Christians & Business

Philip All right, welcome to All Are Yours. This is episode 18, so we’re well on our way toward podcasting maturity.

Sean Yeah, I mean, we should be able to vote.

Philip That’s correct. We are an adult. We have entered the adult stage of podcasting. Way behind, have not figured everything out — but I don’t know, maybe most eighteen-year-olds are somewhere there.

Sean “Way behind, haven’t figured everything out.” You mean in life?

Philip Yeah, that too. I was specifically referring to the podcasting stuff, the technical difficulties.

Sean I know what you mean.

Philip But life as well, I guess. So Sean and I usually have some ideas on what we want to talk about beforehand, and this time it was relevant.

Sean Yeah, well, last time our listeners will remember — or if they’re binge listening, they just finished listening to the calm presence.

Philip That’s right.

Sean The systemic calm presence. Which had been preceded, on that day’s recording, by some discussion on whether or not I myself had such a calm presence, or was angsty or not. But this time our conversation has been preceded by you actually doing the thing.

So, to say: what we talk about on this podcast is not just theory. It’s not just hypothetical. It’s not just abstract. We are not just Plato’s disciples.

Philip That’s right.

Sean This is experience, skin in the game.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Blood and bones.

Philip You have been doing it. That’s right.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Sort of, I guess. Yes.

Sean You’ve been doing it all day long.

Philip That’s true.

Sean Up until right now.

Philip I’m wearing a jacket.

So yeah, we wanted to talk about business. Business. Business. Specifically, Christians involved in business — what that looks like, what they should be doing, should they be, and if they should be, to what extent. Overall, business.

Sean We could have made this a Business300 podcast episode by just saying right now — which, again, we can talk about more coming up here — we could actually fit it into three hundred seconds by just saying: yes, business is important for Christians, to pay for pastors and missionaries. Amen. End of episode. If you can’t be a pastor, I guess you’re going to have to have a job so that you can pay enough money to buy your own food and then support the people who are really doing the Christian work.

Philip That’s exactly right. That’d be a very short episode, even shorter than three hundred seconds.

Sean Yes. Boom, done.

Philip That’s it. There’s nothing else. You don’t need multiple episodes of this. Do only as much as it takes in business so you can have a little bit of extra cash, so you could fund either your own missionary endeavors — so you take a couple of weeks off a year to go plant some churches somewhere — or —

Sean So you can only feel a little bit guilty.

Philip That’s right. Or —

Sean A little less guilty.

Philip Or you could be fully involved and give that money to, like you said, somebody who’s doing the real work, the real kingdom-building work.

Sean Yeah. Turns out, when somebody snips that — when they make the Trinity Evangel Church haters podcast in the future —

Philip Yes.

Sean — if we’re so lucky that we’d have that happen —

Philip That’s right.

Sean — they’ll cut our comments right now to demonstrate what foolish things we believe.

Philip It’s because we’re dispies.

Sean It must be. Yeah.

So, this was my idea, though. I’m going to take credit for the idea, because then I want to not have to talk very much.

Philip There you go.

Sean Because I’m not business. Though I have passions for business, I’m not a businessman necessarily. I do not like Microsoft Excel, unlike the other person who is on this podcast talking.

So yeah, but my idea — you know the illustration of hitting a beach ball? I’m not just tossing you a beach ball to hit. I’m putting a honker-size big beach ball on a tee. It’s not even moving.

Philip There you go.

Sean That’s how easy it’s going to be for you to just rant as much as you want.

Philip And then you’re just going to step off the court, or —

Sean Yeah, I mean, I’ll go get a drink or whatever.

Philip That’s right. Yeah, I do talk about this a lot. This —

Sean You’re a businessman. You’ve been doing it today.

Philip That’s true. So, Business300, the three hundred seconds about business —

Sean Yeah, what is Business300, Philip?

Philip Yes. Business300 is a little podcast I do, twice a week.

Sean There’s no little podcasts.

Philip It’s a big podcast.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Very well produced. Twice a week. Every episode is three hundred seconds or less, so I have five minutes to get my point across there, because business people are busy, and who has time for long podcasts like this one or others?

Sean Right.

Philip No, long podcasts are great.

Sean You’ve been doing Business300 how many years?

Philip A few years. So maybe it’s been three or four years now.

Sean Okay. Yeah, because we just looked up how many episodes you have. Do you remember offhand how many have been published?

Philip 186 now, I think. Something like that.

Sean Okay. My podcast for today, “Discipline Needs Carrots and Sticks,” is the newest one that’s come to my app, and that was 185.

Philip 185, okay. All right. Yep.

So they’re released every Monday and Wednesday. First I had them just once a week, and then there was a point where I didn’t have the carrots and sticks to maintain discipline, so there were some missed weeks. But it’s been pretty consistent, twice a week, for a good amount of time.

Sean Okay, so I’m looking it up. We’ve got researchers here in office.

Philip There you go.

Sean September 2nd, episode 1: “Business Is Good.”

Philip That’s right.

Sean That’s the title of episode one, clearly. Episode two was “Four Reasons Why Business Is Good.” But the first episode: September 2, 2021.

