What God Says About Business: Lessons from God's Laws for Kings

In this episode, David Schmidt explores Deuteronomy 17:14–20 and shares how God’s instructions for kings offer valuable instruction for business leaders today.

There are three things kings were not to do and the one they were supposed to do: Write themselves a copy of the law and read it every day.

Kings operated a lot like business owners today and these laws are principles that you can very much apply to your business today.

David discusses how these biblical principles will ground leaders in humility, guard against pride, and keep leaders focused on God in every decision.

The results of following God's laws: Success and longevity of your business.

One Challenge from Today:

This week, commit to reading a portion of Scripture every morning before work. As you read, think about it and ask God for wisdom for leading and the operations of your business.

Free Resource:

Download David’s guide, What does God say about business? Discover 5 Uncommon Truths That Will Transform How You Do Business, to put these principles into practice in your leadership and business. [INSERT LINK]

Scripture References:

• Deuteronomy 17:14–20
• Mark 4:1–20
• Proverbs 10:22, 22:4

More About David Schmidt

Free E-Book: What God Says About Business: 5 Uncommon Truths for the Modern Business

Subscribe to the RBT Weekly Newsletter for weekly simple, practical, and Biblical steps to help you build a thriving business in a way that honors God. Newsletter also comes with Bible verses for business success for you to read, apply, and be inspired by.

Book a call: Get Unstuck and Move Forward

Website: redeemingbusinesstoday.com

LinkedIn

Donate to the Show

What does God say about business? Business is a group of people under a common leader joined together to achieve a common purpose. And in the Bible, kings are probably the closest correlation we have to businesses. Yeah, there are business people in the Bible, but as far as specific instructions and laws for kings, they relate to businesses probably closer than anything else. Kings had

a vast array of people under them that they took care of their food, their clothing, their warfare, their planting of their vineyards, their taking care of their sheep, their oxen, their horses, cattle, all that stuff. So they were in charge of some multitudes of things, kind of like a business owner. And so when God speaks to kings and gives them instructions, that's a good place for us as business owners to start and to look and see what does God say about kings.

The Bible is a very great book and it's interesting that there are laws in there, there's principles in there, and there are examples. Some things are laws, thou shalt not kill. It's still a very relevant law today. No need is, change is needed. There are some things that are principles such as all the talk about, you know, if you steal your neighbor's sheep, you're gonna have to repay back two sheep for them and things like that.

I don't have any sheep, you don't have any sheep, but the principle is there that I'm not gonna go steal your car or steal your wallet or steal a book from you or steal something from you. So the principle of not stealing and the principle of restitution still is there. And then also in the Bible, there are examples. There are examples of people and how they have lived and the results that have happened. And those are written down for our instruction as examples of how we ought to live or how we ought not to live.

So today what I wanna do is we're gonna go talk and go deep about God's laws for the King, because I think these laws very much are very applicable to business today and what does God say about business for you and to us today. So first of all, we're gonna talk to you about Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse 14 through 20. That's a basis of what we're talking about today. And to set up the,

this talk, you gotta realize that Deuteronomy, the book of Deuteronomy was a covenant between God's people Israel and between the Lord God of Israel. God had just brought them out of Egypt. He has led them through 40 years in the wilderness. And now they're about to enter into the promised land. And so God is writing a covenant with them, making a covenant with them and saying, this is our history. This is what you're gonna do. I'm gonna do as your King. And here are then the blessings I'm gonna give to you if you obey.

Here are the curses that are gonna be handed out to you if you disobey. And in the midst of all this, there's a few verses that talk about, when you get into this land and you decide and say, hey, I wanna set up a king for me. This is your instructions for a king. And again, this is instructions that for you and for me as business owners that we can very much relate to, very much need to follow. And so,

Deuteronomy 17, 14 through 20. They desire to have a king. They want to have a king. And God says, that's fine. Let's have a king. Here are your instructions. Here's your qualifications when you set up a king. First of all, when you set up a king, you have to set up whoever I choose. You have to set it up whoever the Lord your God choose. That's who you're gonna set up as king. Basically, I get to set the king. And when you look at this covenant relationship between Israel and God,

