In the world, not of it: Business & commerce

Introduction

Today we’re starting a new series called “In the world, not of it,” where we’ll look at how we are supposed to relate to the various aspects of our society as Christians. The title, “in the world, not of it,” comes from Jesus’ high priestly prayer for his disciples. This is the only place in the Bible where we, the future believers in Christ, are specifically addressed. Jesus is praying for our protection from the hostility of the world, and he says,

John 17:14–19 ESV

14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

This is one of the many passages throughout the Bible that has a very strong sense of “us” (followers of Jesus) and “them,” those whom John calls “the world.” I find it very easy to see this dichotomy and to become proud.

That is why it is so important for me to remember that Jesus came to save me from my sins. From my sins. Not other people’s sins. Not “the world” and it’s hostility. In fact, Jesus deliberately leaves me in a hostile world, which is the opposite of saving me from it.

As Christians, our focus should be on our own relationship with Jesus: abiding in him, loving him, obeying him, knowing him. We are not called to fix other people’s problems, only to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in fixing our own, as Paul tells the church in Philippi:

Philippians 2:12 ESV

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,

Of course, by fixing our own problems, God can then work through us to encourage others and to draw others to him. He can then proceed to transform them also into the likeness of his Son, Jesus.

We need to keep this in mind when we come to a topic like how we deal with businesses and commerce in general. It is so easy for us as Christians to take the high moral ground and start trying to force others to conform to our standards. Then, when people discover that we can’t even meet our own standards, this does great damage to Jesus’ reputation.

Let’s pray: Lord, guide us through your Word, the Bible, as we seek to understand how we can best relate to the world of business and commerce while still representing our Lord Jesus Christ. In his name, Amen.

So, how then should we relate to business and commerce?

My history

When I was little, four years old up to seven, we lived south of Toowoomba on my Great Uncle Bill’s farm. Because my dad was on a scholarship to study teaching and my mum was a full-time mum, we didn’t have a lot of money. We lived in a tiny cottage with an outdoor toilet, no hot water system, and a wood stove. I had few toys and most of my interactions with the world were with either nature, like climbing trees or playing in a sand-pit, or the built environment of the farm, like climbing on sheds or over fences or even on ancient, rusting tractors. I didn’t have much of a relationship with the outside world of commerce and business.

Like most in my generation, I had time to grow into my relationship with businesses and commerce.

But our kids don’t have that luxury. They have iPads placed into their hands at a young age. These miraculous devices are made by one of the largest and most disciplined corporations in the world, Apple. Apple even has their own media empire, so your kids can be influenced in so many different ways.

And Apple is not alone. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Disney are all omnipresent in our children’s lives from an early age.

Is this OK?

Is even the concept of making profits OK? Not all Christians would agree, but what does the Bible say?

Is Business OK?

Of course, ancient Jews and first century Christians did not have to deal with big businesses—their societies did not support such things.

So, instead of specific advice, we have to look for the principals that apply to this topic. Things like the concept of private property.

If the Bible doesn’t encourage private property, then we should probably be advocating for a strongly socialist or perhaps communist society.

Interestingly, the Bible doesn’t merely advocate private property, it considers it so obvious that it simply assumes it, as in the eighth commandment:

Exodus 20:15 NLT

15 “You must not steal.

Furthermore, it is clear that Jesus considers profit-making business a respectable activity. In the parable of the talents found in Matthew 25, and it’s close relative, the parable of the minas in Luke 19, Jesus compares his disciples fruitful discipling activity to the process of running a business and making profits! There is no hint that Jesus has any concerns about people making profits. The rest of the Bible is consistent with this: the Biblical view is that there is nothing inherently wrong with profit-making business.

The problem of idolatry

The problem lies elsewhere. Jesus doesn’t mince words when he warns us, in the sermon on the mount,

Matthew 6:19–21 NLT

19 “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

Any treasure here on earth, whether it be prestige, reputation, children, money, possessions, hobbies, legacies, or whatever, will steal our heart away from where it belongs: with God.

The problem is not with us possessing money, the problem is when money possesses us.

Matthew 6:24 NLT

24 “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.

Idolatry and business

I had a very strange experience when I co-founded my first company. Three of us started the company, with a fourth guy joining us just as we got going. The other three guys were all non-Christians, and I wrestled mightily with Paul’s advice to the Corinthians:

2 Corinthians 6:14 NLT

14 Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness?

I ended up saying, “Look, I can work for the company, but I can’t be an owner because of what the Bible is telling me (no offense).” It seemed like a big sacrifice to make over a small issue, and I was rather torn.

As it happens, in California you don’t have to file ownership details for a startup until after twelve months. When we came to talk about the situation again, twelve months later, a lot had changed. The company had a set direction and management (which I was comfortable with), and I was simply investing in it, rather than joining a team of bosses.