Philip There you go, ’21.

Sean Yeah, so you’re coming up on four years.

Philip Okay. There you go. Four years talking about business. Loving the business. That’s right.

Sean Yep.

Philip So that’s the big idea there, the commander’s intent of Business300.

Sean Yeah, because Business300 is actually way more of a niche podcast than this one is. But I mean, the name of this one is All Are Yours. So what is not relevant underneath that banner?

Philip No.

Sean Yeah, our niche is that we don’t have one.

Philip That’s true.

Sean I mean, I guess the longer I’m talking out loud — Kuyperian dispensationalism.

Philip That’s —

Sean — is, I don’t even know if that’s big enough to be its own niche. But anyway.

Philip There’s no market for —

Sean No. But Business300 is in particular for whom? I mean, yeah, people who care about business, but you think about it when you’re writing the episodes. Because this one, we are just going from the reservoir of knowledge. We don’t typically have lots of prepared show notes — I mean, you do have some prepared show notes no matter where you go, and good on you — but you actually write it out, because you’re trying to make sure that it’s short and brief in Business300. So when you’re writing it, who is the person in your head that you think is listening to this?

Philip Yeah. So I stumbled into business, I guess more actively, in 2011. So that is, I think, almost fourteen years ago.

Sean Were you old enough to vote in 2011?

Philip I was, yes. But just had made the cut, actually.

And so Business300 is speaking to me anytime from then till now. So, what I would have loved to hear, wanted to hear, starting off, and then in my journey of business ownership and management — different things that would have been helpful for me.

And so, again, they are shorter episodes on purpose. I do think that’s something that I would have enjoyed. I still would like that right now: just give me the meat. Give me what I need to hear, and make it applicable and practical, so it’s not just hypothetical theory somewhere out there. How can I put this into practice today? This week? Right now?

So it’s for business owners and managers. Maybe they are just starting off in some sort of fledgling environment. Maybe they are a little bit more down the road and are trying to figure out how they could sustain their business or grow it. Maybe they are business owners in name only, like they would just like to be — what would it take to own a business, to run it?

So that’s who it’s for originally. And then specifically, even the business ownership — it doesn’t have to be, but a lot of it does come at it from an explicitly Christian perspective. So not all episodes are like that; a lot of them have to do just with business management type things. But there is a lot of “Christian, Jesus is Lord, why that applies” that gets intermixed.

Sean So, anybody with a job — which is probably a lot of people — even ladies without a job who have a husband with a job.

Philip True.

Sean They actually could listen and benefit. But in particular, you do assume a certain amount of ambition. So it could spark some further desire, but it’s a little bit more that you’re trying to direct or hone or polish someone’s ambition, so that their ambition is providing even better things. It’s not as much “raise a dead mule from the ground with some electric shock to get them to care.” There should be some measure of care assumed. And part of even what made me think that is when you say you write these episodes as things you yourself would have wanted to hear — but you yourself had a lot of ambition. So you already had some care. How can you take that care and actually make some money with it?

Philip Right. Yeah, I do think that even business owners with ambition get tired and worn out, and so sometimes there is a resuscitation that’s necessary, some kind of shock that is, all right, let’s keep going. So there’s some of that. But yes, overall it is assuming that the audience is trying to do something, trying to get somewhere, and maybe needs a certain amount of guidance or assistance of “don’t go this way” or “go this way.” So covering all the different topics — operations, administration, finance, sales, right, all of that that is pertaining to business ownership.

Sean So this is scratching at it, then. If you’re talking about all those things, and you’re talking about it with a Christian — it’s not just Christian morality, it’s Christian motivation.

Philip Right.

Sean It is because you’re a Christian. It’s not just “we don’t lie on our taxes,” or we don’t try to skirt the law, because we’re Christians. It is: we want to make this business better, run more efficiently, and bring about even making money, making profit, obviously blessing people’s lives — so that’s a whole thing. But to say that you’re allowed to care as a Christian, or care because you’re a Christian, is different than “I’m a Christian and therefore I just can’t cheat.”

Philip Right. Yeah, so Christians in the marketplace, whether they’re business owners or on the job — I think a good amount of them have a hard time understanding, seeing, how their faith relates to their work, how their faith relates to, again, even in this case, business ownership.

And so they see their marketplace vocation, their work, as a necessity, or maybe a means to an end, where either it’s a neutral playing field where I just have to go and put my time in there and then I could get to something that actually matters, or it is good as a means to an end. So, kind of how you were speaking tongue in cheek at the beginning there regarding funding some other kind of missionary endeavor or pastoral work outside of business — where what makes my business ownership good is that I could redirect the profits somewhere else.

Sean Right.

Philip But business in itself is either not good or bad, just kind of neutral in the middle there.

So my big idea is that I don’t think that all people, all Christians, should be business owners. But I do think that some Christians should be — and because they are Christians.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Where the faith, the confession that Jesus is Lord, necessitates that some of the people making that confession are involved in the marketplace, as owners and controllers of capital, of product movement, creating those sorts of things.

