Does God Want You Wealthy? Josiah Stowe: Dominion Wealth Strategists DMW#237

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Why is being a good steward of our wealth so important as Christians? Let's find out exploring theology doctrine and all of the fascinating subjects in between Broadcasting from an undisclosed location dead men walking starts

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Or just click in the first link below send us a text We'd love to hear from you up front got to tell you about two guys first of all squirrely

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But you can click the link below there to to start subscribing and downloading to that Guys we had

02:49

Josiah stow on This week and we had a really good conversation he is one of the partners in Dominion wealth strategists and we talked about What it means to be a good steward of our money what it means to be disciplined and self -controlled in our budget

03:07

What it means to be generationally thinking about wealth talked about Proverbs and You know a wise man not only leaving wealth to his children, but his children's children

03:19

We talked about the meaning of the scripture or I'm sorry the proverb and scripture that talks about a warning that the

03:28

You know, the borrower is slave to the lender what that means is debt actually good or bad.

03:34

We had some talks about You know the Ramsey effect on Christians Dave Ramsey and how we might disagree with some of those things

03:43

But what a great episode just to talk about money wealth policy

03:50

Legislative acts that affect it and how we view money how we use it and how we build wealth

03:57

Josiah I mean interesting dude grew up in California moved to Kentucky settled there Religious affairs specialist in the army that got into the financial aspect of things been doing that for a while But we talked about his business and we talked about as His theology affects his view of money and wealth.

04:18

I think the episode itself We talked to him for about 30 35 minutes So not too long, but long enough to really get into some stuff and I think you guys are going to enjoy it

04:30

So, let's get into it let's just you know, I'm not gonna talk about personal stuff this week Let's get into because I think it's a really good episode

04:37

I think it's something that Christians are severely lacking on how to manage money how to build wealth

04:42

We sometimes we look at money is like a bad thing. We have pastors misquoting

04:48

Oh the love of money. No, or you know money is is the root of all evil. What's the love of money? That's the root of all evil.

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It's like no we are told to use money wisely Stuart wisely But to have money or to use money or to have wealth

05:01

Not an evil thing in and of itself as long as Christ is glorified in all that we do including finances

05:08

So let's get right into it. Next voice. You hear will be me introducing or talking to Josiah Stowe from Dominion Wealth Strategist, here we go.

05:17

So Josiah welcome to the show. No, it's good. Good to be here So we just met recently and for the listeners give us like the origin story a little bit like maybe a little bit of your testimony

05:27

Where he grew up That kind of stuff. I saw you're in the army religious affairs specialist. Like what was that all about?

05:33

Cool. Yeah, so it's actually born and raised in a rural Northern, California The great Republic of roughing ready,

05:39

California to be specific. It's a tiny little drinking village with a mining problem Like 550 people kind of small a little 18 acre ranch out there with my grandparents for at least the majority of my

05:50

Childhood suppose 12 on at the very least my parents split up when I was very young So I kind of moved all over the place till I kind of settled there

05:58

Yeah, sort of origin story born and raised out there very dispensational upbringing I was a hardcore dispensationalist for the first 19 years of my life until I joined the army

06:06

I kind of got out of the MacArthur bubble A lot of Bethel Redding looks as well.

06:12

So sort of Baptist coastal with the weird like name it and claim it Grave soaking sort of mentality a lot of why wham influence as well and then

06:21

John MacArthur So it's like a grace Bible Church that also sort of speaks in tongues every once in a while or has that inkling

06:28

So did that for quite some time actually worked with a youth for Christ organization campus life, Nevada County So that was an interdenominational sort of ministry

06:37

And in 19 years just decided to join the army get out of California do something with my life because I definitely

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Not enjoying the standard of living that I was able to afford there in California So ended up joining the army has a religious affairs specialist, you know wanted to you know

06:54

Serve God and country and I didn't have a master's degree. So that's how you do it. What does that mean? What is a religious affairs specialist?

07:01

Yeah, essentially it's a it's it's the rebranding for the chaplain assistant job Okay, so used to be called chaplain assistant then people got a reputation

07:10

Chaplains assistants were like the worst soldiers in the army more or less No offense to you other 56 mics listening, but there's a reason for the the reputation and you know it

07:20

Having your first -line supervisor be a staff officer. You can get away with a lot So did that for a couple of years, but essentially doing all the administration logistics operations integration technical support, right?

07:31

Being a bodyguard altar boy church secretary kind of everything you needed They needed us to be as the only enlisted support for a staff officer a special staff officer to be specific

07:41

So you're essentially an NCO I see for those of you who are in the military or have a military background

07:47

NCO I see as us as a private so it's it's a big job for You step into very big shoes very quickly

07:55

And you have no support right because it's just you and the chaplain supposedly a unit ministry team But if you don't get along It's gonna be a bad time

08:03

But did that in an infantry unit for three years deployed to Iraq tail end of operation in here It was all kicking

08:08

Isis out of her veal. So my unit got to sort of do the cleanup for the destruction of the capital of What used to be the

08:17

Isis caliphate? Then came back home and again just served in the capacity of a religious affairs specialist essentially just taking care of people being a untrained

08:28

Very very much untrained Therapist essentially for people who didn't want to talk to the chaplain.

