BABEL WITH BIBLE VERSES

“When the Abrahamic Covenant Becomes a Personal-Branding Strategy”

By Akin Ojumu

Apparently, the Church has been reading Genesis 12 incorrectly for thousands of years.

The rabbis missed it. The Church Fathers missed it. The Reformers missed it. Biblical scholars missed it.

Even the Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, somehow failed to emphasize the real lesson buried in God’s call of Abraham.

Thankfully, Fela Durotoye has come to our rescue.

The motivational speaker and branding strategist recently announced what must surely rank among the more creative interpretations of Genesis ever produced:

“God was the one who promised the first personal brand when He said to Abraham, ‘I will make your name great.’”

There you have it. The mystery is solved.

Genesis 12 was not fundamentally about covenant. It was not about redemption. It was not about God creating a people for Himself. It was not about the blessing of the nations. It was not about the promised Seed. It was not about the Gospel. It was not ultimately about Jesus Christ.

No.

Apparently, Genesis 12 was the world’s first personal-branding masterclass.

God was the branding consultant. Abram was the client. Canaan was the marketplace. And “I will make your name great” was the ancient Near Eastern equivalent of:

Build your platform. Increase your visibility. Grow your audience. Become influential. Make your name a brand.

Who knew?

One can only marvel at the exegetical ingenuity required to squeeze LinkedIn philosophy out of the Abrahamic Covenant.

There is, unfortunately, one stubborn obstacle standing in the way of this dazzling interpretation:

The Bible itself.

Genesis 12:2–3

“And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Notice who is doing the acting.

“I will make.”

“I will bless.”

“I will make your name great.”

This is not Abram constructing a brand. This is God making a promise.

Abram is not being handed a marketing strategy. He is being made the recipient of sovereign grace.

Nothing in the passage tells Abram to cultivate visibility. Nothing instructs him to enlarge his audience. Nothing tells him to monetize his reputation. Nothing suggests that he should deliberately engineer a memorable public identity. Nothing remotely resembles the modern cult of personal branding.

What Genesis 12 gives us is one of the central covenantal moments in redemptive history.

God sovereignly chooses Abram. God promises him descendants. God promises to make from him a nation. God promises blessing. And through Abraham, God promises blessing to all the families of the earth.

That last phrase should immediately alert anyone reading Scripture as Scripture that something vastly greater than Abraham’s public profile is taking place.

And the Apostle Paul tells us exactly what it means.

Galatians 3:8

“And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’”

Read that again.

Paul looks at Genesis 12 and says: The Gospel.

Fela looks at Genesis 12 and says: Personal branding.

Paul sees justification by faith and the blessing of the nations. The branding hermeneutic sees reputation management.

I will leave you to determine which reading has apostolic support.

Paul then becomes even more explicit.

Galatians 3:16

“Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring…who is Christ.”

There it is.

Christ.

That is where the Abrahamic promise ultimately leads.

Yet through the extraordinary gymnastics of narcissistic eisegesis, it is apparently possible to begin with Abraham, walk straight through the covenant, pass the blessing of the nations, vault over Galatians 3, completely miss Jesus Christ, and somehow land triumphantly at:

PERSONAL BRANDING.

That is not interpretation. That is theological parkour.

But the absurdity becomes even more obvious when Genesis 12 is read where it actually appears in the Bible.

Immediately before Abraham comes Babel.

Genesis 11:4 records the ambition of Babel’s builders:

Genesis 11:4

“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower…and let us make a name for ourselves.”

There is your personal-branding manifesto.

“Let us make a name for ourselves.”

That is Babel.

Then, almost immediately afterward, God says to Abram:

“I will…make your name great.”

The contrast could hardly be more deliberate.

Babel says: “We will make our own name great.”

God says to Abram: “I will make your name great.”

Babel is human striving. Abraham is divine promise.

Babel is self-exaltation. Abraham is sovereign grace.

Babel is man constructing a monument to himself. Abraham is God choosing an undeserving man through whom He will advance His redemptive purposes.

And yet, spectacularly, the personal-branding interpretation takes God’s promise in Genesis 12 and drags it backward into the very Babel mentality Genesis 11 has just exposed.

God says: 

“I will make your name great.”

The branding gospel hears: 

“Here are biblical principles for making your name great.”

The text says, “God will do it.”

The motivational mind immediately asks how we can do it ourselves.

You could hardly reverse the theological point more efficiently.

And that is precisely the disease infecting enormous sections of contemporary Christianity. We have become experts at turning God-centered texts into self-centered slogans. Everything must somehow become about our advancement.

Covenant becomes career strategy. Calling becomes platform. Blessing becomes upward mobility. Ministry becomes marketing. Influence becomes anointing. Followers become evidence of favor. Visibility becomes destiny. Reputation becomes kingdom impact.

And now, apparently, the Abrahamic Covenant is God’s ancient endorsement of personal branding.

At this rate, Moses’ burning bush was probably the first illuminated billboard.

Joseph’s coat was an early experiment in visual branding.

David’s defeat of Goliath was a case study in disruptive market entry.

Solomon’s temple was premium brand architecture.

And Paul’s missionary journeys were really just multi-city audience-expansion campaigns.

Why stop at Genesis 12?

Once Scripture is converted into a mirror for modern ambition, the possibilities are endless.

This is what happens when the controlling question is no longer:

“What does this text mean?”

but:

“How can I make this text validate what I already want?”

That is eisegesis.

And when the thing we desperately want validated is fame, influence, visibility, reputation, success, and personal significance, the Bible inevitably begins sounding less like divine revelation and more like a motivational conference with proof texts.

Genesis 12 is not a seminar on personal branding. Abraham was not developing a platform. God was not teaching him reputation management. The covenant was not a divine strategy for increasing Abram’s market visibility.

“I will make your name great” is not a command to make your name great. It is a promise from God concerning what God Himself would do as part of His sovereign redemptive purpose.

And that purpose, according to the inspired interpretation of the Apostle Paul, reaches its climax not in Abraham’s celebrity but in Jesus Christ.

The Bible is not fundamentally the story of how we make our names great. It is the revelation of the God who acts for the glory of His Name.

When we can take even the Abrahamic Covenant—one of the great pillars of redemptive history—and transform it into advice about building our brand, we have moved beyond careless interpretation.

We have conscripted Scripture into the service of self. We have taken Babel’s ambition—“Let us make a name for ourselves”—and baptized it with Genesis 12.

That is not biblical Christianity. It is narcissism with chapter and verse. It is self-promotion wearing theological vocabulary. It is Babel with Bible verses.