The Roman Republic had just become an empire. Caesar Augustus ruled a nearly uncontested span of territory from Egypt and Syria in the east to Spain in the west and even part of the island of Britannia in the north. In one of Rome's client kingdoms, Judea, a seemingly insignifican event took place that would nonetheless reach over history forwards and backwards and become the most talked about, most debated event in human history: the birth of a child.
The Politically Correct Police are out and about this season. It's one of their favorites of the year. They receive their power from the tyrannical party of "they." You know, it's "they say" and "they won't like it" and "they know what's best." "They" say you'd better not call it Christmas or someone will be offended. "They" say it's best to call them Holiday Trees instead of Christmas trees.
I would like to thank Tom Ascol for sending me the following article. I agree wholeheartedly that those of us engaged in business activities can utilize our God-given talents in that arena to God's glory. No matter how many movies portray businessmen and women as greedy tycoons, we know that the reality is that many, many honest, God-fearing people work hard at their businesses every day as their "mission field" and a place to demonstrate God's grace and provision. I hope you enjoy this thought-provoking article as much as I did (and by the way, the book is an excellent read, as well).
The Nobility of Business—Wayne Grudem (1948 – )
Wayne Grudem is the widely-published author of Systematic Theology and co-editor of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. When he turns his attention to economics, he finds that commerce is to be commended as the source of great good. His book on the subject, Business for the Glory of God,1 argues that work in manufacturing and trade is a high calling. For one thing, it serves to alleviate poverty:
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.
In this next passage, Grudem captures an anti-business (and, ironically, pro-poverty) mindset perfectly. Of course, some businessmen abuse their trust, but it takes cruel caricature to disparage business per se. Grudem shows how this caricature might go.
If people think business is evil, they will hesitate to start businesses, and they will never feel real freedom to enjoy working in business, because it will always be tainted with the faint cloud of false guilt. Who can enjoy being an evil materialist who works with evil money to earn evilprofits by exploiting laborers and producing material goods that feed people’s evil greed and enhance their evil pride and sustain their evil inequality of possessions and feed their evilcompetitiveness? Who wants to devote his life to such an evil pursuit as business? What government would ever want to establish laws and policies that would encourage an evil thing as business? If business is evil, why not tax it and regulate it until it can barely survive? And so with the attitude that business is fundamentally evil in all its parts, business activity is hindered at every point, and poverty remains.
Grudem goes on to argue that against this negative perspective Christians should lift up business as a noble venture, full of promise for those in financial distress.
If attitudes toward business change . . . then who could resist being a God-pleasing subduer of the earth who uses materials from God’s good creation and works with the God-given gift of money to earn morally good profits, and shows love to his neighbors by giving them jobs and by producing material goods that overcome world poverty, goods that enable people to glorify God for his goodness, that sustain just and fair differences in possessions, and that encourage morally good and beneficial competition? What a great career that would be! What a great activity for governments to favor and encourage! What a solution to world poverty! What a great way to give glory to God!2
| Footnotes: |
| 1 | Wayne Grudem, Business for the Glory of God: The Bible’s Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business(Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2003). |
| 2 | Ibid., 80-83. |
There are competing views of success in our world. Achieving success in your life will depend largely on how you define success in the first place. I must admit, my own personal definition of success has changed drastically over the years.
One view of success in the world is measured by victory. We'll call this the Victory School of Thought. If you are in sports or business or any type of competition, success is defined by winning. Interestingly, though, some of the most successful in this category, such as legendary coach John Wooden of the UCLA basketball team, defined success as doing one's personal best and giving full effort toward that end. In his view, winning was a natural by-product of this philosophy. It certainly worked for Wooden. He remains the most successful coach on record in nearly any sport at any level. However, Wooden, even though he was so successful, is still rare in his philosophy. Most consider winning as the true measure of success.
Another view of success involves "capturing" things; whether it be titles, status, recognition, fame, or material possessions. We'll call this the Attainment School of Thought. This is the "He who dies with the most toys wins" philosophy. This view is a close cousin to the Victory School of Thought.
While these two schools certainly have their good points, and victory and some of the trappings of success are not wrong in and of themselves, they do both come with a fundamental flaw. That flaw relates to the real way we human beings are wired and what truly gives us satisfaction. The flaw in the thinking of both the Victory School of Thought and the Attainment School of Thought is that the things of this world can please us, that they are worthy as an end-goal in our lives.
