“Buy wisdom. Don’t sell it.”
How to distinguish between holy ambition and selfish ambition, how to do “due diligence on your soul” and not just a deal, and could there have eventually been realtors in the Garden of Eden?
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[0:00:05.4] JR: Hey friend, welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast, I’m Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians, those of us who aren’t pastors or religious professionals but who work as screenwriters, dock workers, and musicians?
That’s the question we explore every week and today, I’m posing it to Bobo Beck. He’s a realtor in the top 1% of Berkshire Hathaway’s real estate practice, who has thought deeply about how the wisdom of God’s word shapes his work specifically and our work more broadly.
Bobo and I recently sat down to talk about how to distinguish between holy ambition and selfish ambition, how to do due diligence on your soul and not just a deal you’re considering and we had this interesting exploration about whether or not there would have eventually been realtors in the Garden of Eden pre-fall.
I think you guys are going to enjoy this conversation with my friend, Bobo Beck.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:14.4] JR: Bobo Beck, longtime listener, first-time caller, how are you, my friend? Welcome.
[0:01:19.4] BB: I am doing great Jordan, thank you so much for having me. It’s such an honor to be here with you.
[0:01:24.7] JR: We were just talking about some of the more recent episodes. I always love asking listeners to the show what their favorite episodes have been. What are some of your favorite, more recent ones, maybe?
[0:01:35.5] BB: Well, I’ve been catching up on a lot of them. I really enjoyed the most recent one, I guess it’s been in the fall now with Tim Keller on with him for sure even the one, I haven’t been exposed a lot to Mako Art. He is a buddy of mine. I was just in his studio last week actually in New York. So haven’t felt like I was with him a little bit, you know — through your show was super encouraging.
[0:02:01.4] JR: I actually just reached back out to Mako to have him back on the show. We don’t have a lot of repeat guests but he certainly warrants a repeat, as did Tim. Hey man, so we got to spend some time together in Tampa at the Redeeming Your Time Retreat and had some great conversations there. I’m excited to let our audience in on some of those conversations and I want to start here.
You’ve spent a lot of time studying the biblical narrative of work. You’ve also spent a lot of time selling real estate. You’ve had this incredibly successful career as a broker. I’d love to hear you talk about the real estate profession through the biblical narrative of work, right? And let’s start in the Garden of Eden, right? Let’s assume for a second that Adam and Eve had not messed things up so quickly, right?
Do you think we would have eventually seen realtors, seeing your profession before the fall?
[0:02:53.2] BB: You know what? I’ve never stopped and considered that. That is a really fascinating angle and a fascinating question. I believe in some way, shape, or form because I also, when I think of Eden and I think of the pre-fall state, my mind also goes to the eternal state, the new heavens, and the new earth.
[0:03:12.6] JR: Of course, that’s where we were headed, right?
[0:03:15.2] BB: Yeah, absolutely and so I think of kind of both of those ends of the continuum and yeah, I think in some way, you know we’re all kind of gifted certainly with different personalities. We’re gifted with different capabilities, different interests, and those who look at the garden. I mean, God came to Adam and Eve and said, you know, be fruitful, multiply, have dominion over.
I mean, it was a cultural mandate to steward. It was a cultural mandate as I like to say, guardians and guardians. I mean, they took that very seriously. It didn’t had to do with real estate, with the actual land and the earth beneath their feet and essentially, utilizing all the different natural resources as they develop their own families and then as civilization began to form.
So yeah, it’s certainly a conversation, maybe not necessarily about the specific profession of a real estate broker, an agent as we know it in our modern context but it certainly is an issue of real estate and certainly, as you fast forward in the life and times of the nation of Israel, the chosen people of God, it was all about land, right?
It was all about this promise and this vision that went back to Abraham and specific about very specific dimensions about land and what they’re to do with it, and how they were to divide it and occupy it, which is in many ways, what we even do today in the profession.