08:33

They talked to me Operations. Yeah, and a lot of suicide intervention and prevention

08:39

You're not okay point of contact for that, but they end up kind of tagging you a lot You know, hey, hey, so -and -so said they were gonna do something.

08:46

You're gonna stay up all night with them. Great So doing that for some time so infantry unit for three years

08:54

I was a up at Garrison Fort Campbell for a few more years after that as the funds technician And that's kind of how

08:59

I got into finance Okay, so then you get into finance out of the army and how is your theological journey?

09:06

You raised kind of Baptist Kostal and then where did you end up at? Yeah ended up distinctly reformed so reformed

09:12

Baptist specifically My grandparents bless their hearts very dispensationalist still although I think they're dropping the moniker very leaky dispensationalist in that regard

09:21

But my my grandma actually recommended RC Sproul as like a Hero of the faith someone to definitely pay attention to and to listen to with some caveats, you know, he's not right on everything

09:31

Supposed right. All right, so got into him and His series what is reformed theology pretty much just changed my mind on everything.

09:40

It's like oh Well, okay Yeah, because I was looking for some sort of systematic and Schaefer's the dispensationalist

09:47

Schaefer. Not the not the good one His Systematic theology wasn't really cutting it.

09:53

It's very cut -and -dry not a whole lot of room for spirituality Just the scientific method through and through that's why it's so big

09:59

So yeah ended up stumbling on to RC Sproul through them James White and Jeff Durbin the apologia crew and from them actually ended up pretty darn close with the fight like feast network and the rest of the

10:14

Moscow crowd So while I'm reformed Baptist, I would say I'm I've got CRE see adjacent sensibilities

10:21

You're a rowdy Baptist a very rowdy Baptist which attending Albert Muller's Church 3rd

10:27

Avenue here in Louisville is interesting Yeah, they told although although he's even

10:35

Albert the last Year or so has been kind of getting fiery on some subjects

10:41

Abolitionism things like that and you're going So I actually worked at the seminary for quite some time

10:50

I was the Executive administrative assistant to the vice president of operations and finance which wouldn't fit on a business card.

10:58

Yeah Right kind of helping them manage their 31 million dollar annual operating budget so I dealt with a lot of Organizational finance before moving into personal and a lot of just like why are you spending money this way?

11:14

This is not this is not good stewardship and doing that with big numbers made doing that with small numbers a heck of a lot easier

11:20

So is that why you veered into finance just that interest from working that job?

11:26

yeah, essentially that and I got recruited into a Another financial services brokerage firm.

11:32

So they saw my background. They're like, oh great. You want to do personal finance instead? I was like, you mean

11:37

I get to help save date nights instead of save bottom lines. Sure. That sounds good So ended up working there sort of dragged into it and then ended up really loving it

11:47

Just the the help that I was able to to the impact I was able to make on a personal level

11:52

The numbers were smaller, but when you're helping people instead of organizations, it's a lot a lot more impactful

12:00

Sure, so you get how long are you there for in that job in that other company about a year and a half

12:07

So I've been on and off working in finance in some capacity for the better part of six years now Okay, and then you said

12:15

You know who cares about this safe job where I get a paycheck every week I'm gonna start my own business and be crazy kind of like me.

12:22

Yeah yeah, sort of the other company was also 1099 because you're you're a Independent non -captive brokerage agent.

12:28

So instead of brokering Houses, you're brokering financial products and services So it was still pretty rough rough and tumble feast or famine.

12:37

So now I was like, oh wait, I can actually also control everything else not just who

12:44

I get access to but the contract levels and Company culture and stuff like that. So when the opportunity presented itself for us to kind of jump ship and do our own thing

12:53

That was a pretty quick jump. Okay So then you start Dominion Wealth Strategies. Is that just you do you have any partners or why start that business?

13:01

Yeah, Dominion Wealth Strategists is essentially because the clientele I was attracting the clientele that we were working with more or less pretty much exclusively really

13:09

Was the distinctly reformed community and the way you build plans for people who have a multi -generational

13:14

Mindset is trying to maximize their net worth at death That was very problematic for a lot of my uplines a lot of the people who are above me

13:23

Why are you doing this? This is eating into your Commission and therefore eating into our Commission. Why are you building plans this way?