Why would God not set up the king? It's his kingdom, he's the God, so he says, I get to choose your king. And it's very interesting as you look through history, God sent Samuel to anoint Saul King, God sent Samuel to anoint David King, God sent Nathaniel to basically choose Solomon to be the next king. Even when Jeroboam took over, when the kingdom split,

God had sent a prophet to him to anoint him king. And so there's many times that the kingdom would change and God would send a prophet to anoint the next king. So they very much did this in the Old Testament times when they set up a king, when Israel set up a king. Set up, so basically number one, your qualifications, the Lord is gonna choose them. Two, set up one of your brother. And he said, you.

must set up one among your own brother as king over you. Restriction, you may not set a stranger over you who is not of your brethren. Now, why is that a problem? Why is that a problem? Well, when you look at the covenant between Israel and God, that's the covenant. It's between Israel and God. And so if God's people were to continue to be God's people and to be blessed by God, they had to continue to follow his rules and laws.

In order to do that, they need to have somebody who's in a covenant relationship with God as their king. They couldn't go grab a stranger who served foreign gods and set them up as their king because what would that foreign power do, that foreign king do? Well, they would incorporate other gods into the worship and into the culture of Israel. And so the restriction was you must set a king up among the Israelites.

You can't go get a king from somewhere else. That's the restriction.

because you are my covenant people. You are Israel, you're Abraham's descendants. I'm your God, you're my people. It's our relationship. You have to have somebody over you who believes the same things you do. Let's back up, let's back up. That's number one instruction for us business people today. Look at business today. When you have a business and you are looking to set up leadership, perhaps you are,

looking to step aside as the owner, as the CEO and get another CEO of your business. Or maybe you're going to set up a leader of a division in your company. Maybe you're looking to set up some supervisors or any other kind of level of leadership. Guess what? Looking from this principle here, you must set up one of your brethren. Now doesn't need to be your brother, physically brother and sister, but what this means is that

If you are running a company that's a Christian company and you want to honor God, then you need to get somebody as a leader that loves Jesus, that also loves Jesus. You must pick somebody as a leader who God wants to pick. If God owns your company, if you've given your company to God, then

You need to choose a leader who God chooses. You need to go to God and say, God, who do you want to lead my company? Who do you want to be the CEO? Who do you want to be a leader? Who do you want to be the group leader? See, it's not just the person who's the most qualified, but to know the product or to know the service or to know what's going on, but it has to be somebody who loves Jesus. You cannot operate a Christian company when God haters are in charge of your company.

If you have ungodly people in leadership, they are not gonna lead your company in a way that honors God. It's impossible. And so just as Israel needed to have, needed God to choose their leaders, needed God, needed these people as leaders to follow God and be in a covenant relationship with him. So business today, if you really want to have a business that honors God,

you need to establish leaders who honor and love the Lord as well. I'm not saying you can't hire people who are not believers and who don't love the Lord. That's fine, you can hire them. But the leadership of your business, if you wanna lead it in a way that honors God, has to have leaders who love Jesus. All right, let's get back to the law for the kings. This is the qualifications. Set up who.

one among your own brethren, one someone who God is gonna choose. Then we have the laws for the kings. And it's interesting because it has three things that they're not to do and just one thing that they're supposed to do and then it has the results. So let's look first of all what the kings are not to do. It says first of all that the king is not to multiply horses unto themselves. Why? Or to cause the people to return to Egypt to the tent that they might

multiply horses. Why? What do kings, what do horses have to do with kings back then? Well, in the day and age when the Deuteronomy is written, when you went to battle, if you had a whole army of horses, you would probably win the battle because horses were stood for military might. The one horse, a guy and a horse could conquer so many people. Why about so many people on foot? And so the instruction to

not multiply horses. This didn't mean they couldn't have horses, but the problem is as you multiply horses and focus on multiplying horses, guess what happens? Is that your focus is gonna be coming off of God to protect you and focusing on your own physical might. When God made his covenant with his people, he basically said, I will protect you.