[0:04:41.4] JR: Yeah, that’s fascinating but obviously, the fall has messed everything up including your profession. My best friend, I don’t know if I’ve told you this, my best friend is a realtor leading an office for Berkshire Hathaway, as you’ve had experience in. Talk about the brokenness of this space. What’s broken here specifically and in what ways are you as a Christ follower seeking to renew what’s broken in the real estate industry?
[0:05:11.5] BB: Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of brokenness. I mean, to the point where some days, it can get to the point of just discouragement when you actually stop and consider all the different layers, the dynamics, the history related to real estate and the profession, as well as all the nuance there even in my own heart and life, you know? As a real estate professional both as a developer and an investor on one side and a real estate agent and a team leader on the other side.
Man, I’ve been reading, particularly in the last several years, just with a lot of – kind of the elevated conversation in our country in particular about racial justice and racial inequity and just a lot of the ugliness of – and brokenness from our history as a nation has kind of all came out to the surface with the killing of George Floyd there in Minneapolis and it led me on my own personal journey in a lot of different ways as I think it did a lot of the listeners here.
But there is one book that I really jumped into, particularly being in real estate and it is called The Color of Law and it’s a fairly dense book but still fairly accessible and the author does a great job of going back through just our short history dealing with actual federal laws, all the way down to various state laws across the country, all the way down to cities and townships and it’s a pretty remarkable expose on all the different systems and entities from our federal government.
All the way to the oval office to senators, state legislators, the banking industry, the regulatory industry, you know all of these different layers who all had in many ways, different agendas and a lot of the agenda has to do with race and with social class and a lot of different dynamics and so if any listeners are interested in kind of doing more of a historical dive or maybe you’re in a context that even here where I’m at in Greenville, the conversation every single day is about gentrification and the impact that that’s having on long-standing citizens and residents and these broader economic factors of movements and how they displace people and what can we do to be aware of that and alleviate those things.
So, The Color of Law is that book, and it just reminds me just in very vivid detail of a lot of our history as a nation and as a profession. I mean, even down to real estate associations and their involvement in discrimination. Even homeowners associations, HOAs, and the different covenants they were able to wield to keep certain types of people out or to allow certain types of people in.
So you know, that’s the first thing that kind of comes to mind just in from a historical standpoint and a lot of that still happens. I mean, there is a landmark case and settlement just in the last few years with some realtors out of, I believe Long Island. It’s in the state of New York and this made CNN, 60 Minutes, and all the different national shows with this expose that this type of stuff is still going on in an industry that’s worked very, very hard to try to weed out any type of inequity or discrimination.
[0:08:29.7] JR: So you’re bringing up something very specific to the real estate industry but I do think there’s a broader principle here that’s relevant to anyone in any line of work. You’re really talking about systemic brokenness, right? Which stands in contrast to what we talk about the majority of the time in our churches, which is personal brokenness.
I mean, one of the most memorable things from this podcast over the last year, I think it was Lauren Gill from Redeemer talking about this two by two chart that they put in their terrific little study guide called the Missional Disciple, right? And on the vertical access of this chart, the vertical access represents personal brokenness, right? And horizontal access represents systemic brokenness.
And I think a lot of Christians, I mean, most Christians, I would argue, have a very high understanding of personal brokenness. “I have sinned, I am a fallen individual and the only way I could be reconciled to God is through Jesus Christ.” I think we have a very low understanding though of systemic brokenness, that there are these big systems comprised of sinful human beings that are part of the negative consequence.
They’re part of the curse, the negative consequences of sin as applied to a specific industry. When you look at that and you look at an industry as large as real estate and the broken systems, that feels so overwhelming, like so daunting. What can one guy named Bobo Beck do to push back against the brokenness of a massive industry like that? Have you wrestled with that, have you thought about that? Where have you netted out here?
