Are there Christian Entrepreneurs in the Bible?

Summary

In this episode of the Faithful Agent Podcast, Garrett explores the concept of Christian entrepreneurship through the lens of biblical figures, particularly focusing on Abraham. He discusses the qualities that made Abraham a successful entrepreneur, such as wealth accumulation, strategic land management, negotiation skills, and resilience. The conversation emphasizes the importance of striving for excellence in business while aligning with Christian values and teachings.

Takeaways

Christian entrepreneurship is a relevant topic today.
Abraham serves as a model for modern entrepreneurs.
Wealth accumulation can be a godly pursuit.
Strategic land management is essential for success.
Negotiation skills are crucial in business dealings.
Investing in future generations is a key principle.
Building relationships can open doors for opportunities.
Resilience helps navigate challenges in entrepreneurship.
Striving for excellence honors God in our work.
As entrepreneurs, we are called to steward our resources wisely.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Christian Entrepreneurship
03:41 Biblical Examples of Entrepreneurs
09:11 Abraham: A Model Entrepreneur
17:01 Key Qualities of Successful Entrepreneurs
28:19 Conclusion: Striving for Excellence in Entrepreneurship

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Transcript

0:01

What's up, agents? Welcome back to another episode of the Faithful Agent Podcast. Today, we're going to have an interesting conversation about are there Christian entrepreneurs in the Bible? One of the interesting pieces of our homeschool journey so far this year has been we've got four kiddos, seven, five, three, and one. We do a co -op at our church. When I say we, let's be honest, my wife does the vast majority of all of it. I pitch in and give my opinion every now and then, but my wife, who's amazing, she handles all of the homeschooling and the preparation and all of those things. Well, in co -op, which is just a group of other moms getting together to teach classes to each other's children, my wife is teaching about entrepreneurship, which is awesome. And I'm super proud of her. And so my kids are learning about entrepreneurship. Well, it came to an interesting question that my wife asked my kids the other night at dinner. were their entrepreneurs in the Bible. And I thought that was an interesting discussion. So we're going to dive into Abraham today and how Abraham was a entrepreneur in scripture and how that can teach us and inform us in how we run our business. So before we do that, a quick reminder, the conference is coming up. It is literally next week, y 'all. And if you can make it, if you are anywhere close and you can come, you should come. faithfulagent .com backslash conference. will be a gift and a blessing to you. I promise you that. Not because I'll be there by any means. Despite me being there, you will be surrounded by brothers and sisters in Christ who know your heart and your work. And I know I say that all the time, but it is so unique and I hope you all will come. We're gonna have incredible. conversations, we're going to have two different pastors give keynotes, we're going to have amazing breakout sessions, we're going to talk about faith and work and how we bring those two together, we're going to talk about stewardship of time, talent, resources, all of those things, we're going to dive into tactical lead generation as well, but more than anything we're just going to fellowship. And there's just something so special about that being with other Christian agents. And so I hope that you all will join us, faithfulagent .com backslash. conference. right, so let me give you before we jump in a Christian chat GPT joke about entrepreneurs. Why did the Christian entrepreneur excel at business? Because they always had strong profits. This is pretty funny. Actually, you think about profit from the Bible, right? PH not F. all right maybe not okay well i'm thinking about it and trying to see how i can make it funnier and i can't but it's still good so you know what guys give me some grace because i've seen it i've scoured literally the entire internet i mean there is not a page but i have not seen obviously scouring the funniest christian jokes that exist if they're just aren't that many and so i had to turn to the artificial intelligence and say Dude, give me a joke and he's terrible at it. He, she, whatever is terrible at Christian jokes, but in the Lord's kindness, we will make him better. We will make chat GPT better. All right. That's a weird introduction. So let's talk about Abraham. Now there's multiple examples of entrepreneurs in scripture, right? the proverbs 31 woman is an entrepreneur. selling goods, doing those things. You see Lydia in the New Testament who is selling, believe it's these beautiful purple fine linens, right, selling and turning a profit. You see different examples. Paul is a tent maker so that he doesn't put a burden on any of the people that he's coming to minister to. He's creating his own money. And if you think about it, reality is most people in biblical days had to have some