And a few different reasons, I guess, why. One is that God told Adam to subdue the earth, take dominion, right? So to make his creation that he entrusted to Adam productive, to make it bring a return. That sort of dominion taking, that sort of subduing — this is not about leaving it untouched. And it’s not about using it as just a side gig. The whole idea is: make this stuff productive.

Sean Yeah, I mean, whoever said “to err is human” — maybe we should say “to business is human.”

Philip There you go. That’s right.

Sean Because business — I don’t know how anybody who is paying attention to Genesis 1:28, whatever they call that. The cultural mandate. I mean, I like that, that’s fine. “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, take dominion, and subdue it.” Whatever somebody calls that, if they’re actually reading that verse, and they acknowledge that it still applies — which, God repeated that pretty much word for word to Noah, even after sin, after the fall and after the flood, when Noah comes off the ark and has the work of starting over again for humanity. This is the human work. Business is human work.

Philip Right.

Sean So, you filling the earth requires supply chains from point A to point B on your way out to point Z, at the ends of the earth, to fill the whole earth.

Philip Right.

Sean And taking dominion and subduing it is going to require some partnership, some relationship — not just husband and wife with kids. Obviously that’s the “be fruitful and multiply” part at the beginning of the verse. But to actually fill the earth is going to require some networking, and to take dominion and subdue it is going to require some networking, some associations beyond just vision. It’s actually going to take that kind of coordinated effort. Maybe even at some point getting down to division of labor.

I don’t know, was it Adam Smith? Obviously he was more thinking on the economics than the business per se. But at least I think I heard of the idea of division of labor from The Wealth of Nations. And so, businesses getting good so that they can maximize not just profit, but so that they can invest that profit into other things, or even invest in other businesses that are going to do other parts of it, to coordinate that effort together — that actually does really seem human.

Philip Right. Well, and human even to the extent of being created in God’s image.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And the connection there in Genesis is that we are created in his image, and the way that’s demonstrated is even through work, through that sort of productivity. God is working in his creation, and then he creates us to carry that out further. So we can’t be faithful image bearers if we are refusing to work.

But that sort of work comes to us — or maybe we participate in it — in different areas, in different fields. The field of making God’s creation productive is a major one, right? So the work of a pastor maybe is not as much connected with taking resources, raw material, and turning them around in some way; it’s a different sort of work. But the area of a business owner — and again, anywhere up and down the supply chain, even if your work is finding resources, finding capital in order to fund certain purchases, you’re connected with that as well. You’re involved in that productive work.

So, being a faithful image bearer, apart from even being a Christian, right? As an image bearer, you are created to work.

Sean Yeah. The Christian part, the Jesus part, the Bible part, is not supposed to be the end. So Jesus saves us for something.

Philip Right.

Sean The Bible equips us for fruitfulness. And when Christians limit fruitfulness to — you know, Psalm 1, or Joshua 1, talking about when you delight in the law of the Lord, meditate on it day and night, so that you’ll be careful to do everything that’s in it, then you’ll make your way prosperous and then you’ll have success. Okay, am I allowed to want that prosperity and that success? Well, I better, because I care about the Bible.

So then what does that mean? Does that mean I’ve made my way prosperous so that I can give a can of soup to a homeless person? Is that sufficient? Is that what it means — “I know that the Bible has really worked in me and God has really blessed me when my good work comes out in that I’ve got an extra can to give to somebody who is poor”? Well, obviously, is that a fine thing to do? Yes. But is that actually what it looks like for God to make your way prosperous?

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean Probably not.

So, Christians — and one of the reasons why it’s worth even taking time right here to talk about it again, and even talk about some of the principles, is because people in my line of work — and I mean, you’re a pastor too, but you’re a productive pastor; I’m just, I don’t know what I’m doing — but vocational ministers, people who get their paycheck by saying they’re a pastor, they are actually the worst ones. They’re the ones who have actually taught people, taught Christians, that business is maybe necessary, and if necessary, a necessary evil.

Philip Right.

Sean And I think there’s any number of motivations for why pastors maybe make that emphasis, or explicitly even talk like that. But that has only even been possible for pastors to abuse in societies where people have plentiful food, because somebody is doing the work.

Philip Right.

Sean Yeah, because the default — and this is a thing — the only reason the COVID lockdowns worked so well in 2020 is because we’re so prosperous as a people that we could afford, quote unquote, to hang out at home and watch Netflix and work from our laptops or whatever. But it felt so wrong, because people have a natural, human impulse to do stuff, and even to make stuff and make money.

Philip Right.

Sean So in order to make that seem bad, pastors have to come up with something else that’s of more value. Which actually is a misreading of so much of Scripture, including going all the way back to Genesis 1.

So part of the reason why we would take time again to talk about it, emphasize it, is to actually seek to persuade a decent number of Christians — that probably we are still in the middle of. Our church even is still — we’re recovering pietists, recovering dualists, where unless somebody says the Romans Road gospel presentation every five minutes, they’re not quite doing what God values.

Philip Right.

Sean And so we have taken on a kind of false guilt and a narrow vision of what it’s like to live as saved people for good works. We have made that so intangible and spiritual that then we’re not making as much progress in business, because we actually really still are not convinced that that’s okay.

