrh? They would have been even more rare than gold. Both were highly sought after spices that could only be acquired through trade. It is hard to estimate what their modern day value could be. But a pound of frankincense or myrrh would be much more than a pound of gold. Do you think that 300 men travelling with an army to protect their gifts would only bring a pound? Even if they brought just a pound of each gift, they would have made Jesus a multi-millionaire overnight. But I assume that if these men were that right, and they went to that much trouble to travel 1200 miles with an entourage, they probably brought a lot more than a pound of treasure. In my mind, this is like the royal family showing up to give Jesus the crown jewels.

Later on in Matthew 2, we learn that Herod is still so concerned about the wise men and what they did in Jerusalem that he decides to kill all the male children in the region who were two years old or younger. This causes Joseph to take Jesus and Mary and flee to Egypt until the death of Herod the Great. We don’t know how long they lived there. Most historians say it was somewhere around 3-4 years (Source). Historians also believe that Joseph didn’t work that entire time. It is most likely that Joseph, It is most likely that Joseph, Mary and Jesus lived off of what the Magi gave them for whatever period of time they lived in Egypt. If there were just three wise men on camels that gave Jesus a thimbleful of frankincense, an ounce of gold, and a shot-glass full of myrrh, that would not have been possible.

Proverbs 13:22 (ESV) says this: “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.” The Hebrew word used here חַ֫יִל (hayil) is in the list I provided here. It means: “physical wealth, strength and influence to have and grow your dominion.”

We see this played out in the lives of the great people of the Old Testament:

• Job - Job 42:10 // “The Lord restored his prosperity, and doubled his former possessions”

• Abraham - Genesis 13:2 // “Abraham had become very wealthy”

• Isaac - Genesis 26:12-14 // “the man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy”

• Jacob - Genesis 30:43 // “the man grew exceedingly prosperous”

• David - 1 Chronicles 29:3-5 // “Now with all my ability I have made provision for the house of my God…all in abundance.”

David is also significant in that he gave what is estimated to be a $6.5 billion offering to begin the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 1 Kings 29.

All of the Hebrew words used in these passages unmistakably mean physical and material wealth. In the Old Testament, financial and physical wealth are gifts from God and an expression of His personal blessing and favor on us and families generationally. God is absolutely clear, if a person does things His way, they will be rich. Not just rich in intangible ways, but rich in tangible ways. Deuteronomy 8:18 says it this way: “ You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.” This is the same word - חַ֫יִל (hayil) - used in Proverbs 13. Tangible wealth is a confirmation of God working in our lives.

Does that mean that if we aren’t wealthy that God isn’t working in our lives? Again, let’s remind ourselves what it means to prosper. Its not a point of comparison, it is about sufficiency. But also, Deuteronomy 8 brings us some clarity. God gives us the power to get wealth. Prosperity doesn’t just show up. We have a responsibility to work for it. We have a part to play in the cultivation of prosperity. Don’t miss that part. חַ֫יִל (hayil) isn’t about being given something. It is about the power to create something. A “good man” leaves his children the power to create wealth and take dominion. The ability to take dominion and become prosperous is a learned skill. And in some families - including mine - it has become a lost art. In one of their last conversations, my dad’s dad said to him, "I just hope I don't live long enough to see the money run out." He left my dad and his siblings nothing. He was a police officer who had a pension that still supports my grandmother to this day. Which is more than what my mom’s dad was able to do. The “wealth” that he had at the end of his life was about $100,000 in home equity. A few years before he died, he cashed out all of that equity in a reverse mortgage and spent all the money. Leaving my grandmother with nothing. My mom and her sisters support my grandmother and take care of her needs themselves. If my mom’s dad could have found a way to pass down debt as an inheritance, he would have.

I don’t say any of this to be harsh or critical. This is the reality for most families. But reality isn’t the same as God’s plan. What is God’s plan? For us to pass down to our children the power and ability to take dominion. That doesn’t always equate to millions of dollars, but let’s say it this way: “A good person wins in life and teaches their children’s children to win in life.”