entrepreneurial skill set. Right now, of course, some went and worked for others, but many times they were creating their own goods and they were bartering or trading or selling them so that they could go buy other goods. wasn't necessarily that they had this massive business and other people were working for them, though that certainly happened as well. But they had a skill set, right? And they had to use that skill set to create income. for the sake of their family. Even the parable of the talents, right, that Jesus shares, the guy who is the landowner, he's the landowner, he's the business owner, right? He's the one that decides what people get paid in the work that is required of them. So, you see this quite often in Scripture, is this example of a godly entrepreneur, and for us, we want to follow in that example as well, right? If we're going to be entrepreneurial, which we are, We want to follow the example of godly entrepreneurs and seek to be excellent in all the things that we do. I think it's really easy for us as believers. I know it has been for me to assume that because we're believers, because we're followers of Jesus, that we should just get business or we should just get the things that we want or it should just work or whatever, you know, fill in the blank instead of saying, hey, Lord, what have you called me to do? And what have you called me to be? And whenever he's called us to be, we should try to be excellent in those things. Right? Scripture is very clear that we put forth effort that we work hardily as if for the Lord, not for man. And so we should work hard. We should strive for excellence in every area of life, which admittedly I don't, right? Striving for excellence, consistently, excuse me, is difficult and it's exhausting. and we often just seek what is the easiest, least resistant path because we want comfort, we're tired, we want whatever it is. And so, as believers, as entrepreneurs, as business owners, the Lord has granted us ambition and the Lord has granted us kindness to allow us to be in business. And now we need to be excellent in those things. So what kind of skill sets are required and do we see biblical examples of what an entrepreneur is? Because at the end of the day, my hope is that as a community, we start to ask more questions. And it begins with what does the Bible say about whatever? What does the Bible say about real estate? What does the Bible say about money? What does the Bible say about being an entrepreneur? What does the Bible say about marriage? What does the Bible say about parenting? What does the Bible say about singleness? What does the Bible say about using my time? Whatever it is, fill in the blank. But that we get in the habit of saying, What does the Bible say about X? And we seek scripture first to understand what does it teach and does it specifically give us guidance on the topic that we're seeking? It's true, right? So here's a truth. Everything in scripture is true, but not all truth is in scripture. Everything in scripture is true. Every word in the scriptures are true, right? These are God breathed. words, but every truth that exists in nature is not written down in Scripture. What do I mean? The chemical formula of lead is not written down in Scripture. It doesn't mean it's not true, it's just not written in there, right? But everything inside of Scripture is accurate. So what does that mean? That means we need to, sometimes, as we're seeking out what does the Bible say, sometimes it doesn't flat out say, right? Or there's no comment about it or whatever it is, and so we have to use wisdom and discernment of the rest of Scripture, the totality of Scripture, and seek to say, does it give me guidance in this area? Or go seek out elders and wiser brothers and sisters in Christ who you can say, give me guidance here, right? The Spirit is leading you as He is leading me, and I seek discernment in these areas. But sometimes the Bible doesn't specifically say something about an area in our world that the Lord created that you know that it's written down as specifically in scripture sometimes it doesn't say anything but everything in scripture is true so if you ever come to a point where what you've read in scripture disagrees with what you believe to be true well i got a news flash for you you're wrong because scripture is true everything in scripture is true and even if it disagrees with how you feel you're wrong about it and we have to submit to what is biblical and accurate so As a community, we've got to get to the point of saying, what does the Bible say about X and seek that out? And if it's not a total picture, then we get to start having discernment and wisdom and talking to people and fellowship and all those pieces and say, OK, what do we believe then is the right approach to this? Right? Because scripture doesn't plainly lay it out. Now, in our context, as we talk about how do we be biblical entrepreneurs, we can see examples. of biblical entrepreneurs, as I mentioned earlier. Well, I want to talk about the life of Abraham and why Abraham was an entrepreneur and not only an entrepreneur, he was a very successful entrepreneur. So first, let's just go