Five Ways Biblical Covenants Change How We Manage our Businesses
Note: The content in this post is taken from Chapter 2, "A Christian Theology of Business Ownership," 3rd Edition, Revised and Expanded, by Dr. Bill English. Expected publication is the 4th quarter of 2027.
In this deep dive post, I discuss how covenants affect key decisions for a Christian business owner. These key decisions affect the governance model and one’s perspective on a host of key issues in any business.
Biblical Covenants Change Our Governance Model
Because of our covenant with God, business governance is recast from earthly, legal terms to covenantal terms in the CBO's (Christian Business Owner) mind. Earthly governance structures will indeed remain, but for a CBO, God is the true owner and authority over the CBO’s business.
The CBO is not released from obeying earthly laws[1] and regulations[2] by virtue of his covenant with God. The CBO maintains compliance[3] to the extent that laws and regulations do not require us to sin. Even though the CBO is the CEO, Founder, or Owner, he is the main steward to God for the business.
To the extent the Scriptures address owning and operating a business, a CBO will seek to be obedient first to the commands of Scripture, in accordance with the CBO's covenant with God. Thereafter, a CBO will seek to comply with the State's laws and regulations.
It is important to restate that the life purpose of a Christian business owner is to love God and enjoy his presence forever. This life purpose is lived out through obedience and faithfulness to God through one’s covenant with him.
Biblical Covenants Create an Eternal Perspective
Here is a core principle I use when working with Christian business owners:
Christian business owners live with an eternal perspective derived from the owner’s covenant with God and lived out through Biblical stewardship
Living with an eternal perspective fundamentally reshapes how we live in the present. Rather than pursuing temporary gains, our covenant with God directs our attention toward that which endures—toward that which is eternal—since these activities carry lasting significance while material pursuits do not.
An eternal perspective enables us to see beyond immediate pain by recasting suffering as the path to a redeemed future where we walk with God intimately.[4] This perspective transforms the way we evaluate options, moving us away from their immediate impact and toward their eternal significance.
In day-to-day operations, we will find our priorities and relationships shifting from accumulating advantages toward pointing people to Christ. Our money (discussed at length in Chapter 13, Money and Wealth, is placed in God’s hands to be used to further his kingdom. It isn’t spent so much on our personal happiness and comfort as on our surrender to God’s purposes and his glory. We focus on eternal matters and filter the temporary through the eternal to arrive at a perspective that is more closely aligned with God’s than the world’s.
Because the covenant promises last throughout eternity (Genesis 17:7, 13, 19; 1 Chronicles 16:17; Psalm 105:10), a CBO should align his actions, attitudes, and decisions with his eternal future with Christ. The pragmatic effect of this alignment means that temporal decisions change in quality and intention when choices are evaluated in light of eternity. Things that matter so much to others on earth lose their importance when evaluated through the lens of eternity.
For example, a CBO with an eternal perspective may give away more profits than some would think wise because he is consciously building treasures in heaven. Another example is a CBO who continues to invest in his own development knowing that what he does on this earth is preparation for reigning with Christ in heaven.
Living with eternity in mind means being aware of one’s mortality. Most of us do not like talking about death or dying. We find it difficult to imagine our existence ending or our activities continuing without us.[5] CBOs often kid themselves that they will never leave their business, knowing this is not true, but half believing the lie to comfort and give themselves a sense of relevance as they grow older.
Instead of avoiding the topics of death, a CBO who lives with eternity in mind looks forward to passing from this earth into heaven and the presence of God. While none of us look forward to how we will die, our covenant with God assures us of a future eternity in God’s loving presence. So we can let go of the things of this earth more easily because our covenant gives us the freedom to let go and the security of an assured future.
Biblical Covenants Help Us Focus on the Truly Important
If you have an assured future with God and understand that his provision for your life is all you need, then winning an earthly contest seems pretty irrelevant. Most professional athletes and highly successful business owners enjoy competition. They enjoy being pushed by competition to be better than they are today. They enjoy winning and hate losing.
But in light of eternity, winning and losing do not matter. If you die with $100M or $100, it does not matter. If you build the most successful business in the world, it does not matter. Listen to a portion of Deion Sanders’ testimony:[6]
You could sleep in the bed with two and three women and nobody satisfied. You got a hundred suits and can’t cover up the pain. You got three, four, five hundred pairs of shoes and you can’t take a step in the right direction. You got nine or ten cars in the driveway and you ain’t going nowhere. You got a 15,000 square foot house, but you ain’t got a home.
Deion Sanders is a modern–day example of the point Christ was making in Matthew 16:24–26 (LEB):
24 If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life on account of me will find it. 26 For what will a person benefit if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life? Or what will a person give in exchange for his life?
In light of eternity, most of what we do and value on this earth pales when interpreted in light of eternity with Christ.
And the things of this world will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.[7]
I think Helen Lemmel has it just about right.