[0:10:05.9] BB: Yeah, absolutely and I would agree, and I would just say to any listeners at this point, Jordan, that might be having kind of a visceral reaction, you hear the word system, especially in our very polarized context, a lot of people, they go different places. They will – maybe have a knee-jerk reaction and say, “Well, that’s just wokeism” or “That’s just progressive ideology” or that’s fill-in-the-blank but I get all of that and I’m very sensitive to that.
I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about taking a very honest look at the brokenness, in this case, in the real estate industry, all the different ancillary players to it. You can look at financing, education, which I’ve been very involved it as well, international development, politics, and healthcare.
I mean, on and on it goes, whatever domain or sector and so yeah, I mean look, systems are made up of people. So yes, it comes back down to people but I think as people leverage their power and their social influence, their cultural influence, with other people, and begin to create these ecosystems and these networks and these systems that in many cases, become codified, right?
So you have different layers of that which become very difficult to influence and to undo and I think one of the reasons that we’re so prone to just go, “Well, let me just kind of search my own heart” right? And see if they’re being a wicked way in me as the Psalm it says, and not kind of these border systems that were connected to or a part of partly, I think it’s because we’ve just kind of dehumanized the system.
Well, that’s just an entity, right? So it’s easy to compartmentalize that and secondly, it takes time. It takes effort, it takes honest humility and I think just conversations. It takes an open reasonable mind to at least engage into have eyes to see and ears to hear and quite frankly, we’re busy, you know?
And it takes time to read a book like The Color of Law, which I haven’t fully gone through cover to cover, you know? But that’s where we learn. That’s where we become informed and then based on that information, we can then change our own biases or change our own thoughts or change our own actions in ways that we can with our own spheres of influence.
[0:12:30.8] JR: Yeah, it’s good. That’s really good, that’s a really good way of looking at it. So fast forward to the end of history, Isiah 65 gives us this vision. I love how concrete it is, right? Isiah’s vision, the newer earth, he says, “God’s chosen people will build houses and dwell in them.”
You think you’re going to continue selling homes on the new earth? Will you be making transactions this way? Have you thought about this, this concrete promise of homes in our eternal dwelling with the lord?
[0:13:00.2] BB: Yeah, I mean, even our savior says, right? “I’m going to prepare a place for you and in my house.” There’s many rooms, there’s different thoughts on what exactly that means, is it kind of like a conjoined apartment building where all the rooms are connected.
The bigger point is that our Lord and Savior who sits at the right hand of the Father, ever pleading for us and making intercession for us, He’s promised to us as His followers that He’s preparing in a real estate fashion, some type of dwelling place for us in the eternal state, which is really cool to think about.
So in much the same way, we know that city, we’re all going to be urban dwellers at that point, whether you live in a quaint rural area now or might live off the grid or something in Appalachia, who knows? But we’re all going to live in a city, and it’s called the New Jerusalem and the dimensions are there, there’s different materials that it’s made off. There’s going to be streets, there’s going to be all these different things. So I can only imagine that many of the types of professions, which have been created by need, right? Based on just the rhythm and flow of our lifestyles, we’re going to have to have individuals who are skilled and knowledgeable to be able to transact.
You know, will there be a currency? Perhaps. What will be the method of exchange, what will be the store value in the new Jerusalem? Those are all wonderful things and I think questions like this Jordan, shouldn’t send us into a tailspin of discouragement and frustration, because we don’t know all the particulars and I’m sure, many of the listeners here are probably wired that way, right? Very analytical and I want to be able to study and research and figure these things out but there’s so much of a mystery to it that’s just like, trust me, you know? If you can think of the best experience that we have here in our own earthly existence, I mean, 10x that, 20x it, a 100x that in the eternal state.
All without sin, you know? With no complaining, with no bitterness, with no envy and jealousy, all the different things that kind of mar our interactions today as professionals, all of that’s going to be wiped away. So I can only imagine, it should actually lift our gaze and make us long for that day even more.
