Ep. 051 - Investing with Purpose: Emulating God's Work in the Garden

Episode Transcript

Spencer
Today, we're going to think more deeply about how we invest and select companies based on the products and services that they offer. Namely, we want to look at what God did in the garden as a worker, and we want to emulate him as we select those companies based on their products and their services.

Austin
All right. So Spencer, today we're going to explore what do we see with God in the garden. He is a worker. He is a cultivator, as we've seen in the past couple episodes. He invests in us. And so really, as we think about deploying our capital clothing companies with capital, we want to be again, reflecting on what does God do?

Austin
How does he clothe us? So you want to walk us through what does this look like? What is God's story for work?

Spencer
Yeah. And that's it's broad. But what we want to do is we want to invest in companies. We want to enlarge their capability, their, opportunity set companies specifically that seem to be much more aligned with human flourishing rather than, detrimental types of activities, services or products that would actually diminish the image of God in each of us and our brothers and sisters.

Spencer
So again, we're coming back to what's going on in the garden. And we see God, as you mentioned, as a worker in the garden, he is portrayed not just as someone who is tired of the work or doesn't really love the work. but we see from Genesis one that it was his work to create everything in six days, and each time his work is described as good.

Spencer
And then when he creates humanity, it's very good. And so he's he's focused on this creation of beauty, of, reflecting really his nature and who he is. and he's portrayed as a worker in that space, not just as someone who is, again, disengaged, but again, each part of what he does is good and the meaning even of good might be, kind of truncated in some ways when we think about the Hebrew, derivation of the word the, the, the word tobe, means not just moral perfection or functional excellence, but there's an element of beauty there as well.

Spencer
So it's almost like this beauty good. You know, together. Yeah. It's not just, kind of better than average. It's the sense of being morally perfect, but also being beautiful as we encounter it.

Austin
Yeah. Well, and even as you were talking about that, I started thinking about Hebrews one and where it says, the word of God upholds the universe by the word of his power. So even as he was creating, like you were saying, and it was good, then he's still speaking, he's still participating with it. If it was just, I just create because I that's what I do, and I don't really care for it.

Austin
He wouldn't need to uphold it because he would not really want to. But he longs for us. He wants to participate with us. He doesn't want to just be like, oh, that's what it was. And now I'm done. He enjoys it. He delights in us. He delights in his creation. It was good. It is good because he imbued it with goodness and beauty, and he upholds it with the word of his power.

Spencer
Well, and we use that word delight. Eden. As in the Garden of Eden. Eden means delight. It is a sense of that beauty and that goodness together. And so it was the original place of humans dwelling, and it was created by God. Now one of the interesting things, you know, we again see God as a worker.

Spencer
He's created us in his image. He gives us actually his work as a gift. and that's something that is somewhat countercultural because, you know, you hear all these, you know, people just talk about, well, I got the 9 to 5 and we've got songs about it, and we've got Humpday, you know, and, and and such to get over, you know, the, the monotony of work.

Spencer
But work was not like that in the garden. so we, we, we think about that as work as a, as a core part of who God created us to be. There is goodness in it. There is a level of engagement of how we were created. And actually we see from Genesis two, then the Lord God took the man, placed him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it.

Spencer
So we'll be talking a lot about cultivating and keeping here over this episode and next. But we see our functions are again to cultivate, that is, to kind of innovate and build out, the beauty, the goodness of the garden, but also to keep it, that is, to defend it to to keep those boundaries in place, to keep that beauty in place.

Spencer
as two of those functions. And we really like what, Tim Keller and Katherine Leary Alsdorf, said in their in their book, Every Good Endeavor. you want to walk us through that?

Austin
Yeah. So we've got a several quotes here that we can put on the screen. But one is work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sexuality. It is not simply medicine, but food for our soul. And I think, you know, as I've read every good endeavor before, there's a lot of really beautiful pieces to it.

Austin
But as I think about myself as a worker in the midst of a society of work, my role is necessitated by other people's roles. That's necessitated by other people's roles. So work isn't just what I do for myself, it is how do I contribute to a society around me? It is a collective because I didn't build the computer that I'm looking at for these notes, and if you asked me to do it, it would be impossible.

