Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RTW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Darren Scheer, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by Roland Piersink. Roland is the founder and chairman of God and Work, an organization dedicated to training Christians from all walks of life what it is to live out their faith in a secular workplace. He's a former public company executive, company founder, and engineer, among other things. He is also the founder of Christian Business Angels, which focuses on the startup of new companies in Kenya to help lift the needy out of poverty. And he's authored several books on the topic of living one's faith in daily life, including the reference guide, How to Be a Christian at Work, the study guides two words from God for you at work, and two words from God for the legacy-minded man. And the book, which will be the focus of this episode, Total Loss to Double Success, 14 Leadership and Business Principles from the world's richest and most successful man, Job of the Bible. Roland, welcome to the show. Thank you, Darren.
SPEAKER_01Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_02You mentioned that Job 31, Job chapter 31, has more guidance offered for business professionals than any other single chapter of the Bible. What do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_01Well, actually, yeah, I've read the Bible. I'm sure you have too from cover to cover. And more recently I've read it uh looking for business insights and leadership principles in some of the work I'm doing and some of the writing I'm doing. And I stumbled across Job 31. And when you read Job 31 with that uh mindset, that whole chapter is just dedicated to business and leadership principles. And there's no other chapter in the Bible as intent, as focused on business and leadership as Job chapter 31.
SPEAKER_02So can you give us a description, kind of a description of Job's business, the nature of his entrepreneurial uh endeavor?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so let's back up. Job uh uh was on on planet earth before Abraham, so before the time of the Ten Commandments, after Noah, before Abraham, a long time ago. There were no Ten Commandments, and so he, but he honored God with his life, uh, prayed even for his children when they had a party that in case they did anything wrong, that they'd be forgiven. And uh he was the greatest man in his uh region of the world, and among the people of the East, as it's written in the Bible. Thousands of camels, thousands of sheep. And of course, he was an agricultural entrepreneur at the time. That's what people did.
SPEAKER_02And so, what you go through um at least a dozen of these principles in your book, and and you've also got the the U version plan people can access. Um, what are some of these principles that you've noticed from Job about for business success?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I when you go through Job chapter 31, uh, and you look at it with the mindset, the lens that, hey, I'm looking for business principles, as you read that, you'll see Job is, you remember, let's back up. Job is sitting on the dirt, scratching his sores with a piece of pottery. You know, he was rich and then he got everything taken away, and then he has health taken away. And he is in bad way. His wife says, Curse God and die. His friends come and sit with him, and they sit for seven days and say nothing. They're just sitting in the dust. Finally, they're having a conversation, and then his friends speak, and then in chapter 31, Job speaks up. He speaks a little bit before that, but in chapter 31, he basically goes through each of his business principles, and he says, Look, if I've ever done anything like this, if I've ever mistreated an employee, then let this happen. If I've ever done this wrong, then let this happen. And he does that with 14 different principles. And when you look at it, what he's really doing is he's saying, Look, here's how I've lived my business life. This is what my leadership looks like. Here's 14 attributes that I want to lay before you guys, my friends who are sitting with them, and before God. Tell me what I've done wrong. Why am I suffering? And that's what he's that's what he's doing here in chapter 31. I can go through a number of them. I'm not going to go through all 14, but let's say the first, let's take the first one. It's probably the most profound one. It actually makes up 20% of Job chapter 31. It is about sexual purity. You think, what? What's Job talking about sexual purity for? What's that got through with business and leadership? Well, if you step back and you think, well, of course, there's been many a man and women, but more men that we read about, unfortunately, that have been brought down by sexual infidelity and lack of sexual purity, adultery, among other things. And Job says, that's the first thing. If I've ever done anything wrong in this area, you know, let my wife go grind another man's grain. That's what he says. And he's a there's only two people in the Bible that use the word lustfully, him and Jesus. Job says, if I've ever looked at a young woman lustfully, then let this happen. Jesus says, anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart. So uh Job is all over it. This is his big number one principle as an example. Of course, he's got many more.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And we actually um we covered the issue of of well pornography as it relates to uh Christian business professionals several episodes back with with Ted Schimmer, um, because you're right. I mean, this is a uh a profoundly significant, uh just devastating issue for uh Christians, not just men, but also women. And so I'm glad that you you brought this up. Can you be more specific about how this does and this issue does impact business people?
