Liberty University Chapter 6 Business for The Glory of God Review

Book Review Assignment Instructions

Overview

Read the following: Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of God: The Bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Wheaton: IL: Crossway. ISBN: 9781581345179.

Copyright © 2003. Crossway. All rights reserved.
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:47:09.
“A thoughtful review of the purpose and meaning of business and a fresh way to look
at honoring and glorifying God in doing business.”
—C. WILLIAM POLLARD
Chairman Emeritus, The ServiceMaster Company
“What a great reminder that your business life can be a critical part of how you serve
God and impact lives for eternity!”
—DAVE BROWNE
former CEO, LensCrafters;
current CEO, Family Christian Stores
“In the often challenging integration of the world of business and a life of faith, Dr.
Grudem’s book provides helpful, easy-to-understand grounding for business
leadership.”
—JAMES FELLOWES
CEO, Fellowes, Inc.
“Too often Christians feel guilty about self-interest choice, acquisition of private
property, and the profit motive. Wayne Grudem makes clear how they are part of
God’s plan for moral lives. What remarkable insight!”
—STEPHEN HAPPEL, PH.D.
Professor of Economics, Arizona State University
“Dr. Grudem clearly shows us how our business activities provide unique
opportunities to glorify God. His conclusions are insightful, invaluable, and
convicting. I’m putting this on my once-a-year refresher reading list to motivate me to
a Colossians 3:23-24 work ethic.”
Copyright © 2003. Crossway. All rights reserved.
—MIKE SEARCY
Managing Director, Ronald Blue & Co., Phoenix, Arizona
“Effectively refuting the claims to ownership of the sphere of human business activity
by corporations, governments, and ideologies, Wayne Grudem succinctly details
how business is God’s design for His glory and our good.”
—DAVID PAYNE
Economist, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C.
“This book should be required reading for all pastors who love the business
practitioners God has placed in their midst. . . . And all business persons will be
blessed and encouraged by reading Wayne Grudem’s enlightened application of
God’s Word to the enterprise of business. The book’s content is saturated with God’s
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:47:09.
glorious intentions for those called to serve the Lord in business.”
—RICHARD C. CHEWNING, PH.D.
Distinguished Scholar in Residence, John Brown University
A brilliant look at the interconnectedness of economic life with spiritual life, and an
essential antidote for those who doubt business as a God-honoring and Godglorifying activity.
Copyright © 2003. Crossway. All rights reserved.
—BARRY ASMUS, Ph.D.
Senior Economist, National Center for Policy Analysis
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:47:09.
1
OWNERSHIP
Owning possessions is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many
temptations to sin
SOMETIMES PEOPLE THINK of all ownership of property as a kind of “greed” that
is morally tainted, and they imagine that in a perfect world people would not even
own personal possessions. But the Bible does not support that idea. When God
gave the command,
“You shall not steal” (Ex. 20:15),
he affirmed the validity of personal ownership of possessions. I should not steal your
car, because it belongs to you, not to me. Unless God intended us to own personal
possessions, the command not to steal would make no sense.
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I believe the reason God gave the command, “You shall not steal,” is that
ownership of possessions is a fundamental way that we imitate God’s sovereignty
over the universe by our exercising “sovereignty” over a tiny portion of the universe,
the things we own. When we take care of our possessions, we imitate God in his
taking care of the whole universe, and he delights to see us imitate him in this way.
In addition, when we care for our possessions, it gives us opportunity to imitate
many other attributes of God, such as wisdom, knowledge, beauty, creativity, love for
others, kindness, fairness, independence, freedom, exercise of will, blessedness (or
joy), and so forth.
Now sometimes Christians refer to ownership as “stewardship,” to remind us that
what we “own” we do not own absolutely, but only as stewards taking care of what
really belongs to God. This is because “the earth is the LORD’s and the fullness
thereof ” (Ps. 24:1) and so ultimately it all belongs to him (see also Lev. 25:23; Ps.
50:10-12; Hag. 2:8; Luke 16:12;1 Cor. 4:7).