Old Testament prosperity is winning in life. It is the blessing and favor of God on you and your family generationally. I frequently refer to this thought from Plutarch: “Those who govern must first achieve governance of themselves, straighten out their souls, and set their character aright, and then they should assimilate their subjects to themselves. For the one who is tripping over cannot straighten up someone else, nor can the ignorant person teach, the disorderly establish order, the disorganized organize, the ungoverned govern.” (How to Be A Leader, Jeffery Beneker)

If we do not win in life, we will not help other people win. If we do not take dominion, we cannot pass down an inheritance of taking dominion. Are you winning emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually and financially? The way our children will learn to win is by watching us win. If your children never see you win, they will have a hard time winning themselves. I am grateful for my parents. They came from good families. But these families did not truly take dominion in my estimation. The power to create prosperity was not modeled or passed down. My parents didn’t allow that to limit their own lives. For my entire life, they have modeled taking dominion for me. My inheritance - my “prosperity” in the Old Testament sense - will not be something I am granted in a will. It is the thinking, being and doing that leads to winning in life.

Remember, we have to escape the cultural definition of prosperity as comparison. Prosperity is not about being better than someone else. When you win God’s way, it doesn’t come at someone else’s expense. But the blessing of the Lord “makes rich” according to Proverbs 10. There is only one Old Testament “main character” that I could find in my research that was not described as wealthy. Elijah. He was a nomad for most of his life, but God still always took care of him.

We should strive to emulate everybody that God used. His hand was on them to prosper in every way, including financially. What gets in our way? If you’re anything like me, it’s what Jesus talked about in Mark 7. My own thinking.

Once we are willing to not allow God’s word to be limited by our thinking, we can see clearly the way God simply defines prosperity in both the Old and New Testaments:

Old Testament - The blessing of God to have and grow my assigned dominion for generations.

New Testament - I have everything I need, and I have enough to meet other people’s needs.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul is talking to a mostly wealthy church who has stopped giving. He starts by talking to them about the church in Macedonia, who is “being tested by many troubles, and they are very poor. But they are also filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity.” (2 Corinthians 8:2, NLT). Paul goes on to remind them that they had made a commitment to give over a year ago and lovingly encourages them to complete what they had started (2 Corinthians 8:10-11). I encourage you to take some time to read 2 Corinthians 8-9 for yourself to understand exactly what Paul says, and the context in which he says it. A few weeks ago, I gave a 30,000 foot view of all the Bible’s definitions of prosperity. I want to zoom into the definition that Paul gives in 2 Corinthians 9:8-11:

“8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God” (2 Corinthians 9:8-11, ESV)

First, Paul doesn’t say that God gives seed to the Christian. Nor does he say that God gives seed to the good person. Paul makes it clear that God gives seed to sowers. Sowing and reaping is a law that governs the universe. It's like gravity. It just works. You can jump off a building and say you don't believe in gravity, but gravity believes in you. A person can attempt to reap where they haven't sown, but that doesn't change the truth that reaping only comes after you sow first. That’s not what I want to focus on in this chapter. We’ll come back to it later in the book, but it's worth thinking about.

Paul gives us this simple definition of prosperity in verse 8: “all sufficiency in all things at all times, (so that) you may abound in every good work.” The Greek word for sufficiency that Paul uses here is the word αὐτάρκεια (autarkeia). αὐτάρκεια means “having enough of everything, not requiring support.” To prosper according to Paul means that you have your needs met, and that you also have everything you need to meet other people’s needs.

New Testament Prosperity - I have everything I need, and I have enough to meet other people’s needs.

Emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually and financially. The definition of sufficiency (αὐτάρκεια) is clear; having enough of everything. No exception. Period. It's not just having enough for you. It’s having enough for you and the needs of others.

What does it mean to have a need? Let’s look specifically at money. The problem with our thinking about money is that we primarily look at financial wealth through the lens of comparison. We think in terms of our ability to do what we can do today, compared to what we want to be able to do tomorrow. We compare our current financial state with our preferred financial state. We also tend to define prosperity as someone having more than what we have. If a billionaire "only" has $1 billion, but they "need" $2 billion for something they want to do, they might struggle to think of themselves as prosperous. Most of our thinking on wealth and prosperity is rooted in comparison.

Think about it in terms of median income. According to the most recent statistics, the annual median income in the United States of America, where I live, is $80,610 per year, and the average household size is 2.54 people (Source). If a household makes the median American household income, they are in the top 22% of income earners in the entire world (Source). In the part of Texas where I live, the median household income is almost double what it is for the rest of America, $145,914 per year (Source). If you live in Frisco, Texas and make the median American income, it may not feel sufficient. Yet, you are in the top 20% of the entire world, and are a part of controlling 90% of the world’s wealth. Nearly half of the global population, 3 billion people - live on less than $7 per day (Source). If you make the median American household income, you make more than 31x what these people make per day. Where I live, the average coffee snob will spend more than the daily income of these 3 billion people on a pour-over without batting an eye. When you think about your prosperity - or lack thereof - what are you comparing it to? If your definition of prosperity is rooted in comparison with anything, it's probably wrong. Do you share God's definition of prosperity and pursue it?

