Converting Knowledge Into Output

This is the body of a letter I wrote to Dad a few years back (2003 I think) that had to do with some fundamental issues for our family business to contemplate as we were in a period of trying to figure out what we should be. Unfortunately things didn't quite happen the way Dad or I had envisioned for a variety of different reasons, as is prone to happen in this world, but I think there was definitely some value in this communication as we begin to contemplate what the Jubilee Project might be:

Creation Theology, Wisdom, Redemption and the Formation of a Corporation

From the very beginning man’s high purpose and dignity is made clear – he is made in the very image of God, and endowed with a God-like role in the created realm. Man was to be a highly functional being, entrusted with a God-ordained representative kingship over the earth and its wealth (Gen. 1:28). God’s own rule was extended and carried out on earth through the rule he had given to man. The creative nature of God was then placed in man, a God-given creative impetus to make, build, and harness the resources of this world to bring it under man’s careful dominion, and ultimately to hand that dominion over to his Maker. The glory of man’s role was carried out through a harmonious relationship to the Creator.

Man’s ability to carry out his role was dependent on an abundant and crucial resource: knowledge. Knowledge was the fuel that enabled him to carry out his office with competence. The watershed issue in the creation drama was not if man would acquire knowledge, but how he would acquire it. He was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…God forbade it upon penalty of death. What must be noted is that there is significant textual evidence in Genesis 1-4 to indicate that this knowledge of good and evil is not to be taken in moral categories (although it’s consumption had moral implications on an eternal scale), rather on functional and cosmological scales. God harnessed His knowledge of good (function) and evil (chaos) to create and order the world from a chaotic state to a functional and harmonious state. So, essentially the created order was a manifestation of His divine wisdom (Prov. 8:22-31). This knowledge is what man needed to carry out his role as steward, he had to acquire it. He could acquire it in one of two ways, in harmonious proximity to his Lord, or through rebellious consumption of the fruit. Man could gain knowledge through revering the Lord and honoring his ultimate Kingship (Prov. 1:7), or he could steal this knowledge and become a king unto himself without acknowledging God’s supreme Lordship (Gen. 2:17).

The fall centered on how man would know, and then extend his rule. He acquired the cosmological wisdom he needed through rebellion and at great cost. In his knowledge there would be progress…great progress, but also futility and ultimately death. The kingdom of man and the Kingdom of God were thereafter sundered and at odds. Man was both wise and cursed; all his creative efforts would succeed only through great strife. This was not as it should be, man was to create in a fashion that God did in Genesis 1, competently, beautifully, and without struggle. However, in addition to condemning man to death for his sin, God in his mercy cursed the earth and its resources rather than let man exist upon it comfortably as a usurper and a rebel. Man from his knowledge made the implements of civilization as early as Genesis 4 when Cain’s sons became the fathers of human shelter, animal husbandry, music, and tools. However, even as civilization developed it did so with violence and discontent. The creative impetus in man became a liability that drove him from God into vanity, ambition and uninhibited pride (Gen 6:5-6). Man indeed could do anything he purposed to do (Gen. 11:6); he built a Tower to the Stars as a way to establish his dominion (or name in the Babel Narrative). But again God, who would not have a rival to His Kingdom or His Name, thwarted men upon the plains of Shinar by confusing and scattering them. These issues are fundamental concerns at the heart of what scholars would classify as Creation and Wisdom Theology in the discipline of biblical theology. I am inclined to take this a step further and assert that these issues are a powerful current in the flow of Redemptive History and are fundamental concerns of the Biblical metanarrative (the underlying story of the Bible).

From the fall God has been on a redemptive mission to recover His wayward stewards, to bring them back into a harmonious relationship with Him, and to restore them to His everlasting Kingdom. He has withheld nothing in this pursuit, even His own life He has surrendered to recover His beloved rebels. However, He will not surrender His glory, and He will not surrender His rule. There is but one everlasting Kingdom in His Cosmos, which is most certainly not the kingdom of men. He exerts His kingship through His Anointed King, and will utterly destroy the kings of the earth with a rod of iron and the word of His mouth (Ps. 2:8-9, Rev. 19:15). Their dominions, and their knowledge, their work will perish as His Kingdom endures in this age and all the ages to come.