Team vs investor or customer

The difference between being on a team and merely being an investor or even a customer is an important distinction in Scripture. Being on a team requires a unity of purpose, and how can righteousness and wickedness share a unity of purpose? That might sound harsh, but consider, for a moment, a company like Apple.

Apple makes great products. Sure, I don’t like the way they lock you into their ecosystem, but for many people that lock-in is actually a benefit, because it adds reliability. Because Apple makes great products, I probably wouldn’t even mind working for them as an employee.

But if you were to invest more of your soul into Apple, if you become a C level executive there, or, more likely, you defined your identity around Apple products, are Apple’s values compatible with Christ?

Apple talks a good talk, but it has taken substantial activist energy to force Apple to clean up their supply chain—for years they exploited Chinese labour. Even now they take advantage of the vast disparity in living standards to reap a massive profit on every device, rather than sharing more with their suppliers. This is directly in conflict the Biblical mandate to care for the poor:

Amos 2:6–8 NLT

6 This is what the Lord says: “The people of Israel have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They sell honorable people for silver and poor people for a pair of sandals. 7 They trample helpless people in the dust and shove the oppressed out of the way. Both father and son sleep with the same woman, corrupting my holy name. 8 At their religious festivals, they lounge in clothing their debtors put up as security. In the house of their gods, they drink wine bought with unjust fines.

Apple’s tax structure is also designed to enrich Apple’s owners at the expense of the people in the nations where Apple is taking advantage of their infrastructure to sell expensive products. Apple is also a “pioneer” in planned obsolescence, a “feature” of modern electronics that ensures that customers have to buy a new device regularly as their old device becomes unusable. Apple’s locked-down ecosystem allows them to exploit this gold-mine of repeat customers.

None of these things are compatible with Biblical ethics, and I’ve hardly scratched the surface of Apple’s greedy and exploitative practices.

Despite all this, I would not count Apple as particularly evil, as far as mega-corporations go.

Let’s not even talk about companies like Facebook, who conceal their own research revealing how their product harms children!

Storing up treasure

Now, we may not join the team of one of these companies, we’re just too small and irrelevant to them. But we can give a company a dangerous place in our lives by spending so much time and energy on their products that they effectively become our treasures here on earth. Social media, which is carefully designed to capture and keep our attention for as long as possible is a distressing example. As are video apps, like Youtube or Tiktok. Think about how much time you’ve spent scrolling through social media or watching clips over the last few days, and compare that to time spent meditating on the Bible. Distressing, isn’t it?

For us as a church, it’s different again—when we use a company we are lending our name to it, much as a famous athlete does to a sponsor. We need to think carefully about what companies we support with our business.

Now, we must recognise that we are in the world, as a church and as individuals. This is a sinful world, but we are supposed to be in it, for its benefit (not ours). That means that we can’t withdraw to subsistence farming. Some Christians (such as the Amish) would argue otherwise, but the Bible clearly supports engagement with the world in all its sinfulness.

Therefore we must draw the line in two cases:

When we are in danger of storing our treasures in the world (that is, becoming enslaved by something)

When we are danger of associating Jesus’ name with something completely opposed to him.

Practical hints

How do we work this out in practice?

First, we need to understand Biblical ethics—it’s impossible to tell if a company is violating Biblical ethics if we don’t know our Bible. In 2020 we did Practical Ethics in our Tuesday Night Bible Study for this sort of purpose. If you want those materials, come have a chat with me. But there are lots of resources on this topic, and my brief case-study of Apple a moment ago is an example of how to apply Biblical ethics to a company.

Let’s to another case study.

Let’s say you shop at Woolies. If Woolies used slave labour to make some of its products (which it doesn’t, by the way), it would probably be appropriate to shop elsewhere. But what if every supermarket or grocer used slave labour? In that case, it doesn’t matter where you shop, because the sin is equally spread around.

However, if every supermarket or grocer used slave labour, it would be worth avoiding a job in that sector, so that you are not complicit in their evil. However if every business under the sun used slave labour, once again you have no choice but to work in a company that uses slave labour.

Do you see the pattern? Where you can avoid associating with something opposed to the Bible, do so. Where you can’t, there is no guilt imputed to you. The early church co-existed with slavery, but whenever it had the chance, it did away with it.

But, above all, avoid being captured by the sinfulness of the world. Remember how I started? Our priority is to keep our eyes on Jesus, to love and obey him. When our interactions with a business interferes with our ability to love and obey Jesus in any way, the choice is simple: we choose Jesus.

This is a complex topic, and I’ve barely scratched the surface, but I hope the Holy Spirit has used this to give you some direction.

Let’s pray,

Lord, we live in a complex world, riven by sin. And yet you have not rescued us from it. Instead, you have rescued us from our own captivity to sin. You have set us free from what enslaves the world, so that we can be shining lights to them, showing them the way home. Help us to be clear, bright lights. Keep us from being captured by the sin of the world, particularly as represented by business and commerce. And keep us humble so that we can draw others to your Son Jesus.

In his name,

Amen.