SPEAKER_01Well, let's go back to the Bible, right? That's uh I mean, obviously, we can talk about many examples in the secular world or in the Christian world today. Let's go back to the Bible. What happened with King David? Do you remember his big downfall? Yeah, what was the lady's name? Bathsheba. Yeah, right. That's that right there. Job is saying, Don't do that. And there's King David doing it. King Solomon, how many wives or concubines does this guy have? And where did they lead him? They led his heart astray from God. Both of these men, early kings in Israel, early leaders, early CEOs, stepped away, took the nation away, in fact, you could say, from God and God's will by sexual impurity. You can come up with the same today. And I've I've been in business, I've been in various executive suites, and it's come across again and again where you see some young, typically again, a man, some man who's a young man who's chomping at the bit to get ahead, or he's a midlife crisis guy. And what they do is they've left their wife and gone for a new model. The family and wife and kids gone, I'm off. I got a career, I need a model wife to match. Over and over, a friend of mine called me recently and said her husband left her. Why? Well, he started making you know $300,000, $400,000 and it got to his head that he was important, and he decided his wife wasn't good enough. What does God think about that? Job says, don't even breach any of the sexual purity rules that are given in the Bible. Yeah. The killer for your business, and that's that's his first principle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And not probably most of us don't have the um the wealth to have a palace like David where there's a vantage point where you're looking out over the whole city, and you know, you can see a beautiful woman taking a bath, but now we have smartphones, and so the temptation is far more uh uh accessible. And um, and you know, now we've got like these um search engines that are untrackable. I mean, I I know people were worried about Big Brother, but frankly, I think a lot of us are just afraid that our our spouse is going to find out what we've been doing on the internet while we're using these, you know, some of these search engines. Um, but but this is um I'm glad you you start the book right off with this one because I mean it is um it's like you say, every everywhere we have this kind of an issue.
SPEAKER_01Everybody's had the temptation, man or woman, by the way. We didn't go further back than David and Solomon as king, uh excuse me, not king, but Abraham. Remember, Abraham promised a child, him and his wife concoct the plot. He's gonna he's gonna go and have an affair with his wife's maidservant to raise up the child himself. They're gonna take control because they want to be in control. Maybe Abraham also lusted after his woman, I don't know. But what happened? We got the whole uh division between Israel and the rest of the Arabs, and that's been a problem through this day. And every time uh there's been sexual infidelity or impurity, adultery, there's a consequence. You may not see it right away, but there's a consequence. And so Job rightfully points out hey guys, men, women, start off right. Sexual purity is important to business and leadership success.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. What are some of the other principles?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's good. You know, he's got uh, of course, there's principles like uh honesty, which you'd expect. Uh, the principles like uh respect for your fair employment, treating your employees fairly, paying them on time, uh, hearing any issues they have like that. One of my favorite ones that you don't normally think about is uh the the the in the competitive space, sometimes we get happy when our competitor fails. We find joy. Ah, the competitor company X, finally they failed. You know, they met their nemesis in this customer, and now they're paying for their wrongs or their rights or whatever. And the Bible says, and Job says, you know, don't do that. Don't uh I call it no Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is a German word for don't find pleasure in someone else's downfall. And uh Job is saying, you know, don't do that. Uh he says this specifically in verse 29 and 5, rejoiced at my enemy's misfortune or gloated over the trouble that came to him, then blah, blah, blah. So he says, Don't do that. You know, focus on what's good for you, focus on what's good for your employees, and do not uh take joy or pleasure in what's happening with that may be bad for your uh competitor. And the Bible uh says the same thing in Proverbs, you know, every every instance where I bring up a principle from Job is verified by other portions, other scripture in the Bible. We talked about the lustfully word that Jesus and Job used. Proverbs 24 do not gloat when your enemy fails, when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove. And it's it's throughout the Bible, Exodus and Matthew, love your neighbor as yourself, respect, etc. And so Job's got uh a whole series of principles that uh go through and kind of lay out the roadmap in a way that you think that's surprisingly when you think of Job, you think of a guy sitting in the dirt scratching his wounds. But actually, this chapter 31, if you put aside the whole story of the sickness and his loss and everything, and just say, Well, what is he saying? He's saying, do this, do this, don't do this, don't do that. And these are just basic principles that we should be following. Oftentimes we don't.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, that's a that's a powerful principle there. I think Billy Graham probably took a page out of Job's playbook there. You know, this um when Billy Graham started his ministry, you may be aware of this. Uh, he gathered the leaders together in Modesto, California, and established what became known as the Modesto Manifesto. And one of the four principles in there, well, one of them had to do with sexual purity, uh, that they would never be alone with somebody of the opposite sex. Um, like he wouldn't even go into an elevator alone with a woman. Uh, but but one of the other ones was that they would never speak ill of other ministries, you know, because and a lot of people ministries have maybe spoken ill of of Billy Graham and the their methods of evangelism and crusades and all of that. But they made a commitment very early on that they would never speak ill of other um other other ministries. And what a great lesson for a business. So like, why do we need to um glory in uh another uh another company's failure or or just wish ill on them? And I think it just it's something that's been part of I think business culture for a long time, that this uh this idea of crushing the competition, um, but that's just not biblical.