through a list of some of these aspects of Abraham as an entrepreneur. So first, he was an entrepreneur for several reasons. Number one, wealth accumulation. Abraham was a wealthy man. He owned livestock. He had servants, had land, and his wealth was a result of his successful management of resources and relationships. Right? It shows he had this ability to build and grow assets. In Genesis chapter 13, verse two, it said Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and in gold. This is an example of Abraham being able to accumulate wealth and being excellent in it. Right? As entrepreneurs, we have this opportunity to actually generate more income than maybe we would have at a W -2 job. We have this opportunity to create wealth and accumulate wealth by our skill set, right? Building and growing assets, being successful in resources and relationships. So having these skill sets allowed Abraham to become a wealthy man. Now this is a good godly man, right, that the Lord made the Abrahamic covenant. He covenanted with Abraham. He chose Abraham. So being wealthy and being an entrepreneur doesn't mean that we are in sin and this is some wicked thing, right? Of course, you can be poor and in sin, you can be wealthy and in sin, right? It's not about the money. It's about the heart condition. And so here's Abraham showing an example of being a successful entrepreneur led to wealth creation. Number two, he had strategic land management. Abraham lived in, when he got to Canaan, he moved strategically between the regions. ended up settling in places that were favorable for grazing and in trade. He ultimately decided to separate from lot because he wanted to avoid conflict over resources. And he was just using good business judgment in that, right? He didn't want to have conflict. He wanted to live specifically and strategically in areas that were going to help him in his business. He was strategic in land management. Now Genesis 13 verse five to seven says, Now Lot, who is moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, but the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. So here's Abraham again. And as a reminder, he's called Abram, Lord grants the covenant, and then he becomes Abraham. So we're talking about the same person here, even if you hear a different name. But Abraham is being wise in where he situates his business, even how he deals with other people. He's dealing with Lot in a wise way because he knows that in order to have good judgment and business judgment, they can't conflict over the resources that exist in one particular area. They're too big for them to both go into the same space. So Abraham wisely says, let's go in a different direction from one another. Right? So here he is using his wisdom in land management to both serve his family and serve Lot in the same way. Okay, number three, and then we're going to parse these out a little bit. Number three, his negotiation skills. Abraham negotiated in Genesis 23 with local leaders for land purchases. So Genesis 23, three through 16. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but. it really goes to the local leaders for land purchases as seen when he buys the cave of macpala if i hit pronounce that right buys his case for a burial site and it required negotiation skills in an understanding of property value go read genesis twenty three three three sixteen this passage details abraham negotiating with f from the hit tight for the purchase of this case initials his negotiation skills and his understanding of value so we had these skill sets where he was going to utilize negotiation to get the best deal and value for this piece of land. He was negotiating. Do we do that? All the time we negotiate in our, not only our business, but also our lives. he had negotiation skills. Number four, he was investing in future generations. Abraham's decisions didn't just bring immediate benefit for him. They were also aimed at securing a future for his descendants. His covenant with God included promises of land and a great nation, and they reflected a long -term vision similar to modern entrepreneurial thinking. So in Genesis 17, verses four to five, he says, for me, or excuse me, the Lord says, as for me, this is my covenant with you, speaking to Abraham. You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram. Your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. So Abraham, by the Lord's decree is being called to think for future generations, not just the immediate term. He was aiming for what would benefit his generations to come. And he was thinking long term, not short term only. We'll come back to that. Number five, there's only six. Number five, building relationships. Abraham built alliances. he maintained relationships with neighboring tribes and kings which was essential for him is essential to any entrepreneur right he you gotta have good relationships you've got a being in good relationship work hopefully no one listening to this is potentially at war with their neighbor king i i can't imagine that's true but if it is then i'd like to know about that because that's really interesting and i'd like to hear more but he's building