I will deliver you. One of you would chase a hundred. Two of you would put 10,000 to flight. I will protect you. You follow me and I will protect you. And if you ever read through the book of Joshua, you'll see how God protects his people and God gives them military victories after victory after victory. They don't need to multiply their horses. And indeed, if they start multiplying their horses, what happens is there's a temptation to

Stop trusting the Lord and start trusting in man. Military might. David at the end of his life numbered the people. He numbered the people of Israel and God disciplined him for it. And his heart smote him and he realized that what he did was wrong. What we did was wrong was because he was focusing on how many mighty fighters does he have because that shows how mighty

David is, and the focus was off. The focus got onto David and how physically he is mighty with all these men. And so the first instruction for kings is that they're not to multiply horses unto themselves. They don't say they can't have horses. It's interesting, David, David had horses. David conquered many kings in many battles, but it's very interesting as you read, it says,

When David conquered this people, this army had thousands of chariots, he would kill all the horses and leave enough for 100 chariots. He figured that was the number he set, 100, 100 chariots is good enough for me. So whenever he defeated an army and they had thousands of horses, he didn't multiply his horses. He just killed them all off and kept enough for 100. Do not multiply horses unto yourself.

The second instruction for kings is they're not to multiply wives unto themselves, that their heart turn not away. Again, this commandment seems kind of strange to us because in our day and age, we would not even think about having more than one wife. It's against the law. One man, one woman. know, God gave Eve to Adam. He didn't give him three or four wives. He gave Adam one wife.

That's the principle. That's what God wants you to have, is one wife. But yet in the day and age where Israel was growing up, when God was giving this law to them, the kings of the land had multiple wives. And as they grew, basically the more wives they had, the more power they had. It was a symbol of status of authority and power. And it also in that day and age, wives having lots of wives,

was also equating to pleasure. When you have lots of wives, that means you are increasing your pleasure here in this world. And so they're not to multiply wives unto themselves because again, it turns their hearts away. It turns their hearts away from what? It's gonna turn their heart away from God, from the worship of the one true God. And we have the sad example in Solomon.

who has given wisdom from God, wealth from God, all these things from God. And yet even him, because he multiplied wives to himself, he disobeyed this scripture, his wives turned his heart away from the Lord. And so even though he still served the Lord, he also served all these other gods as well. Do not multiply wives into yourselves. Why? Do not multiply pleasure into yourselves. Why? Lest your heart be turned away.

from following the one true God.

Finally, number three, he says, they are not to greatly multiply silver and gold unto themselves. Again, why a king is to command and not to greatly multiply silver and gold unto himself. What happens, back up, how is a king going to multiply silver and gold unto himself? Well, there's probably three main ways. One, they're gonna go to war. You're gonna go to, in that day and age, you're gonna go to war and conquer another country and then take all the treasure.

That's going to greatly multiply the silver and gold. They will also multiply silver and gold greatly through taxation, taxing the people. Either that or they will put their people to force slavery, force work, and to reap the benefits and rewards of all the labor of their people. And so not greatly multiplying silver and gold was a restraint upon the king so that he lives contently with the treasure and the wealth that God gives them that comes along with the king.

but he doesn't go in excess. He doesn't go in excess seeking to gain wealth more and more. Because what else happens? What also happens to us when our silver and our gold multiplies, when our wealth and riches multiply? Again, our focus starts to come off of God. God in his covenant with Israel says, I'm your God, you're my people, you follow me.

Things go well with you, you have plenty to eat. You don't follow me, I'm send famine upon you. I'm gonna send bugs that eat your crops against you. I'm gonna send drought against you and you're not gonna have anything to eat so that you can come back to me and follow me. And this is part of the blessing and the curses of God's people following the Lord. So they're not to greatly multiply silver and gold unto themselves.

Again, this is interesting and we'll see this theme not just in through the qualifications and this theme through the what not to do, but also what to do. This underlying theme is God. God is the center. God is the beginning, the middle and the end. Our qualifications for leader has a lot to do with God, whether they follow God or not. These things and what the king is not to do has a lot to do with taking their eyes off of God.