SPEAKER_01No, it certainly isn't. And uh for sure, like the the the principle I uncover after uh that Job uncovers after uh verse 29 there is no shadow for it. So don't take delight in what the competition does when they fail, but also don't wish bad on other people, including the competitor. And so uh he said, you know, don't curse anybody, don't invoke a curse, don't put any bad wishes on anybody. And we're not, yeah, we're we're not called to do that. You know, it's not our job to judge, and for sure not our job to curse. And so again, this is a very practical principle coming out of this chapter that the Bible teaches and Jesus reinforces, uh, and the rest of the Bible reinforces. So um, these are things we should follow. And uh a lot of times we look to the Bible and kind of put it in a Sunday spot, like I'm gonna go to church on Sunday, and it talks about family and relationships and forgiveness and all that. But you know, the Bible is loaded with practical advice for how to behave as a Christian in the workplace, how to behave as a leader in business. And uh Job, this chapter 31 of Job is uh just key to outlining so many of the good things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Why don't you give us one more principle and then we want people to go get the book um after that, but just give us another another taste of what we're gonna get.
SPEAKER_01Sure, I I can do that. I'm excited to do that. So uh the principle number 14, the last one that he talks about in verses 38 and 39. And I'll read the verse to you. It says, if my land cries out against me and all its furrows are wet with tears, if I have devoured its yield without payment or broken the spirit of its tenants, then let briars come up instead of wheat and stink wheat instead of barley. He's an agriculture entrepreneur. He's saying, if I've abused the land, if I've abused the resources in there, whether they're the animals or the people living on the land that are working it, whatever, if God has given me some resources and I've abused them, let briars come up instead of wheat. So let let me not make any profit. Let me let me be held guilty. Take away my my bonus, take away my uh good business results. And in today's culture, so I'm gonna I'm gonna extend that into today's culture. What does that mean for us today? We're not farmers, so we don't have to worry about it in that way, but we need to be treating our people with respect. We need to be take taking the resources God has given us and treating that with respect. So if the if your company, if your business has a choice, I'll do this thing and who cares about the pollution is within the bounds of the government allows, or I can do this other thing and treat conserve the nature, set up a preserve, do something good for the creation, which would you choose? Which would Job choose? He says, if I've abused the land, then let the briars come up instead of wheat. If we are abusing creation by uh investing in technologies that are outdated, doing a coal-fired thing instead of a solar thing as an example, just because it makes a buck, do you think God is smiling on that? Probably not. And this is where Job, the message of Job, the message of the Bible says, you know what? God appointed us to be in his image to care for creation. It's not just about growing our business, it's not just about making the maximum amount of profit. It's about these 14 principles that Job has got in his book. It's about living the way that God would have us live. And remember, when at the beginning of the book of Job, where uh God says to Satan, Have you seen there's no one on earth like him? He's blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil and maintains his integrity. And that's God speaking. Can you imagine God saying that to us? What would the conditions be in our business, in our leadership, for God to say that about us? And which one of us would not want God to say that? So, what I'm saying, telling you today is this book, Job chapter 31, this little book, Total Loss of Double Success, it's the true story of Job. He's laying out more than any other author in all of scripture 14 principles for us to follow. Wouldn't we want to adopt those? Shouldn't we adopt those?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What does that mean? And then the question, of course, is well, after Job adopted those, and uh, you know, he he sat there and he scratched his potteries for his used the pottery and scratch his sores for days on end and complained with his friends and argued with God, and then God finally speaks. And what happens at the end? He gets blessed with twice as much. So the obvious question is, well, what happens at the end? If I follow these 14 principles, Roland, what happens to my business? Well, I can tell you this good things are gonna happen to your business. Does it mean you're gonna get twice as many camels or the bank balance that's twice as big? Obviously not. Obviously not. God wants your heart more than anything, but he also wants your obedience. And uh these 14 principles just uh kind of mapped out what that means for a business person and what our leadership should look like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, beautiful. Well, Roland, tell us about God and work and uh also your ministry, Christian Business Angels. What are you up to there?