Why do children from a very early age enjoy having toys that are their own, and
why do they often want to have a pet that is their own, one they can care for? I
realize that such “ownership” of toys and pets can be distorted by the sins of
selfishness and laziness, but even if we lived in a sinless world children from a very
young age would have a desire to have things that are their own. I think God has
created us with a desire to own things because he wanted us to have a desire to
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:48:41.
imitate his sovereignty in this way. This desire in itself should not automatically be
called “greed,” because that word slanders something that is a good desire given to
us by God.
When we are responsible stewards, whether taking care of our toys at the age of
four or managing the entire factory at the age of forty, if we do this work “as unto the
Lord,” God looks at our imitation of his sovereignty and his other attributes, and he is
pleased. In this way we are his image-bearers, people who are like God and who
represent God on the earth, whether we own few possessions or many, and whether
we own a small business or a large one.
So what should we do with the things we own? There are many good things to do,
all of which can glorify God. One good “use” of our resources—paradoxically—is that
we should give some of them away! This is so that others can use them wisely, not
just we ourselves. For example, we can give to the church to help its evangelism and
teaching, and in that way we build up the church. Or we can give some of our
possessions to meet the needs of others, especially the poor:
Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God (Heb.
13:16).
The Bible frequently speaks of the importance of regularly giving away some of
what we have been given:
Honor the LORD with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce (Prov. 3:9).
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. . . we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, “It is more
blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
Giving is important because it demonstrates trust in God. When I give away $100,
I am essentially saying, “God, I am trusting you to provide for $100 of my future
needs, because I no longer can depend on this $100.” Thus, giving money away
shifts our trust from our money to our God. God is pleased when we give (“God
loves a cheerful giver,” 2 Cor. 9:7) because it not only demonstrates trust in him but
also reflects his love for others, his mercy, his compassion for those in need.
But we do not need to give away all that we have! The Bible talks about other
morally right uses of our resources as well. For example, a man who owns a tractor
can use it to help “subdue” the earth (Gen. 1:28)—that is, make the earth useful for
us as human beings—by causing the earth to yield corn and beans.People who own
more complex equipment can extract materials from the earth to make plastics and
silicon in order to make computers and cell phones and Palm Pilots.
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:48:41.
At other times, we should use our possessions not to make other goods but simply
for our own enjoyment, with thanksgiving to God,
who richly provides us with everything to enjoy (1 Tim. 6:17).
It is also right to save some of our resources for future use.This will enable us in
the future to provide for our relatives, and especially for members of our own
households, as God’s Word tells us we should do (see 1 Tim. 5:8). We can glorify
God through all of these uses of resources if we have thanksgiving in our hearts to
God.
On the other hand, ownership of possessions provides many temptations to
misuse the resources that God has entrusted to us. We can use our resources to
pollute and destroy the earth, or to rob and oppress others, thereby disobeying
Jesus’ command to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:39), and thereby
dishonoring God by our actions. The author of Proverbs 30 knew that stealing is not
imitating God but is showing to the world a picture of a God who is selfish and
unjust, for he said,
. . . lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God (Prov. 30:9).
Or we could use our possessions to turn people away from the gospel and attack
the church, as some wealthy people did in the first century:
Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the
ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?(James 2:6-7).
Copyright © 2003. Crossway. All rights reserved.
We could also use our resources to advance our own pride, or we could become
greedy and accumulate wealth for its own sake, or we could take wrongful security in
riches (see Matt. 6:19; Luke 12:13-21; James 5:3). We could use our possessions
foolishly and wastefully, abounding in luxury and self-indulgence while we neglect
the needs of others (see James 5:5; 1 John 3:17). These things are rightly called
“materialism,” and they are wrong.
In many parts of the world, the wonderful, God-given privilege of owning and
managing property is not possible for large segments of the population. In some
cultures, property rights are selfishly hoarded by a small number of powerful people
and government regulations are so complex and time consuming that they effectively
make it impossible for poor people to own any property or to own a small business.1
In Communist countries, most private ownership of homes and businesses is
prohibited by law, and the government owns all factories and all real estate. Such
systems are evil because they prevent people from owning anything more than a
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:48:41.
small number of personal possessions, and thus they prevent people from even
having the opportunity to glorify God through owning any property, or owning a home
or a business.
