Taken from Chapter 5, Advice and Wisdom, in A Christian Theology of Business Ownership, Bill English uses Paul’s instructions to Titus to discuss the effects of accepting good advice.
Here is the transcript:
And welcome. I am Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business. I want to thank you for joining me today. In this particular episode, you’re catching me in the middle of a eight part series from chapter five in my book. The chapter is titled Advisors and Wisdom.
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My book is a Christian theology of business business ownership. I’m teaching my way through my book so that those who read it, if they want to hear the author talk about the book and maybe make some additional comments about a section that they’re reading, they can come to this YouTube channel and watch a video or two, or maybe all of them, and learn more about what the Bible has to say about owning a business. That is my call in life. It’s to write down as much as I can about what the Bible says about being a business owner. And so I’m not trying to build a big ministry around faith and work.
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I’m not trying to build a big ministry to business owners. I’m not the guy to maybe to teach you from a biblical perspective of how to make money. I don’t purport to believe the theology that if you’re really faithful to God, you’re going to become really rich. I’m not a guy who’s going to use the Bible to try to show you how to make a million or $100 million. What I want to do is show you about your stewardship responsibilities and talk about the theology and start with the Bible, learn theology, and then say, how does this apply to being a business owner?
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That’s what I do. And that’s what I do, not only in this book, but I also do this at my website, Bibleandbusiness.com. So I invite you to head over to Bible and Business, take a look at it, and just see what might be helpful to you. If you’re a Christian and you own a business, then I’m writing for you. I’m ministering to you and for you.
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And so I invite you to head over. I’ll also ask that you take a moment and just subscribe to this YouTube channel in order to be notified when new videos come out. I try to get them out every Saturday morning, some mornings on this, but for the most part, I generally get them out on Saturday mornings. You might want to know about that. And so if you subscribe, you’ll be notified about that.
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So let’s take a look today at when Good advice is accepted. And this is going to be a fairly short video episode today because we’re going to go right from Titus, two verses, one to ten. And I’m just going to make some comments here and then wrap up. But this is Paul writing to Timothy. I’m sorry.
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This is Paul writing to Titus, not Timothy. And this is what he says to Titus. But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine, older men are to be soberminded, dignified, selfcontrol, sound in the faith, in love. And insteadfastness, older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves too much wine. They are to teach what is good.
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And so train the younger women how to love their husbands and children to be selfcontrol, to be pure, to be working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be selfcontrolled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame having nothing evil to say about us. Bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything. They are to be well pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
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Now, notice this is quite a bit of advice that Paul is giving. In ten verses, he’s saying, here are the things that Timothy that you should teach in the church that you’re in. And he gives a wide range of things to teach. But if we see this simply as a kind of an organization of topics that Paul wants Titus to face into, then we’re kind of missing the boat a little bit here in terms of giving and receiving advice. Paul isn’t just giving Titus a list of topics to pay attention to.
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He’s giving him advice on how to handle himself and what he should look for in his parishioners and how they’re handling themselves. So in this passage, Paul is giving Titus instruction, which should be carefully considered by the Corinthians because of the Godly life. This instruction is already produced in the life of Titus, and I want us to be real clear about this. Titus is able to teach sound doctrine because he’s already accepted sound doctrine. In other words, he’s able to teach good doctrine because he has accepted it.
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It has already produced the desired effect in his own life, and that’s why he’s able to teach it. I just want to say that good advice, good theology, good doctrine are really important things in life. And they will produce in us a changed life. I’ll actually get to that in just a moment. But they will produce in us things that other people wish they had.
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And it’s only because we accepted good advice along the way. So Titus can teach others how to be selfcontrol, because he himself is selfcontrolled said in a different, more global way. The advice that Paul is giving to Titus aligns with Paul’s reputation, and it fits his persona. And because of that, it’s really good advice for Titus. Good advice should come from an advice giver, where the advice aligns with that giver’s reputation and fits his or her persona.
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It fits his or her experience, their education, their knowledge, their background. Good advice should fit the persona of the person giving it, and it should be in line with their reputation as well. And like I started to say earlier, good advice, when accepted, it, leads to a better life with better outcomes. Titus has a good life and he has a reputable life. He has a life that people respect because he has sound doctrine and he has accepted good advice from Paul.
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So one of the lessons here is that good advice, when accepted, can be both lifechanging and you should be able, in most cases, to pass it on to other people.
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Because running a business touches a number of different competency areas or verticals is what I put here in the slide, but a number of different competencies. A Christian who owns a business should be receiving advice from competent individuals in their respective fields. Okay? Just like you don’t buy a motorcycle from Chrysler, right? You don’t buy chocolate from craft, you don’t solicit legal advice from an accountant, and you don’t grab operational advice from a financial planner, just like how those things are discordant, so to speak.
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You want to grab advice from people in legal advice from a competent attorney, finance advice from a competent finance or accountant. You want to grab competent business advice, maybe from another business owner. You want to grab all kinds of advice, but you want to get it from the right people. And what I want to say is this is that the more personal the advice is, the more they need to align with your values and your goals and maybe even your theology. So the more personal the advice is, the more the advice a giver needs to align with what you believe and what your values are.
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Because highly personal advice is always laden with values, and if you’re a Christian, oftentimes with theology. So good advice, when accepted, leads to great outcomes, and it leads to a changed life. It leads to a better life. And as a business owner, you will have a better business by surrounding yourself with competent advice givers and then listening to their advice. This is why I highly recommend that competent business owners have a panel of trusted advisors to whom they go in order to get really good advice, okay?
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So in the next episode, we’re going to be looking at mentoring and giving advice. We’re going to dive into how Paul talks about how he gives advice, and we’re going to look at the story of Elijah and Elisha. I think the next episode will be pretty interesting for you if this is a topic that you’re interested in. So until we see each other again, I want to thank you for coming today. I am Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business, and I hope you go out and make it a great day.
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Take care.