God is the one who fights for them. God is the one who is going to give them pleasure and contentment in life. And God is the one who's going to continue to provide for their daily needs. And so they're not to multiply for themselves horses or wives or greatly multiply silver and gold.

Well, let's look at business today. You may think, man, that's good for them. What about me today? I'm not going to multiply wives to me. I'm not going to get a bunch of horses. We don't have silver or gold. We have paper money. Well, that's true. But how this applies to us today is that it also talks to us directly about what we do in business. It's very interesting that as I've listened to many podcasts on business and on wealth building and having passive income,

And do know what they say? They say that there's five areas. The popular teaching is that there's five areas of wealth that you need to build. That is the wealth of time, the wealth of money, the wealth of health, the wealth of relationships and of impact. That when you have wealth in all five of those areas, that is wealthy, you are truly wealthy. And if you talk to some people and listen to some people, their analogy,

It's like building a castle. It's like they build this castle, which is their business, their empire. They build this castle. They build huge walls that is their money, that is their health, that is their relationships, the impact they have. And then it's like they build a moat and they make this moat larger and larger. And it all is to protect their business so that their business can continue. This is the popular teaching for today.

And if you go back to it, this is exactly what God told the people, children of Israel not to do, multiply horses, wives and money.

Jesus told a parable of four soils in Mark chapter four. There's the first soil where the seed was sown onto hard soil and the birds came and ate it up. Then the seed fell on rocky ground and the plants grew real quick, but because they had no root, when the sun came, they faded away. And then there's a thorny ground where the plants grew up and the thorns grew up with them, but the

thorns choked out the plants and no fruit was brought to, there was no fruit. It's very interesting that Jesus, when he interpreted this, he said this third soil, the soil of the thorns growing up with the plants and choking out the word, he said, these thorns, these thorns are the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the lust for other things entering and choke the words.

and becomes unfruitful. Think about it. The cares of this world, deceitfulness of the riches, and lust for other things. And when we look at horses, wives, and money, think of it this way. Cares, your cares of your world. You know, the cares of this world, you have cares in this world when you don't have enough money. You know, if your child, if your son runs into this window and breaks it, how are going to pay for that window?

If you don't have enough money, how are gonna pay for that window? If you've run your car, your tires in your car so long because you're trying to make it last and you don't have enough money to buy tires and all of sudden you have these tires that the metal is showing through, you need new tires. How are you gonna pay for those tires? You don't have enough money. Those are the cares of this world, my friends. And if you don't have enough money, you will have cares in this world. But on the other hand, if you have a lot of money,

It says there's the deceitfulness of riches. The deceitfulness of riches can choke the word as well. that's because riches are interesting thing because what happens when you have lots of riches? The temptation is that you get your eyes off of God and put your eyes on man. I'm sorry, eyes on the money. We are to trust in God and not in uncertain riches. God's given us great things to enjoy, but our

focus is to be on God and not on certain riches. And it says here, the lust of other things entering in choke the word. The lust for other things basically means pleasures. You have pleasure, you have all these pleasures that you want to seek and seek out and those pleasures come up like thorns and choke out the word. When you look at horses, wives and money, guess what? Horses.

Do you build your business focusing on might, focusing on getting bigger and bigger and bigger? Is your confidence in your company that it will continue on and will not fail? Or has your focus got off of God? Wives, you're not gonna have more than one wife. I don't expect you to. I don't think that's gonna be an issue. But are you multiplying pleasure in your life? Are you multiplying, do you,

Multiply vacationing, travel and pursue pleasure, pursue to do just what you want to do and not worry about other things. Again, that is a popular teaching in this world and where people want to grow their business so that they can do more travel, so that they can work on whatever they want to do, so that they can please themselves. That's the wife thing. That's a focusing on pleasure. It's very much an issue for today.

People are focusing on pleasure and pleasing yourself and looking after man and pleasing man versus focusing on God and money. As people increase their wealth, increase their riches greatly, there's a temptation, there's a deception to find your security in wealth and not in God. Anyway, let's go on. For today, yeah.

