Book Review: Business For the Glory of God

As I continue through my summer reading list, I just finished reading Business for the Glory of God: The Bible’s Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business by Wayne Grudem.  If his name sounds familiar, it is because he is possibly best known as the author of a text used in most seminaries and Bible colleges called Systematic Theology.  I enjoyed the book and appreciated the points that Grudem made throughout.  He intentionally pointed out that business is a critical venue for the moral goodness of Christianity to be lived out.

Grudem breaks down his thoughts into 11 particular themes.  The first 9 deal with specific parts of business and the last 2 consider how the previous 9 details of business can truly affect change for the glory of God and the good of others.

1. Ownership
2. Productivity
3. Employment
4. Commercial transactions (buying and selling)
5. Profit
6. Money
7. Inequality of possessions
8. Competition
9. Borrowing and lending
10. Attitudes of heart
11. Effect on world poverty

I think that this book is a great read for anyone who would like to know how to serve God by being an outstanding businessman.  Grudem has done a great job of laying out his thoughts and holding them up by pointing out specific Scriptures that speak to the issues he addresses in this book.  Below you will find some thoughts that I highlighted while reading…

  • God created us in such a way that we would want to imitate his character. He created us in such a way that we would take spontaneous delight in seeing reflections of his character in our own actions and in the actions of others.
  • We feel a deep, fulfilling kind of joy and satisfaction in telling the truth (because God is truthful), treating others fairly (because God is fair and just), acting in love toward other people (because God is love), being faithful to our marriages and keeping our word in other commitments (because God is faithful), and so forth.
  • “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
  • Owning possessions is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to sin.
  • I think God has created us with a desire to own things because he wanted us to have a desire to imitate his sovereignty in this way.
  • One good “use” of our resources—paradoxically—is that we should give some of them away!
  • Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God (Heb. 13:16).
  • Giving is important because it demonstrates trust in God.
  • Ownership can be abused, but the distortions of something good must not cause us to think that the thing itself is evil.
  • Producing goods and services is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to sin.
  • It may be that God created us with such needs because he knew that in the process of productive work we would have many opportunities to glorify him.
  • Hiring people to do work is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to sin.
  • Employer/employee relationships provide many opportunities for glorifying God. On both sides of the transaction, we can imitate God, and he will take pleasure in us when he sees us showing honesty, fairness, trustworthiness, kindness, wisdom and skill, and keeping our word regarding how much we promised to pay or what work we agreed to do. The employer/ employee relationship also gives opportunity to demonstrate proper exercise of authority and proper responses to authority, in imitation of the authority that has eternally existed between the Father and Son in the Trinity.
  • Employer/employee relationships, in themselves, are not morally neutral but are fundamentally good and pleasing to God because they provide many opportunities to imitate God’s character and so glorify him.
  • Buying and selling are fundamentally good and provide many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to sin.
  • “If you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another” (Lev. 25:14).
  • “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28).
  • We can imitate God’s attributes each time we buy and sell, if we practice honesty, faithfulness to our commitments, fairness, and freedom of choice.
  • Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs (1 Tim. 6:9-10).
  • Earning a profit is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to sin.
  • Good stewardship, in God’s eyes, includes expanding and multiplying whatever resources or stewardship God has entrusted to you.
  • Money is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to sin.
  • Money provides many opportunities to glorify God: through investing and expanding our stewardship and thus imitating God’s sovereignty and wisdom; through meeting our own needs and thus imitating God’s independence; through giving to others and thus imitating God’s mercy and love; or through giving to the church and to evangelism and thus bringing others into the kingdom.
  • “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:19-21).
  • Some inequality of possessions is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to sin; and some extreme inequalities are wrong in themselves
  • “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10).
  • If God gives us a small stewardship with regard to material possessions or abilities and opportunities, then we can glorify him through being content in him, trusting in him for our needs, expecting reward from him, and being faithful to our commitments. In fact, those who are poor often give more sacrificially than those who are rich.
  • Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? (James 2:5).
  • In contrast to many admonitions to help the poor, there is no corresponding command in the New Testament to take some wealth away from the very rich, and there is no teaching that a large amount of wealth is wrong in itself. But there are strong warnings against spending too much on oneself and living in self-indulgent luxury:
  • Competition is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to sin
  • God has created us with a desire to do well, and to improve what we are able to do. Competition spurs us on to do better, because we see others doing better and we decide we can do that too.
  • I think that God has made us with such a desire to strive for excellence in our work so that, in doing this, we would imitate his excellence more fully.
  • And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless (1 Tim. 3:10).
  • Competition seems to be the system God intended when he gave people greater talents in one area and gave other people greater talents in another area, and when he established a world where justice and fairness would require giving greater reward for better work.
  • Borrowing and lending are fundamentally good and provide many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to sin.
  • “When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge” (Deut. 24:10).
  • The great value of borrowing and lending is that they multiply the usefulness of all the wealth of a society.
  • In borrowing and lending, we can reflect many of God’s attributes. We can demonstrate trustworthiness and faithful stewardship, honesty, wisdom, and thanksgiving. We can demonstrate some knowledge of the distant future, and love and mercy and thankfulness to God.
  • Therefore in all our ownership of property, and in all our stewardship, if we want to glorify God in business, we should seek to avoid pride and to have hearts full of love and humility toward others and toward God. In producing goods and services for others, and in using them for our own enjoyment, we should have hearts of thanksgiving to God for his goodness in providing these things to us. If we work for someone else, we should work as if we were working for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward (Col. 3:23-24).
  • I believe the only long-term solution to world poverty is business. That is because businesses produce goods, and businesses produce jobs. And businesses continue producing goods year after year, and continue providing jobs and paying wages year after year. Therefore if we are ever going to see long-term solutions to world poverty, I believe it will come through starting and maintaining productive, profitable businesses.

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