Business for the Glory of God E-Book

Wayne Grudem

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 91

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Can business activity in itself be morally good and pleasing to God? Sometimes business can seem so shady—manipulating the "bottom line," deceiving the consumer, or gaining promotions because of whom you know. But Wayne Grudem introduces a novel concept: business itself glorifies God when it is conducted in a way that imitates God's character and creation. He shows that all aspects of business, including ownership, profit, money, competition, and borrowing and lending, glorify God because they are reflective of God's nature. Though Grudem isn't naïve about the easy ways these activities can be perverted and used as a means to sin, he knows that Christians can be about the business of business. This biblically based book is a thoughtful guide to imitating God during interactions with customers, coworkers, employees, and other businesses. See how your business—and your life in business—can be dedicated to God's glory.

Leseprobe

Business for the Glory of God: The Bible’s Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business

Copyright © 2003 by Wayne Grudem

Published by Crossway Booksa division of Good News Publishers1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Josh Dennis

First printing 2003

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grudem, Wayne A.Business for the glory of God : the Bible’s teaching on the moral goodness of business / Wayne Grudem.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 1-58134-517-8 (alk. paper)1. Business—Biblical teaching. 2. Business—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title.BS680.B8G78     2003261.8'5—dc22

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To my father,ARDEN E. GRUDEM,who honored and glorified God in his life in business,

and to my mother,JEAN C. GRUDEM,whose generosity, kindness, andfaith have been an example to all who know her

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction: A Neglected Way to Glorify God

1 Ownership

2 Productivity

3 Employment

4 Commercial Transactions

5 Profit

6 Money

7 Inequality of Possessions

8 Competition

9 Borrowing and Lending

10 Attitudes of Heart

11 Effect on World Poverty

Notes

PREFACE

FOR SEVERAL YEARS I have taught classes and done research on the Bible’s teachings about a wide range of economic questions—topics like wealth and poverty, saving and giving, work and leisure, buying and selling, borrowing and lending, employers and employees, and use of the earth’s resources for productive purposes. The Bible says much about these topics, and a thorough treatment deserves a much larger book than this, one that I am still in the process of writing.

But while my larger book was still unfinished, Ted Yamamori, past president of Food for the Hungry, persuaded me to read a paper on the way some of these topics apply specifically to business activity. I agreed and read a paper called “How Business in Itself Can Glorify God” at the Conference for Holistic Entrepreneurs, which Dr. Yamamori convened at the Regent University Graduate School of Business, October 3-5, 2002. This book is an expanded version of that paper.1

I wish to express thanks to many people who have contributed to my thinking or made suggestions on this manuscript, including Barry Asmus, Jerry Brock, David Browne, Diane Hakala, Stephen Happel, David Payne, Steve Uhlmann, and many former students in class discussions. Special thanks is due to David Kotter, a wise and gracious former student (and adjunct faculty member in economics at Trinity College, Deerfield, Illinois) whose knowledge and experience in economics and business have made numerous contributions to my thinking and have significantly influenced what I have written. Yet I have not taken every suggestion from these helpers and friends, and they should not be blamed for any of my mistakes that remain!

I also wish to express appreciation to the administration and boards of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (where I taught from 1981 to 2001) and Phoenix Seminary (where I now teach) for each granting me a sabbatical during which I have continued to work on a larger book on Biblical principles and economic values, a book that I hope to be able to complete in the near future. And I wish to thank Sovereign Grace Ministries, a group of churches that has encouraged me and supported me with funds for additional research assistance in this larger research project. That research has provided much of the background for the brief overviews that I provide in this book.

I have dedicated this book to my father, Arden Grudem, whose work in the business world and whose generosity made it possible for me to follow his wise counsel and obtain much more formal education than he was ever able to pursue, and whose business dealings, from what I have heard from others for my whole life, always served to honor and glorify God. I have also dedicated it to my mother, Jean Grudem, whose amazing generosity, kindness, honesty, self-sacrifice, and faith have also glorified God through her whole life, and have provided a model that strongly influenced my idea of what kind of person I would hope to be.

Wayne GrudemScottsdale, ArizonaSeptember 19, 2003

INTRODUCTION:

A Neglected Way to Glorify God

IS BUSINESS BASICALLY good or evil?

