Righteous Finance$
The righteousness of hating money and redeeming the
worthless things in this world for something truly meaningful and great.
Newest Updates
· Tithe
·
Stewardship
- StewardshipConcepts
- ImproveStewardship
- StewardshipAccountability
·
Empowerment vs. Criticism
- BadStewardBadCritic
Josiahs Scott,
Josiahs@trueconnection.org,
www.TrueConnection.org
12/28/07; June 2009; 8/25/09; 1/11/10; 2/5/10; 6/11/10; 6/15/10;
7/31/10; 1/26/11 – added Andrea Notes; 7/26/11 – added “Questions About Tithe”;
10/15/11 (REAL Prosperity);
3/21/12 (Blinding Gifts); 7/6/12; 7/8/12; 10/16/12; 6/5/13; 6/26/13; many other
dates (seen below); 11/1/18 (some Recompilations)
These are unpublished personal notes for our community.
Like usual, in cases like this, you should contact us so that we can teach you all of these exciting and helpful things.
Contents
Wife’s Providential Question
About Deals4
Virtuous Answers to Contentment
in Deal Hunting (Summary)4
Loss Management vs. Better
Profits6
No Rush -- Rush is NOT the Answer 9
Supporting Leaders – In General 15
Who is The REAL TV Preacher Begging for Money?. 15
Tithes -- State of the Union. 16
Tithing – What is Increasing. 17
Tithes for Living, Offerings For Special Projects. 17
Why Tithe In The New Testament At All?17
New Covenant Tithing Preview.. 20
Purpose -- What was this tenth to
be used for?20
Bitterly Cursed or Faithfully
Accepted?22
Levels of Stewardship -- in this
World23
Lordship Through Ownership. 23
Delegated Authority &
Responsibility24
Physical Biblical Managements
Include…24
Stewardship Often Affects Us in
the NT Through…25
Managers of People & Things. 27
Faithfulness Required of Stewards. 30
Jesus’ Stewardship Parables –
Targeted at the Disciples & Apostles31
Apostle’s Stewardship of
Mysteries31
Stewardship Includes Eating, etc.31
The Stewardship of Favor – For All Disciples31
Stewardship Accountability. 31
Testing
Spiritual & Physical Stewardships32
(A) Testing Spiritual Stewardship. 32
(B) Testing Physical Stewardship. 33
(C) Summary of Spiritual &
Physical Stewardship-Morality34
Demoting
Unfaithful Stewards34
Remember Ownership, Demotion,
& Death, & Then Escape While You Can!34
Sin Guarantees Demotion by Death. 35
Ugly Money -- Considerations from
Luke 1635
Someone Else Owns Everything
(Reminder)35
Empowerment
– Accountability to Empower Ability36
Reverencing Lack of Ability. 36
A Bad Steward & A Bad Critic. 36
Accountability to Fake Knowledge?. 37
Who’s Accountable to Sewing &
Reaping?37
You Will Be Judged Like You Judge. 37
Beware of Critical Hypocrisy
Against Good Stewardship37
Begging for What You Don’t Have. 40
How or to Budget or WHAT is
Budgeting?42
Funds Given to Apostles &
Deacons43
Accounting for Transported Gift 43
Micromanaging = Demoting (1st
Stage)44
Joseph’s Stewardship – Successful
Delegations44
No Accounting Required from
Faithful Workmen46
The Point: Let’s Examine
Ourselves46
Attaining
to Righteousness in Finances46
Blinding Bribes that Bypass Truth. 47
Matthew Five/ Luke Six Context 48
Don’t Store up for Yourselves…... 52
Don't Run Away From Slavery. 54
Refusing to Live month to month. 56
Debt –
Repent of Slave-Luxury57
The Borrower is Servant to The
Lender60
Where Can Jews Offer Sacrifices?. 62
Taking Nothing from the Gentiles. 62
When To Receive Financial Help. 63
Finances to Dedicated to God, His
temple, and His Service64
Integrity with Distributing Money. 64
Providential Deals
Submitting to Providence
Wife’s Providential Question About Deals
AlSun 12:00pm(edited)
QnA: 1Ti_6:17
1Ti_6:17 KJV Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy
It might pose a challenge to the "poor" (who are in the posture of foraging for the best deals), to miss out on a "good deal" that they had the opportunity to seize. Unlike those who have more more money to where they can just buy whatever they want, as soon as they want, even at retail price.
Is it considered "high minded" or arrogant to look back on a missed opportunity and think 'should have, could have, would have', especially with "riches" where it is not clear (or it's "uncertain") what the real deal was with it or what would have actually become of it?