Philip Right.

Sean So you’ve preached about business and still get questions and pushback — which also is fine, because we’re learning. This is why we have a job to teach, because not everybody knows everything already. But the mindset that says God does not value my work —

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean — unless I am making sure to quote a Scripture verse to my coworker —

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean — or my work is actually printing gospel tracts, or something like that. We’ve just so narrowed it down that we’re missing what God is valuing.

And this is part of what you’re trying to especially teach explicitly — hey, no, think bigger — but also then think about how to do it well, so as to be an example of it, as well as saying it’s okay. I am not as much being an example of trying to do business, bidness, awesome. I am primarily focused on trying to encourage people that they are allowed to think that business is awesome and try to make it good. You’re doing both. You’re trying to embody it and encourage people to —

Philip Right. Yeah.

Like, I think where people are seeing it, like you’re saying, as a means to an end — where either it’s an opportunity to evangelize my coworkers or customers or whatever, to point them to eternity. And there’s a good place for that. But so they use their business ownership, or they justify their work, because it creates those opportunities, or it’s an opportunity to demonstrate our ethics. So, evangelism or ethics, where what makes me a Christian business owner is that I don’t lie or cheat or steal.

Sean Yeah.

Philip I treat people a certain way. And so business itself, the idea of business, ends up being a means to an end.

But in Genesis, where our mandate is to subdue and take dominion, that assumes a certain amount of productivity — to be productive. And to be productive is to produce, to create something that didn’t exist before, and even maybe a little more upstream, to innovate. So maybe not just that this product didn’t exist and I formed it and made it, but this idea didn’t exist, and for me to innovate this new idea and then bring it from concept into reality is assumed in that mandate to subdue and take dominion. So being productive, producing, creating, is the realm of a business owner.

But also, I think you’re able to do that in some sense for yourself, where you are creating and then enjoying this creation, you’re producing something and then delighting in it. I think that is appropriate, and there’s a place for that. But that’s not yet a business owner.

The one thing that a business needs in order for it to be a business is a customer. You could be a one-man show, self-employed, just you. You could be running a business in some third-world country underground — so it’s not lawful, maybe, by the tyrant’s standard, you’re producing some product under the counter. But if you have a customer, somebody who’s willing to buy from you, you have a business.

And that customer is a person. It is another image bearer of God. And so business exists to serve a person, to serve a customer, a fellow image bearer, and business necessitates that sort of service. You cannot have a business if you’re not serving another person.

And so our calling to love our neighbor as Christians, our calling to do good to others, to treat others as we would be treated, our calling to give a person a cold cup of water when they’re asking for it — all of that is connected to the actual physical thing that that person needs. What makes that cold cup of water good is that it’s a cold cup of water. It’s not that you handed it to them with a gospel presentation tract. That’s what that person needed, valued, wanted, and that’s what you gave them.

And so a business gives to customers what it is that they value. It provides value, it delivers value, it creates it. And when that value is nonexistent, it’s the business owner who risks his resources to innovate and create something that wasn’t there before, in order to bring that value to the market, to bring it to another customer, to bring it to those people.

And so the business owner starts from the position of a giver, from the place of the person who is creating and giving this blessing, this value. It doesn’t start from a position of taking from the customer. All of us start from a place of receiving grace from God, or even grace from people who’ve come before us in a certain way. But as a business owner, your starting point is: how can I give to customers? And that is, I think, a uniquely even Christian starting point — to have your calling, your vocation, be about delivering value to other people. Then how that connects to making money and profit is on top of that, but that’s not where it starts.

And so, apart from just subduing the earth, taking dominion, the idea of business assumes serving people, assumes serving a customer. And so we can’t have a consistent, faithful group of Christians if nobody is doing that. Somebody needs to be delivering value to other people. And that value in itself is what is good. It’s not that, again, this is just a means to an end.

And so even business owners who use their business as a means to an end are using these customers, these people they’re delivering value to, as a means — in some sense exploiting these customers in order then to redirect their actual care and attention somewhere else.

Sean Yeah, even giving them a super good deal could still be a kind of exploitation.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean If it’s not actually to give them something good, of value.

Philip Right. So I think that’s where the reason why we ought to be in business comes: it comes to the desire to serve other people, the desire to bring value to them. Then how to get good at all of that is where we learn and improve and we double down our efforts on actual business ownership and management.

Sean You could have, like, a whole podcast.

Philip That’s right. Like two episodes a week, five minutes at a time.

Sean Yeah. Just scratching the surface.

Philip That’s right. But I think unless we care about serving people, delivering value to customers, unless we care about creating, producing, innovating, we don’t put the attention into getting good at that. If business for us is just a means to an end, then we do the bare minimum to just get by and then redirect our attention somewhere else.

Sean So we’ve got the podcast, where we’re trying to help people who have some measure of ambition already to give attention to getting better at it. But the podcast is just one of the things that you’re trying to do — again, not just in your own business. I suppose you could give testimony to what you’re actually doing as a businessman. But there’s also, you’ve got a conference that’s coming up that’s going to be a network, trying to expand that network of business people.