[0:15:33.1] JR: And that’s exactly why I always bring this up because I do think it leads to tangible hope in the present, of being able to do the work we love with the embodied Christ on a new earth that gives further evidence to the power of redemption. That Jesus has not just redeemed our souls, he’s redeemed us as wholes, as N.T. Wright says, and redeem the entire earth that is rightfully His, right?
I think it’s such a powerful testament to the power of the cross. So, Bobo, you spent years honoring your craft as a real estate professional but in the last few years, you’ve been producing this incredible content under this wisdom-calling brand that’s helping mere Christians connect the wisdom of God’s word to their work. Why did you start down this path? What’s the origin story here for you creating this type of content?
[0:16:28.2] BB: Yeah, I really appreciate this. This is, you know, I can talk all day long about real estate and closing deals and you know, all of this type of thing. But what gets me most excited is more in line with what I believe, you know, God has uniquely called me to do and part of it goes back 20 years ago when I first moved to Philadelphia, trying to find my way, grew up, born and raised in Atlanta Georgia.
A southern boy ended up in the Northeast and I saw an advertisement to recruiting for teachers in the school district of Philadelphia and I thought, “Well, this is interesting, let me kid of click on this. I enjoy kids” and that type of thing and long story short, I ended up getting into education and serving for about 10 years.
So I would say, I’m always a teacher, and with that background of engaging students and colleagues and other roles as administrator and coaching training type of roles, I’ve always kind of had a wore the hat of an educator and a teacher and being in business, the last decade in a variety of different capacities, I never really lost sight of my teacher years and my teaching practice.
So I kind of matched that with you know, day in and day out, just interacting with vendors and clients as well as team members, that type of a thing and just becoming increasingly burdened, some days, frustrated with what I am seeing and hearing and listening to, particularly with those that profess Jesus, those that follow Christ.
Ultimately, I decided to lean into that, you know, when you – and this is just step out of this role for any listeners who are burdened about anything in their life, particularly something that they really believe God’s fingerprint is on and that He is giving you a burden and what I would call a holy ambition or a vision to do anything, lean into that.
Like submit that to the Lord, it’s most likely from Him but we are now stewards of that and we have to cultivate it and we have to evaluate it and allow others who are more gifted than us to come alongside it and fan it and to cultivate it even more and so I began to just lean into this and said, it’s one thing to be burdened about something and say, “Man, I wish there were more resources to help you know, Christian professionals think more critically” right?
To develop those skills or to think more biblically or to live more strategically and not waste their lives. Well, I can be part of that. I’m uniquely equipped in a lot of different tangible ways to actually begin providing resources to address that and building a brand as you mentioned, Wisdom Calling, and a platform and start developing your resources.
That’s really where this came out and going through that, I decided to kind of look at the scripture in a different way, from the lens of a professional, as an investor and all the different business experiences I’ve had and I thought, “Let me just read through this” just kind of with that lens and I will say, there’s always a danger, right? Of trying to pick and choose as we read scripture.
Paul tells Timothy, look, all scripture is profitable for doctrine, for teaching, correction, reprieve. So you know, with that biblical caveat but I wanted to just look through and particularly, trace this one theme of wisdom because in my pondering, in my thinking about the challenges of our, just modern age, the modern marketplace, Christians who are in the marketplace, I thought, “This is really where this conversation needs to land.”
It needs to land on having biblical discernment, having wisdom to know how to, first of all, listen and discern and then adjust our lives accordingly. Making decisions, moving forward, and just navigating this modern world that we live in and all the noise that is there. So I set out at the end of reading that, I had a spreadsheet, and I just charted every particular reference that I thought might relate to wisdom and all the different ancillary aspects of wisdom and I ended up with almost a thousand references.
You know, Genesis to Revelation, started going back and looking for themes and looking for ways in which certain doctrines or teaching or topics kind of emerged throughout the scriptures and I thought, “Well, what’s more practical than kind of a daily iteration with a reader, with somebody?” right? Than, a devotional?