Copyright © 2003. Crossway. All rights reserved.
Ownership can be abused, but the distortions of something good must not cause
us to think that the thing itself is evil. Possessions are not evil in themselves, and the
ownership of possessions is not wrong in itself. Nor is ownership something morally
neutral. In itself, the ownership of possessions is something that is created by God,
and very good. Ownership provides multiple opportunities for glorifying God, and we
should be thankful for it.
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:48:41.
2
PRODUCTIVITY
Producing goods and services is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but
also many temptations to sin
WE KNOW THAT producing goods from the earth is fundamentally good in itself
because it is part of the purpose for which God put us on the earth. Before there was
sin in the world, God put Adam in the garden of Eden “to work it and keep it” (Gen.
2:15), and God told both Adam and Eve, before there was sin,
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and
over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28).
The word translated “subdue” (Hebrew kåbash) implies that Adam and Eve should
make the resources of the earth useful for their own benefit, and this implies that
God intended them to develop the earth so that they could come to own agricultural
products and animals, then housing and works of craftsmanship and beauty, and
eventually buildings, means of transportation, cities, and inventions of all sorts.
Manufactured products give us opportunity to praise God for anything we look at in
the world around us. Imagine what would happen if we were able somehow to
transport Adam and Eve, before they had sinned, into a twenty-first-century
American home. After we gave them appropriate clothing, we would turn on the
faucet to offer them a glass of water, and they would ask, “What’s that?” When we
explained that the pipes enabled us to have water whenever we wanted it, they
would exclaim, “Do you mean to say that God has put in the earth materials that
would enable you to make that water system?”
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“Yes,” we would reply.
“Then praise God for giving us such a great earth! And praise him for giving us the
knowledge and skill to be able to make that water system!” They would have hearts
sensitive to God’s desire that he be honored in all things.
The refrigerator would elicit even more praise to God from their lips. And so would
the electric lights and the newspaper and the oven and the telephone, and so forth.
Their hearts would brim over with thankfulness to the Creator who had hidden such
wonderful materials in the earth and had also given to human beings such skill in
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:49:20.
working with them. And as Adam and Eve’s hearts were filled with overflowing
thanksgiving to God, God would see it and be pleased. He would look with delight as
the man and woman made in his image gave glory to their Creator and fulfilled the
purpose for which they were made.
As we look at any manufactured item, no matter how common, can we not also
discover hundreds of wonders of God’s creation in the things that we have been able
to make from the earth? Such richness and variety has not been found on any of the
other planets known to us.
. . . the whole earth is full of his glory (Isa. 6:3).
God did not have to create us with a need for material things or a need for the
services of other people (think of the angels, who apparently do not have such
needs), but in his wisdom he chose to do so. It may be that God created us with
such needs because he knew that in the process of productive work we would have
many opportunities to glorify him. When we work to produce (for example) pairs of
shoes from the earth’s resources, God sees us imitating his attributes of wisdom,
knowledge, skill, strength, creativity, appreciation of beauty, sovereignty, planning for
the future, and the use of language to communicate. In addition, when we produce
pairs of shoes to be used by others, we demonstrate love for others, wisdom in
understanding their needs, and interdependence and interpersonal cooperation
(which are reflections of God’s Trinitarian existence). If we do this, as Paul says,
while working heartily, “as for the Lord and not for men” (Col. 3:23), and if our hearts
have joy and thanksgiving to God as we make this pair of shoes, then God delights
to see his excellent character reflected in our lives, and others will see something of
God’s character in us as well. And so it is with any manufactured good, and any
service we perform for wages for the benefit of others. As Jesus said, our light will
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“shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in
heaven”(Matt. 5:16).