Austin
So I have to participate both with God as I do my work, because it is a gift that he has bestowed on me to be a worker. But I'm also communally connected to other workers. and there's another quote here that says loss of work is deeply disturbing because we were designed for it. And I think this is a lot of part we to that communal aspect.

Austin
We are designed to work with others to bring about the beauty of the world, to bring about God's goodness in creation.

Spencer
So we think about this work as being important, what we're created for. But why do we even need to work to begin with? I mean, you know, it. It's a good question. I think that we have to grapple with because if God created the world and this beauty goodness and it was perfect and everything that he created was good, and there's no sin at that time, like what?

Spencer
What what is even our function? But we see that in Genesis two that he's actually invited us to play a part. So even though everything he created was perfect, he left part of us. He left part of it for us to build out, which is is really fun to actually see. If you look at Genesis two there at the start, verses one through five, it says, now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no one to work the ground.

Spencer
So he's created this world. He's created Eden. But not all of the latent potential has been used. Yeah, it's not been built into the beauty that it could become. Instead, what he does is he creates Adam and Eve to be able to cultivate, to keep the garden, to build it out, to be his vice regents there.

Austin
Yeah. Well, and I think the beauty there too, is he invites us into culture, care, the actual care of the land. We are not meant to just have dominion over it. And you mentioned in a previous episode, like we're not meant to then take advantage of the land that God has created, but we're intended to bring the life that God had initially put in, but wants us to participate with.

Austin
I think about some of the different imagery of around the world, where you just have land that sits fallow. And it's beautiful in some ways because it's green and but it, it isn't cared for. It's not tended to. there may be weeds that have grown up and kill the other plants. Now it's, it's natural, but it's not full per se.

Austin
It's not full of the beauty of life that may be able, if a culture of an image bearer comes in. Similarly, if we look at some of the things that are happening globally that are taking advantage of the natural resources, it's this constant back and forth of what are we doing as image bearers? Are we taking advantage of the land or are we cultivating it?

Austin
Are we bringing beauty forth and participating with God?

Spencer
And I love what you say about that broader cultivation, because it's not even just the land. there is a level of cultural cultivation, when we see in Adam and Eve, there's an expectation that they are going to fill the earth, you know, through, having children. there there is a beginning of a language they're naming animals.

Spencer
there is even the first poem that Adam writes two couplets in praise of Eve's beauty. So we see all of these different pieces come together as there's this broader cultivation, both from a physical side of things, but also the beauty of people relating together.

Austin
Yeah. So we see Adam and Eve really participating with God in a multitude of ways. So that's pre-fall. What about post fall that we see there? Spencer.

Spencer
Well, obviously we see a diminishment of the image of God. We see sin enter. But there is still beauty in the midst of that cultivation. So in Genesis there's 11 different places where the phrase comes. These are the generations of. And so that's the literary structure of the book. And one of the beautiful things about the way that Genesis is written is there's this drumbeat that God is engaged with his people.

Spencer
He is engaged, and he is not going to just turn his back on humanity, but he's going to continue, each generation to be there. But one of the interesting things is that that phrase that generations, in a sense, it's also here's what the people generated from creation. It's not just a list of, you know, who came after who all the way along.

Spencer
One example of this is in Genesis four, we see this progression of culture being developed. Now again, we're fallen, but there's still beauty to this. Yeah. So we see Jay as the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. Well, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, they didn't have tents. They had figured out how to how to, put up tents by this point and raise livestock in a certain area.

Spencer
So there's a skill here that Jabal had developed. Jubal, the father of all those who play the harp and the flute. This is amazing because they've developed, to a point where they can construct a harp and a flute. Those are instruments that are not easy to build. there and then Tubal-cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron, tremendous amounts of skill there to pull those minerals from the earth, to be able to then forge them and to be able to construct tools out of them.

Spencer
So we see this development so that you can even use these tools for other things there as well. But even in the midst of the fall, you have, God's work moving forward when you see his image bears using that creativity to cultivate things and to be able to sing songs, to be able to play music. in.

Spencer
And sometimes it could be ways that are not honoring to the Lord, but sometimes it is songs that would honor God.

Austin
Yeah, well, even as you were thinking about the saying that, I was thinking about what would my life be like without music? music is such an integral part of, just the ways that I enjoy the Lord as I memorize scripture. It's oftentimes through people putting scripture to music, and so it's helpful for me to memorize it.