Your focus, your underlying focus is that your confidence needs to be in God. Your pursuit is not to be in pleasure, but your pursuit is to be, to do what God wants you to do. You can grow and you can have money, but be rich towards God as well. Don't just have a bunch of money and treasure it up for yourself and ignore God. You'd be rich towards God as well. Let's get back to Deuteronomy. Let's get back to the laws of the kings and what God says to kings. Again, there's only one thing God says to do for kings.

What does he say to do? And I love this. He says, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, he shall write him a copy of this law and it shall be with him all the days of his life and he shall read it all the days of his life. Basically the king is supposed to write this law was Deuteronomy, this covenant between God and Israel. The king was supposed to write his own personal copy of the law, write it down himself, and then he's supposed to read it.

every day of his life. That's the only thing God said to do. That was only positive instructions for kings and what they're to do because he knew that everything else was written in that covenant.

for you and I for business today, backing up for business today, what are we as business owners to do? Read the Bible. It's simple, read the Bible every day. I find it very interesting that before this, if you had to come to me and say, how should I grow my business? How should I grow spiritually? I would have laid out this array of spiritual disciplines. I would have said, you know, read your Bible, study it, meditate it, memorize it, meditate on it.

talk to other people, do good works, go to church, give a tithe, do all these things, be filled with the Spirit, all these things I would have said to you to do. But God is very simple. He's not simple, but what he gives to us is very simple, very easy. And he doesn't tell the kings to do these 10 different things. He just tells the king to do one thing. And the one thing he tells the kings to do is to read the Bible. Read it.

write the law down, get himself his own copy and read it. For you and for me, we are blessed. We are so blessed in this country. We are so blessed in this world to have the printing press. Everybody can have a Bible. There are some people who don't have Bibles, but you, anybody who's listening to this podcast probably has a Bible of their own. If they don't, they could go to the local bookstore, any bookstore and buy their own copy of God's word and start reading it.

So that's your, what does God say about business? What does God want the business owners to do? Just as what does God want the king to do? Read the Bible every day. Read it every day. Clean and simple, practical, read it. Now here's the outcome. When you go back to Deuteronomy, we see what is the outcome? What is the outcome of not doing these three things? Not pursuing after horses, wives, or money.

but pursuing after God and reading his word every day. What is the outcome? The outcome is it says that he may learn to fear the Lord as God. Wow. He said that the king will learn to fear the Lord as God and keep all the commandments. For the king to fear God means he's gonna listen to God. He's gonna follow God. This book Deuteronomy was a covenant between Israel and God.

And the king, as he reads it every day, he's gonna learn to fear God and do it.

The fear of the Lord, by the fear of Lord men depart from evil. There's a lot that can be said about the fear of the Lord and we're not getting into it all. But realize this, that yes, loving God is the greatest commandment, but if you don't fear the Lord, you're not gonna obey him. You must fear the Lord, fall in awe of being awe of him, and that will be your motivation to fear, to obey him and to follow his commandments.

Proverbs 22, four says, humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honor, and life. If you want riches, honor, and life, you have to walk in humility, you have to fear the Lord. Proverbs 10, 22 says, by the blessing of the Lord, the blessing of Lord make it rich. He adds no shouts to it. God gives blessing, but we need to fear the Lord and we get the fear of the Lord by reading the Bible every day. So that's the first outcome from obedience of reading is that you learn to fear the Lord.

The second outcome for obedience in reading the Word every day, it says that, heart be not lifted up above his brethren. His heart be not lifted up above his brethren. Basically, don't be haughty. He says, don't be proud. The king is not to be haughty and proud and think that they are better than everybody else and they can do whatever they want.

Short example is King Ahab. King Ahab wanted Nabal's vineyard and was not able to get it, but his wife said, hey, you're the king of Israel, you can do whatever you want. And so she had Nabal killed and Ahab possessed his vineyard. That king's heart was lifted up with pride, with arrogance, with lifted up above his fellow men thinking, I can do whatever I want, I can take whatever I want. No, if you...

read the law every day, he goes, and you learn to fear the Lord so that your heart will not be lifted up above your brethren. Because it's when you walk in pride, it's when the king walks in pride, that's when they're gonna fall. Pride goes before destruction, a heart, a spirit before a fall. Just because the king now rules in the land of Israel doesn't mean they can do what they want. They still need to follow the Lord.