Philip Right. So Gabe Rench with CrossPolitic — he’s building out a business makers network, so different business owners, founders, managers can con—

Sean I went to the site, because I saw that Gabe had posted that maybe on Twitter.

Philip Yep.

Sean Yes, I’m still calling it Twitter.

Philip Yeah, there you go.

Sean But do you happen to know the web address? Is it like makersnetwork? Can you search for that?

Philip Yeah, businessmakers.network.

Sean Businessmakers.network.

Philip Right. That’s the website of the group that he’s building out. And then he’s putting together a summit, which he wants to do more of these — so a business conference, seminar, specifically again for Christian business leaders, Christian business owners. And this one is in Battle Ground, Washington, so a few hours south of us.

Sean The date?

Philip May 23rd and 24th.

Sean You’re speaking at it.

Philip That’s right.

Sean You’re not just a person who knows about it.

Philip That’s right.

Sean You are speaking at it.

Philip Yep. So I’m one of the speakers, as well as Chris Wiley, C. R. Wiley, and a few other people. So that should be good. Looking forward to that.

Sean Do you know what you’re talking about yet?

Philip Yes, talking about people and profit, and how those things are not in competition. So we should not say something like “people before profit.” Those things go hand in hand. And kind of my —

Sean Give a teaser.

Philip That’s right.

Sean You’re going to give the UVP about your talk.

Philip The elevator pitch, yes.

Sean Yeah.

Philip So I think a lot of even unbelievers — but this manifests itself with Christians as well — they feel guilty about success, they feel guilty about making money, about a level of affluence or prosperity. You know, when they’re following Psalm 1 and what Psalm 1 promises happens.

Sean I didn’t mean prosperity that good.

Philip That’s right.

Sean I wanted to be blessed. I didn’t want to be blessed so good.

Philip Right.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so there’s a certain kind of guilt that comes with that. And again, it’s always not healthy, maybe, to assume motives onto people — but when people are telling you their motives, you should believe them. And so when people say something like “mission before profit” or “people before profit” in your business, that maybe sounds nice and ethical, but comes back to exploiting your customers for the sake of something else.

You cannot pin delivering value to customers against profit, because what profit is, is a scorecard, a metric telling you how well you’re doing in delivering value to customers. If you’re offering poor levels of value, your profit is minimal, if not nonexistent completely. If you’re offering really great value, people are willing to pay more for that, and your profit margins are up.

So profit is not just the owner’s paycheck. It could be used for that. That’s not what it is. Profit is a feedback mechanism to tell you how well you’re doing in delivering value. So it makes no sense pinning profit against people, because customers are people. And customers are the people that a business is to focus on.

A lot of the time when business people say something like that, they’re thinking even of their own internal team, their employees, or even serving customers without high prices, or trying not to manipulate them somehow. But when you connect profit, again, as in the line of delivering value to customers, then it makes no sense pinning those against each other.

Then our response to profit ought not be guilt; it ought to be gratitude, where we are grateful for what we’re able to do, and then even double down in our effort to make more profit, because the way we’re doing that is by serving people even better — more people, more better. And so that’s kind of the gist there: that we should be pursuing people and profit, not people before profit.

Sean So somebody is going to say, but the root of evil is the love of money. So how does earnestly, desiringly, double-downingly trying to get more profit — how’s that not loving money?

Philip Yeah, I think that, again, coming back to even what God has created us for in subduing and taking dominion: if you’re doing that well, you are being fruitful. That fruit is a result of your effective subduing work, effective dominion-taking work. And if we are pursuing obedience to God in our dominion taking, we ought to be pursuing fruitfulness. We want good results. How can I be more fruitful? How can I have this fruit more efficiently, so that I could have more resources for more of it?

If we see profit as mere money, where it’s just about what it could do for me — maybe that’s different than seeing it as fruit, as a result of your work, of doing it effectively, and you pursuing the ability to be fruitful.

The other part of it, though, is looking at, again, the different blessings that God talks about. Both in the state that he placed Adam and Eve in, with the garden of Eden, the levels of the good life that was there; then when they fell from that, the promises that God gave to Abraham, that translated to Isaac, to Jacob, of also that good life; then as he led the nation of Israel into the promised land, with the Deuteronomic blessings also communicating the good life. You see that then in the Psalms, even in Proverbs, having that sort of thing. And then with what Christ made possible, that good life is not pitted against the spiritual life. It’s connected with it, even in the sense of a certain kind of purpose — that this is what our life is for. We were created for that level of delight that is connected with our dominion.

So I think, again, that seeking to be fruitful and then taking a bite of that fruit, enjoying that fruit, is a part of our creation mandate and calling and purpose. It’s not pitted against that.

Sean Yeah, so obviously covetousness is a sin and greed is a sin. In fact, Jesus’ own comments, that you can’t serve God and mammon. Money obviously is an idol to a lot of people, so it can be its own god. And yet Christians can be given a lot of money by God, and even want God to give them a lot of money as blessing, not as a replacement.

So sure, it is possible to love money and do that in the wrong way. It’s also possible to love God and want him to bless you, which would be resulting in profit and tasting the good fruit.