13:30

Like well, it's what they want so they were asking me to make a lot of compromises and to sell products that I wasn't super comfortable with weren't totally in the best interest of our clients and they were also like really hardcore into the secret and that sort of that sort of Christianity Christianity adjacent mentality, so we disagreed on a lot and I was what do you mean the

13:54

Holy Spirit is an obese black woman? No, no, nor do your thoughts generate some sort of magnetic field that attract things in the universe to you

14:03

All right, so having to deal with that pretty constantly was annoying but manageable

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But then again when the opportunity presented itself to leave Justin Johnson the other partner in our firm

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Reached out to me and well, he was actually working for me at that other company said hmm I've got some connections come look over here my obviously since he was one of my best guys

14:25

I said, oh, I'll look but just to disprove it you're working at the best place possible Turns out we were right.

14:31

So yoink Off we went and started our own our own firm. Oh, so what does that look like when you start

14:38

Dominion Wealth? Is it strategist or strategies? Sorry. Yeah strategists Strategists, okay.

14:44

So what does that practically look like? Do you guys go grab an office? You're looking at leasing space You're doing it out of your house when you first start.

14:50

What does that look like? Yeah, in order to keep operating costs as low as possible.

14:55

We're all just independent non -captive working from our homes, right? normally, I have a zoom background, but it's it's pretty darn straightforward where We don't have a lease.

15:05

We don't have electricity bills, we've got like a premium zoom subscription and Continuing education costs the occasional licensing fee.

15:13

That's it. So we kept our overhead really low In fact, the most expensive thing was definitely the corporate lawyer to set up our

15:19

LLC C Corp S Corp structure We've got going on Wyoming, you know for a little extra privacy

15:25

So that that was a little expensive, but everything else was pretty turnkey right just developing the the workflows that we're gonna work out of making sure that we're we're good on compliance that we the

15:35

The LLC that handles the securities the 401k is the investments is a distinct and separate entity from the one that just handles the insurance

15:43

But then there's no, you know lead funnels back and passing back and forth and that that's been interesting

15:50

Not the most fun thing in the world But if that's the cost to be able to build financial plans without compromise, that's an easy easy answer

15:58

Yeah, so you talked about earlier about really maximizing wealth at death for the generationally minded

16:04

So what kind of services do you guys offer and what exactly does that mean? Yeah So again in order to keep with compliance

16:12

I'll say the the things that we have access to within our network And when

16:19

I say we that's what I mean for future listeners and if the SEC is listening in So Dominion Wealth Strategist is a full -service financial services brokerage firm where we do everything from baptism to burial

16:31

That's one of the taglines at the very least where essentially you need help with budgeting. We'll help you with budgeting you need to take

16:36

Dominion over your Direct personal finances the money that comes in you need to be in charge of the money that goes out

16:42

Right and to do so carefully So we usually save the average family three to five hundred dollars a month right there just itemizing everything and cutting out unnecessary expenses

16:51

All right. We'll do everything we'll get as involved as you need us to I even help the guy Get his home

16:58

Re -insulated and get his windows replaced because he was spending like 500 bucks a month on electricity

17:04

Because I had like resistive heating and no insulation in his house He ended up getting a tax credit on the back end for that So we'll get as involved as we need to we actually recently saved a family $8 ,000 a month because he didn't know

17:16

Where any of his money was going his wife was apparently pretty aggressive with the Amazon purchases So $8 ,000 a month right there, but we'll start with budgeting then we'll go through debt pay down We have

17:26

I wouldn't even say it's proprietary. It's just unusual for the folks who are used to Dave Ramsey We do the debt avalanche instead of the debt snowball because we're not trying to build

17:35

Psychological momentum we're trying to pay off your debt So we're gonna tackle the thing that's charging you the most interest and do it that way instead of trying to tackle the smallest balance

17:43

Right, but a debt pay down strategy debt consolidation loans if need be or if they make any sense Which 80 % of the time they don't and we'll even walk someone through the bankruptcy process if necessary Build up your savings account as well.

17:55

Make sure you have a robust emergency fund Will help you with insurance, right? I'm all of our agents are licensed insurance producers so they can handle that part pretty easy

18:03

That's a 20 -hour online course one hour standardized test. So that's an easy way to get your foot in the door And then a formal referral off to Dominion securities, right

18:13

Dominion financial planning over there And we'll get your 401ks your IRAs taken care of make sure you're investing

18:20

That particular company has been netting 15 % returns over the last five years right, so very

18:28

Solid with the investment strategy there a lot of mutual funds ETFs and tax loss harvesting and some things

18:34

I'm not totally at liberty to disclose And it will also help with the state planning, right? You actually don't have to talk to a lawyer if you go through us.