SPEAKER_01Okay, I can tell you about the Christian business angels first of all. It's uh book I started both of them about seven years ago in parallel. Uh, one, I started uh with church at the church. We're doing a workshop on what it means to be a Christian at work. The guy who organized the workshop got transferred. I ended up holding the ball. Uh I just was available after retiring uh from a job or stopping employment with one company at that time. So I thought, you know, maybe this is an opportunity. I worked at it. I uh I wrote this book, How to Be a Christian at work, uh, together with a theologian uh in Amsterdam. We published it. Uh, we offer workshops around the world teaching people what it means to be a Christian at work. We offer workshops for the everyday worker, that's the most popular one, but also for managers and also for executives. And then what does it mean to retire? So, all those things is what all covered in the God and work uh ministry. The Christian business angels uh side, a lot of people who are retired or close to retired, their kids are gone, uh, they got a pocket full of money, and they might be thinking, well, what am I gonna do? What does God want me to do for my retirement? And uh, of course, the American dream is well, we're gonna get a motorhome, of course, and drive around the country and see this beautiful land. I'm not so sure that that God has that as a plan for everyone. And uh, there are more meaningful things perhaps that can be done as well. The whole idea of retirement doesn't even exist in the Bible, actually. Uh, if you look for verses on retirement, you're not gonna find it. I've got another study on you version about retirement. But out of that, meeting people at the workshops from God and Work and uh putting together our heads on well, what can we do to make a difference? We founded the Christian business angels, myself, together with six other uh senior business people. And what we do there is we take uh we all contribute money into the fund, and then we use that money to start new companies to create employment for underprivileged people, starting in Kenya. So far we're working only in Kenya, but we're very close to going to a uh second country and a third country in Africa as well, uh, through some partnerships and leads that we have. Yeah. Um, one of the things that's very interesting is you know, uh, it's something God has gifted a lot of people go through life, they get they work up the food chain in the company, they end up with management skills, business skills, financial skills, and then they retire and then what? They're gonna just play golf or what? But here, this gives an opportunity to say, well, maybe God gave you those skills to help somebody. Maybe you can impart your skills to some young man or woman who's starting a company, and that's what we do in the Christian business angels.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, how many businesses have you helped us start there? And um, what what's an example of one of them?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so we have a number of uh uh you can visit the website Christian BusinessAngel.org or visit our LinkedIn page. We've started approximately 10 businesses. We've been to a very slow start. The first few years, we just I think in three years we did one, and then after that we did two. And this year, uh, you know, pandemic aside, we're ready to start uh somewhere between 10 and 20. But uh, of course, the pandemic's a little bit in the way. And the types of businesses we start, uh, and again, our focus is in Africa at this time. You can't just randomly do it all over the world. And so we chose Africa because of personal connection and opportunity. And uh the businesses we started, I would say about 30, 40 percent of them are agricultural in nature. We started a motorcycle test. Taxi business, we started a video and music editing business. We have a school software business. So the many different businesses. And right now we're looking at a cashew nut processing factory and some uh snack factory as well to produce foods. And so what we're looking for is just things that are sustainable, that have a competitive differentiation, and that will hire people. And so uh one of along the way we start all these things, and of course, doing a startup company is very difficult. Um, we're in a space we're putting in between five and thirty or forty thousand dollars per company. And in that space, below the five thousand dollars is kind of microfinance land. Hey, I'll give you a loan for $500, buy some chickens, and pay them, pay me back. Above the space, $50,000 plus is