The third and final School of Thought, I believe, is the Eternal School of Thought. Here true success is found. While it is okay to pursue victory in our lives in our professional endeavors (and who among us does not like to win once in a while?), and it is okay to enjoy the rewards of hard work and prosperity, real success is found in filling what one author called "The God-shaped void in our hearts." You see, humans scratch around on the earth, busy about all kinds of things, pursuing all sorts of pleasures and objects designed to bring satisfaction, when the whole time what they are really searching for is a relationship with their Creator. How do I know this? It's what the Bible is all about, and it is what has happened in my own life.
My last post was about Indianapolis Coach Tony Dungy. After reading his book, Quiet Strength, I would recommend it to anyone. And I will pull one more piece from that book to illustrate what I'm talking about here. According to Dungy,
"God's Word . . . presents a different definition of success - one centered on a relationship with Jesus Christ and a love for God that allows us to love and serve others. God gives each one of us unique gifts, abilities, and passions. How well we use those qualities to have an impact on the world around us determines how "successful" we really are."
I love Dungy's definition of success. It focuses on God's grace and what He has done through Christ on the cross, and shows that our grateful response should be one of service to others and sacrifice for God's glory. That is true success. If the other, worldly definitions also happen here and there, so be it. But the world's definitions of success on their own are hollow and lead to increased depravity as people strive for more and more, hoping to fill that "God shaped vacuum" that no amount of
"the world" will fill. Real success comes from that relationship with God through His son Jesus Christ, and living out our days fulfilling, to the limits of our ability, the calling He places on our lives.
The first time I heard the saying, "Eternity is a long time to be wrong," it was my friend and co-author Orrin Woodward saying it. I was immediately struck by the truth of it.
Life is interesting how it blinds us. We can cruise along through days and weeks and even months and somehow ignore our own mortality. We know deep down in our hearts that we are only here for a moment, that our lives will end in death, and that everything we see and feel and do will be gone. But somehow, the glitter and complications of life keep us occupied, and keep our minds far away from thoughts about our reason for living, our purpose in that life, and our destination afterward.
I would encourage everyone to figure out what they believe about these great truths, and to clearly examine why and how they have these beliefs. Getting the "eternity" part of your existence into proper framework is absolutely critical. What is this life all about? What happens when it's over?
The Bible holds the answers to this. And I'm not talking about "religiosity" or "churchianity" here, both terms which describe how turned off I was about any "religion talk" from people. What I'm talking about is the truth. Man was created by God, fell into sin, and therefore separated himself from God. Jesus Christ came into the world as a man, lived the perfect life none of us could live, died the death of punishment (the spiritual punishment from God the father on the cross was infinitely more severe than the physical suffering) that we should have received, then rose again from the dead, proving he was the only begotten Son of God.
Heard it all before? Turned off by people who profess to believe in Christ but don't glorify Him with their lives? I know how you feel, I was there myself.
But just because I had heard it all before didn't make it any less true. And just because God's people struggle with sin, and some profess him falsely, doesn't make his saving Grace on the cross on my behalf any less true!
What I couldn't deny is how I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was a sinner. I also knew I was powerless to do anything about it on my own. And I knew that at the end of the struggle with sin I would die in my sins. Only Christ has the power to save me from this dead end street. His finished work on the cross is salvation.
Along the early days of my spiritual journey, I was given great spiritual guidance by Pastor Robert L. Dickie and Orrin Woodward. I was also fortunate enough to be handed some incredible books, in addition to the Bible, of course, that helped me tremendously. I would like to recommend a couple of them to you:
1. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, Martyn Lloyd-Jones
2. Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell
There are many more I will recommend on future Sundays. Believe me, these are plenty to begin with (both are thick!) I pray that they will help you on your journey of getting the real questions of life answered. After all, it's the most important thing you can do. Everything else comes second.
Since it's Sunday, I would like to share something I read recently from pastor and theologian Charles Swindoll in his excellent little book Perfect Trust. Perhaps it will be helpful to any of you who find yourselves experiencing the trials of life. Swindoll gives us four great points with which to interpret what happens to us, to help us put things in perspective, and to understand God's grace as it applies to his believers:
1. God allowed me to get into this situation
2. He will give me His grace to get through it
3. He will make a blessing out of this trial
4. He can bring me out again
We make choices and decisions that put us in certain situations. We are responsible before God for our lives. We also get hit with external circumstances. But through it all, God has a plan for his children, and His will for us is perfect and good. God always knows what is best for us.
The real question isn't "Why is this happening to me?" but rather, "Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior? Do you live your life for Him, or for yourself?" I would like to recommend a fantastic book for anyone who is unsure about this topic: Be Sure What You Believe, by Joe Nesum. It was very helpful to me in the early days of my spiritual journey, and I trust it will be for you as well.
May God bless and guide each of you, to His glory, as you make your way through life's difficulties.
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