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July 16 - October 15, 2023
Does business have an intrinsic as well as instrumental purpose?
When God conceives of human flourishing, it involves, in part, the satisfaction of the material needs and desires of men and women.[6]
When businesses produce material things that enhance the welfare of the community, they are engaged in work that matters to God.
For Christians in business, acknowledging their role as stewards is an important first step toward understanding God’s intentions for business.
Relationships in community must precede labor and productivity. Business must flow from relationship and be shaped so as to flow back to support the community.
The call and the opportunity to work were embedded into the very fabric of human beings as they were first designed by God. Adam and Eve were assigned work in the Garden from the beginning.
When humans engage in creative, meaningful work that grows out of relationships and gives back to the community they become more deeply human.
Humans are made to live within limits.
As Martin Luther once said, as we do the work to which we have been called we become the hands of God.[12]
In God’s economy, to say that something is perfect is not to suggest that it is done.
As stewards we are not aiming for a fixed endpoint, just for a further and more robust flourishing, an ever-growing and deepening intimacy.[14]
First, business appears to be uniquely well situated to work the fields, to cause the land to be fruitful, and to fill the earth—what we might in modern parlance characterize as “to create wealth.” Second, business is also the dominant institution (although obviously not the only one) equipped to provide organized opportunities for meaningful and creative work.
From this I would conclude that at this time in history, there are two legitimate, first-order, intrinsic purposes of business: as stewards of God’s creation, business leaders should manage their businesses (1) to provide the community with goods and services that will enable it to flourish, and (2) to provide opportunities for meaningful work that will allow employees to express their God-given creativity.
pursuit of these particular purposes—providing appropriate goods and services, and meaningful and creative work—is a piece of, a starting place for, what it means to be a faithful steward of God’s business.
Given the core competencies of my organization and the assets under its control, how can I best direct the organization to serve? Which products or services could we produce that would best enable my community to flourish?
Under the Genesis model, however, the employees and customers become the actual ends of the business. The business is run for their welfare. Profit is not important as an end in and of itself. Rather, it becomes the means of attracting sufficient capital to allow the business to do what, from God’s perspective, it is in business to do—that is, to serve its customers and employees.
“No margin, no mission.”
To turn shareholders’ needs into a purpose is to be guilty of a logical confusion, to mistake a necessary condition for a sufficient one. We need to eat to live; food is a necessary condition of life. But if we lived mainly to eat, making food a sufficient or sole purpose of life, we would become gross. The purpose of a business, in other words, is not to make a profit, full stop. It is to make a profit so that the business can do something more or better.[23]
At the very heart of capitalism . . . is the creative habit of enterprise. Enterprise is, in its first moment, the inclination to notice, the habit of discerning, the tendency to discover what other people don’t yet see. It is also the capacity to act on insight, so as to bring into reality things not before seen. It is the ability to foresee both the needs of others and the combinations of productive factors most adapted to satisfying those needs. This habit of intellect constitutes an important source of wealth in modern society. Organizing such a productive effort, planning its duration in
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a Christian businessperson seeks to serve a hurting world by providing it with the material goods and services that will enable it to prosper. The Christian in business enables individuals to express aspects of their God-given identities by affording them the opportunity to participate in meaningful and creative work. In short, the Christian in business is in the business of rendering service that will enable humanity to flourish.
Business was intended to enable human flourishing not destroy it.
Paradoxically, even as work seems to have less and less meaning for many of us, it plays a greater and greater role in fashioning our perceptions of who we are.
The loss of intimacy with God also impairs discernment.
Each payment of a bribe, regardless of how large or small, contributes to a culture of corruption.
In the Garden, work was situated in a rhythm of activity and rest, work and leisure.
The rhythm of work and rest was now to be protected through the implementation of the sabbath commandment.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote, “The Sabbath is a day for the sake of life. Man is not a beast of burden, and the Sabbath is not for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of his work.”[36]
A sabbath reminds us that we are not the sum of what we produce and that our worth is not found in our instrumental value, as a tool in service of profit, but rather in our innate nature as children of God.
a business behaving ethically should not impose costs on the environment that over the long haul would not be sustainable.
In the end, God’s new creation is fully and finally realized. But the real wonder of the story, of the whole grand narrative, is that here and now, this very new creation is already breaking into the world in which we live.
The purpose of business is still to serve. It is to serve the community by providing goods and services that will enable the community to flourish. And it is to serve its employees by providing them with opportunities to express at least a portion of their God-given identity through meaningful and creative work.
But a consideration of the end of the story does add one new feature to our theology: Christians engage in business with a sense of hope and meaning.
First, business must concern itself with redemptive as well as creative work.
By virtue of the Fall, work is not as God intended it.
Second, the work of Christians in business is to be enabled by the discernment and power of the Holy Spirit.
the central thesis of this book is that businessmen and businesswomen can do kingdom work in their daily, material jobs. If so, we ought to expect to find the Holy Spirit active in business as well.
We are not expected to fulfill the creation and redemption mandates in business relying solely on our own wisdom, judgment and perseverance.
Third, for now, business operates in the messy middle.
Christians need to recognize that they are operating “between the finish lines.” Their businesses function in a messy world.
old maxim suggests, “necessity is the mother of invention.”
The purpose of business is to serve. In particular, it serves by making goods and services available to the community that will enable the community to flourish. And it provides meaningful and creative jobs for its employees.
Because of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, as we engage in this work we can be led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Our work can have an additive, creation-mandate feature, but it will also be designed to participate in the restorative, redeeming and reconciling work that was at the heart of Christ’s ministry.