And in my mind, Kuyperian dispensationalism demands big, fruitful businesses. So if Christians are going to be provocative in such a way — provocative to the right kind of jealousy making in another group. And in particular in Romans chapter 11, it is God’s intention to make the Jews jealous by the blessings he gives to the Gentile Christians. And there’s no reason to think that those blessings he’s giving to the Gentiles are spiritual only. The things that would provoke the jealousy of the Jews would be, like you just said, the Deuteronomic blessings. “Hey, wait a second. I think we were supposed to get that. Those are the kinds of things we’ve been looking for. And look at God giving them, or some type of them, to this other group.” These people who weren’t a people — now they are getting, by God’s grace, through salvation in Jesus, they then are also experiencing some of that good-life sort of fruitfulness.

That then is provocative. That has to mean more than Christians having really awesome Bible study groups.

Philip Right.

Sean It has to include — I can’t think of why it doesn’t include families, and seeing your children’s children around your table. Family things, yes. Potentially government and politics sorts of things, maybe, to see fruitfulness. I mean, for a while the United States, at the beginning, we were provocative to other parts of the world that were like, “Hey, man, they look like they’ve got something better.” And so much of that founding, how the system was put together in the United States, had explicitly Christian things built into it. We’ve gone away from those, so we’re not as jealousable.

But business-wise, profit-wise, fruitfulness-wise, tasting good things and loving neighbors through that business work and productivity — why that would not be part of the provocative thing that then leads to God fulfilling his promise to grant Israel repentance, which then leads to the riches of the world.

Philip Right.

Sean And there’s no reason to think that we’re headed — we’re not currently in a time where the most valuable things are only the ones that you can’t see.

Philip Right.

Sean And we’re not headed to a time where we’re disembodied souls, where the good life doesn’t have anything to do with tasting.

Philip Right. But then even the love of money — I think what it is, so, the parable about the rich fool, where he was really prosperous. And so he had a lot of fruit, and he decided to build bigger barns and store all of that, right? That was his answer to it. And then after he did that, he said, “What should you do now, O my soul? My soul, you should eat, drink, and be merry.” And he did not realize that God is going to call him that night. And then it says, “Who did you leave all this for?”

So the connection there that I believe Jesus is getting at is: he has this fruit, and who does he invite into it? Himself. His prosperity is not just self-focused, but the telos is himself as well — as opposed to employing that fruit in order to be rich toward God, like it says there, in the sense of bringing other people into it.

So our loves is God and his people. And when God blesses us with prosperity, we should employ that prosperity to cultivate our relationships more, as opposed to it leading us to isolate ourselves away from other people. Now again, business starts with people, where you serve customers first, you give to that. And then your profit ought to also culminate with people too, where you invite people into that. You again employ profit in order to build relationships, to build community, in that sort of way.

So I think the loves, again, is God and people. But the way you love people is also not just “go warm yourself over there.” You love them with actual things, with actual stuff. So the good life is not good if you’re by yourself. And when you’re with people, as you are able, you are using the blessings God gives you in order to build up those relationships more.

Sean Yeah, I mean, James mocks those who are like, “Be warmed and filled,” without actually giving them a coat or food.

Philip Right.

Sean So generosity demands a certain level of having already received, so that then you can give it back away.

Philip Right.

Sean Yeah. And you said something to the effect of different people at different levels. So you might not have very much and you can still be generous out of what you have. There’s percentages that you can consider like that. But I don’t actually want to just be generous with a little. So if all I get is a little — in any given moment, I guess, well, I can still give out of what I have. But why not, as I’m looking forward, try to strategize how to get more so that I can be more generous? Whatever that generous looks like — it doesn’t have to mean, you can be generous and charge a fee, right? But you can be generous and just give it totally away. But you have to have something.

Philip Right.

Sean And why not, in order to increase generosity — why not desire to increase productivity so that you can be more generous?

Philip Right. Yeah. So again, I think that’s where marginalizing, or maybe falsely categorizing, our life into these different groupings separates and divides in a way the Bible doesn’t present. Where we have this sort of spiritual ecstasy or goodness or peace or whatever, and then we have this physical life over here, as opposed to all of that coming together.

Like, you look at the life of Jesus, where people wanted to be with him, around him. People were inviting him to their house for dinner. They liked his presence, and he was with them, enjoying himself and enjoying their company — among other things that he was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton. So that physical delight was not separated from the spiritual peace or fellowship that people assumed or felt in the presence of Christ. It was together.

And so I think that is also, maybe in some sense, missing in our approach with business ownership, and then in the results of business, the prosperity of it — bringing all that together, both in our physical and spiritual joys.

Sean So one of the things we’re doing in this discussion is we’re actually trying to target people who are Christians, probably, that are not yet quite convinced about business itself being good. So we’re trying to help talk through some of that, to show that actually the Bible has a lot to say about how, no, that is good. That’s human. It’s part of our Christian opportunity. It’s not just a necessary evil.

We’re also talking about it because you care about trying to improve and get even better at business things — hence your own podcast, Business300, and going to the conference that’s coming up, the makers network.

Philip Yeah. Business Makers Network, and then the Business Makers Summit is the event.