That is why God made us with a desire to be productive, to make or do something
useful for other people. Therefore human desires to increase the production of
goods and services are not in themselves greedy or materialistic or evil. Rather,
such desires to be more productive represent God-given desires to accomplish and
achieve and solve problems. They represent God-given desires to exercise dominion
over the earth and exercise faithful stewardship so that we and others may enjoy the
resources of the earth that God made for our use and for our enjoyment.
This is consistent with God’s command to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28:
And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over
the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:49:20.
earth.”
God’s command to “subdue” the earth implies doing productive work to make the
resources of the earth useful for themselves and others. That is what he wanted
Adam and Eve to do, and that is one of the things he wants us to do as well.
Therefore, in contrast to some people’s attitude toward life today, productive work
is not evil or undesirable in itself, or something to be avoided. Productive work
should not be seen as “bad,” but as something “good.” In fact, the Bible does not
view positively the idea of retiring early and not working at anything again. Rather,
work in itself is also something that is fundamentally good and God-given, for it was
something that God commanded Adam and Eve to do before there was sin in the
world. Although work since the Fall has aspects of pain and futility (see Gen. 3:1719), it is still not morally neutral but fundamentally good and pleasing to God.
Hindering and decreasing the earth’s productivity (as when wars destroy factories
and farms, or when governments prevent them from operating) is not good, however,
because it simply allows the curse that God imposed in Genesis 3 to gain more and
more influence in the world, and this is what Satan’s goal is, not God’s. After God
imposed the curse that was required by his justice, the story of the Bible is one of
God working progressively to overcome the curse, and increasing the world’s
productivity is something we should do as one aspect of that task.
But significant temptations accompany all productions of goods and services.
There is the temptation for our hearts to be turned from God so that we focus on
material things for their own sake. There are also temptations to pride, and to turning
our hearts away from love for our neighbor and toward selfishness, greed, and hardheartedness. There are temptations to produce goods that bring monetary reward
but that are harmful and destructive and evil (such as pornography and addictive
drugs).
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But the distortions of something good must not cause us to think that the thing
itself is evil. Increasing the production of goods and services is not morally neutral
but is fundamentally good and pleasing to God.
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:49:20.
3
EMPLOYMENT
Hiring people to do work is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also
many temptations to sin
IN CONTRAST TO Marxist theory, the Bible does not view it as evil for one person to
hire another person and gain profit from that person’s work. It is not necessarily
“exploiting” the employee. Rather, Jesus said,
“the laborer deserves his wages” (Luke 10:7),
and by this statement he implicitly approved of the idea of paying wages to
employees. In fact, Jesus’ parables often speak of servants and masters, and of
people paying others for their work, with no hint that hiring people to work for wages
is evil or wrong. And John the Baptist told soldiers, “Be content with your wages”
(Luke 3:14).
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For some occupations, being employed by someone else is necessary, because
some people sell services and not goods. In the ancient world, a maid or a
messenger or the laborer in a field would work for someone else; and in the modern
world a teacher or a baby-sitter, or a painter or a plumber, earns money when hired
by another person. But the hiring of one person by another is also necessary for a
greater production of goods.Many products can only be produced by a group of
people working together. In the ancient world, shipbuilding and shipping could only
be done by hiring many people, and in the modern world, building airplanes, ships,
steel mills, and in most cases houses and computers, and many other consumer
goods, can only be done by hiring other people, because the tasks are too large and
too complicated for one person alone. But working in groups requires the oversight
of a manager, and this is most often an owner who pays the others for their work.
This is a wonderful ability that God has given us. Paying another person for his or
her labor is an activity that is uniquely human. It is shared by no other creature. The
ability to work for other people for pay, or to pay other people for their work, is
another way that God has created us so that we would be able to glorify him more
fully in such relationships.
Employer/employee relationships provide many opportunities for glorifying God.
On both sides of the transaction, we can imitate God, and he will take pleasure in us
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:49:37.
when he sees us showing honesty, fairness, trustworthiness, kindness, wisdom and
skill, and keeping our word regarding how much we promised to pay or what work
we agreed to do. The employer/ employee relationship also gives opportunity to
demonstrate proper exercise of authority and proper responses to authority, in
imitation of the authority that has eternally existed between the Father and Son in
the Trinity.
