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In the last two Gleanings, I considered the relationship between business and the kingdom of God by discussing the authority to conduct business and the philosophy of business. The authority to conduct business comes from God, who delegated to mankind the authority to rule creation. The philosophy of business is a system of thinking and acting that facilitates alignment with the will and ways of God in the delivery of products and services.
This month, I want to continue considering the relationship between business and the kingdom of God by addressing the purpose of business.
For many people, the purpose of business is self-evident. Business is a vehicle for making money that will enable humans to live the way they want to live. Business is therefore simply a tool to accomplish the objective of enabling mankind to prosper in the physical world. This view implicitly assumes that the Bible is irrelevant to providing guidance on the issue. If, however, you believe that the Bible can provide God’s view of the purpose of business, then what can we glean from Scripture?
As a starting point, consider some thoughts on the biblical view of money. Certainly financial gain is necessary to sustain business, but money has only temporal value (1 Timothy 6:7). No human being brings money into this existence at birth or takes money out at death. Therefore money is temporal; its only value is to assist us in this life. If you believe that the essence of the philosophy of business is to align with the will and ways of God, then money must be a tool to facilitate this alignment during our existence on earth.
But earning money is not the primary purpose of business. The primary purpose of business is to facilitate alignment with the will and ways of God (James 4:13–17), and a secondary purpose is to generate money to support the primary purpose. But what does alignment with the will and ways of God mean?
Biblically, the starting point for understanding alignment with God in business must be the Creation Mandate (Genesis 1:26–28), which states God’s purpose in creating human beings. God made people to serve as his agents in ruling his physical creation through multiplication (populating the earth multi-generationally) and mastery (discovering and applying auxiliary technology).
To empower man for this task, God initially placed man in an ideal context—a garden that was perfectly designed for people. Relative to the physical size of the earth, the garden was geographically small and the initial wisdom of the physical universe given to mankind was apparently nascent. Therefore the task to multiply and master the physical universe was a large assignment of growing in numbers and mastering wisdom.
Growing in numbers to “fill the earth” suggests that massive human reproduction would be required. And mastering or subduing the universe (growing in wisdom) intimates the need for dramatic advancement in understanding the mysteries of science and technology hidden in God’s wondrous creation.
Based on the metrics of multiplying and mastering, mankind has achieved a level of success in ruling the physical universe. Mankind has grown from two people to more than seven billion people today and billions more have been alive but are now deceased. And advances in science and technology have been breathtaking, particularly since the middle of the nineteenth century.
Since creation, business’s role has been to support mankind’s multiplication and mastery of the universe. The workplace provides a context and the financial resources that enable the growth of wisdom through technological advancement.
It is easy to see the value of business as a financial engine but it seems more problematic to see the role of business as helping mankind master the physical universe. Perhaps this is because we don’t readily recognize that the charter for every business is the Creation Mandate. Biblically, humans are the only beings created in the image of God, that is, each person bears traits of God and is to use those traits to rule the physical universe through multiplication and mastery. Failure to recognize God’s purpose for human beings leads to a failure to properly understand the purpose of business.
The fall of man is the reason for the difficulty in seeing the Creation Mandate as the charter of every business. Chapters one and two of Genesis present the account of creation, including the Creation Mandate. Genesis three records the fall of man that introduced rebellion against God into the physical world and God’s response to the rebellion—spiritual and physical death.
In addition, there were consequences given to each participant in the fall—to the serpent (the instigator of the fall), the woman (the one deceived 1 Timothy 2:14), and the man (the one responsible 1 Timothy 2:14). The serpent’s consequences were degraded natural ability and, to the spirit at work behind the serpent (Satan Revelation 20:2), the promise of limited success before fatal failure (Genesis 3:14–15). The woman’s consequences were increased pain in childbirth and increased dependence on man (Genesis 3:16). The man’s consequence was that the work of ruling God’s physical creation was cursed, that is, ruling God’s creation through multiplication and mastery would be difficult (Genesis 3:16–19).
As a result of the fall, business became arduous because the physical world is groaning under a curse (Romans 8:20–22). To be clear, work is not a curse; rather, work is cursed because of the sin of man.
It is important to understand that the Creation Mandate was unchanged by the fall, but mankind lost the ideal context from which to obey the Creation Mandate—the garden. The garden was the perfect context for mankind. Adam and Eve did not require clothes to live in the garden, which suggests the weather was perfect. Furthermore, there was an abundant supply of food and water and even gold to use as the basis for currency. Currency would be important for mankind because the physical universe was vast and complex. Therefore mastery of it would require many people and many areas of specialization. No human being could master it all, consequently division of labor would be critical. In other words, to multiply and master the physical universe, no human being would be self-sufficient. The labor of humans would, in part, need to be converted to currency so that each person could acquire whatever they needed that they could not self-produce.
If one views the Creation Mandate as the guiding truth in defining the purpose of business, then business is a vehicle by which mankind extends the rule and reign of God into the physical realm through multiplication (individual and organizational growth) and mastery (technological growth). In this view, money is simply a temporal tool to assist mankind in ruling God’s physical universe and is a by-product of obedience to the Creation Mandate. In other words, the greater purpose of business is to exercise the rule of God in his created order and only secondarily to make money.
In the larger context of history, the metanarrative is the story of God’s process of reclaiming his uncontested reign over his creation through mankind, that is, to restore the kingdom of God on earth. Everything that exists, including business, exists as a tool to enable mankind to obey the Creation Mandate in a fallen world. If you accept this premise, then, first and foremost, the purpose of business is to obey the Creation Mandate by providing a context to support man in fulfilling his responsibility to rule God’s creation through multiplication and mastery of the physical universe.
In summary, the relationship between business and the kingdom of God is seen in the authority to do business, in the philosophy of business, and in the purpose of business. The authority to conduct business is delegated to mankind by the Creator. The philosophy of business is a system of thinking and acting aligned with the Creator. And the purpose of business is to obey the Creation Mandate, namely, to rule God’s creation through multiplication and mastery of the physical universe. In a fallen world, the only way that any person (and by implication organization) can walk in this truth is through the redeeming power of Christ working through the Holy Spirit to transform the hearts of human beings into alignment with the purposes of God.
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