[0:21:15.0] JR: I love this, you and I talked about this before. I love this because this is exactly what I did for the word before work, daily devotional and I don’t think it’s coincidental that both of us came to about a thousand pass of just scripture that directly speaks to this. So you mentioned a holy ambition before. In my experience, talking with mere Christians almost every day, this is an area where people crave a lot of wisdom.
Specifically, discerning between holy ambition for something and selfish ambition for something. What do we see in God’s word that can help us discern between our more God-honoring ambitions and our less-than-God-honoring ambitions?
[0:21:56.3] BB: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this could be multiple episodes just in self, right? I mean, there is so much to unpack with this but I think so much to this is about really hearing from God, really understanding His word, and how His world intersects with the uniqueness of our own lives, our own personalities, our own inclinations, our own cultural distinctions and just kind of the complex intersection of all of that.
So that’s a big part of I think discerning how we are uniquely gifted, how we are uniquely wired, it’s got to start there, right? That’s the context and I think out of that, we have to understand what is our mission, what’s our purpose, our identity, what is our unique calling. I know you’ve written a lot about that, particularly in Master of One and then also in Redeeming Your Time, but how does all of that work?
With the understanding that true believers in the New Testament fashion, like we’re gifted with spiritual gifts, right? Just in general and I am not going to go through all of those but the spirit of God, it gives us this charisma, right? This grace gifts very literally, so that we might be a blessing to others so that we might produce good works for His glory and the good of others. So I think in general, it’s an understanding of that and leaning into that. Seeing that cultivated and so much so that we do so in a community, you know?
I think your local church is probably one of the best contexts to explore what God might be calling or leading us to do or even this particular urging again, we use the term holy ambitions. There are different ways that other writers and scholars have kind of referred to that but these deep options within us that you feel like it has to be done, right?
I use the example of what, Andy Stanley says in his book Visioneering, and he defines vision as a mental picture of what it could be but it’s fueled by the conviction that it should be and I’ve heard others recently say, “Actually, it must be” right? You know, what is that for each of us? Sometimes it’s deep within us and there’s maybe layers that are kind of covering it up and we’ve never articulated these things and maybe for this reason that you’ve brought up.
Like, “Well, this is all about me and it’s about…” Well yeah, it is about us. I mean, God ultimately called us individually in our uniqueness and I am convinced that by His Spirit, He has given us these also very unique expressions of His grace in our life that should be worked out. They should be brought to the surface so that they can, even as our Savior said, “That they may see our good works and glorify the Father who is in heaven.”
I’m convinced that there are many of us who maybe, we’re just too busy, maybe we have imposter syndrome and think, “Well, I can’t. Surely that’s not me. I can’t, I’m not perfect.” You haven’t gone to seminary or “I don’t have this” or “I don’t have that” and it just still stays within, right? We’ve not shared it with anybody, we’ve not leaned in, we’ve not really activated and it is a very real danger, right?
Human avarice and pride are something that God’s word says God hates, it’s an abomination to Him. It is very strong, perhaps some of the strongest language in the Bible. So yeah, our pride at any time can mess this up, right? And evidence of our own brokenness can kind of like weeds take in and take root and just kind of take all this over. So look, I think it’s just a daily connectedness to our Lord and our union with Him. It is a daily connectedness to the vine and realizing the only way we’re going to bear fruit is if we have that intimate connection with Him but we need to bear fruit, right? It takes work, it takes evaluation, and it takes humility, and courage in many contexts to see these things work out.
[0:26:12.9] JR: Yeah, I think that’s right. It’s connect to the vine to be able to discern holy versus selfish ambition. It is being connected to community of other believers but you’re right, it’s also at some point, there is this element of courage that God has created us for good works, right? And a courage to lean into that and to ambitiously pursue the good works that He’s called us to do, not for our fame and fortune but for the glory of God and the good of others, right?