When the employer/employee arrangement is working properly, both parties
benefit. This allows love for the other person to manifest itself. For example, let’s say
that I have a job sewing shirts in someone else’s shop. I can honestly seek the good
of my employer, and seek to sew as many shirts as possible for him along with
attention to quality (compare 1 Tim. 6:2), and he can seek my good, because he will
pay me at the end of the week for a job well done. As in every good business
transaction, both parties end up better off then they were before. In this case, I have
more money at the end of the week than I did before, and my employer has more
shirts ready to take to market than he did before. And so we have worked together to
produce something that did not exist in the world before that week—the world is 500
shirts “wealthier” than it was when the week began. Together we have created some
new “wealth” in the world. This is a small example of obeying God’s command to
“subdue” the earth (Gen. 1:28) and make its resources useful for mankind. Now if we
multiply that by millions of plants, millions of workers, and millions of different
products, it is evident how the world gains material “wealth” that did not exist before
—new products have been created by an employer hiring an employee to
manufacture something.
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Therefore if you hire me to work in your business, you are doing good for me and
you are providing both of us with many opportunities to glorify God. It is the same
way with hiring people to produce services—whether hiring teachers to teach in a
school, doctors to care for people in a clinic, mechanics to fix cars, or painters to
paint houses. The employer/employee relationship enables people to create services
for others that were not there before.
However, employer/employee relationships carry many temptations to sin. An
employer can exercise his authority with harshness and oppression and unfairness.
He might withhold pay arbitrarily and unreasonably (contrary to Lev. 19:13) or might
underpay his workers, keeping wages so low that workers have no opportunity to
improve their standard of living (contrary to Deut. 24:14). He might also become
puffed-up with pride. James writes about such sins of oppressive employers:
Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out
against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts (James 5:4).
Employees also have temptations to sin through carelessness in work (see Prov.
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:49:37.
18:9), laziness, jealousy, bitterness, rebelliousness, dishonesty, or theft (see Titus
2:9-10).
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But the distortions of something good must not cause us to think that the thing
itself is evil. Employer/employee relationships, in themselves, are not morally neutral
but are fundamentally good and pleasing to God because they provide many
opportunities to imitate God’s character and so glorify him.
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:49:37.
4
COMMERCIAL TRANSACTIONS
Buying and selling are fundamentally good and provide many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many
temptations to sin
SEVERAL PASSAGES OF Scripture assume that buying and selling are morally
right. Regarding the sale of land in ancient Israel, God’s law said,
“If you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another” (Lev.
25:14).
This implies that it is possible and in fact is expected that people should buy and sell
without wronging one another—that is, that both buyer and seller can do right in the
transaction (see also Gen. 41:57; Lev. 19:35-36; Deut. 25:13-16; Prov. 11:26; 31:16;
Jer. 32:25, 42-44).
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In fact, buying and selling are necessary for anything beyond subsistence level
living, and these activities are another part of what distinguishes us from the animal
kingdom. No individual or family providing for all its own needs could produce more
than a very low standard of living (that is, if it could buy and sell absolutely nothing,
and had to live off only what it could produce itself, which would be a fairly simple
range of foods and clothing). But when we can sell what we make and buy from
others who specialize in producing milk or bread, orange juice or blueberries,
bicycles or televisions, cars or computers, then, through the mechanism of buying
and selling, we can all obtain a much higher standard of living, and thereby fulfill
God’s purpose that we enjoy the resources of the earth with thanksgiving (1 Tim.
4:3-5; 6:17) while we “eat” and “drink” and “do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
Therefore we should not look at commercial transactions as a necessary evil or
something just morally neutral. Rather, commercial transactions are in themselves
good because through them we do good to other people. This is because of the
amazing truth that, in most cases, voluntary commercial transactions benefit both
parties. If I sell you a copy of my book for $12, then I get something that I want more
than that copy of the book: I get your $12. So I am better off than I was before, when
I had too many copies of that book, copies that I was never going to read. And I am
happy. But you got something that you wanted more than your $12. You wanted a
copy of my book, which you did not have. So you are better off than you were
before, and you are happy. Thus by giving us the ability to buy and sell, God has
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:49:54.
given us a wonderful mechanism through which we can do good for each other. We
should be thankful for this process every time we buy or sell something. We can
honestly see buying and selling as one means of loving our neighbor as ourself.