alliances and he's maintaining these relationships with these tribes in the king and his connections were helping him navigate the challenges and create opportunities for him. Right. In Genesis 14 verses 13 to 24, again, a long passage, go check it out. it describes Abraham's alliance with allies like Mamor and his negotiation with Mkezeldeck. And it talked about and highlighted his ability to build and maintain maintain relationships. So Abraham was skilled with relationships. And finally, number six, his resilience and his adaptability. Throughout his journey, Abraham faced numerous challenges, including famine and conflicts, but his ability to adapt and make decisions in uncertain situations showcased his entrepreneurial resilience. In Genesis 12 versus 10, it says, there was a famine in the land and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. He was adapting in times of crisis. He moved his entire family because there was. famine in the land. We're going go through each one of these briefly and talk about how they can apply to our lives as well. But I want you to study that if you ever wonder, is there biblical example of an entrepreneur? Well, there many, but Abraham is certainly one of them and the way that he approaches it, right? And I love this story of Abraham and thinking about him from an entrepreneur's perspective, because it's really easy for us, again, I think to fall into this trap, fall into this idea of I could be less than excellent. solely because I claim the name of Christ, I can be less than excellent and the Lord should still bless my business. Now, this is an example of Abraham who the Lord made a covenant with this man. He made a covenant with this man, right? He's not making Abrahamic covenants with you and me. He's not saying all of your generations will be blessed, right? He made that with Abraham. Here's this man who has this covenant with the Lord and yet he is striving to be excellent as an entrepreneur. He's striving to be excellent in what the Lord has placed in front of him. And one of the ways the generations are blessed because of Abraham is his excellence. Now, let's be honest, it ultimately is because of Christ that they receive this blessing. But the point is he is excellent just because the Lord has granted this amazing promise to him, right? That Christ will come and save the generations to come. doesn't mean that Abraham says, okay, cool, I'm just going to go chill now and not be good at what I do. He still takes the opportunity in front of him and he becomes excellent at that work. What a great example for us that we go and be excellent as he is excellent. So let's run through these six very quickly. So wealth accumulation, number one, again, he was very, very good at accumulating wealth. Scripture says he had become very wealthy in livestock and silver and gold. One of the struggles that we have, I believe, as Christians, is that we tend to either, again, we grew up with a confused idea of money, we either tend to say that money is wicked and evil and bad, or we tend to love money way too much and think that money is the outlet for our comfort. Money is what's going to provide all of these things for us. And none of that is true. Neither of those are true. Right? What is true is the Lord is your provider. What is also true is it's good for you to strive to be excellent and accumulate wealth, right? Not in a shady way, but in a way that honors and glorifies the Lord because you are being excellent. Therefore, it leads to sometimes a lot of times it leads to you making more money and accumulating more wealth and building and growing assets is something that we have to take seriously and say. The money that we have been given, right? We are stewards of the resources that the Lord has given us. It's not my money. It's not your money. It is the Lord's money that we are called to steward. Most of us, myself included so many times, do not take that stewardship seriously. When was the last time that you actually sat down to really try to understand how money works or how to turn your active income into semi passive or passive income so that you could grow your wealth? How often do we just give it to a financial advisor, never know what's going on and just say, I hope you don't screw this up. hope you do a good job with it. Whatever. And I'm not saying going to a financial advisor in and of itself is bad. Don't hear me say that. What I am saying is how often do we just say you deal with it? I don't need to learn about it, right? That's not stewardship. That's us saying I'm not even going to learn. I'm just going to pass it off and let you deal with it, right? Let you steward it again. More to talk about there, but he was diligent in accumulating wealth. He was learning these skillsets for himself. Okay. He had strategic land. management. Now we all as real estate agents like, he bought land. I wish I was his real estate agent. That's not what happened. And that's not what we're talking about here. But the point was Abraham was good and wise and understanding resources and understanding good business judgment. He was putting himself strategically in places that were going to help