Business Ethics and Small Business Sustainability
No magic formula is available for Christians regarding business decisions. Capitalism, created in 1776 by Adam Smith, was not part of any people in antiquity. In the West, business was not thought of, understood, or addressed by any text, idea, or scripture. Some business behaviors, pre-capitalism, were mentioned in the Bible, but rarely if ever as a primary topic and nearly always as part of a metaphor or story explaining something else. Leviticus 25:15, for example, tells us “And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another (ESV).” This seems to be about fair sales, but is, in fact, about behavior during the Sabbath year and the Year of Jubilee. The context is not business, nor is the subject, but rather about how to be honorable to each other as people of God. In context, it implies nothing about general business practices but about unneighborly behavior.
Yet, it is common in the West, particularly in the US, to search the Bible or Google for advice from the Bible and then pull out the best biblical quote that justifies or agrees with our previously assumed attitudes, assumptions, or code of conduct. At least, it was common for me. That type of biblical justification is ubiquitous in life, literature, and the internet, so it must be good, right?
Let us run a test. Assume we own a business and are losing competitively to a local small business with intersecting services or products. So, we open our Bible, an internet one for easy searching, and search for business. For this experiment, I use https://www.biblegateway.com/, and the default Bible version of the New International Version.
Biblegateway.com Keyword Search For: Business
The program returned 17 “Bible Results for ‘business’ from the NIV. Some examples follow.
- Luke 2:49 was listed first under suggested results for the search string: https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=business&version=NIV
The verse read, “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house (NIV)?”
That’s not much business help. I could twist it a bit and say that the Bible implies I should go to Church and pray for advice rather than my business, but that’s a large stretch.
Under “Bible Search Results,” I found 16 other verses.
- Exodus 22:25 cautioned against treating loans like a business. In a capitalist individualistic society, not treating a loan like a business contract would be poor stewardship. If the loan was to a family member, a neighbor, or a friend, then it makes sense, but in a Western business environment, treating a loan as a contract is expected and required. It is an oath, after all.
- Ecclesiastes 4:8 suggests not overworking if you don’t read the context in which the verse sits. If you read the context, it has nothing to do with business. Rather, it is a story or metaphor for remembering what is important in the community of believers trying to Honor God.
- Ezekiel 27:12 mentions an ancient context for why a city was destroyed and refers to inventory, which is its strongest point of approach to business. However, the text is about the destruction of a city, not business dealings with another city. In the NIV, it is called a “lament over Tyre,” the business mentioned in Chapter 12 is an example of nothing more than how the mighty have fallen. It is a story describing poetically the mighty power of Tyre falling to ruin because it failed to Honor God.
The rest of the verses found in the search followed a similar pattern. Business is only mentioned in analogy, not as a subject of the story or the context of the verse.
Google Search: To get additional biblical verses for advice on business competition, I appealed to Google with a search string “Biblical advice for business competition.”
I was immediately directed to https://www.theologyofbusiness.com/capitalism-socialism-vs-great-commission-christians-compete-business/
The article’s authors stated, “Discipleship = Setting the Standard in Your Industry.” The article continues by condemning communism and praising capitalism as a biblical principle.
There is a problem with this type of argument. Capitalism, known as classical liberalism, as a theory, was the invention of Adam Smith in 1776 in his book Wealth of Nations (Smith, 2017/1776).2 On the face of the argument, 1776 is a bit late for Biblical additions or corrections. Communism, as a theory, is far newer than capitalism, so it will not be in the Bible either. Yet, in the above search, capitalism is cast as a biblical principle, or a principle supported by the bible. It is common for Western Christians to insist that the Bible is always good and for all readers, and it is. However, the context of the Bible cannot be capitalism or communism, or socialism. That stretch is impossible. No one at that time would have understood the message.
One Path to Honoring God – A Business Example
My family’s business follows Biblical teaching by trying to honor God and his greater community by loving him and his people (Luke 10, Matthew 22, & Mark 12). We define his people by everyone under the authority of Romans 13, where Paul informs his readers that loving each other fulfilled the law. It’s not particularly easy. The Bible is a historically based story of how hard it is. The choices in business are frequently between two or more things due to market complexity, none of which are “good.” The very best we have been able to do is search for the next best thing to do that honors God through the business by loving his people, not loving the business we run. Since the Bible is essentially silent on business dealings, systems, politics, and economics, other than oblique mentions of fairness in dealings, which are allegorical, our leadership chooses the path closest to the next best thing. We seek to hear, well done, good choice.
Imagine standing before God, and he asks you why you decided to make more money and boost your brand instead of helping your clients or workers. How do you answer that?
“I thought your reputation would be tarnished if I did not run an excellent business!”
Or, worse, “the poor are with us always. I saw an opportunity to get you more money.”
Final Notes
We have been asked more times than I can remember why we have made some counter-business-culture choices. That’s when we honor God with words after we honor him with actions. We get to tell them about Jesus’s love for helping the poor, the weak, the jailed, the hated, and the lost. We honor God even in our failures if we help his people.
Imagine again, for a moment, standing before God and hearing, “Well done (Matthew 25:21).
Let us do that. Let us honor God by leading our businesses as if their purpose was to honor him.
Additional Reading
If you want to read more on misreading scripture, I suggest you buy Misreading Scripture Through Western Eyes.1 (Clicking this link will get you there through my sponsored link)
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My page: www.Pgmccoy.com
References
2 Smith, A. (2017/1776). The Wealth of Nations. CreateSpace.
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