Austin
But the guitars that my friends play, they don't just come out of the ground. Right. It takes an image bearer to work the land, work that wood and the metal to make a guitar, to make amplifiers and microphones and these beautiful things so that I can listen to and enjoy music. And it is a beautiful thing that God has put us into a world that has all this latent potential.

Austin
But I haven't seen a guitar coming out of ground. I haven't seen a flute come out of the ground, but image bearers bring that about and we are, we are given this incredible beauty of a world that God has made. But it needs those image bearers. And so we look at Psalm 104 and Psalm 104 celebrates. God works God's work in creation, but it recounts as well not only God's initial creation, but post for human development of it.

Austin
And we've talked about this a little bit, but he makes grass grow for cattle and plants, people for people to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth, wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts. How many are your works, Lord? And wisdom? You made them all. The earth is full of your creatures.

Austin
So there is a. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number, living things both large and small. There are ships that go to and fro and Leviathan, which you made to frolic there. May the Lord rejoice in his works. It's this beauty of there is grain that we can use to make bread. There are olives that you can use to make olive oil.

Austin
There are grapes to make wine, but it takes an image bearer to take those things and move them from their simple nature to a flourished, really full thing that you can enjoy.

Spencer
Well. And we see that it's celebrated as well there. You could say, well, post fall, do we really see examples that God is celebrating all of this cultivation and keeping, or is it just completely diminished? And we see indeed in Psalm 104 that last line, May the Lord rejoice in his works. So God is taking some credit for the image that he's put in us that allows us to cultivate these things.

Spencer
He's celebrating alongside us that we have developed these things that go beyond, you know, a ship, for instance, goes far beyond just the timber and all of the different pieces that we go into making that ship and allowing it to be able to to help people navigate on the sea. Yeah. We also love the idea that this cultivation, it ends in a way that we get to the Eucharist.

Spencer
So we get to communion at the Lord's Table. And those elements, again, they are bread and wine. They are not wheat and grapes. So do we see this as well in the New Testament or towards the end of the Bible?

Austin
Yeah. Spencer, as I think about this, one of the beautiful passages that I come to often is revelation 21 and we see the new heavens and the new earth, and it can get lost in all of the different measurements and the jewels that are in the city. But in verse 24 it says, by its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, into the city, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there.

Austin
And the reality here, I think, is N.T. Wright put it. Is there's going to be this parade of nations that are coming into the city of God, and it says there they will bring their glory. The kings of the earth will bring their glory into the city of God. So we have participated with God on the earth to create products and services, goods that bless the world and that we, as we enter into his Kingdom for eternity, get to bring those things with us.

Austin
There's this kind of beauty of what do we bring with us to eternity? And it's there are things that we have cultivated alongside God as he again clothes and invest in us as we participate with him in his work, that we then bring that into eternity. It's this mystical, mysterious thing of there actually is power and beauty to what we do here, that we get to participate with God in eternity in that work.

Spencer
You know, Austin, there's great beauty in participating with God as cultivators. And we see this in so many different lives. But one of my favorite ones is George Washington Carver. And just a quick synopsis on his life. You know, he was born in 1864, at the end of the Civil War. He was born as a slave, and he had just so much creative capacity and grew to be the first student who was an African-American at Iowa State University, then became a professor and ultimately landed at Tuskegee University in Alabama.

Spencer
And when he arrived there, so many of the fields had been kind of desecrated by an over planting of cotton. So not much life to these fields. And so he tried to figure out, what can I plant in these areas to renew the soil. And he came up with peanuts and sweet potatoes, but there wasn't a whole lot of a market for peanuts.

Spencer
People said, well, why would we plant peanuts? What can we even do with the peanuts? So he came up with 300 different products, everything from peanut butter to oil to you could use it for, running engines, all kinds of different innovations. But it started, you know, with him asking, God, what can I do here? You know, there's so many different quotes that I love from him.

Spencer
But he said, I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in. and so, you know, he has the spirit of listening to the Lord and trying to be innovative. But even as he developed all these things, he would not take profit from it.

Spencer
Now, I think legitimately, he could have he could have had patents and he could have taken that. But he said, God gave them to me. How can I sell them to someone else? And it all came back to, you know, this quote he said, without my Savior, I am nothing. So he felt like he had been redeemed. He had been, given all of these creative gifts and talents, and he was hearing from God.