Is it considered "high minded" to dwell on these things instead of hoping in God who provides, and will provide, everything you need to enjoy?
When reasoning with your soul and also doing spiritual warfare then should you be striking at things like high mindedness, warmness towards riches, hoping in fleeting things to be a solution for you, idolotry, not hoping in God, not believing that God will provide the right thing in due season... etc?
I know we've talked about this some before, but this is still an embarrassingly weak point of mine. And it seems that it's only become an issue since starting to follow the truth.
I suppose women are more susceptible to this than men right?
I was thinking, for example, of the other week when Sir jumped on an expensive deal with his 2T harddrive, and he bought the last two of them (and lo and behold, thankfully at least one of them worked). I was imagining a theoretical scene of him temporarily passing by the deal and then coming back to it only to find that it had sold out. I can't really imagine him kicking himself for not taking advantage of that small window when he first got exposed to it. And actually, I can't even remember a time yet where he's ever "kicked himself" for missing out on things...
(I think over time I've become more skilled at acquiring the pragmatic knowledge needed, and applying life learned / maybe even prudent principles, for overall strategic and systematic purchase decisions. And I think this has helped minimize the 'groan & regret' occurances with missed opportunities. But of coarse this doesn't address any deep weakness or even strongholds with being able to process certain "losses".)
Virtuous Answers to Contentment in Deal
Hunting (Summary)
Becoming content with the outcomes of your deal hunting involves many virtues…
· The prudence (and hopefully wisdom) to know what something is really worth
· The diligence and discipline to prepare your heart aright
· Loving others enough to let them take a good deal from you
· Learning to trust that Heaven Knows Best, and,
· Longing for Favorable Providence to exalt you rather than the strength of riches
Value Assessment
Knowing what something is really worth is one of the first practicalities to prudent deal hunting.
“Lap Communication” typically speaks very well when it comes to judging “good deals”, but we’re usually just not listening well enough!
My mom thought she could sell bird houses for income…
Something can be missing in the basic value assessment of merchandise the same way that it is missing in the character evaluation of souls…
Beware of Misevaluation!
· Merchandise
· People
· Social interactions
What’s typically missing in all of these evaluations is the shortest path to zeal and the shortest path to edification/progress/usefulness/accomplishment.
What if needless disappointments plague you simply because you were tricked into thinking that an opportunity was a good deal when it really was not?
But if you see that a deal is really just marketing spam, then you can easily discard it without distraction and regret.
Note: This is the Orthodox alternative to saying, “one of god’s greatest gifts is unanswered prayers” (Garth Brooks song -- of course he’s a divorced and remarried supporter of LGBT paganism).
Weighing out the relative “goodness” of a deal in your current economy takes some experience, skill, and maybe even (ideally/hopefully) some wisdom.
If you can get a truly accurate picture of how good this deal really is or is not, then this can help communicate to you (at least in the form of “Lap Communication”) whether or not this is a favorable deal from heaven.
Accuracy Measures Favor
· An accurate value assessment of a purchase is needed to have a realistic perspective on how much a product is actually worth.
· Consider the real nature of the potential transaction so you can know whether or not you are being favored.
· You must want favor to grant you a solution and not simply money, so be wise and consider the path of Truth.
· Are you being favored or you are instead rather buying your way to your own solution because of your riches?
· You need to know the real value of something and if it is really a good deal.
Example: Hidden Costs
· Acquiring things takes expense in addition to the price tag.
· both the price tag and the hidden costs need to be favorable in order to avoid creating one's own solution.
· Don’t mistake a low price tag for a favorable deal when the hidden costs are still in the process of making the prudent sober.
·
We’re still not getting the reality of hidden costs as long
as we are tempted to regret missed deals…
Do you want the answer to this potential virtue so you can truly be ‘a merchant seeking beautiful pearls’ (Mat_13:45) for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake?
Here is a Huge Part of Prudent Value Assessment: Be a Diligent, Prudent, Persevering True Problem Solver At Heart
· Never be content to pass on the same problem to others that you inherited from someone else
· Become reliable, orderly, etc.
· Be zealous toward (& obsessed over) serious edification!
· Become a utilitarian-ist and crucify the vanity of common merchandizing
· Stop being hypnotized by the packaging and the conceptual illusion marketed to your eyes
· Look past all vanity and strip the purchase down to its bare utility for qualitatively solving problems
When you are preoccupied in loving humanity - as a true problem solver - you have practiced all of the right hart postures to know the realistic usefulness of the things you need to buy. And furthermore, you are not so vulnerable to being marketed (and deceived) by lust.