Words like “profit,” “competition,” “money,” and even “business” carry negative moral connotations for many people today. People who work in the business world sometimes labor under a faint cloud of guilt, thinking that their work may be necessary, but that from a moral perspective it is probably “neutral” at best. Very few people instinctively think of business as morally good in itself.

Recent business scandals regarding dishonest and illegal activities by giant companies such as Enron and by formerly revered accounting firms such as Arthur Andersen have made it more likely that people will suspect that there must be something in business that inherently tends to wrongdoing. And so the idea of business in itself comes under a dark cloud of suspicion. But is that right?

As for the relationship of business to serving God, when people ask how their lives can “glorify God,” they aren’t usually told, “Go into business.”

When students ask, “How can I serve God with my life?” they don’t often hear the answer, “Go into business.”

When someone explains to a new acquaintance, “I work in such-and-such a business,” he doesn’t usually hear the response, “What a great way to glorify God!”

But that is exactly what this book is going to claim. I am going to argue that many aspects of business activity are morally good in themselves, and that in themselves they bring glory to God—though they also have great potential for misuse and wrongdoing.

I realize that to most people, the expression “glorifying God” sounds like—well, it just sounds like it belongs in church, not in the business world. When people hear the phrase “glorifying God,” it probably first implies worship—singing praise to God and giving thanks to him. Then it might suggest evangelism—glorifying God by telling others about him. It might even suggest giving—glorifying God by contributing money to evangelism, to building up the church, and to the needs of the poor. Or it might suggest moral living—acting in a way that honors God. Finally, the expression “glorifying God” might suggest a life of faith—depending on God in prayer and in our daily attitudes of heart. These five—worship, evangelism, giving, moral living, and faith—are certainly appropriate ways to glorify God. But they are not my focus in this book.

Instead of these things, I want to look at business in itself—not just the ways business can contribute to work the church is already doing. In specific, I want to look at the following aspects of business activity:

1. Ownership

2. Productivity

3. Employment

4. Commercial transactions (buying and selling)

5. Profit

6. Money

7. Inequality of possessions

8. Competition

9. Borrowing and lending

10. Attitudes of heart

11. Effect on world poverty

But before considering those things we need to consider two introductory points, the first dealing with the imitation of God, and the second dealing with moral wrongdoing, or sin.

IMITATION: GOD ENJOYS SEEING HIS CHARACTER REFLECTED IN OUR LIVES

One way that we can glorify God is often overlooked. This additional way to glorify God is the key to understanding why God made the world the way he did. It is also the key to understanding why God gave us the moral commands he did. And it is the key to understanding why human beings have an instinctive drive to work, to be productive, to invent, to earn and save and give, and to do the thousands of specific activities that fill our days. This additional way to glorify God is imitation—imitation of the attributes of God.

God created us so that we would imitate him and so that he could look at us and see something of his wonderful attributes reflected in us. The first chapter of the Bible tells us,

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Gen. 1:27).

To be in God’s image means to be like God and to represent God on the earth. This means that God created us to be more like him than anything else he made. He delights to look at us and see in us a reflection of his excellence. After God had created Adam and Eve,

God saw everything he had made, and behold, it was very good (Gen. 1:31).1

He looked at his creation and took delight in it—yes, in all of it, but especially in human beings made in his image.

This is why Paul commands us, in Ephesians 5,

Be imitators of God, as beloved children (Eph. 5:1).

If you are a parent, you know that there is a special joy that comes when you see your children imitating some of your good qualities and following some of the moral standards that you have tried to model. When we feel that joy as parents, it is just a faint echo of what God feels when he sees us, as his children, imitating his excellent qualities. “Be imitators of God, as beloved children.”

This idea of imitating God explains many of the commands in the Bible. For instance, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We imitate God’s love when we act in love.Or, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16, quoting Lev. 11:44). Similarly, Jesus taught, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). And he also said, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).God wants us to be like him.

This idea of imitating God’s character so that he will take delight in us explains other moral commands in the Bible as well. For example, God wants us to tell the truth and not lie because he is the God “who never lies” (Titus 1:2). He commands us not to commit adultery because he is a God who is faithful to his covenant commitments and he delights in seeing us be faithful to the covenant of marriage which we have entered into (see Mal. 2:14). And God commands children to “Honor your father and your mother” (Ex. 20:12; quoted in Eph. 6:2), as a reflection of the honor that the Son gives to the Father in the Trinity.