Spencer
And so he could then go and innovate and implement all of those different things. And he was able to lift so many different people out of poverty, so many different sharecroppers. you know, black folks that, they had no way of making a living because they, the, the land just would not, produce anything. that was meaningful.

Spencer
So he developed all of these different products. So really, really beautiful story. But even a step further, he had mentored one of the Iowa State professors, kids taking him out in the fields built this love of learning, for this child who was Henry Wallace and Wallace later on, he was the vice president under, FDR, Franklin D Roosevelt.

Spencer
But where he really had the most impact was in setting up these agricultural experimental stations like he had seen at Iowa State under George Washington Carver. And one of the first people who ran one of those agricultural stations was Norman Borlaug, who was credited with bringing about the Green Revolution. that they, you know, experimented with all kinds of different types of crops that would be more resilient in places like Mexico and India and other places where there was tremendous starvation.

Spencer
So credit he is credited his innovations, credited with saving over 1 billion people from starvation and essentially it was this love, this innovation, this, being able to cultivate that's passed down from George Washington Carver, that ultimately gets to Balrog. And Balrog is able to really make a difference, with that spirit, with that, design. So, you know, as we see people do this, there's a tremendous beauty to it in lining up with what God has already enticed us to do.

Austin
Yeah. Well, thanks for walking us through the life of Carver Spencer. I think that is just such a. As we tie things together as we close out, it's really beautiful to look and see how God has, through the ages, used his people to care for the land, to cultivate the land, to bring about beauty and flourish, to bring about this fallow ground and to make it beautiful.

Austin
And so as we finish off today, can you just remind us about that grand narrative that we've talked about?

Spencer
So what we see from Genesis one all the way through the end of revelation is that God, as again has has put His Spirit in us. He has put his image in us to create, to cultivate us, to be able to innovate different things. And as we look at companies, we can see, okay, is this a company that is trying to bless other people, that's trying to innovate, to create, and sometimes that's a journey that maybe they started off on a good path and maybe they've shifted over time.

Spencer
I mean, I can think of different fast food companies that I thought, well, maybe 30 years ago, it it really seemed like they were cutting edge and doing things in ways that serve people. But now it just seems like it's a lifeless place where, you know, no one really wants to work there. And the people that go in there, they might just be trying to find the cheapest thing that they can find.

Spencer
Yeah. You say, well, is there a level of like cultivation and innovation and care for people and care for the, you know, the products that they're serving there anymore? Yeah. And I think that's part of what we can grapple with is what are these products and services that we look at? Are they are they really harnessing God's creative capacities?

Spencer
are they did people come into this and say, what is the best possible way that we can do this in a way that really seeks that beauty goodness? Or is it just I'm going to do something for the cheapest possible way, the lowest common denominator, so that, you know, maybe people are still served, but no one's really happy about it.

Spencer
Yeah. so that's that's one of the ways that we'll look at it. Now, next time we'll be talking about that verb keep. To cultivate and to keep. And this is going to be interesting because it's not just that we can cultivate anything. You know, we can't we're not to cultivate in ways that are going to harm our brothers and sisters.

Spencer
For instance, we're not to cultivate in ways that are going to destroy what God has made around us. so this this is just the opening as we kind of think about what are the products and services that we can say really align with God's heart and his work of putting us in the garden, of investing in us, his spirit, his, image, such that we can create these these products, these services, and we can close companies or help them enlarge their sphere of influence, that align with God.

Spencer
And where do we need to stay away from? And so we'll be talking about again keep next time. But then we'll also be getting into, you know, reflection on what are the areas that we see in particular that maybe we want to avoid in terms of products and services and what are those that we might want to, really embrace or get excited about investing in?

Austin
Yeah. Well, thanks for walking us through that, Spencer. If y'all have any questions or any suggestions of things that you want to see us talk about, about investing with God alongside God, feel free to leave those in the comments below or reach out to us, and we look forward to seeing you again next time.

Spencer
We want to thank our friends at the Eventide Center for Faith and investing. Jason Meyer and his team did a fantastic job helping us to grapple with the biblical wisdom on investing. Many of the quotes and thought leaders that we cite come from their original research.

Austin
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Disclosures
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We're in Knoxville, Tennessee, and you can visit our website at www.secondhalfstewardship.com The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.