And although there can be some wisdom to all of this prudence, yet determining real value is only a first basic step, and there are many more virtues to come…
Loss Management vs. Better Profits
(This was somewhat of a tangent
we discussed)
No one would despise a humanitarian
“entrepreneur” for buying big vehicles to deliver water to impoverished
communities.
Furthermore, even more so besides, it
would be hypocritical to look down on the righteous who seek to spend enough to
gain the tools to save the poorest and most worthy out of the whole world.
If the righteous eventually focus on progress
more than Loss Management, then ultimately they cannot be blamed.
Dying to Deals
Hate nice things, judging them with
pessimism.
Only except a
kind gift with good intentions attached to it.
If it is a distraction I want to die to it
and even if it is a promise or a blessing I want to offer it up as a sacrifice
(just as faithful Abraham did).
(Prayed ~7/15/21 concerning the then current
housing considerations)
Love = Non-Competition
Love is an easy gage to tell if your deal hunting is upright and lawful.
Most missed deals are opportunities for someone else to gain, so why complain?
Whenever you miss out, someone else might benefit, so why be sad?
Otherwise, why be non-objective and seriously risk hypocrisy?
Black Friday Rush = the exact opposite of what we want.
Love neighbor as self = always happily letting others be blessed more than yourself.
Lev_19:18; Mar_12:30-31
Never complain when another is unfairly exalted above you, and then heaven will inevitably demand that you get exalted above all men (together with the righteous who always inevitably win over all men and all the spirits who hate us).
If you were Loving your neighbor as yourself, who are you to prefer that you “get the deal” rather than someone else?
What if the Creator has determined that it is time for someone else to succeed, increase, and make money this time?
Who are you to insist that anything good be given to you rather than your neighbor, especially when you’re already not loving your neighbor as yourself, and you’re in danger of luxury (and should rather be praying to be saved from it)?
Love does not compete against those whom it loves.
And even if we seem to (in some cases) “compete” against Heresy, Lust, Pride, and Luxury, yet still, ‘we don't wrestle against flesh and blood’ (Eph_6:12), while we rather ‘turn the other cheek’ in love toward evil men, seeking their salvation.
How Can we Rejoice at the Exaltation of Luxurious People?
· Wife Said: It can feel like everyone is better off than us, and no one needs good deals as much as we do, so how can we rejoice (or even just feel satisfied/happy/content/resolved) when they get more than they deserve at our expense? (7/18/21)
· But are we worthy?
· Do angels rejoice (without reservation) when we are exalted?
· Are we being faithful enough to please heaven to graduate us from probation?
· If we still rejoice when heaven grants us good things, even when we are still in probations in those very same areas, why should we not share heaven’s generous and kind heart toward other unworthy people when they are prospered above us far beyond what they deserve?
·
If heaven has so often been
patiently generous toward our happiness,
even at the expense of God’s immediate honor, and,
if the universe has suffered oppressions, and,
has groaned under the burden of our unfaithfulness in the midst of our
undeserved blessings, and,
if we have been slow to learn, and,
our hearts have been too heavy to glorify God sufficiently to relieve the
universe,
should God then also agree with our lack of justice and imitate our respect of
persons by not also blessing the unworthy above us at their proper season?
· If it really was for the sake of God that we groaned, and we really were in distress purely due to the unfair advantages of the wicked at the hurt of the poor, then we could have easily passed our own probations much sooner, and we might could have already been helped long ago in many ways.
· In many ways, objective non-hypocrisy is one of the biggest solutions to not envying the wicked when they are exalted above us -- because we remember to give away the same generosity and redemptive mercy that is continually being shown toward us.
· If we might lovingly let sinners steel from us (as Mat_5 and Luk_6 both say) then how much more should we let God freely give them things instead of us?
· If you become faithful and graduate probation, even if the rich are temporarily blessed above you, the All-Wise Creator has prepared them for a day of judgement and destruction and has prepared you for a day of redemption and salvation because of your repentance.
· Remember the distressed Psalmist because of the exaltation of the wicked in Psa_37 and the exaltation of wicked Nabal in 1Sa_25…
· Do Justice, Trust, & Be Free from all Complaints: As long as you are doing justice and non-hypocrisy in these other areas, in the end this is really just about trusting God to give you enough, and then you will never be compelled to envy the wicked when he is loaded up with riches as a fattened animal which is prepared for a day of slaughter (Jas_5:5).
· If we will relieve the universe by glorifying God in doing faithfulness and justice, then we will also inevitably find unending answers to relieve our souls while the wicked seem to flourish and prosper over us at our expense.
· &nbs