18:40

We'll make sure all the paperwork is taken care of And you'll you'll have to charge you for that But a typical lawyer costs five grand and we're working through pricing right now

18:49

But it's gonna be a heck of a lot less than that. So we do again everything burial baptism everything in between just trying to provide a

18:58

Holistic one -stop shop for all things financial for the church right providing education advice and strategy so that they can take domain it seems pretty unique because you know, you go down the

19:11

Street here to a what is it at Edward Jones or you know, someone like that? They're very they're selling a few specific products and it sounds like the ones that they are being told to kind of push they might

19:23

Not necessarily do what's best for the client. They're doing what's best for their either Commission or for their brokerage and Sounds like you get pretty involved all the way through.

19:32

I have you know, I think my personal Opinion is that is biblical but for those who are listening going maybe

19:41

I'll play devil's advocate Why is that important for the Christian to be? Financially stable maybe even generationally wealthy

19:50

One I would hear are some arguments. I hear in my mind if I'm playing devil's advocate is hey, our kingdom isn't of this world

19:57

The dispensational might go. Hey, I might not be here much longer I mean Jesus is coming back any day You know that's an eschatology argument and I've talked at length on how that eschatology and taking it to an extreme can really

20:09

Hinder the Great Commission and the preaching of the gospel But what why is in your view why is it important for a

20:16

Christian to be like I said financially stable or wealthy Yeah, cuz we're not Gnostic ascetics. All right, first and foremost, we're not

20:23

Buddhists The answer to the corrupting nature of money is not just to get rid of all your money

20:30

It's actually to be better right? It's a calling to be better So, you know a man cannot serve

20:37

God and mammon, you know, the love of wealth sure You don't love money for money's sake But I like to misquote

20:45

J .R. Tolkien here, you know, I love not the the IRA for it for its investments, but I only love what it can provide

20:52

So, you know We want to make sure that Christians are wealthy because the people who are wealthy have a lot of influence in this world

20:59

By nature, right money is the economic authority to allocate resources according to your will So the people who have it currently are mostly degenerates and they are allocating it according to their will

21:10

But really the people who should be are the ones who have the right view of reality All right. That's why we happen to work a lot with us here.

21:16

You see folks and some reform Baptists You have a right view of reality. So you should be the one who has the resources to allocate

21:24

Right, and it's not envy either. It's it's I have a objectively better view of reality

21:31

So I should be the one to have it I should be the one to have those resources so I can steward them properly

21:36

Right better me than Bill Gates 100 % of the time better me than Jeffrey Epstein a hundred percent of the time All right, so we really should have this desire to get wealth so that the people stewarding it are better people

21:49

All right, first and foremost as an argument there Secondarily wealth is built into the

21:55

Dominion mandate Right work and wealth both hands. So if you haven't read a David Bonson's full -time,

22:01

I think he does a very good exegetical argument here But essentially work was instituted pre -fall

22:07

Adam had a job to do to go expand the garden There's gold in the land of Avila. Why are gold and precious stones?

22:13

useful pre economics Because we have some proto -economic arguments even in Genesis, right?

22:21

We don't get like proper wealth or descriptions of wealth until Abraham. He had a you know gold and livestock

22:28

And and property and but we we do see the the sort of wealth being a result of good and faithful work and so if you're going to do good and faithful work in this world, which

22:39

I think every Christian has a calling to do then You're gonna end up wealthy And then you should know what to do with that wealth once you have it and the answer is not

22:47

The only good thing a Christian can do with wealth is to give it up The answer is a the best thing a

22:52

Christian can do with wealth is to multiply it as we see many times in Scripture with The good and faithful servant not bearing your talents, but actually making a return on investment

22:59

In fact Christ seemed to expect a 100 % return on investment there to the servant gave ten talents

23:05

He got ten talents back the servant gave five He got five talents back and the servant who buried his talents at least got

23:11

His talents back you put your money in the bank. You're losing three percent of your dollar per year And you're being less faithful than the one who was chastised as a wicked servant

23:21

If all you're doing is keeping your money in the bank Yeah, it also sounds like to from your perspective like you said talking about budgeting and and debt relief and things like that you know a big picture you just explained a menu mandate and things like that, but even from a

23:39

Biblical principle Kind of angle, you know if you're if you're teaching which

23:44

I think this this lacks Holy in the Greater Western Church You know just knowing how to budget and being

23:54

And adhering to that is a form of discipline and self -control which Proverbs in the

24:00

Bible commands us to have And I think far too often probably in your experiences as well and as a real estate broker

24:07

I get into people's finances as well, and I'm not disclosing anything personal, but I've looked at finances and go okay, there's a lot of lack of self -control and discipline and and And really the the biblical principles and characteristics that we are called to have right

24:23

So I think it can be a teaching moment too for believers to train Other Christians not only in financial literacy, but financial self -control financial discipline, right?