Sean So let’s say that somebody is listening who maybe has already changed their mind. They agree that business is good — and even that making a great product to make great profit to really bless other people is also really good. And what the heck are we doing in Washington State, where our governor and laws and taxes seem to actually be rooting against business? I don’t even — can we even say that they’re really trying to make it nice for Boeing, let alone —

Philip Well, Boeing moved out of Washington, yeah.

Sean Okay, so Amazon was here and they moved out.

Philip Maybe.

Sean So Microsoft has left.

Philip Right. Maybe it’s Microsoft who’s at the head of all this, getting everybody else out of here.

Sean Yeah, because I thought that Amazon did have — I mean, obviously Amazon is working here, but there was some other big business that I thought was moving out.

Point is, especially for smaller businesses, let alone a self-employed person, a one-man business who’s got customers — somebody who then does finally realize that as a Christian, not just as an irritated citizen, but as a Christian business person, they want to actually keep more of their dollars to be able to reinvest. Why do you keep staying here in Western Washington? You have businesses, so, part of your group — maybe even you should give them the EBM web address. They could go see your proof of work. You’ve got bidnesses. You’re not just doing business, you’re doing businesses.

Philip Correct. Yeah. Businesses are good.

Sean Right. And the conference, the summit that’s coming up in Battle Ground, Washington, along the I-5 corridor. Here we are in liberal Western Washington, which is not a bastion of free market capitalism — if that is even a thing that exists in the United States anymore.

Philip Right.

Sean Does free market capitalism exist anywhere? Where’s the guy who — he doesn’t speak English, but he got elected. Is it Argentina?

Philip Oh yeah, yeah. Who’s slashing all the — the chainsaw guy. Yeah.

Sean Is that actually free market capitalism happening, or is that just fun on Twitter? I don’t know.

But people do not move to Washington. If we’re trying to make Marysville a destination, it’s a pretty uphill battle in a bunch of ways — which is where the real glory comes from. So we know why we’re doing it, deep down in places we don’t talk about at parties. It’s for the glory of the battle.

Philip That’s right.

Sean But it’s a big stinking battle in so many ways, business included.

So what is the motive? We’ve got motive to do business and make profit as Christians. And as Kuyperian Christians, we can do it in all the places that Jesus cares about, which is everywhere. So what kind of business? Well, it doesn’t matter. It can’t be prostitution.

Philip It has to be good for people.

Sean Yeah. Lawful in God’s law — it has to be lawful, righteous.

Philip Right.

Sean Anywhere in there, good. Whatever you want to make is awesome. But there are better, or maybe easier, places, it seems like, to do that than here. So as someone who has roots and wants to see fruits in this location — or let’s say somebody was listening, they live in Idaho, and they’re like, why should I move to Marysville?

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean I’m just picking that because that’s where we’re currently at. But I mean, it seems hard to woo people to Washington for business. So how would you go at that? I mean, that’s both — you’re resigned to the pain, and so you just like pain, and so you’re already here, you’re stuck, you might as well. Or there’s strategy. And maybe even such strategy that would be an invitation.

Philip Yeah. I think there’s maybe a certain kind of romance of the battle. So there’s a way where, you know, the battle is here, so come fight with us.

But I think the start is a love for the immediate surroundings. So I don’t think about it as Washington State. I think about it as my family, my church, my city. This is where I’m at.

Sean But it’s a state of people who are messing with your people.

Philip Yep. And so the state that our people are in is that sort of tyranny, maybe, that, like you’re saying, is messing with this more ordered — this love that is on the higher scale of order.

Sean I knew you were going to bring Augustine into it.

Philip There you go. That’s right. Christian nationalism. Christian localism, right?

But in the sense that I do have a desire, a vision, to build a sort of dike against the flood, to hold that back. And that requires more than just a church congregation. That requires a community that has its fingertips in all the different spheres. And a big organizing aspect of that is control of capital and market resources, even on a local level. And so being able to build that up where you can do good.

So, as a little example — very little — but during COVID, we had a few shops. We had real estate, a construction company, but specifically the manufacturing shops: we did not enforce or even do any of the COVID requirements, mandates, regarding making your people wear masks or social distancing or whatnot.

Sean Let alone the vaccine.

Philip Right, let alone the vaccines, any of those kinds of requirements. Where there was a lot of both helping navigate for our people inside — hey, this is what we’re doing, this is why we’re doing it, explaining that, having a lot of those kinds of conversations — and also holding back a lot of the health district door knocks, right? So answering them at the door and holding them there at that line, with the Snohomish County Health District or with L&I. Where we had people say, “Thank you for keeping it normal,” for providing a certain kind of haven where — you know, it’s crazy when they go to the grocery store.

Sean Yeah, we got that even in a church setting. People are like, “Wow, it’s nice to have a —”

Philip Right.

Sean “— to go be normal someplace.”

Philip Right. So that sort of dike, like I said, from a local standpoint, to be able to build for our people here.

But also, I do think that there is a time and place to flee. Jesus has that kind of stipulation as well.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Where you should do that.

Sean He didn’t get crucified on his first day of making people mad.