Buying and selling are activities unique to human beings out of all the creatures
that God made. Rabbits and squirrels, dogs and cats, elephants and giraffes know
nothing of this activity. Through buying and selling God has given us a wonderful
means to bring glory to him.
We can imitate God’s attributes each time we buy and sell, if we practice honesty,
faithfulness to our commitments, fairness, and freedom of choice. Moreover,
commercial transactions provide many opportunities for personal interaction, as
when I realize that I am buying not just from a store but from a person, to whom I
should show kindness and God’s grace. In fact, every business transaction is an
opportunity for us to be fair and truthful and thus to obey Jesus’ teaching,
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“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the
Prophets” (Matt. 7:12).
Because of the interpersonal nature of commercial transactions, business activity
has significant stabilizing influence on a society. An individual farmer may not really
like the auto mechanic in town very much, and the auto mechanic may not like the
farmer very much, but the farmer does want his car to be fixed right the next time it
breaks down, and the auto mechanic does love the sweet corn and tomatoes that
the farmer sells; so it is to their mutual advantage to get along with each other, and
their animosity is restrained. In fact, they may even seek the good of the other
person for this reason! So it is with commercial transactions throughout the world
and even between nations. This is an evidence of God’s common grace, because in
the mechanism of buying and selling God has provided the human race with a
wonderful encouragement to love our neighbor by pursuing actions that advance not
only our own welfare but also the welfare of others—even as we pursue our own. In
buying and selling we also manifest interdependence and thus reflect the
interdependence and interpersonal love among the members of the
Trinity.Therefore, for those who have eyes to see it, commercial transactions provide
another means of manifesting the glory of God in our lives.
However, commercial transactions provide many temptations to sin. Rather than
seeking the good of our neighbors as well as ourselves, our hearts can be filled with
greed, so that we seek only our own good, and give no thought for the good of
others. (This would happen, for example, when one person in a business transaction
wants 99 percent or 100 percent of the benefit and wants the other person to be
reduced to 1 percent or 0 percent of the benefit.) Or our hearts can be overcome
with selfishness, an inordinate desire for wealth, and setting our hearts only on
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:49:54.
material gain. Paul says,
Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires
that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is
through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many
pangs (1 Tim. 6:9-10).
Because of sin, we can also engage in dishonesty and in selling shoddy materials
whose defects are covered with glossy paint. Where there is excessive
concentration of power or a huge imbalance in knowledge, there will often be
oppression of those who lack power or knowledge (as in government-sponsored
monopolies where consumers are only allowed access to poor quality, high-priced
goods from one manufacturer for each product).
Sadly, even some who call themselves Christians are dishonest in their business
dealings. I have heard several stories from Christian friends about how other socalled “Christians” have broken their word, “forgotten” their business promises or
failed to keep them, betrayed a partner’s trust, done shoddy work, or been dishonest
about a product or the condition of a company. These actions by a small minority in
the Christian community bring reproach on the whole church and bring dishonor to
the name of Jesus Christ. Such actions should not be swept under the rug, but
should be subject to the process of personal confrontation and church discipline that
Jesus outlines in Matthew 18:15-20.
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But the distortions of something good must not cause us to think that the thing
itself is evil. Commercial transactions in themselves are fundamentally right and
pleasing to God. They are a wonderful gift from him through which he has enabled
us to have many opportunities to glorify him.
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:49:54.