24:34

Like how to Stewart because like you just pointed out It's a biblical command to Stewart wisely and that word wisely

24:40

I think incorporates a whole lot We throw around the word wisdom and discernment very loosely. Sometimes I do too often on this podcast

24:47

I try to define it as much as I can but those are big deep expansive words that encapsulate a lot of different things when you're having

24:59

Wisdom and discernment when it comes to financial matters, so I kind of see it as twofold You're dealing with big -picture things, but it sounds like your company is also dealing with some of those

25:08

I don't wanna say minor but some of those things that go overlooked within within the church like it's it's amazing to me how many church going pew sitting

25:16

Christians are just financially illiterate and Employ horrible financial practices that are anti biblical

25:24

Antigodly in and of itself, but yet our shepherds kind of just don't talk about it too much

25:30

Not that I'm saying the church should be all about money and you know, we're not a seeker friendly Stephen Furtick Let's talk, you know financial literacy classes.

25:38

I'm not for that I'm saying I think it needs to be balanced But would you agree that you're kind of dealing with both ends of the spectrum something big -picture and also macro and micro level

25:47

Yeah, well you have to start micro. Otherwise the macro never happens Okay, so if you're faithful over a little

25:54

God will sit you over much if you can't handle your own homes personal finances What makes you think you can actively manage the investments in a 401k?

26:01

Okay, right so we need to start small let's get your budget nailed down Do you know where every single dollar is going?

26:07

Most people don't right the vast majority of clients we sit down with have never budgeted before or it's a spreadsheet that they may be

26:14

Referenced every two or three months. All right. Okay, so we usually recommend they get set up with some sort of app

26:19

That's going to do a lot of the discipline work for them I outsource it a little bit but something like rocket money or Monarch or you need a budget right rocket money is free

26:27

So we tend to recommend that or at least the free version does everything we need it to right, but like take

26:33

Take proper or count the cost and really how much money and you're bringing in and where is it going?

26:39

Are you spending less than 50 % of your money on housing? If you can all right, ideally like 27, they're 27 ish percent, but most people aren't hitting that metric not these days

26:50

But make sure that you're squeezing every dollar that you can out Because like five dollars today could be $50 by the time you retire

26:58

If you're investing it wisely if you're stewarding it correctly, it's gonna double what every seven eight years So we're really gonna want to make sure that we take

27:05

Dominion now early and start stewarding wisely as soon as possible

27:10

Again, a long -term goal for the company if every single churchman sets up an account with us and we double their money

27:17

Every seven or eight years. We're gonna have too much money now. We're gonna start funding projects like oh, yeah

27:23

Okay, every single CREC church gets a sting less window. There you go. You'll figure it out.

27:28

All right, but we want beautiful churches We want stone churches. We want yeah, we want Abortion to be lobbied out of existence in like five ten years and nobody could deny us because we have too much economic authority

27:40

We're allocating the resources accordingly and people just move And so there's a lot of work we can do here

27:48

Money seems to be one of the knobs that we can twist that we're that the church has largely ignored or has claimed is like Some evil thing and now the rich young ruler give away all your money

28:00

That way you can follow me that sort of mentality because that's that's the point of that parable Has really gotten into the church and that's why

28:08

I think she's been largely fairly culturally ineffective At the sort of retreat

28:14

ISM and defeat ISM You don't have to be post -millennial to take dominion over your finance But it does help at the very least operational as sort of a background driver

28:23

Because we we do right we have a responsibility to do well and to support

28:29

You know the what's it called human flourishing, right? Yeah, and Christians have a distinct unique Monopoly on what actually constitutes the the systems necessary for human flourishing

28:42

So we are the ones who are in charge of it so what in your estimation professional opinion, what are some of the biggest obstacles of Generational wealth for the

28:56

Christian in a secular humanist Economy because I look at it and I go this has got to be a you know

29:02

Take a you can eat an elephant a bite out of a time Type situation because you look at the corruption in the

29:09

Federal Reserve right a private Equity company running our monetary services you look at How taxes are set up and and so I mean not even unbiblical

29:21

But just just horribly not spent and collected you look at all these different monetary

29:27

Policies that are just wretched in and of themselves What are the obstacles

29:34

First and then to how do we overcome those obstacles as believers who are trying to create generational wealth and Stewart correctly?

29:41

Yeah Biggest current obstacle I see in actually cultivating generational wealth has been some really terrible advice that people treat as gospel

29:49

So those of you who are watching the video, you'll know who I mean those of you at home. You're gonna figure it out So, all right, there's been a lot of really terrible advice given in the church stuff.

30:00

That is legitimately harmful I'd say If you're trying to pull an 8 % disbursement per year out of your retirement account and you run out of money

30:07

You have one person to thank for that And I think he's cost Chris into billions billions of dollars

30:13

But okay, if we're talking zooming out from just poor financial education in the church advice, that's useful up to about step four

30:22

It's just awful Beyond that then. Yeah, I'd say the main obstacles seem to be this retreatus mentality or this

30:29

I need the thing to be perfect and if I'm gonna put my money in it Right, so I will not invest in the stock market because the stock markets corrupt

30:38

Well, if you want your money to grow at 15 % you're not gonna be able to do that at a bank Not that a banks any better right or the infinite banking strategy that seems to be really popular

30:47

You're getting like 5 or 6 percent dividends. You're gonna You're gonna cut your own legs off when you're trying to run.