And finally, they read every day so that they can learn to fear the Lord. They read every day so that their heart will not be lifted up. They read every day so that they turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left. Again.

God made a covenant with Israel, his people. Deuteronomy was the written part of that covenant. The king needed to keep that covenant. And if he reads it every day, he fears the Lord, his heart's not lifted up, he will. The natural outcome will be that he will keep the commandment and turn not aside to the right hand nor to the left, but he will keep the commandment and do what God says. And finally, and I love this, it says,

If you do all these things, it says to the end, they do all these things. He turned off from the commandment to the right hand north to left, to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom. He and his children in the midst of Israel. The final end result of this king, if you have a king whom the Lord chooses, a king who is one of your brethren, who doesn't go after horses, wives and...

money, a king who writes to himself the law and who reads it, who fears the Lord, who's not haughty, who follows commandment, it says he's gonna prolong his days in his kingdom.

What is the greatest desire of any king? What is the long-term desire of any king? That his kingdom continue and that when he dies, his kingdom is passed on to his children. That is the desire of any king. My friends, I don't know of any king who said, you know what, I'm tired of being king. I wish somebody would kill me and kill all my children and take over as king. Do you know of any king who says that? I don't.

The desire of the King is that his kingdom will continue and that when he dies, his children after him will reign and rule in the kingdom. It says here, if they do these things, that's exactly what's going to happen. What does God say about business? What does God say about kings? This is what God says about kings. So when we back up again, we look at business today. Read the word of God every day.

that you too may learn to fear the Lord your God. Fearing the Lord is not a Old Testament thing. Fearing the Lord is very much part of your day to day to day. God is still God today. If you disobey God, He will chase in you. You will experience God's wrath upon you. And so we ought to fear the Lord and love Him. And the love of God and fear of God go hand in hand. By the fear of the Lord, we depart from evil.

It motivates us to follow and obey him. So fear the Lord. Don't be haughty. You don't know everything. Learn from the Lord. Learn from other people. Learn from other experts. Don't do things man's way, do things God's way. Don't be haughty. Number three, follow God's laws. We've talked about God's word in that there are God's, there's laws, there's principles and examples from the Bible. I believe every thing

in the Bible is applicable to today. It might be a law for us to follow, it be a principle or example, but we can learn from it so much about how to operate and run our business today. And finally, if you do all these things, you will be able to build a huge business that you can pass on to your children. I don't have time to give you a lot of examples to today, but one example that is worth looking into is the business of Hobby Lobby.

David Green was used by God to build Hobby Lobby. And he's written a few books on how he did it. And basically he followed God. He tried to honor God. He followed God, read God's word, did what it said, had good business practices, and he has been blessed with this big business that honors God that he's gonna be able to pass on to his children.

You know, it's interesting that the underlying theme of this whole passage is that you don't forget God and you don't get distracted from God and don't be proud. The whole underlying theme in picking the qualifications for the King and in what they should do, what they shouldn't do, the whole theme is, don't forget God. God is the center, God is the beginning, middle, and end. And so for you and us today as business owners,

Let us learn from this. I encourage you to learn from this. Don't forget God. Don't get distracted by the things of this world, by the prosperity of this world, by the, yeah, things going well, because riches can be deceitful. Don't be proud, be humble. Friends, I encourage you, love God, know God, fear God. And finally, what does God say about business? What did God instruct for kings? You know what?

This applies to you today as well. Qualifications, it tells the qualifications for leadership, it tells you what not to do and what to do. It gives you outcomes. Yeah, it's things that go well for you. Friends, that's all for I have for today, but I want to say one more thing. I have a free resource for you and you can get the link to it in the show notes. And this resources is basically an expansion of this podcast episode. And it is, what does God say about business?

Discover five uncommon truths that will transform how you do business. Don't miss out. If what I said to you today resonates, if you resonate with anything that we've talked about today, you're gonna love these five uncommon truths document. Remember your business represents the God you serve. Therefore go out and build a business worthy of God's name and in a way that honors God. God be with you.