his business grow. Now for us, that doesn't necessarily mean that we are farmers and that we are positioning our business in the right fertile land. That's not what we do, right? Most of us listening to this podcast. But what does that mean for us? Well, maybe the fertile land we need to position ourselves in is at the Faithful Agent Conference, right? Shameless plug. Maybe it's being surrounded by other Christian business owners. Maybe it's listening to a good podcast. Maybe it's reading a good book. Maybe it's being surrounded and going to another event or conference or whatever it is. It's putting yourself in a position where there is fertile land that you can grow in. And how excellent are we at positioning ourselves to be in a place of growth? Number three, negotiation skills. This one's pretty straightforward, right? We negotiate literally everything in life. We actually negotiate with ourselves all the time. Hey, you shouldn't eat that. Well, I want to eat it, so I'm going to. You're going to feel bad tomorrow. Don't care. Want it right now, right? That's my inner dialogue all the time when it comes to food that I want. But the reality is we're negotiating with ourselves, we're negotiating with others constantly. And that's a skill set, right? A skill set that can serve us. And look at Abraham as an example, as you read in Genesis 23, he's negotiating with Ephron the Hittite, excuse me. He's not being underhanded, he's not backstabbing, he's not doing any of things. He's using his skill set to do an excellent job, right? You can be an excellent negotiator with integrity. That's what we should strive for. Number four, he invested in future Generations it is so difficult for me to think long term just being honest. I like things right in front of me I like to touch them feel them I like to know that if I do this it's gonna happen here and and it's gonna happen quickly because most of my life Most of my business decisions if i'm honest is all about if I can't see winds right away I don't want to do it or I get bored right now. The reality is some of that's okay, right? That's part of how the lord made me is I like to see quick wins But the other aspect is I don't like to think long -term necessarily. I just want to deal with what's right in front of me. And if it works now, then awesome. And I'm going to do it. Right. And it's hard for me to think long -term. It's hard for me to discipline myself enough to think long -term and think about investing in future generations. One of the reasons I think that is for me doesn't mean it is for you for me is pride in ego. Well, why do I say pride in ego? Because pride in ego makes me think I don't want people 200 years from now saying, thank you, great, great grandpa Garrett. I will never meet them, right? I'm never going to see them. I won't get to experience the joy in their face. I want to see it for myself. I'm thinking about, sure, maybe I'll look forward to them, but there's an aspect where I say, yeah, but I want to experience their joy right here. And it's about them, but it's also about me. Now it's not bad to experience the joy or give somebody a gift and, watch the joy that comes from that. Don't hear me say that. My point is that's one of my struggles with why it's hard for me to think long term. But here Abraham is investing in his future generations. Okay, number five, he's building relationships, right? He's got these alliances. He's not at war with anybody. And that's just such a great example for us. There's people all around him that wanted to go to war, that he threatened them because of the size of his family, of his wealth, of all of these things. And yet he stayed and maintained good relationships with them. It is important for us agents to have good relationships, not just with our clients, but with those who are our quote unquote enemies, the kings that are near us, right? To be in alliance with these other agents, to have relationships with them, that not just the agents that think like us, look like us, whatever, that they're the only ones that like us, but even the agents when something goes wrong in the deal, that through our desire, to build and maintain relationships that even if a deal is hard, we end up at the end of that with a relationship with that other agent, right? It is important that we focus on doing that and try to be excellent in it, even if it means we have to go first and seek reconciliation if there's a problem, seek us coming together. Yeah, I'll tell you a quick story. So we were doing this deal a couple of years ago with this agent who quite honestly was a jerk. I he just was, he was a jerk. And he had called my assistant for something. We were on the listing side. He calls my assistant for something and I'm in the office with her and I hear her on the phone and then she gets off. And I'm like, well, what happened? And he said, he called me. He called and said that I'm terrible at my job. And he reamed me out and said I was doing an awful job and he was really, really rude to me. So I immediately pick up the phone and I called this guy and I say, dude, you can't be rude to my assistant. And then he is rude to me and he says some