30:53

It's not gonna happen All right So we need to invest wisely not not invest at all

30:59

If you want to avoid Blackrock State Street Vanguard as just moral moral principles, okay

31:04

But if Christians never take a controlling interest in those companies then surprise they're gonna do secular things

31:10

All right So I say a wise investing a careful investing and a strategized investing not just on the individual level

31:17

But on the group level if we can take enough of a controlling interest, that's Blackrock's whole deal. They're investing other people's money

31:24

They're really only in the game taking a small assets under management fee in order to have control over those companies

31:30

Now if the Christians did that surprise it wouldn't be DEI there'd be like the reverse where okay, okay

31:38

You're not gonna have this this or this in your company anymore because those are directly going against God's commandments

31:44

You're gonna be a more moral company because Christians are now running the show, right? so long term

31:51

I'd say we just need to be thinking more long -term if you if you're if Your ability to think long -term is only about seven years long because the world's gonna end in seven years

32:00

You're not going to accomplish much not not really and it's gonna be seriously truncated

32:05

MacArthur has accomplished a lot despite his eschatology But it's not because of it

32:13

Sort of acting in spite of it, right? So goodness, there is a lot in that question a lot to cover.

32:20

Yeah Interject as you shift there too, I would say most of the time when

32:25

I've met I know we keep saying the word dispensational But that that theology that for the last hundred and fifty years in America has really taken over the eschatology system in most

32:36

Christians because of you know a Kirk Cameron movie or set of movies have developed this crazy notion of eschatology of dispensationalism and kind of rapture theology

32:47

I find that when I talk to most of them It's kind of an excuse not to have discipline and self -control and and become financially littered.

32:55

It's like well I'm gonna be out of here soon Anyway, so I can just keep doing the things that I do that aren't working when in fact kind of you know

33:03

What's what's really the risk verse reward there? Let's say you are and you're going I'm waiting for the return of Christ It's intimate.

33:10

I think it's going to be in the next decade Well, what what is the downturn of working towards something generational even if it ends in ten years?

33:18

There's really only upside at the very least what happens is Christ's triumphant return

33:24

I mean, that's the what that's the downside. So I found it in my own life, you know I can rationalize just about anything

33:31

I can rationalize purchases not being financially literate and and I found that it's almost a rationalization for not being financially literate for not

33:41

You know going out and fulfilling the Great Commission for not preaching the gospel for we're not doing a lot of things

33:47

We're not getting involved in politics. We're not getting involved in legislative things Hey, I'm just gonna put my head in the sand God's gonna be here any second

33:54

Not that I wanted to make this a whole eschatology episode, but I found that you can use just about anything in your life

34:01

To make an excuse not to do a little hard work and and you know Really reap what you start sowing so you can reap.

34:08

Does that make sense? Yeah Yeah, you've hit the nail on the head the the I used to run a page called epistemologically charged truths for theologically inclined youths back in the day and Oh, it's glory

34:21

So in my experience there I did come to the solid conclusion that man is not primarily a rational creature

34:28

He's an emotional creature that likes to think he's rational So the decisions you make almost always are based on some desire some some component of desire not on pure logos

34:39

It's almost always pathos if we're gonna get in the rhetoric So yeah, I'd say a lot of people are using the dispensationalist mindset as an excuse not to do good work because the commands of God don't allow the things that they're using as an

34:55

Behaviors that they're excusing right? We are still called to be good stewards. We are still called to be faithful We are still called to set up our an inheritance for our children and our children's children

35:05

Right. Those are those are godly commands that are given explicitly so for someone to ignore them or to deny them

35:12

Because you know why polish brass on a sinking ship? It's just directly contradictory

35:19

Right. I think an eschatology that supports a more Let's say agreeable Mentality to that sort of long -term planning is good, but it's also gonna be some sort of excuse

35:30

It's also it's not directly correlatable the people who want to do good work do good work regardless of eschatology

35:36

People want an excuse will have an excuse regardless of eschatology and there are lazy post mills, right?

35:42

Because yeah, well our plans are measured in centuries. I can I can wait around it's gonna happen eventually

35:48

All right. So the more important thing for me eschatology is a supporting character in your

35:55

Excuses or lack thereof you still need to make the things happen, right? You still need to make the ultimate decision on what you're going to do with your life your resources your money

36:05

Okay, so what are some pragmatic things as we wrap this up here that people can do yeah Like what are some real -world?

36:11

Steps if they were coming to you or talking to you or they want to click on the link below where you'll be linked up To check out your company like what are some real things that they could do?

