A guest post from Dr Xia Zhu.
At creation, the mandate that God gave to humanity was for people to reflect and mirror God’s stewardship… This involves far more than religious enterprises or the church. It has to do with how we engage with scientific endeavours, how we do business, how we treat each other, how we treat animals, and how we treat the environment.
Sproul, R. C. (2016), How Should I Think about Money? Reformation Trust Publishing, p23
Reading from the title of the book Why business matters to God (and what still needs to be fixed), (J. Van Duzer, Madison:InterVarsity Press, 2010) we have one person’s answer to the question of whether or not business matters to God. But does business really matter to God? If we ask ourselves this question three times, do we still get a definite ‘yes’? More importantly, in what way does business matter to God? Aren’t ‘business’, ‘money’ and ‘profit’ just a few of those awkward, veiled words in a Christian dictionary?
Jeff Van Duzer is Dean of the School of Business and Economics at Seattle Pacific University and points out that the most common positive views towards business and its relationship to God’s kingdom are probably instrumental: that business can contribute to God’s kingdom by supporting mission and ministry work; and business (or the workplace) can be used as a platform for evangelism.
But beyond the instrumental value of business in relation to God’s kingdom, does business matter to God? Does business have any intrinsic value to God? Does the actual work of business have any interest to God?
Going back to Genesis, Van Duzer points out that God created a material world and the material world matters to God. The material world is a blessing to human beings and with it comes the responsibility of stewardship. The dichotomy of ‘material’ and ‘spiritual’ actually contradicts the biblical account of Genesis. In the creation–fall–redemption–consummation framework, the material well-being of humanity is an integral part of God’s promises, from the ‘land flowing with milk and honey’ (Exodus 3:8) to the ultimate promise of the resurrection of the body (Sproul, 2016).
God’s plan of redemption is concerned about the material welfare of human beings, and this concern is also central to the Christian faith (Sproul, 2016). “If we are concerned that people don’t have any food, the most important thing to do is to produce food. If people are naked, our concern is not going to do any good unless we make clothes. Production must increase in order to alleviate poverty in physical areas…the single most important element for meeting the physical needs of human beings is the production of goods and services.” (Sproul, 2016, p.48-49). Van Duzer observes the intrinsic purposes of business: outwardly, businesses provide goods and services that create wealth, enable a community to flourish and enhance the quality of life; and inwardly, businesses create opportunities for individuals to express some of God’s given characteristics (e.g. creativity) in the performance of meaningful and creative work.
Contemplating the question ‘Does business matter to God?’ opens up further questions that need to be explored. For instance, “If the material world matters to God, are we internalizing this biblically instead of over-spiritualizing things?” “If the material world and its business matters to God, are we grappling with these as we study the word of God?” “If business matters to God, are Christians sufficiently encouraged and equipped to engage with the business world?”
Dr Xia Zhu is a lecturer in Marketing at Keele University. Her research looks at service experience in consumer and business-to-business markets. Xia’s twitter name is @zhuxia.