God’s Purpose for Business

This article is drawn from a larger book project, also titled God’s Purpose for Business. Both this article and the larger project reflect Nathan McLellan’s interest in leadership and business shaped by the gospel, as well as his work in commercial and not-for-profit governance. With his experience in economics, consultancy, and Christian ethics, Nathan’s uniquely placed to offer this clear, grounded, and Scripturally alive account of God’s purpose for business—Ed.

Introduction

Recently, I’ve been walking up some of the maunga of Tāmaki Makaurau with a group of friends to pray for the city. It’s amazing what you can see at the different summits. Of course, there are the many houses around the city. There are also schools, retirement villages, and green spaces that punctuate the view. And then, there are the variety of business that are at the heart of Aotearoa, New Zealand’s economy: from the corner dairy to well-known retail chains; from your local tradie to large-scale manufacturing. As someone with a background in economics and finance—who continues to have an interest in and involvement with the commercial world—I’m intrigued by these different businesses, and the goods and services they supply. Indeed, the perspective you get from being on the summit of a mountain—above the day-to-day comings and goings, with a more high-level perspective—gives rise to an important question that I’ve wrestled with for many years now as a Christian theologian and ethicist: What is God’s purpose for business? The triune God has lovingly created and now sustains a world that is purposeful. The life, death, resurrection, ascension and future return of Christ touches every sphere of human life. The Holy Spirit is given to empower Christians as witnesses for Jesus Christ in every aspect of life. If all this is true, then what are the implications for business?

Having had conversations with and walked alongside Christians who are business owners, leaders, and entrepreneurs over the years, I know the question What’s God’s purpose for business? has real bite. Many business people know that God has placed them in business, yet oftentimes stuggle to offer themselves and others a compelling account as to why. Sure, being in business provides a context for you to share the Christian faith with others, to give generously to your church and other Christian ministries, and to use your business skills in helping and serving others, including community organisations. Yes, being in business can grow you in Christlikeness as you lean into various business challenges and opportunities; and being a Christian in business might help you to take prudent risks more readily because you ultimately trust in the providence of God. All of these are good things; and yet they all suggest that business exists for something beyond the work of providing goods and services for sale, providing employment for people, and using capital productively. The purpose of business, from a Christian standpoint, is evangelism, giving, or Christian discipleship. But what of producing goods and services, providing employment, and using capital productively?

These commonplace explanations for why Christians are in business often have unintended effects. For instance, if the purpose of business is to provide a context to build relationships with others to share your faith in Christ, then the goods and services you produce and how you produce them only matter to the extent to which they facilitate your effectiveness in sharing your faith—or, they are viewed as a separate “sideline” to the “real work” of evangelism. To take another example, if the Christian purpose of business is to provide funding for your local church or Christian ministries, then what matters is generating a large profit from the goods and services you produce through the people and capital you employ. It’s not hard to see how this viewpoint can give rise to the idea of business people “redeeming profit” by giving to churches or charities; or pastors viewing business people as “walking wallets” whose purpose is to fund local church ministry.

This essay offers a different and more compelling perspective. It seeks to understand how the direct activities that buinesses undertake—producing goods and services by employing people and using capital—align with the purposes of God for his good world, by turning to the Christian vision for life found in the Scriptures and developed by different strands of the Christian tradition. You are not going to turn to a certain page in your Bible and read God’s purpose for business specifically outlined. Nonetheless, the inspired and authoritative Chrisitan Scriptures offer an account of the triune God’s work in creation, redemption, and future fulfilment from which we can develop a theological account of God’s purpose—or purposes—for business that coheres with God’s wider work in the world. This is an interpretative task—as is all theological work that seeks to explore the counsel of Scripture for contemporary life. We will draw, therefore, on the wisdom of various strands of the Christian tradition to help with this work. To start, let us turn to God’s work in creation, redemption, and future fulfilment. This will help us enlarge our perspective of God’s work in the world and what that means for business.

We work in God’s creation

The Bible reveals the triune God’s action in creating and sustaining the world, in redeeming the world from the state and effect of sin, and in bringing the world to its final fulfilment. The world has been created by the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the creation of the world and the ongoing sustaining of the world is divine action, with a particular emphasis given to the person of Jesus Christ (as in all God’s work from a Christian standpoint). Colossians 1:16-17, for example, records: “for in him [that is, Jesus Christ] all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” From this passage we can see that God not only creates through the eternal Son, but that the creation is held together in him, and is, indeed, for him. This has far-reaching implications for how we think about God’s purpose for business and how business should be undertaken.