36:20

Yeah, of course. I am inclined to say meet with us. That's sort of our whole Shtick is to try to help you find out exactly what that looks like for you.

36:29

Specifically. We do not give blanket advice. So The blanket advice I have or I could give is gonna be to the lowest common denominator

36:37

Which means most people is bad advice So I'd say like if you have a debt, that's four point five percent or less

36:44

Don't prioritize paying it off because you can invest in T bills Put your money on the government and make four and a half percent so that there's easily arbitrageable debts

36:53

You should not pay off I'd say six percent is a good line for most people maybe eight or nine percent if you're really into private equity and venture capital

37:00

Right, but pay off your debts Build up an emergency fund maybe one month's to start then pay off your debts above your risk tolerance rate and then back to your emergency fund three to four months three to six

37:12

You should get your life insurance in order make sure that you're worth about as much debt as you are alive That way you're taking care of your wife and kids, right?

37:19

Even if you're not there to actually provide but that's just you're not tempting God by doing that either It's just shrewd business planning

37:25

So you want to make sure you cover like all of your debts ten years worth of your income the remaining balance on your mortgage Although that may be an arbitrage but that your wife would want you to not necessarily pay off or she doesn't have to Make sure you you're covering your kids education expenses.

37:39

You're putting them through private school ten grand a year You should probably provide that your wife can continue to do that for your kids

37:44

All right, something happens to you and your kids make sure that the guardian of your kids is also financially literate

37:50

All right, there's there's a lot of practical steps in fact I'd say every single one of our six steps is a practical one where Some people aren't quite ready to cross certain bridges if they don't have a thousand dollars a month in discretionary income

38:02

There's a lot of financial planning. We don't do Because it's too complicated for their given situation.

38:07

We're not gonna you know cut The ten dollars they truly have to actually invest in half and split it up.

38:14

That's not worth our time or theirs So there's as far as practical steps. Yeah set a meeting with us

38:20

Introductory overview first so we can get to know you and your unique situation Maybe we'll go for data collection during that meeting

38:25

Maybe a later meeting depending on how complicated your situation is And then let us do a full financial workup for you.

38:31

Every meeting we have is free all right, we get paid on the back end as those of you who are in real estate know seller pays closing costs and the seller in this case is the 58 different companies 90 93 not necessarily since the

38:43

National Association realtor settlement on August 17 It's a little different now, but yeah pretty much up for poor

38:49

Zillow. It's terrible. Yeah, but in either case All right seller generally pays closing costs. It does still work that way in our industry

38:56

So you're not gonna pay us a dime unless you opt into like business consulting Or estate planning or a few things that we will recommend when you're ready to cross that bridge

39:05

But basically it's all gonna be free education advice and strategy from a distinctly reformed perspective Basically just taking

39:11

Gary Norris books and applying them to applying it applying them today

39:16

Because I think Gary Norris great for the 90s not so good for today So that's essentially what we're doing long and short of it

39:23

So we'd be happy to have you as clients or again, you don't have to stick around We'd be happy to meet with you once a year

39:29

We'd be happy just to build you a plan once if that's all you need So we'll meet you where you're at and do as much as you're willing to let us do

39:36

Yeah, no, you know that I asked that question It was kind of a trick question because I want to see how you answered it

39:42

You didn't know it was a trick question. But because I get that question a lot in real estate What do I need to do to invest in this or purchase that or sell that and I usually come back with well

39:51

It's not a blanket statement I can't just give you there might be two or three basic things that every single person has to do

39:57

But every situation is different and you can't give blanket advice on very specific Transactions, you know, no, no two properties are the same in my industry.

40:06

I'm sure no two financial Transactions are the same in yours. So I was happy to hear you Answer it that way you kind of passed a secret test for me in my mind

40:16

But I think we're tracking on a lot of the same things what I don't get and let me just get your Opinion on this before I let you go because I grew up in a household and God bless my father

40:26

You know Christian household read a Proverbs a day. There's 31 Proverbs 31, you know days in a month and most of them and Reading through Proverbs.

40:36

He was a no -debt guy I mean, he was the original Dave Ramsey before Dave Ramsey. Okay, and everything was in cash.