I loved, I told you before we started recording, I read every single word of volume one of your first devotional book, Wisdom Calling, which was terrific. I love that you talked about the wisdom of delayed gratification and really pointed that Esau as an example of someone who desired instant gratification like I don’t know, every human being in the planet today, right? And you eluded in the devotional to a story in your own career where you prioritize instant gratification over delayed gratification. What’s the story there, what happened?
[0:27:12.7] BB: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’ve got 60 of these devotionals out and I am working on the next 30 right now, so some of this becomes blurry but I think I know exactly what you are talking about. It was an investment opportunity. You know, unlike I’m sure many listeners from time to time, particularly if you have excess resources that God blessed you with beyond your living expenses, you know you want to be a steward and you’re looking for opportunities to invest.
You place that capital, you place that fund somewhere so that it might have a return, right? So that you can bless others, you can meet your needs, so on and so forth. So yeah, I had an opportunity. A friend of mine who became a COO of a new startup and this guy that I trusted implicitly, I had a relationship with him for a number of years and been nurturing that and it was kind of a right of first refusal, right?
Where he came to me and said, “Hey, here’s kind of behind the scenes, we’re about to go into a fundraise and I’d love for you to be one of the first ones” and so I evaluated. I had even some of my legal council that I trusted for many years as well to evaluate and you do all your due diligence, right? There is a lot of wisdom and discernment in that and I thought that I had exercised all due diligence and prudence throughout and I still ended up investing in the startup, which there’s a lot of risk there.
Talk to your financial adviser, I am not but we talked earlier just about the brokenness, particularly in real estate and whatnot, I mean, that owner had other intentions, you know? It became, this is a situation where my interest was kind of paid out over 12 months each month, and every month, it was kind of a chore to even get that and then it was time to get my principal back, you know, the narrative completely changed.
So just trying to unpack our responsibility and all of that but looking back Jordan, I mean, I think the bright lights just like, “Wow, I’m going to get this kind of return” and you look at the best case scenario and of course, we’re optimistic and hopeful as we move forward in some of these but yeah, if I was to unpack some of it looking back, yes I did my due diligence from a legal standpoint and kind of evaluating this particular investment opportunity.
But I didn’t do a lot of due diligence on my soul. I didn’t bring others in. I brought the attorneys in, I brought some advisers in but I didn’t bring my pastor in, you know what I mean? I didn’t bring my – and I think there’s a lesson there that again, we think, “Well, everybody’s got a utilitarian value” right? You’ve got a utility and you’ve got a value and you’ve got a utility but you know, money is deeply entwined in our very souls, our very existence.
So often, you know, we only go to our advisers, we only go to our asset managers or attorneys in our lives to evaluate these things and I’ve learned a very valuable, multiple valuable lessons through that.
[0:30:13.8] JR: So if I can summarize, you don’t think it’s unbiblical to necessarily make that investment, right? What you’re convicted of is, “Hey, I did the due diligence from a financial standpoint but I did not bring in wise counsel to really speak to my heart in this situation.” Is that right?
[0:30:33.6] BB: Yeah, absolutely and honestly, I think especially those that know me best and there’s some to be said about, keeping your advisers close and not making things public but yeah, I mean, I think we don’t always – we’re so compartmentalized our business and our finances and our money from our spiritual existence if I can say it that way or from our soul care, you know?
We just go where we have these different lives over here and never the two shall meet and this is a perfect example, where had I really done more holistic due diligence, then I probably would have sawed a blind spot of, “You know what? You sure this isn’t instant gratification? Are you sure that, I mean, this 18% return sounds a little too good to be true” and you’re blinded by that, you know what I mean?
[0:31:28.4] JR: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it’s good. I love that even just that turn though, due diligence on your soul is very helpful to be keeping in mind when evaluating opportunities like this. I love that you wrote about one of my favorite passages in the scripture in Deuteronomy Eight. I quote it a lot, especially verse 18, where Moses urges the Israelites to remember the Lord your God for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth, right?