Biblical Covenants Help Us Let Go More Easily
Many business owners find it difficult to leave their business after twenty or thirty years because they do not have a future. They have nothing to retire to. They have no other purpose in life, so they stick around and work into their eighties or nineties.
However, a CBO who lives with eternity in mind can leave his business because something far greater is in his future. He can view business ownership as a chapter in his life because he has the presence of God on this earth and the assurance of the unfettered presence of God in heaven. What could be better? And if that’s not enough, God will give him meaningful work that will be fulfilling and enjoyable—far more fulfilling than the business he owned here on earth.
Biblical Covenants are the Vector Through Which God’s rule is extended
Gentry and Wellum suggest that covenants are the vehicle through which God’s rule on earth is established and extended:
The covenant with Abraham is the basis for all God’s dealings with the human race. While the settings and languages differ from the covenants in Genesis 1–3 to the Noahic covenants in Genesis 6–9 and the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12–25, the main idea is still that God is establishing his rule in the context of a covenant relationship. Abraham and his descendants will be a light to the nations in this manner.[8]
Because CBOs participate in the covenants between God and his people, CBOs extend God’s rule to what the owner owns or rents. The CBO represents God’s rule in the marketplace, but it is not extended into the marketplace. God’s rule is not forced on unbelievers in the marketplace; instead, the CBO demonstrates to the marketplace how a Christian behaves, what choices a CBO makes, and lives out what a mature, balanced faith in God looks like. As others are drawn to God, God’s rule is extended through others’ voluntary acceptance of God’s offer of eternal life and forgiveness of sin.
The truth that God extends his rule through covenant is grounded in another truth: man is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–28). Bishop notes that
It is clear that subduing and ruling are one facet of being the image of God, and thus an essential part of what it means to be human. Subduing and ruling the creation, then, are to be done as God’s representatives.[9]
Gentry and Wellum nuance this idea of God’s rule extending to all people through covenant:
The ruling is not the essence of the divine image but rather a result of being made as the divine image … the divine image is correlated with the command to rule as God’s viceroy.[10]
When a CBO subdues the earth (Genesis 1:28) by operating a profitable business, that owner works under God’s direction to extend God’s rule to those parts of the earth the CBO controls. For example, any time a CBO legally owns or rents anything, God’s rule is extended to that part of creation for the time the owner legally owns or rents. When an asset or a business is sold, the ownership of those items is transferred to the new owner, but the ownership for the value received from those items is transferred to God via the CBO.
Biblical Covenants Reveal God’s Offer of Salvation
God calls the nations to himself through his people with whom he has covenanted. Calling those who are far from God is an important task for each Christian. Doing so is an act of faithfulness within our covenant with God. Consider these three passages from Genesis (emphasis added):
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 12:1–3 ESV).
17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 22:17–18 ESV).
3Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. 4I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 26:3–4 ESV).
The context of the covenant community being a blessing to all the nations of the earth is equated with introducing these nations to God and inviting them to live as the covenant community lives: In covenant and communion with God. Gentry and Wellum write:
The Abrahamic covenant is implemented in the Iron Age, with Israel as Abraham’s family, through the Mosaic covenant. Israel—or more particularly, Israel’s kind, as the Davidic covenant later makes plain—will be the instrument for renewing the covenant relationship and establishing the instruction and will of Yahweh in the hearts and lives of his people and, through them, in the nations.”[11]
As CBOs live and work with others who do not believe in God, we have the opportunity and responsibility to introduce unbelievers to God.
We need to see our ownership of a business as an important way to fulfill the Great Commission.
[1] A law is a statute passed by a legislative body through a duly elected body of representatives.
[2] A regulation is a rule promulgated by a governmental authority that operates under the oversight of a duly elected individual or a body of representatives. Rules have the effect of laws, but are not codified in the body of statutes.
[3] Compliance is obedience to the laws and regulations adopted by a duly elected legislative body and the governmental agencies that operate under their authority.
[4] Stacy Henagan, Breathe Again: Choosing to Believe There’s More When Life Has Left You Broken (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2020), 208–09.
[5] Virginia Morris, Talking About Death. (Workman Publishing, 2001), 1–2.
[6] Hey Papi Promotions Network, “Coach Prime ‘Deion Sanders’ shares his testimony about meeting Jesus!” October 6, 2023. Youtube.comhttps://youtu.be/MObdBFIRG2U
[7] Helen Howarth Lemmel, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.” In Logos Hymnal Media Resource. (Lexham Press, 2009.)
[8] Gentry, Kingdom through Covenant, 332.
[9] Steve Bishop, “Green Theology and Deep Ecology: New Age or New Creation?” Themelios, 1991, 16(3):8–14.
[10] Gentry, Kingdom through Covenant, 223–24.
[11] Gentry, Kingdom through Covenant, 237.