40:44

No credit cards Don't go into debt but 50 % of your earnings in the bank, right and he quoted

40:50

Proverbs a lot The the lender is slick or the borrower slave to the lender, right? And as I got older,

40:56

I realized well Proverbs Isn't necessarily a book of rules. It's a book of warnings because the world is convoluted and there's lots of different situations and Solomon is warning you look at if you borrow money just know that you will have

41:10

Responsibilities to that lender right and we have to realize that right? Yeah, and now even being alive in the last 15 years

41:20

I blew it blows my mind how popular date guys like date No debt guys like Dave Ramsey almost no debt to your detriment

41:28

Dave Ramsey guys Can still become popular when we were basically able to borrow money for almost free

41:35

For two or one or two or three percent in some cases now that rate has jumped in the last year and a half

41:40

And for those of you that are not either in financial or real estate industry We might get a little geeky here on you with me and Josiah But just hold on for a minute to where there were times where I could absolutely

41:51

Borrow money to flip something for a very short term to make much much more money

41:57

In real estate and I would be happy to take on that Debt for a limited amount of time knowing full

42:05

Well what my responsibility is that lender and what I would have to do to pay off that debt But also going how are these guys that are saying, you know

42:13

You can't spend 74 cents on two gumballs because you can't go in debt and you're going but I can leverage debt

42:19

In realist now real estate is my realm. So that's why I'm talking about that I'm sure you have some other realms that you're expert in that.

42:26

I'm not but in my realm. I know real estate I've been doing it 15 years. I have helped people make millions of dollars on their investments

42:33

So I'm comfortable in that right I can use temporary debt for those things. Yes I know

42:38

I have a responsibility lenders proverb says but Proverbs also says, you know, the wise man leaves a

42:44

Inheritance to not only his children, but his children's children So so I'm I'm thinking we're tracking on the same page and for the listeners out there, too

42:53

To where we look at as money like any like a tool and we steward it wisely, correct?

42:59

Is that kind of what I'm gathering from this to where there might be times if it's correct for the right client to possibly take on debt to use it to Create revenue.

43:10

I'm thinking you you know, you're not in that Dave Ramsey school You're a little more open -minded with using money as a tool if it makes sense, correct?

43:17

right and The proverb the borrowers the slave to the lender that's a

43:24

Doulas kind of situation Kaiser doulas. So it's you now work for him there's a portion of your labor that is going to be repaying that debt you now work for the guy because It's not slavery in the

43:34

American sense at all. So I get it Anytime you say slave in in an

43:40

American context people. Oh, no, that's awful Like no, you're an indentured servant to the lender because now a portion of your earnings are going to be going toward that debt

43:48

He's making a profit off of you All right and I think anything less than 3 % is actually predatory in a lot of senses because you're not even keeping up with inflation so you're

43:55

Actually being predatory against the government if you're not keeping up not that's necessarily a bad thing.

44:01

You could be a little Little bit of a rebel and charge the government's money But in general wealth is absolutely a tool effect wealth in scripture is described almost exclusively in precious metals precious stones livestock and property

44:16

So if you're gonna leave an inheritance to your children, it better be something tangible Not just a bunch of accounts, right?

44:23

You should be leaving a house, but maybe in a trust So there's no taxable transaction as that happens

44:29

As I'm sure you could tell them a little bit more about but yeah money money is absolutely a tool and we shouldn't fear debt

44:36

We should fear usury and usury in my eyes is anything over probably about six or seven percent right where it's

44:43

The the lender in that case is using you as an investment and they are they're pulling a compound interest on that investment

44:50

You should pull compound interest on things that are actually productive People if you're treating them as productive is slavery in a very real sense

45:00

Man, don't get me started. You're gonna get me started on income taxes and economic slavery here On that road

45:10

Work within the system as we work to improve it but a Christian government a theonomic government would not have an income tax

45:17

So put that in your payment That's right. And I will as a good reformed Presbyterian.

45:22

I have a wall of pipes in the other room. So Shout out to your social medias your website

45:27

I'll link up everything below But if people want to get in contact with your company or just you follow what you're doing, where can they find you man?

45:33

Oh, yeah, so Dominion wall strategists on Facebook. That's again kind of a mean page at this point cuz that's my background

45:40

That's what I'm good at. So marketing via memes and I Facebook seems to be the most engaging right?

45:46

We are also on X We're also on Instagram. Please follow us on Instagram. You'd be one of like 50 people to do so X as well

45:53

I'm trying to get into it LinkedIn, right? We're on basically all the major social media sites. Just not gab me We you know parlor not there yet because there's not enough people, right?

46:02

But Facebook will be the best you can head to our website Dominion wealth strategist comm or our redirects which is reformed dot money

46:09

Which I'm surprised was available, but in a very real sense. I'm not terribly surprised that was available We do need to get a little bit better in the culture at taking to being over our finances

46:18

So those are where you can find us or you know, if you want to follow me personally on Facebook for some reason My profile is public.

46:24

So Josiah Stowe, it's me. You're gonna get weird stuff. It's not gonna be finance related most of the time

46:30

That's what this is for. All right, but happy to have you have a follow along for some good education advice and strategy from a distinctly reformed perspective

46:38

Cool Josiah, it's so great to sit down and talk with you. Thank you for your time today. Likewise. You take care Awesome guys.

46:45

Thanks so much for listening to another episode of dead man walking podcast as always You can find out more about DMW podcast comm that's where you can go to Support the show.

46:53

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46:58

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47:06

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47:17

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47:24

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47:32

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