Creation and the Spirit of Entrepreneurship | Dr. Stephen Hildebrand | Leadership Institute

[Music] foreign God created us created the whole world incomplete or imperfect not in the sense of defective but in the sense of immature he didn't finish it you know um some of my favorite examples of this are the fact that you think of certain fruits and vegetables animals they don't come from the hand of God ready to be used by US uh we had millions of years ago to domesticate the potato to domesticate the Tomato to domesticate the cow to domesticate the dog to domesticate the horse and so on um so so the the world comes to us you might say raw from the hand of God and I it seems to me the Lord does that on purpose obviously the omnipotent God could have given us a domesticated dog right but but uh so the question then is well why didn't he why did he leave so much undone did he get bored with his work no um uh did he forget no obviously right those are silly explanations the reason he left the created World raw in a state in a state of imperfection the reason he left it raw is precisely so that we could finish it our job is to finish the creation that the Lord has given us and because he's he's given us that rule I think because he made us rational and free uh if he if the Lord made the world finished and then made a rational-free creature in it does nothing for that rational free creature to do and and the activities that are most appropriate to us having reason and will are the activities whereby we bring ourselves to flourishing and also the world around us and so the Lord has to leave so much undone it's really staggering when you think about about how much he leaves undone in our own lives and then in the in the cosmos in general so in any case I think we all are by nature in a certain way made to be entrepreneurs we're made to be co-creators with God uh to bring the world around us to bring ourselves to flourishing so again if I'm right that the entrepreneurial mindset is um at least creativity and courage at least that and a kind of resiliency in the face of failure uh yeah absolutely the Lord Jesus had that spirit so you can think of I think it was said about him who teaches like this right his teaching is new he's you think of his um the the you might see the the acts whereby he instituted the church um they had baptism in Judaism but he transforms it they had to pass over in Judaism but he transforms it right it's really bold to do that sort of thing um and for us of course the the the if you want the what you're calling the entrepreneurial Spirit of Jesus it really comes down to the fact that he's God incarnate so that kind of creativity that kind of boldness the kind of Freedom with with religious custom and Convention comes with the Lord because he's God he's God incarnate he he's innovative and unconventional I think oftentimes entrepreneurs are unconventional but he's unconventional the way he picks his disciples you wouldn't um he sees in them potential that not everyone that other people don't see and so to to me entrepreneurs often do that they see potential where other people don't see nothing but obstacles yeah one of the most significant ways in which the earliest Christians were creative so obviously the earliest Christians were Jews but but one of the the earliest ways in which they were unconventional and creative really getting this Spirit from the Lord and this impetus from the Lord is in their um willingness to preach the gospel to the Gentiles this is unheard of right the Jews uh certainly at the time um of Jesus in the first century that they were happy enough to be left alone to living in a pagan Society they really don't have a posture of evangelization to this broader culture they really want to be separate from them ideally they'd be their own country but they wouldn't have to deal with the pagans at all and then um St Paul comes along and takes the words of Jesus to imply rightly to imply that the gospel must be preached also to the Gentiles that the good news that the Lord had to offer is for everyone but of course this is very unsettling you have that dispute recorded in Acts about um what Saint Paul calls the party of circumcision and the party of uncircumcision um yeah so the early church had to face [Music] um early on you might say that the bounds of creativity so and I think every entrepreneur has to to think about these sorts of things just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it right so you want to say okay I have this idea is it consistent with uh with what's good and true um is it consistent with um the laws concerning Justice for a Christian isn't consistent with charity and so yeah the early Apostles had to face this they said okay the the Lord seems to be telling us to preach the gospel to the Gentiles um but she'll be really deviate from the law and of course they came up with a kind of compromise that really saw to the essence of the matter and they said you have to keep the moral laws you have to stay away from idolatry you have to stay away from sexual immorality but but what we would call the cultic laws you don't have to keep revolutionary revolutionary of course social entrepreneurship I think Taps into yet another deep Insight of Christianity so if God sets things up so that he doesn't just give us things but he sets us up to for active participation so that we are which dependent upon Him always and for everything but we're also co-workers with him this is the way he sets it up but it's also then a model for us about how to deal in our relationship with others how to how to serve others how to love them and basically we need to act like God does so when God the way God treats us sometimes he gives us a gift a simple gift and sometimes he doesn't sometimes we have to work and participate and and um exercise our own talents so as to achieve these Goods so we need to do the same thing I think in our relationships with others sometimes you'll meet people and the right thing to do is to give them a gift no strings attached but other times that's not the right thing to do in fact sometimes that can be the wrong thing to do sometimes what a person really needs maybe a job for example so sometimes the right thing to do May to be maybe to start a company to make an investment so yeah I think I think the social entrepreneurship is is tapping into an Insight that the Christians have long had yeah so to wrap this up um it seems to me that the entrepreneur spirit is really at the core of human nature and because it's at the core of human nature it's at the core of the way in which God has saved us all right so again if you have this principle that that he saves us and he saves Us in the same way which he made us we're in a way consistent with the way which he made us then you see this common theme if we're going to be uh participators at the natural level we're going to be participators at the supernatural level and so you see this this kind of common denominator it's really important though I think the the entrepreneur has certain Temptations I mean all humans and so far as we are all entrepreneurs have these Temptations but especially those of us who are especially creative and especially bold and especially comfortable with risk there's going to be the Temptation really to kind of forget that you're not the Creator you can kind of overestimate your uh your creativity and and lose sight of the fact that that creativity is to be exercised um in a certain context there's there's certain as you say guard rails it's not it's not an absolute creativity even God's creativity in a certain way is not absolute right so so God for example um he doesn't make Square circles or he acts in a way that's consistent with his own nature so so God I would say cannot um command us to lie he cannot lie and he cannot command us to lie so so there are certain the entrepreneur in his creativity has to be true to his nature he has to be for the Christian he has to be true to the gospel so his creativity cannot then um extend beyond the bounds of what is true and what is good and what is Holy and in fact I think I would argue that in so far as he does that his creativity will actually diminish thank you

Channel: Franciscan University of Steubenville

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Length: 10min 41sec (641 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 31 2023