This week, the greatest marketing genius of all time. Welcome back to Theology of Business. I'm your host, Darren Shearer, author of the book Marketing Like Jesus, and this is the show that helps marketplace leaders to partner with God in business to change the world and make a difference in eternity. The Theology of Business podcast is proudly sponsored by High Bridge Books, which provides professional book publishing and author consulting services for inspiring thought leaders. You can take the next step toward getting your book published by requesting our free three-video author training course at highbridgebooks.com forward slash course. And now on to this week's episode, which is an excerpt from my book, Marketing Like Jesus: 25 Strategies to Change the World. Imagine yourself sitting in a marketing 101 class in college. Your professor says, Class, today we have a special guest professor who will lead today's class. This man is the single greatest marketing genius of all time. Based on the astonishing number of people around the world that claim to be his followers, no person in the history of the world has made a more profound impact on the hearts and minds of people and nations than this man. While about 60,000 people would have witnessed some part of his ministry in Israel 2,000 years ago, approximately one out of every three people in the world today claim to be one of his followers. Besides the religion he started, Christianity, all other major religions throughout the world are still concentrated around the area where they were founded. As noted by Andrew Walls, Christianity is the exception. A hundred years ago, 80% of Jesus' followers lived in Europe and in the United States. And today, 70% of his followers live in the Southern Hemisphere, South America, Africa, and the East. Christianity has been on the move since it began. By 2050, only one fifth of the world's Christians will be non Hispanic whites. Most of these will be conservative and charismatic. The calendar system used by most of the world is based on his birthday. Most commercial retailers in the United States are able to stay in business only because of the gift sales generated in conjunction with Christmas, the worldwide celebration of his birthday. The Bible, which tells his story, continues to be the best-selling book in history. Despite ongoing attempts to burn it, ban it, censor it, and ridicule it throughout history, an estimated six billion copies have been printed. Translations have been made available in more than 2,000 languages and dialects. It continues to be the best-selling book year after year, but the New York Times bestseller list and others started excluding it many years ago due to its consistent dominance on their lists. 92% of the first 138 colleges and universities founded in America were begun specifically for his followers, including Harvard and Yale. According to Harvard professor Harvey Cox, the words of this man's famous Sermon on the Mount are the most luminous, most quoted, most analyzed, most contested, most influential moral and religious discourse in all of human history. The movie made about his life, the Jesus film, remains the most watched movie of all time. For centuries, people all over the world have named their children after his followers throughout history, and even as you listen to this, people have attempted to snuff out his message through persecuting his followers with mockery, social isolation, imprisonment, and even execution. Yet his followers continue to multiply exponentially throughout the world. Please welcome today to today's Marketing 101 class, Jesus Christ. Does this scenario seem a little bit bizarre to you? Is it odd to say the least to think of Jesus as a marketing expert and practitioner? Before we move forward, let's clarify some working definitions of what we mean by, or what I mean by marketing and marketer. A marketer, as I define it, is one who seeks a specific response. And marketing, by definition, the art and science of strategic influence. Whether we're trying to strategically influence constituents, customers, members, employees, donors, friends, or even our family members, we're all trying to influence people to respond in specific ways. You're a marketer, a strategic influencer, an intentional leader, and more than that, you want to be a good one. Most of us have accepted the concept of Jesus as a carpenter, leader, and a religious figure. Many of us even consider him to be our savior, healer, friend, master, and God. Much has been written about the theological, historical, and even sociological implications of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ministry. And in fact, there are more biographies about Jesus than there are about any other human. There are more than a hundred thousand biographies about him in English alone. In the noble effort to help individuals live more like Jesus in the quote unquote spiritual aspects of our personal lives, many books have been written on subjects like how to pray like Jesus or how to treat people like Jesus, etc. Accepting Jesus as a religious figure is somewhat easy, but why is it more difficult to view Jesus as a marketer? Isn't marketer a label too common, ordinary, non-religious, and unspiritual to be applied to Jesus? It's hard to imagine Jesus engaging in quote unquote human and worldly endeavors like marketing. After all, for a large percentage of the world's population, he's considered to be fully God. The Bible says, for from him and through him and to him are all things. If you believe the Bible, you believe that he created it all. Surely Jesus didn't face the types of marketing challenges that we face every day in the marketplace of commerce and ideas. Or did he? Jesus was also fully human. The Bible teaches that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, a hundred percent divinity, a hundred percent humanity. He was just as human as you and I. As a marketer seeking to influence people strategically, he felt the pain of rejection. He felt the joy of getting his point across, seeing life changed, and knowing that people were buying into his message. Everywhere he went, Jesus presented a fork in the road for people, obligating them to make a choice. People would never be the same after meeting him. Throughout the recorded events of his life, he sought specific responses to an invitation, and that imperative invitation was this follow me. He invited professional fishermen to drop their nets and follow him. He invited a rich young ruler to sell all of his possessions, give the proceeds to the poor and follow him. He invited large groups of people to leave their closest family members to follow him. Not only was Jesus interested in marketing this invitation to humanity, it was his entire purpose for coming to earth. According to the Bible, he descended from heaven to earth to bring a message, a message of love, hope, and freedom. He was the quote unquote word that became flesh and dwelt among us, as we read about in the book of John. The entire purpose for his life was to deliver a message, the message about himself to humanity. He was the message that he came to broadcast to the world. He came to influence in a laser specific, strategic way. He came as a marketer. And as such, he demanded a response from the world. As far as Jesus was concerned, there were only two things a person could do with him follow him wholeheartedly or reject him completely. There was no middle ground. Either way, a response was required. You might say, Well, Jesus wasn't selling anything, so how could he be considered a marketer? Forget about blue light specials and Black Friday discounts on what Jesus was offering. The price to accept his message costs far more than anything you've ever paid for. The price to truly accept his message and to follow him? Everything. His life, the follower's life, costly, valuable, demanding. Jesus was marketing an invitation to an exchange life. The good, bad, and the ugly of the recipient's life in exchange for Jesus' flawless life. How did Jesus deliver this incredibly demanding message while gaining global acceptance throughout history? And what can we learn from the life and legacy of Jesus about how to be great marketers, that is, strategic influencers and intentional leaders? Regardless of our profession, how can we influence people the way Jesus influenced them to make a positive impact on the world? That's all for this week. As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, what I just shared with you today was the introduction to my book, Marketing Like Jesus, in which I share 25 marketing strategies that I observed Jesus using in the Gospels. These were strategies that he applied in his ministry, in his three-year ministry, that just turned the world upside down. And I try to present these strategies from the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in such a way that you could take and apply those into marketing your own products, services, and ideas. You can get a copy of this book, you can get the paperback version or the ebook at theologyofbusiness.com or at Amazon.com. I hope you've enjoyed this episode and I hope to hear your feedback at theologyofbusiness.com, where you can get more information about business's ministry, spiritual gifts in the marketplace, marketing like Jesus, and Christ centered leadership and entrepreneurship. And also feel free to email me at Darren at hybridgebooks.com if you have any questions or comments related to the theology of business. Always love to hear from you. Thanks for listening and keep partnering with God in your business.