kind of venture capital land. So we're in this middle space where nobody's really paying attention, and it's a difficult space because there's a lack of structure, and the companies are too small to where they have a big HR department or anything. They're not organized. Most of them are startups from scratch. So we're we're challenged with training young men and women to how to run a business, including following these kinds of principles as we see in Job, and uh and then going from there. And our success rate, actually, we've looked at over the last five years, and of the 10 businesses we started, two have failed. And if you compare that to the numbers in the market, it's opposite. Normally you would expect 10 startups, eight will fail. And uh, so we're making good progress. We've got a uh, you know, we're not perfect, uh, but uh we definitely have a lot of fun doing it. And uh it's interesting and very rewarding.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And are are these um is this charitable giving or is this actual investment with uh a return for the angels? How does that work?
SPEAKER_01Darren, that's a really good question. It is absolutely 100% charity. You put your money in, you put your time in, you fly there, you coach, you get nothing back except the knowledge that you're helping someone and being like the hands and feet of Jesus. So it's got nothing to do with no return. Even if your company that you're coaching uh multiplies and returns a hundredfold, uh, there's nothing in it for you, just a personal reward. We of course uh operate as a for-profit company in Kenya. So if we make a hundredfold under 10,000 and we end up back with a million, uh, we're gonna use that money to invest in other companies. But never does it go back to the investor. Yeah. That's a good question.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, great work you're doing. Um, Rowan, in light of what we've been talking about here and and what Job has how Job has exhorted us here, what do you, what action do you want people to take in light of what they've heard today?
SPEAKER_01Well, the obvious answer is, you know, buy my book. But you know, I don't mind, don't buy the book. Just go online to you version, actually. And you can search for my name or you can search for Job chapter 31 or total loss to double success and read the 16-day study plan. The action I want people to take is to evaluate what are your principles for business and leadership today and compare them to this summary that Job gives in chapter 31. You can, of course, just pick up the Bible and read chapter 31. I've read the Bible a number of times, and I've of course plowed through Job and Job chapter 31, but it never hit me that there's something of interest to business and leadership in there. And even if you picked up the Bible today and just started reading Job 31, uh, I think you know, if you really put on your glasses and you think, oh yeah, that's what he's saying, oh yeah, that's what he's saying. But it's until you start comparing with other scriptures, other characters in the Bible and back to today, that maybe it will pass you by. So I want to encourage every listener to go on to U version and check out this plan, or just go on Amazon and buy the book.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then not just and just don't do this by yourself. The book is written as a study guide. So it's actually intended for you to get together with your fellow managers, your fellow leaders, other people in other industries, and say, you know what, let's spend eight weeks or let's spend 16 weeks or whatever. Let's go through this and use this as our food for discussion over our next time we have coffee or lunch.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You'll be blessed. I'm sure you'll be blessed.
SPEAKER_02So good. Well, Job 31, everybody, go uh dig in. Um, I mean, maybe the only other chapter that could rival the business wisdom shared in that one chapter would be Proverbs 31. Um, so we actually did uh interview with Hannah Stoles a couple episodes back on Proverbs 31. People can check that out as well. But um with the Bible, uh, as you've as you've been teaching, is full of uh wisdom for your business. So um so job 31 and and dig in to this book, Total Loss to Double Success. And uh you look like you had something else you want to say there, Roland. Oh no, no, thank you. Uh and the website is godandwork.org. Rowan, thank you for your time and and sharing your wisdom with us today.
SPEAKER_01Okay, be blessed, and thanks for having me on the show.
SPEAKER_00We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.