loader from loading.io

Does a Church Salary Always Corrupt Pastors? (This Guy Says Yes)

SeedTime with Bob and Linda Lotich

Release Date: 02/27/2026

7 Biblical money principles most Christians never hear (but should) show art 7 Biblical money principles most Christians never hear (but should)

SeedTime with Bob and Linda Lotich

Most Christians have heard the money advice about tithing and getting out of debt. But there are money principles in the Bible almost nobody teaches. And often times they are the ones that change everything for us!!! So in this episode Linda and I walk through 7 biblical money principles most Christians never hear. They come straight out of Scripture, a lot of it from Proverbs. Just so we are clear, these are not just financial tips. This is an architecture for a financially strong life that honors God. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love to send you a free copy of our book. You just cover...

info_outline
Lisa Bevere on Marriage, Money, and Why Men and Women Were Never Meant to Be Enemies show art Lisa Bevere on Marriage, Money, and Why Men and Women Were Never Meant to Be Enemies

SeedTime with Bob and Linda Lotich

She paid cash to deliver two of her babies. She had no insurance and almost no money. So Lisa Bevere did it using the stock market. That is just one of the wild stories she told us. Today, Lisa and her husband John have given away more than 60 million books in over 150 languages. But they started out broke, praying about whether they could afford a fax machine. In this episode, Lisa sits down with Linda and me to talk about marriage, money, and faith. She shares the moment in the shower that changed her marriage forever. We talk about why men and women were never meant to be enemies. She...

info_outline
5 Biblical Investing Secrets Most Christians Have Completely Missed show art 5 Biblical Investing Secrets Most Christians Have Completely Missed

SeedTime with Bob and Linda Lotich

>>> First, grab the guide I told you about in this episode: A few years ago we sold off some Tesla stock to pay off our second house. If you run the math on what that stock would be worth now, the result is honestly brutal. But I felt the Lord tell me clearly to do it. And looking back, I think I see exactly why He said what He said. In this episode Linda and I walk through five biblical investing secrets most Christians have completely missed: the verse Solomon wrote down 3,000 years before a man named Harry Markowitz won a Nobel Prize for the same idea, why God rebuked a servant in...

info_outline
The Prayer That Paid Off Our Mortgage show art The Prayer That Paid Off Our Mortgage

SeedTime with Bob and Linda Lotich

Grab our brand new prayer book here: The first time I prayed a prayer I thought might be selfish, I was 20 years old and brand new in my faith. God said yes. I spent the next seven months refusing to accept the answer because I could not believe He had actually said it. Years later I prayed a different prayer, this one about our mortgage. The answer came back in a way I never would have written. Ten months later the mortgage was gone. In this episode Linda and I get into the four reasons most Christians do not pray about money (and why all four are wrong), the five categories of prayer most...

info_outline
What We Actually Believe About Tithing (After 15 Years of Avoiding This) show art What We Actually Believe About Tithing (After 15 Years of Avoiding This)

SeedTime with Bob and Linda Lotich

The first time I ever heard the word tithing, I watched a guest preacher publicly shame two guys at the altar of a small Florida church for not doing it consistently. They walked back to their seats with their heads down. I never forgot it. Linda has a different shame story — quiet, private, ten years long, all over a single tithe she felt led to give to friends going on a mission trip instead of her local church. Two completely different shame stories, same root system. Both deadly to generosity. In this episode, we finally do the conversation we've sidestepped for almost two decades. We...

info_outline
We Let a Church Ask Us Anything About Money (Here's What They Actually Wanted to Know) show art We Let a Church Ask Us Anything About Money (Here's What They Actually Wanted to Know)

SeedTime with Bob and Linda Lotich

Mike Tyson made $400 million and ended up $23 million in debt. A janitor named Ronald Reed made minimum wage his whole career and left $8 million to charity. The difference had nothing to do with income — and everything to do with one rule. That's where this conversation starts. Linda and I were guests at a church for their "Money Talks" series and the questions were so good we wanted to bring this to the podcast. We walk through the John Wesley framework we based our whole book on (make all you can, save all you can, give all you can — and enjoy it), the one number that tells you whether...

info_outline
Matt Chandler: I Won't Even Let Billionaires Bless Me (Here's Why) show art Matt Chandler: I Won't Even Let Billionaires Bless Me (Here's Why)

SeedTime with Bob and Linda Lotich

Matt Chandler has been in the room with actual billionaires on multiple occasions — and the way he describes what happens to people who have everything almost everyone else is chasing isn't what most of us would expect. He told us he won't even let some of them bless him. And after 23 years pastoring one of the most affluent suburbs in America, he's seen exactly what the chase actually does to families. In this conversation, we get into a question Matt says nobody has asked him: what he's actually watched wealth do to people up close. We talk about the upgrade cycle most Christian families...