These stats may shift or alter your perspective. Human beings tend to see wealth in a human way. Comparison. God doesn’t see things through the lens of a dollar amount. He sees things through the lens of sufficiency. This leads to another question for us. If you feel that what you have is insufficient for you, where does that lack of sufficiency come from? Mostly from our thinking which leads to our decisions. We’ll get to that.

Ancient Corinth was one of the largest and most important cities in Greece. It was about halfway between Athens and Sparta, and at its height, it had a population of close to 100,000 people. In Corinth, Galio, the brother of Seneca - the philosopher - presided over the trial of Paul. Paul worked in Corinth as a tentmaker and founded the Church in Corinth during his time there. The church at Corinth was dramatic. They were split into different factions and followed different leaders (1 Corinthians 1:10-13). Prostitution and other sexual sins were prevalent (1 Corinthians 6:9-20). Church members were suing each other (1 Corinthians 6:1-8). Some church members would eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols, which created division among those who were “stronger and weaker” in the faith (1 Corinthians 8). The church gatherings were chaotic. The services were interrupted by random people in the crowd speaking in tongues and misusing spiritual gifts(1 Corinthians 11:2-16, 14:26-40). Wealthy people within the church were using communion as an excuse to become drunk during church services and corrupting the purpose of communion (1 Corinthians 11:17-34). Paul calls them “infants in Christ,” “arrogant” and threatens to “come to [them] with a rod” in 1 Corinthians 4:21. And that was just what Paul addressed in 1 Corinthians.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul has learned that the church he founded is continuing to struggle. 2 Corinthians is an interesting Epistle to me because Paul is at his most vulnerable in writing it. He gives more insight into his personal life and feelings than he does in any other Epistle. He continues to be harsh with them, but expresses that his harshness is out of deep love and sorrow to help them. Paul is much more gentle with the Thessalonian church and the Philippian church, but felt the need to strongly correct the thinking of the Corinthian church. Some in the church mistook Paul’s gentleness for weakness or a lack of authority (2 Corinthians 10:1–2). In response, he defended himself by asserting his equal standing with the other apostles, his deep understanding of the Christian faith, his endurance of severe suffering for Christ, and his direct experiences of divine visions and revelations (11:1–12:13). Paul is not just harsh, but is also sarcastic and even defensive about his leadership of the church in the midst of their divisions. The Corinthian church struggled with pride, sin and confusion as to what “truth” was.

There are two main sections of 2 Corinthians. We will focus on the first one. In this first section, Paul explains various leadership dynamics, forgives those who opposed him, and reflects on the nature of leadership. For Paul, leadership meant both intense suffering and comfort. Physical and emotional suffering came from the situations and people he worked with. His comfort came from the experience of God working through him, and the knowledge of a future reward. Sometimes, we can see Bible characters as beyond human. We tend to think that they did not struggle with the same kinds of conflicts, feelings and disillusionments that we tend to face. Human nature has not changed in our 10,000 years of history. Marcus Aurelius defines this struggle this way in The Meditations: “Say to yourself first thing in the morning: I shall meet with people who are meddling, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, and unsociable. They are subject to these faults because of their ignorance of what is good and bad.”

When we learn and grow, there is an interesting phenomenon that takes place. We begin to expect people to somehow know what we know, and be guided by our knowledge and not their own. We are not born wise. We only become wise through education and training. When we make errors in judgement, this stems from ignorance of what is truly good. Why do I take time to express this in a book about prosperity? Because, if we are learning, growing and committing to helping others, Paul’s frustration will inevitably become our experience too. If you are a part of a church, or any organization really, think about the drama and/or chaos that is prevalent throughout that organization. That chaos is ultimately not a reflection of the organization itself, but the humanity within it. When a person becomes a “leader,” they decide to become a person who makes themselves responsible for trying to bring peace to chaos. Leaders aren’t ultimately addressing the chaos of a group, team or organization, they are addressing the chaos of humanity within that group, team or organization. What many young, or immature leaders tend to do is abandon the premise entirely. Look beyond the church at Corinth. Think about the modern, western church.