But I have actually forgotten about something that you reminded me of in the devotional, the context and the timing of these words, this is Moses’s final sermon to the Israelites before they enter into the abundance of the Promised Land and that of course makes that passage feel so much more relevant to us today in the abundant west. How practically do you live in this type of abundance and not forget that it is God alone who produces every single result in your work?
[0:32:21.6] BB: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, this is a tendency for all of us. I mean, just yesterday I was invited to an awards ceremony, right? For all my accomplishments in real estate this past calendar year and just considering that it was another moment for me to just go, “Praise God” you know? Like this isn’t about me, this isn’t – this is a culmination of 12 months of activity within one market and one company.
But this is about His grace from start to finish and you can splice that out and go look. He gave me the ability, He provided the clients, He gave me the education and the training to know how to navigate and transact and you know, all of these different things. So it is certainly about just being intentionally aware, so I think just a practice of gratitude even daily of just kind of filtering our day’s accomplishments, our wins, our losses, our failures, our successes.
Constantly just filtering those through the lens of God’s sovereignty. God’s the one that did this, you know? He uses our minds, He uses our connections, He uses our networking, He uses our education, all of these things, right? But you know, maybe listeners aren’t like me. I need this constantly, I need this daily, and I get that email saying, “Here is the logistics for this celebration and this and the other.” Praise God, that ought to be our impulse, our just natural reaction to just go, “This is all of Him.”
[0:34:00.6] JR: Amen. So you’re writing on all of these passages in the scripture and how they apply to your work, which do you think about the most? Which do you not need to be reminded of because they are just constantly coming to the forefront of your brain as you engage in your work?
[0:34:18.5] BB: Yeah, in terms of a wisdom standpoint?
[0:34:22.0] JR: Yeah, yeah, or just specific passages of scripture that are just always rolling around at the forefront of your mind and that you’re applying to your work.
[0:34:29.7] BB: Yeah. I mean, one to be quite honest with you, one of the ones I write about and I believe it is in the first volume, Psalm 90, so Psalm of Moses, which makes it unique in itself, right? Most are by David or Asaph and others that have been recorded. This is the Psalm of Moses and it makes the cut into the Psalms, which is kind of cool but in that Psalm he’s talking about the eternality of God, right?
Who is not bound by our perspective and He is not bound by our constraints and he says in Psalm 90:12, “So teach me” he turns it into a prayer, “So teach me to number my days so that I may gain a heart of wisdom” and that, that’s one of my favorite devotionals that I have written just based on that because that’s something, to really answer your question, it’s always on my heart and mind.
Life is short, life is short, life is short, and he says in there also life is hard and in many senses, life seems like it’s just feudal, right? But these realities are just they’re constantly there. I mean, my LLC that I have is the 9012 group because of this passage and there’s not a day that goes by that I am not reminded of the shortness of life, the gravity of life, and in turn, it’s been kind of like an engine for me.
That’s just one of those truths that really just drive my productivity, my motivation to produce things, to work because our life’s short. We only get one shot at this thing and so I’m so grateful for Moses and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we still have that to be reminded of.
[0:36:16.2] JR: Amen, it’s so good. Have you listened to Shane & Shane’s rendition of Psalm 90?
[0:36:21.6] BB: Oh yeah, I think I might have it in there with these devotionals. I even recommend different songs to maybe listen to as a response and I think I might have given them a nod to that particular Psalm. It’s so good.
[0:36:34.8] JR: It’s so great, I listen to it all the time. All right, Bobo, you know the drill, three questions to wrap up every pod. Number one, what books are you recommending or gifting most frequently these days?
[0:36:45.3] BB: Well, just going back and listening to some of your recent guests, I’m so glad that you all have been talking about Tim Keller’s, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness. You can even get a free PDF of that if you just kind of Google it and do a little bit of research but you know, maybe it’s the Spirit using a theme throughout your guests to just constantly remind your listeners to make sure that they get that.