5
PROFIT
Earning a profit is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many
temptations to sin
WHAT IS EARNING A PROFIT? Fundamentally, it is selling a product for more than
the cost of producing it. If I have a bakery and bake 100 loaves of bread at a cost of
$100, but sell them for a total of $200, I have made $100 profit. But if people are
willing to pay $2 for each of my loaves of bread, it means that they think what I have
produced is valuable—the bread that cost me $1 is worth $2 to them! This shows
that my work has added some value to the materials I used. Profit is thus an
indication that I have made something useful for others, and in that way it can show
that I am doing good for others in the goods and services that I sell.
In addition, profit can indicate that I have used resources more efficiently than
others, because when my costs are lower, my profit is higher. If another baker
wasted some flour and some yeast and spent $125 to make 100 loaves, then his
profit was less than mine. But using resources more efficiently (not wasting them) is
also something good, since there are more and cheaper resources that remain for
others to use as well.Therefore profit is an indication that I am making good and
efficient use of the earth’s resources, thus obeying God’s original “creation mandate”
to “subdue” the earth:
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“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and
over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28).
In the parable of the minas (or pounds), Jesus tells of a nobleman calling ten of his
servants and giving them one mina each (about three months’ wages), and telling
them, “Engage in business until I come” (Luke 19:13). The servant who earned
1,000 percent profit was rewarded greatly, for when he says, “Lord, your mina has
made ten minas more,” the nobleman responds,
“Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over
ten cities” (v. 17).
The servant who made five more minas receives authority over five cities, and the
one who made no profit is rebuked for not at least putting the mina in the bank to
earn interest (v. 23).
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:50:08.
The nobleman of course represents Jesus himself, who went to a far country to
receive a kingdom and then returned to reward his servants. The parable has
obvious applications to stewardship of spiritual gifts and ministries that Jesus
entrusts to us, but in order for the parable to make sense, it has to assume that good
stewardship, in God’s eyes, includes expanding and multiplying whatever resources
or stewardship God has entrusted to you. Surely we cannot exclude money and
material possessions from the application of the parable, for they are part of what
God entrusts to each of us, and our money and possessions can and should be
used to glorify God. Seeking profit, therefore, or seeking to multiply our resources, is
seen as fundamentally good. Not to do so is condemned by the master when he
returns.
The parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14-30) has a similar point, but the amounts are
larger, for a talent was worth about twenty years’ wages for a laborer, and different
amounts are given at the outset.
A similar assumption is behind the approval given to the ideal wife in Proverbs 31:
She perceives that her merchandise is profitable (v. 18).
The word translated “merchandise” (Hebrew
) refers to profit-producing
commercial transactions. This “excellent wife” is commended for selling goods for a
profit.
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Some people will object that earning a profit is “exploiting” other people. Why
should I charge you $2 for a loaf of bread if it only cost me $1 to produce? One
reason is that you are paying not only for my raw materials but also for my work as
an “entrepreneur”—my time in baking the bread, my baking skill that I learned at the
cost of more of my time, my skill in finding and organizing the materials and
equipment to bake bread, and (significantly) for the risks I take in baking 100 loaves
of bread each day before any buyers have even entered my shop!
In any society, some people are too cautious by nature to assume the risks
involved in starting and running a business, but others are willing to take that risk,
and it is right to give them some profit as a reward for taking those risks that benefit
all the rest of us. It is the hope of such reward that motivates people to start
businesses and assume such risks. If profit were not allowed in a society, then
people would not take such risks, and we would have very few goods available to
buy. Allowing profit, therefore, is a very good thing that brings benefits to everybody
in the society.
Of course, there can be wrongful profit. For example, if there is a great disparity in
power or knowledge between you and me and I take advantage of that and cheat
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:50:08.
you, I would not be obeying Jesus’ command,
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the
Prophets” (Matt. 7:12).
Or if I am in charge of a monopoly on a necessary good, so that people can only
buy bread or water or gasoline from me and no other suppliers can enter the market,
and if I then charge an exorbitant price that depletes people’s wealth, of course that
kind of profit is excessive and wrong. That is where earning a profit provides
temptations to sin.