We don’t have these same controversies, but there is humanity. And where there is humanity, there is entropy. There is always a human pull towards disorder. In many ways, this seems unavoidable. The solution for some is to abandon the idea of the Church. Or to see Christianity as a monolith that requires deconstruction and rebuilding. The idea of deconstruction of the church, or anything else is not new. The Church is a God-idea, but Scripture does not tell us everything about how to run a church. People don’t like mega-churches. This is understandable for many reasons. What do you do when you start a house church and 1000 people start showing up? All through Scripture, and history, there are attempts to create structures around God’s idea for the church. All of these structures are imperfect, flawed, and will ultimately crumble, because they are human. Even deconstructionist structures come with their own inherent flaws and weaknesses. On this side of eternity, there is no such thing

“even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9, NLT)

In the middle of Paul’s frustration with the church, he reveals this vulnerable line of thinking. Inherent within the flaws, weaknesses and failings of ourselves and the things we build is the thing that God uses.

As we discuss prosperity and the context of Christianity, I think its vitally important to remember Paul’s response to the perceived failure of the church at Corinth. Not to abandon it, tear it down or become its enemy. But to keep trying. I love my dad’s definition of God’s grace: “The power of God to do things God’s way.” In the midst of what humans are not, that is where God can give us His power to do things His way. In the midst of what the things humans build, and what they are not, can God give us the same kind of ability to continue to strive to do it His way? The church at Corinth shows us this interplay between the God-dream of His Church and the human endeavor to partner with Him to build it. We might not ever get there. We will experience difficulty, chaos and even our own self-created entropy. But the pursuit of what it “could be” is always worth it.

The first thing that we should admit is that there has been a lot of bad teaching about prosperity. Just because it has been taught poorly doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. There is also a lot of bad teaching about heaven and hell, but we’re all going to end up in one of those places someday. There is a difference between what the truth is, and the effectiveness of teaching the truth. The truth is still true, even if it is poorly taught or understood. And, like gravity, we misunderstand truth to our own peril. If someone poorly explained to you the law of gravity and you decided to jump off a cliff, would it be their fault? Or yours for believing them? Before we make a decision based on a “truth,” it would be wise for us to make sure that “truth” is actually true.

There may be a lot of things that you have heard and learned that have shaped your definition of prosperity. Especially if you’re like me and you have a lot of church-based context for that definition. In any culture, there are a lot of things that we have decided are true, just because they were told to us. This seems to be especially true in Christian cultures. We place such a high regard in the opinions and interpretations of authority figures. In Acts 17, the Bible tells the story of the Bereans. “And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.” (Acts 17:11, BSB). We should strive to be like these Bereans. Everything someone tells us should be weighed against the truth of Scripture. Never just take a person’s word for it just because you like and respect them - or agree with them. Mine included. I am sure to be wrong, but Scripture is not. So let us agree to be Berean in our assessment of what is said and taught to us about everything. Not just prosperity.

Your assumption may be that most people already do this. When the truth is that they don’t. Only 4% of Christians claim to have a biblical worldview (Source). And only 37% of pastors have a biblical worldview (Source). I know that you would think that pastors would be required to have a biblical worldview to be a pastor. See my “honorary doctorate” comments above. But these stats show us that whether you are a pastor or a Christian church attender, if you have a biblical worldview, you find yourself in the minority. 96% of Christians don’t see the world properly. And 63% of pastors are not teaching truth, they are teaching their opinion as truth. This is not a modern problem. This is a human problem that has plagued us since the beginning of history. The vast majority of people are much more concerned with their opinion than truth. In the world we live in, it's easier than ever to confuse our opinions for truth, and think that something is only true if we agree with it. One of the key functions of modern culture is to create echo-chambers that agree with us. Most systems and algorithms we interact with are created for the purpose of showing us content we want to see. It is actually harder now than it ever has been in history to find dissenting opinions. We actually have to search them out. And who wants to search out things they don’t agree with?

This is what I would like to invite you into. Wrestling with something you might initially disagree with. The odds are you are wrong. The odds are that I am wrong too. God doesn’t agree with either of us. God’s concern is not your agreement. His concern is your transformation. In order to be transformed, we have to allow our human mind to wrestle with divine thinking that is higher and better than ours. Can you admit to yourself that your opinions and beliefs may be flawed? Maybe you don’t have the full picture? Could it be the case that what you have been taught, and think you know might not be fully true?