choice words. And I go back to him and say, Bro, you're just, this is not okay. You're terrible at what you do. And I got frustrated and I got angry, right? Just being honest with you, that was not okay. I got angry, sinfully angry at this man. And so a few hours later, I called him and I, and you know, as the Lord's working on my heart, in that example, I call him and I just say, you know what? I need, I need you to know, I'm sorry that, that I said that you were bad at what you do and I hope you'll forgive me. And he said, he literally said, whatever dude, and he hung up on me. right he didn't want any part of that reconciliation you know what a party part of that relationship and now sometimes you can't be at peace with everybody right that's not the point it's not that the only way to win is that your piece with everyone because even paul says if at all possible live peaceably with all meaning it's not always possible the point is it was the call for me to seek reconciliation and seek a relationship with this person did we have a relationship in absolutely not will we ever have a relationship hopefully lord willing But this guy is a jerk, right? And I don't want to assume that he's a jerk. They were never going to be in relationship. I need to seek out how do we maintain and build a relationship if we're going to work together again, right? I need to go into that next transaction and say, how do we make this work together? Right? How can we do this together? That's one of the skill sets that Abraham has, but sometimes it doesn't work, but we need to seek it out and we need to be diligent in that. And finally, Abraham's resilience and adaptability. Again, when there was a famine, he moved his family. I feel like. For most agents right now, we feel like there's been a famine, right? We're at this high interest rate environment. We went through the NAR settlement, all of these pieces that happened. It feels like there was a famine in the land. It feels like it's a time of crisis. And so what did Abraham do? He moved his family. He went to a different location. He moved where he could grow and learn and adapt and become better at what he does. He went to where he had a better... opportunity. Now that doesn't mean agent that you the example for us is you got to leave your brokerage. That's not what I mean at all. What I mean is if you're in an area if you're in a time where you feel like you're in crisis you need to look around and say am I in the right location that's going to allow me to be resilient and adaptable to what's coming. That could be the relationships that you're in. Doesn't even have to be in the business right? Maybe the relationships around you that you normally spend time with. People that are always thinking negative or always assuming the worst. Maybe you need to upgrade those relationships in that circle to people who see the positive, who are willing to say there's opportunity here or encourage you to think differently or think at a higher level. Maybe you do need to change your brokerage. Maybe you need to change your team. Maybe you have someone on your team who's just bringing you down and you need to make that change or an admin or whatever it is. that you need to change the environment that you're in to give you the opportunity to be resilient and adaptable. Right. So we see these skill sets from Abraham and we see that his life exemplified many qualities of being a successful entrepreneur, like resource management, strategic thinking, navigating complex relationships, right. Being adaptable, investing in future generations and building wealth. All of these aspects of being an entrepreneur. So here's the point, why do we talk about all of those things? Number one, again, I want us to say, where in the Bible does it talk about X, right? So where in the Bible does it talk about entrepreneurship? Here's a great example. Let's go see what the biblical example is. And Abraham was a man just like us, right? He sinned just like us. He needed Christ just like us. But he's a biblical example of what an entrepreneur... looks like. Let's go study his life or the life of others and say, I want to be that way too. Lord, make me ultimately like Christ, but in my entrepreneurship, make me like Abraham, right? That I would be excellent in these ways. Guys, at the end of the day, just as the Lord called Abraham to be an entrepreneur, to be the father of many generations, the Lord has called us, because we're in this business, to be entrepreneurs. And one of the ways we steward that calling is to be as excellent as we can be in the areas that we need to be excellent in. So I hope that we will take the time to stop and say, Lord, what areas do I need to be excellent? Help me to do these with excellence, to strive for excellence in the way that honors you. So go be like Abraham. Go seek to honor the Lord in the work that He has put in front of you. I hope that for you. I hope that for me. And ultimately, I hope that generations will be blessed because of the work that we've done, because of the heart that we have, because of the gospel that we share and steward. I love you, faithful agents. I will see you next week.