Philip That’s right. And so, sure, I’m not against that. But also I think it is maybe more effective in the long run to stay and build and battle as needed, as opposed to pack up and go every time there’s a threat. So if we could get our roots down and gain control in a local area that we can have direct impact and influence over, then when different threats come at us, we already have an answer to that, as opposed to having to restart building every few years — where you don’t even get to really bury your roots deep enough to have any kind of impact or influence, because you’re always moving to flee.

I think there’s a long-term strategic value there, again, to be able to build something that is sturdy. So that is what we’re trying to do, what I’m trying to do.

And even on the west side of the Cascades, there isn’t that much there. So, like the example of the shoemakers who go to the African village and nobody there wears shoes. Right? So it’s either “nobody wears shoes, there’s no work for us,” or “nobody wears shoes, the market is hot.”

Sean Yeah.

Philip Right. And so that’s —

Sean Limitless.

Philip That’s right. I do think there’s a big need, again, on the west side of the Cascades here, for that sort of takeover, that sort of offense, where we’re going to burrow down and build something that’s long-term for our kids and grandkids, and then be able to bring other people into that. I think that, again, is more effective than continuing to flee to a more favorable environment.

Sean Yeah. Well, and we do actually have water access on the western side specifically. Water transportation is cheap. We have a relatively mild climate, and so even for the mocking that we get of, you know, Sleepless in Seattle, “it rains nine months out of the year in Seattle” — it’s a mist.

Philip Right.

Sean It’s not even a really bad rain. But the moderate climate does actually allow for a lot of different kinds of opportunities, if and when we need them. The water access allows for certain sorts of transportation, whether that’s getting supplies in or moving the supplies out. We are not as stuck by frost and snow as maybe some of the more quote-unquote free states that are in the center of the country. And we actually do have, even on the western side — obviously not as much as in Eastern Washington — but we do have land where a lot of things can be grown and produced.

Philip And we have, yeah, like where we live, apart from it being beautiful — I love where we live. Mountains on both sides, the water, the sound, the ocean, and like a couple hours’ drive you get different sorts of topography, geography.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But even apart from all that being resources that are accessible, we do have a good and strong capital foundation here. So in the greater Seattle area, we work a lot with equity investors, banks, capital, where even bigger New York firms have some of their feet here. So, resources in that end as well.

You’re not somewhere out in the Midwest where the only kind of building approach is your five acres and that’s it. For us to be able to build something that is bigger, with more of a hold — and that is some of the work we’re doing at EBM, with our land development and the kind of people that we’re working with, talking to, is that sort of grasp and endeavor. So Seattle is an active city. And so I think there is an advantage there that a different place wouldn’t have.

Sean Yeah.

Philip So us, even here in Marysville, being close to that — and me in particular, some of us having some hands involved with some of those dealings as well — is an advantage and gets us more opportunities.

Sean An advantage.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Not just an extra disadvantage.

Philip Right. An —

Sean — advantage.

Philip That’s right. We have more.

Sean What’s the web address for EBM?

Philip EBM Inc. So, ebminc.us.

Sean It’s been a while since I’ve been there. Your picture is on there.

Philip Picture’s on there. Yep.

Sean Does it list all the businesses that EBM is working with?

Philip Yep. And you could read a little bit about our approach and worldview and that sort of thing as well.

Sean You’re working on a book.

Philip That’s right, working on a book.

Sean And some curriculum that is not necessarily in the book, but they would overlap.

Philip That’s right. Yeah. Working on the book — working title is The Transcendent Bottom Line. So that idea, again, of the bottom line being specifically not just the point, but even the bottom line of an income statement, a profit and loss statement.

Sean I mean, as a word person — The Transcendent Bottom Line.

Philip Right.

Sean Like the up and the low. I mean, that’s just winning right there, right?

Philip There you go. So you’re on the ground, but you’re connected. And so that’s the thesis there, kind of what we’re talking about here: where Christians must be involved in business — for what? But it’s for the good that it has.

Sean Fourth quarter? This book coming out fourth quarter?

Philip We’ll see. Yeah, we’ll see.

Sean I mean, they say that books take a while.

Philip Right. Yep.

And then yeah, so check out businessmakers.network. You can get a link to the summit there — that’s happening in a couple weeks. And then yeah, the Business300 podcast.

Sean Yeah, if you’re — because I don’t know what the direct URL is. Does it have its own direct URL?

Philip Yeah, it’s part of the Fight Laugh Feast network.

Sean Yeah, okay. You can search in your podcast app for Business300, or Philip Kulishov. Also you can go to trinityevangel.org, and then one of the tabs at the top says maybe Resources, or Recommended, and the Business300 podcast is one of the podcasts listed there. So you can get there directly through our church’s website.

Philip There you go. And just to have a place to connect the different things that I’m trying to build and work on, I do have a website with my name, and that’s more connected with some of the people that I’ve been talking with. So, just philipkulishov.com has —

Sean Yeah, well, that’s easier to go to.

Philip There you go. Just go there, and the different resources are there.

Sean Yeah.

Philip All right. There you go. Get involved in business and do some business.

Sean Bidness.

Philip Boom.