by Stephen Tweed
My friend, Dr. Ken Magnusen, is Professor of Christian Ethics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Louisville. He’s also the Director of Commonweal, a project to help pastors and seminary students learn more about business so they can more readily connect with their parishioners who are business owners or leaders.
Ken invited Elizabeth and I to participate in a series of dinner meetings with faculty and graduate students to explore what the bible says about business, and how pastors can connect with business owners. This past week, we attended a dinner where the special guest presenter was Dr. Wayne Grudem, research professor of Bible and theology at Phoenix Seminary. He’s the author of a number of books including “Business for the Glory of God”. We have heard Dr. Grudem speak several times as he teaches a regular Sunday school class at Scottsdale Bible Church where we worship when we are in Phoenix.
Business for the Glory of God.
In this powerful little book, Dr. Grudem looks at eleven basic aspects of business activity. Think about your home care business and consider how these elements affect you.
- Ownership – Owning possessions is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God. It also provides many
temptations. The commandment, “Thou shall not steal” affirms the validity of personal ownership of possessions. - Productivity – Producing goods and services is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to sin.
- Employment – Hiring people to do work is fundamentally good.
- Commercial Transactions – Buying and selling are fundamentally good.
- Profit – When we sell a service for more than it costs to deliver it. When we make a profit it means that clients believe we have provided a valuable service
- Money – money is fundamentally good and provides any opportunities. People sometimes say, “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 the root of all kinds of evil”.
- Inequality of Possessions – Some inequality of possessions is fundamentally good. The bible teaches that there are varying degrees of reward in heaven and various kinds of stewardship.
- Competition – competition is fundamentally good. It guides society in assigning jobs to those who are best suited for those jobs.
- Borrowing and Lending – It is well with the man who deals generously and lends, who conducts his affairs with justice.
- Attitudes of Heart – The Ten Commandments end with a reminder that God is concerned not only with our actions but our attitudes of heart. “You shall not covet … anything that is your neighbor’s”
- Effect on Poverty – the only long-term solution to world poverty is business. We give the poor people the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty through work, jobs, and earning an income
Home Care Business for the Glory of God
As I listened to Dr. Grudem talk about these eleven points and give us very specific biblical references, I could not help thinking about my thousands of friends and colleagues in the home care business across the US and Canada who are making very significant contributions to our society by doing well in business. I have a saying about businesses … “You must first do well before you can do good.”
Do Well so you can Do Good
That’s why we do what we do at Leading Home Care. We want our home care clients to do well, so they can do good … for their clients, families, referral sources, communities, and employees. And when home care company owners do good, they do well. They earn a significant income that can be used for other worthwhile purposes.
Our prayer is that each of you will do well in the home care business so that you, too, can do good.