info_outline
THIS is how we gave $1 Million show art THIS is how we gave $1 Million

SeedTime with Bob and Linda Lotich

We are opening up our Mission Driven Millionaire Cohort to 15 people and we are enrolling now until spots fill up. Get details and apply here: Also, this is an episode you might just want to watch (you know, with your eyeballs lol) for it to make the most sense. And you can . I have coached people pulling in 250,000 a year who are completely broke. No margin, no savings, no clue where any of it went. And I have sat with families bringing in 40,000 who quietly become millionaires. It is not income. It is not pinching pennies. There is one specific thing that decides which side of that line you...

info_outline
The 4 Stages of Money (And Why Most People Get Stuck in Stage 2) show art The 4 Stages of Money (And Why Most People Get Stuck in Stage 2)

SeedTime with Bob and Linda Lotich

37% of people making $250,000 a year are living paycheck to paycheck right now. Which means the thing keeping most of us stuck financially has almost nothing to do with how much we make. Linda and I have coached people pulling in $250k who are dead broke. We've watched a $20,000 raise get absorbed by lifestyle inside six months and leave them exactly where they started. The problem isn't income. The problem is that most of us are working hard on the wrong math problem. In this episode we walk through the four stages of money (surviving, stable, secure, and surplus) and the one mistake almost...

info_outline
The 17 Investments I Actually Own (Full Portfolio Reveal) show art The 17 Investments I Actually Own (Full Portfolio Reveal)

SeedTime with Bob and Linda Lotich

In this episode I walk through our entire 2026 investment portfolio: every account, every position, and exactly what I'm doing with our money. That includes a full update on gold (which has nearly doubled but I genuinely don't care), where we stand with Bitcoin at $65k, why I moved Linda's Roth IRA into a fixed indexed annuity after spending my whole career skeptical of them, our real estate split between Fundrise and Roots, the Tesla concentration problem in our stock portfolio, and what happened when I ran an app that automatically copies Nancy Pelosi's trades for 8 months — including the...

info_outline
 
More Episodes
A viral clip claims something shocking: any pastor who gets paid by a church will eventually be corrupted by money.
 
It’s a bold accusation — and honestly, harder to dismiss than you might think.
 
In this episode, Bob and Linda watch the clip, slow it down, and wrestle with the real tension underneath the claim. Is the modern church system broken? Does money inevitably compromise spiritual leadership? Or is this another example of painting faithful people with too broad a brush?
 
This conversation isn’t defensive or dismissive. It’s thoughtful, biblical, and honest — especially for anyone who’s experienced church hurt, wrestled with money in ministry, or wondered how pastors are actually supposed to live.
 
 
In this episode, we discuss:
  • The viral argument that “no pastor escapes being corrupted by church money”
  • Why temptation does not equal sin — for pastors or anyone else
  • How this logic breaks down when applied to everyday work and income
  • Why most pastors are not in ministry for the money (and the real stats behind pastor burnout)
  • The unseen pressures pastors carry — isolation, expectations, and spiritual attack
  • What the Bible actually says about paying those who preach the Gospel
  • Paul’s tent-making example — and what it does (and doesn’t) prove
  • Why rest, Sabbath, and sabbaticals may be more of the solution than changing pay structures
  • How church hurt can quietly turn into distrust of God if we’re not careful
  • What it looks like to give pastors grace without excusing real abuse
 
Key Scriptures referenced (NLT):
  • “The Lord has commanded that those who preach the Good News should be supported by those who benefit from it.” — 1 Corinthians 9:14
  • “Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money.” — 1 Timothy 6:17
  • “You cannot serve both God and money.” — Matthew 6:24
 
A key takeaway:
Money creates tension — but tension doesn’t automatically lead to corruption. The real danger comes from isolation, burnout, lack of accountability, and forgetting how deeply human our pastors actually are.
 
If you’ve ever wondered whether the church can handle money faithfully — or whether pastors can be trusted at all — this episode offers a more hopeful, biblically grounded way forward.
 
 
If this episode encouraged or challenged you, share it with someone who loves the Church but struggles with trust.
 
And if you’re a pastor listening: you are not alone, you are not invisible, and you are not wrong for receiving support as you serve God’s people.
 
 

Watch this episode on our SeedTime Money Podcast YouTube channel (https://youtu.be/lXTSQrNK9wE)!

If you haven’t checked out our best-selling book Simple Money, Rich Life (https://seedtime.com/smrl/), we think you’ll love it. It was named the 2022 Book of the Year by ICFH and has over 1,000 5-star reviews on Amazon, and is best described as “a money book for people who don’t read money books.” 

You can take it for a test drive for FREE at https://SeedTime.com/sample where you can download chapter 1 of the audiobook, grab the 1st 2 chapters of the ebook version, and even get the 5-week book study companion guide.