But the distortions of something good must not cause us to think that the thing
itself is evil. If profit is made in a system of voluntary exchange not distorted by
monopoly power or dishonesty or greatly unequal knowledge, then when I earn a
profit I also help you. You are better off because you have a loaf of bread that you
wanted, and I am better off because I earned $1 profit, and that keeps me in
business and makes me want to make more bread to sell. Everybody wins, and
nobody is exploited. Through this process, as my business profits and grows, I
continue to glorify God by enlarging the possessions over which I am “sovereign”
and over which I can exercise wise stewardship.
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The ability to earn a profit thus results in multiplying our resources while helping
other people. It is a wonderful ability that God gave us and it is not evil or morally
neutral, but is fundamentally good. Through it we can reflect many of God’s
attributes, such as love for others, wisdom, sovereignty, and planning for the future.
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:50:08.
6
MONEY
Money is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to
sin
PEOPLE SOMETIMES SAY that “money is the root of all evil,” but the Bible does not
say that. Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:10,
the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils,
but that speaks of the love of money, not money itself.
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In fact, money is fundamentally good because it is a human invention that sets us
apart from the animal kingdom and enables us to subdue the earth by producing
from the earth goods and services that bring benefit to others. Money enables all of
mankind to be productive and enjoy the fruits of that productivity thousands of times
more extensively than we could if no human being had money, and we just had to
barter with each other.
Without money, I would have only one thing to trade with, and that is copies of my
books. I would have hundreds of copies of my book Systematic Theology,1 for
example, but in a world with no money I would have no idea if one volume was worth
a loaf of bread, or two shirts, or a bicycle, or a car. And the grocer might not be
interested in reading my book, so he might not trade me a basket of groceries for
even 100 books!Soon even the merchants who did accept my book in trade would
not want another one, or a third one, and I would end up with piles of books and no
ability to find more people who wanted to trade something for them. Without money, I
would soon be forced to revert to subsistence living by planting a garden and raising
cows and chickens, and maybe bartering a few eggs from time to time. And so would
you, with whatever you could produce.
But money is the one thing that everybody is willing to trade goods for, because it
is the one thing that everybody else is willing to trade goods for. With a system of
money, I suddenly know how much one volume of my book is worth. It is worth $40,
because that is how much thousands of people have decided they are willing to pay
for it.
Money also stores the value of something until I spend it on something else. When
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:51:26.
I get the $40, that money temporarily holds the value of my book until I can go to the
store and tell the grocer I would like to trade the $40 for some groceries.The same
grocer who would not have traded any groceries for a theology book now eagerly
accepts my $40 in money, because he knows that he can trade that money for
anything in the world that he wants and that costs $40.
So money is simply a tool for our use, and we can rightly thank God that in his
wisdom he ordained that we would invent it and use it. It is simply a “medium of
exchange,” something that makes voluntary exchanges possible. It is
a commodity . . . that is legally established as an exchangeable equivalent of all other commodities,
such as goods and services, and is used as a measure of their comparative values on the market.2
Money makes voluntary exchanges more fair, less wasteful, and far more extensive.
We need money in the world in order for us to be good stewards of the earth and to
glorify God through using it wisely.
If money were evil in itself, then God would not have any. But he says,
“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts” (Hag. 2:8).
It all belongs to him, and he entrusts it to us so that through it we would glorify him.
Money provides many opportunities to glorify God: through investing and
expanding our stewardship and thus imitating God’s sovereignty and wisdom;
through meeting our own needs and thus imitating God’s independence; through
giving to others and thus imitating God’s mercy and love; or through giving to the
church and to evangelism and thus bringing others into the kingdom.
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Yet because money carries so much power and so much value, it is a heavy
responsibility, and it presents constant temptations to sin. We can become ensnared
in the love of money (1 Tim. 6:10), and it can turn our hearts from God. Jesus
warned, “You cannot serve God and money” (Matt. 6:24), and he warned against
accumulating too much that we hoard and do not use for good:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break
in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and
where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt.
6:19-21).
But the distortions of something good must not cause us to think that the thing
itself is evil. Money is good in itself, and provides us many opportunities for glorifying
God.
Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the glory of god : The bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business. Crossway.
Created from liberty on 2022-02-07 06:51:26.