One of my all-time favorite quotes is by Mark Twain: “It ain’t what you know for sure that gets you into trouble, it's what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” If you’re like me, there are probably some things that you think you know for sure that just ain’t so. In fact, we will always have this issue. Like wisdom, truth might not be something we ever fully ascertain, but it is something worth pursuing. If you believe that there is even the slightest possibility you might not have laid hold of all truth, keep reading. If you already know what there is to know and have your mind made up. Unsubscribe and unfollow. It will be of no use to you.

This is for those who wish to pursue the truth of what God has to say about prosperity. We may not fully arrive there, but we will be closer than we were at the start of the journey.

I’ve found that many people can’t properly answer this question because most of their thinking about wealth is based on someone else’s perspective, their own feelings, some tradition they interacted with, or one of the million other reasons why 96% of Christians don’t have a biblical worldview.

Mark 7:7 is worth noticing in the passage we talked about last time. “They teach man-made ideas as commands from God.”

There are two abilities that you and I have. We have the ability to experience information, and we have the ability to interpret information. The problem often comes not in the experience, but the interpretation. There is nothing wrong with experiencing things. The problem always arises with us elevating our interpretation to the level of truth. Ideas are great, and interpretation is how the human mind makes sense of the world. The problem does not arise from my interpretation. My interpretation is just my interpretation. The problem arises when I elevate my interpretation to the level of a command from God.

The human interpretation is often wrong, and needs to change. One of the truths I’ve discovered in my own life, is that the more I pursue God, the more my interpretation of information needs to change. Jesus gives us a philosophical challenge about our beliefs. He shows us that it’s not truth that affects us, it's what we believe about truth. The Pharisees believed that their responsibility was to interpret the laws of God for people. They were the educated, academic, experts who studied the law of God in depth. The problem was not with their study. The problem arose when they decided that their ideas = God’s ideas. That’s also the problem with modern-day Pharisees. These descendants of ancient Pharisees are the kind of people who tell you that you can’t use instruments in worship, dancing and “secular music” are demonic, the King James translation was the version that Jesus used, women can’t wear makeup, you can’t wear a hat in church, the only true prayer that matters is if you pray in tongues, and you should only address God as Adonai. I didn’t make any of these examples up. These are all things that I have personally been told. Are these things good ideas? Should people practice them for one reason or another depending on their context? Maybe. Are they commands from God for us today? No. Not at all. We have to be able to clearly tell - and show - the distinction between God’s commands and human ideas. Or, we can be like Pharisees who get mad when other people don’t wash their hands before they eat.

Oftentimes, as humans, we think that something is true because we believe that it is. And what is interesting about the way that humans work, is that we find confirmation for our beliefs everywhere we tend to look. Jesus tells us that our beliefs are so important that they can actually prevent the “truth” of God’s word from being true in our lives. Some people are the kind of people who will show up to pray for someone in the hospital and will pray for “God’s will.” When you pray “God’s will” in a situation, what do you believe that it is? Do you believe that God’s will is to heal someone or not? That belief will determine how you pray, and how you act. Ultimately, it’s up to God to determine whether or not he wants to heal an individual. But, if I’m in the hospital, I don’t need “God’s will” prayers. I need prayers that align with God’s will to heal me. So many people tend to spiritualize the limitations they have placed on themselves - and God. This is the point that Jesus is making in Mark 7. It's about a lot more than money. It’s about life. What you believe is even more important than what God’s word says. God has actually given us the power to cancel out the word of God in our own life through our thinking.

Thousands of times, Scripture teaches us that God’s will is to prosper us in every way. If we decide not to agree with God’s definition of prosperity, whether that’s because of culture, tradition or something else, then our prosperity will be limited by our belief, not by God’s will. The problem of prosperity is not God’s definition. It’s not whether God wants it for you. It's whether you want it for you and are willing to agree with God’s definition.

Could the problem really be our own limited thinking? That seems to always be our problem.

8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
10 “The rain and snow come down from the heavens
and stay on the ground to water the earth.
They cause the grain to grow,
producing seed for the farmer
and bread for the hungry.
11 It is the same with my word.
I send it out, and it always produces fruit.
It will accomplish all I want it to,
and it will prosper everywhere I send it.

(Isaiah 55:8-11, NLT)