What strikes me is that in my studies, the principles of business are simple, and stem from one fundamental issue: Who is in charge? The answer determines which kingdom we labor in, how we acquire knowledge and then execute it. Many of the books I have read wrestle with the question of endurance and greatness. It is bound in the heart of man to build lasting institutions, great institutions; we obsess and labor to that end so that in the end our knowledge and our efforts were not squandered. However, through the fall our aspirations were distorted, turned away from God and toward ourselves, so that all our labor in the end furthers our own interests and not His. Thus, the kingdom of man still wars against God, seeking its own greatness, longing to endure without Him.

Jim Collins and Jerry Porras state in their seminal work, Built to Last, that their book is fundamentally “about building something that is worthy of lasting – about building a company of such intrinsic excellence that the world would loose something important if that organization ceased to exist.” They speak accurately of values, vision, adaptability, and dedication as the keys to endurance and back their findings with hard data. It is probably in their concept of vision that the cosmological knowledge of Genesis is most organically related in our contemporary setting. From vision, or perception will flow the critical organization and harnessing of human, material, and capital resources toward the end of enduring greatness. It is with the modern sense of corporate vision that these companies can navigate through and utilize the cosmic principles of good (function) and evil (chaos) to create the companies that they envision – ones of lasting greatness. Sadly, even with the most accurate, compelling, and inspiring visions of these companies they cannot escape their blindness. Even if these companies were to endure to the end of the age, they wouldn’t even be an afterthought in eternity, precisely because they start with a finite and corruptible vision, and then harness finite and corrupt resources that can by their very nature never escape their finitude. The knowledge and vision of men will pass, their capital, material, and human resources will pass…none of it will last. No man will endure meaningfully in eternity unless he has been made anew in Christ. As the grass of the field we will fade and our world will fade with us.

So maybe the main issue is not only building something worthy of lasting, but also building something that is sure to last. It is so easy to become intoxicated with vision, to seek an understanding of what our business is and where it is going and then furiously go on pursuing what we are convinced our destiny is. Vision without a wholesale acknowledgment of God is one of Hell’s most potent lies and the harbinger of doom for the kingdom of men. We are simply to acknowledge and submit to God (Prov. 3: 5-6), to be wise with the resources he has given us, and allow his vision to guide us…he will make our paths straight. There is but one thing in this world that will last – the Kingdom of God, and His resources will not fade or be forgotten, and it is above all things worthy of lasting.

It seems clear to me that the opportunity in front of us is immense and compelling. We have the opportunity, in part at least to operate in a redeemed fashion as stewards of God’s resources, investing what he has given us to further and advance His Kingdom. This can be done through example by business practices that honor Him, all the way to investing our capital returns into the work of the saints around the world, and I am sure much more. What we seem most reliant on is a vision from God of where he wants this business to go, and what sort of business we are supposed to be. I don’t think that a vision, if it is God-honoring is a concoction of ambition, delusion, and pride, but rather a divinely motivated direction, in which we would be compelled to walk. As he grants you that vision, clarifies and refines that vision, I believe our efforts will be to the end of His glory, and will have a lasting impact on His Kingdom.

Edit: I guess I forgot to get to the point and ask the question... I believe that our efforts will be sourced in some sort of knowledge - we've got to know something of what the Jubilee Project is and how we are going to go about carrying out its purpose before we can actually do something with it. Knowledge has to be effective and functional for it to be of any value, hypothetical knowledge and and endless preoccupation with theories and possibilities gets nothing done, no matter how much fun it can be to talk about over a couple of beers. So the bottom line is how are we going to convert what we know into results?