It’s a treatment of first Corinthians three and four. I would say I kind of referenced it earlier but John Piper’s, Don’t Waste Your Life, is probably the book I’ve given away the most over the last 20 years but the one I want to mention just in this context is one I most recently read and it is not going to be as familiar as a Tim Keller or John Piper, and it’s a little booklet called The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond.
He was a Scottish biologist I believe as well but it was written in 1890. The Greatest Thing in the World, it’s probably the version I have is like kind of sepia-colored pages. I mean, it looks like it should be in the museum. I have no idea how I’ve got this but it is such an amazing little book and basically, he looks at 1 Corinthians 13, “The greatest thing in the world is love” and he makes his argument that the summum bonum, right?
Which is a popular word these days with the rise of all these stoic talk that’s kind of out there, what’s the greatest good, what’s the highest good in our existence and he would argue that it is actually love and so The Greatest Thing in the World, Henry Drummond, it’s a great little read.
[0:38:21.3] JR: Thanks, I love that suggestion. I’ve never heard that on the show, that’s great. All right, who do you want to hear on the podcast talking about how the gospel shapes the work they do in the world?
[0:38:29.0] BB: Yeah. So you know, thinking about this, I would recommend – well, I’ve got so many in my network that your listeners would benefit so greatly from but the one that I kept coming back to is my good friend, Dwight Gibson. He is, he calls himself not the CEO but the Chief Exploration Officer of the Exploration Group. He’s a consultant, he’s consulted both small and large companies, organizations all over the word. He is also an actor in the show called For the Life of the World.
[0:39:01.5] JR: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[0:39:03.0] BB: Yeah, so he’s in that. He is the consultant, so he plays himself. So, Dwight Gibson, I think he’s just got such a fascinating perspective and just so many years of experience working with so many different mere Christians all over the planet and I think he would just have a very engaging conversation from his work.
[0:39:23.2] JR: I love that, that’s a great answer. Bobo, what’s one thing from our conversation you want to reiterate before we sign off?
[0:39:29.2] BB: Yeah, I would say, you know Solomon says in Proverbs 23:23, he says, “Buy wisdom and don’t sell it.” It’s a really interesting exultation that wisdom is essential to every aspect of our lives and our work. It’s extremely valuable, in fact, it’s more precious than jewels, gold, and silver but it has to be intentionally sought after, right? It just doesn’t naturally ooze into the very crevices of our lives by osmosis.
We have to seek wisdom as the very character of God through the person and work of Jesus Christ. We have to intentionally seek wisdom every single day and I would say that it’s even more necessary today in our post-modern world, where everything that’s up is down and we don’t know which way to go or what to make of anything anymore and so the answer is wisdom and so I would encourage our listeners to seek wisdom with everything they possibly have.
[0:40:40.3] JR: Amen. That’s what I’m talking about redeeming your time. Listen, if you’re trying to optimize your time and productivity for temporal gains, time in the word doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but if we’re redeeming our time because the days are evil and optimize it for eternity, time in the word and the wisdom of the word is non-negotiable, right?
So Bobo, man, I want to comment you for the exceptional work you’re doing to help Christ’s followers connect the wisdom of the word to their work. Thank you for serving your real estate clients and employees over your career through the ministry of excellence and for just helping us embrace the wisdom of God’s word and connect it to our vocations.
Guys, I’ve read every word of Wisdom Calling volume one, I loved every word of it. I’m so grateful for Bobo doing this work. Go pick up a book, a copy of the book on Amazon or Bobo’s website. Bobo, thanks for hanging out with us today.
[0:41:33.8] BB: Yeah, thank you, Jordan.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:41:35.8] JR: Hey, if you’re enjoying the Mere Christians Podcast, do me a favor and go leave a review of the show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you listen to the podcast. Thank you, guys, so much for tuning in, I’ll see you next week.
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