God does not create the world because of some need or lack within himself. Rather, God’s aseity—God’s “enoughness”—points to the perfection of the life and love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God’s creation of the world out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) is an expression of that love, as is God’s ongoing upholding of the world. We find ourselves living within a good world because it has been created by a good God, an expression of the eternal love of the triune God.

God’s good world is diverse, fruitful, and created for a given end. The diversity of creation can be seen in the varied creatures that comprise God’s world. The first three days of creation in the creation account in Genesis 1 involves separation and naming (e.g., Day 1 involves the separation of light and darkness and the naming of these as “day” and “night”, Genesis 1:3-5); the subsequent three days involve filling of these “spaces” created by the separations with a variety of heavenly bodies, plants, animals, and eventually humans. Several commentators note that in this act of creation God is building a cosmic temple. For example, the Old Testament scholar John Walton writes:

Genesis 1 can now be seen as a creation account focusing on the cosmos as a temple. It is describing the creation of the cosmic temple with all of its functions and with God dwelling in its midst.¹

We might accurately describe this cosmic temple as a living temple. God’s intention is that it would grow and be fruitful. Therefore, God blesses the animals and commands them in Genesis 1:22, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” Likewise, God commands the first humans—who are installed as priests in God’s cosmic temple—to “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:28). In the second creation account in Genesis 2, we are told that God placed the man in the Garden of Eden “to work it and to take care of it” (Genesis 2:15).

To what end is creation—the cosmic temple—to grow and flourish? To the glory of God. The Psalmist states, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). Likewise, Revelation 4 and 5 reveal all creation praising the triune God in unceasing praise: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created, and have their being” (Revelation 4:11). God is honoured and praised by all creation; in other words, God is glorified. How is God glorified? When creatures achieve their given end, as purposed by God, then they flourish and God is glorified. As John Webster writes, “To speak of the end of a thing is to indicate the completeness or perfection which it comes to have when its nature is fully achieved, when it is what it is to the maximal degree.”² In other words, when a creature becomes fully itself it flourishes to the glory of God.

In the way God has created and now sustains the world, humans occupy a unique role, enabling all creation to flourish to the glory of God. Humans have been installed as priests in God’s good creation: they are given the task of, in the words of John Walton, “caring for sacred space.”³ Walton further writes:

People have been granted the image of God and now serve him as vice regents in the world that has been made for them. Again it is instructive to invoke the analogy of the temple before and after its inauguration. After priests have been installed and God has entered, it is finally a fully functioning temple—it exists only by virtue of those aspects.⁴

Walton draws out the fact that humans undertake the priestly task in the presence of God who dwells in his cosmic temple (and within the limits prescribed by him). As they fufil this priestly task—to cultivate and care for the world—the world begins to flourish to the glory of God. At the same time, as humans cultivate and care for the world, the gifts of creation provide for their flourishing also. They produce food that allows them to eat; they construct buildings that become homes, workplaces, and churches; they pursue the arts and sciences to further learning and human development, and so on. This understanding of human flourishing is, at its heart, relational: ordered to life with God as God purposes. God is glorified when humans are living rightly before him in relationship with the rest of creation, including fellow humans.⁵

This priestly task—taking the gifts of creation and mixing them with human ingenuity and creativity, such that both humans and the rest of creation are able to realise their proper end and flourish to the glory of God—is described as the creation or cultural mandate. A fully Christian account of this mandate involves participating with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit in enabling creation to reach its proper end. In other words, humans can only fully realise their proper end and contribute to the flourishing of creation in relationship with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. He is the one who both enables and shows us what it means to be fully human, as the one who is the true image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Hebrews 1:3).

In modern market economies, the purpose of business is integral to the fulfilment of the creation mandate. Businesses take the gifts of creation and through human creativity, organisation, coordination, and effort produce goods and services that enable human communities to flourish. Consider, for example, the construction of a house which becomes a home. From the sourcing of materials, to the development of plans, to the skilled builders who undertaking the construction of a house, building a house requires considerable ingenuity and effort. That home then enables other good things to take place: eating and relating, learning and growing, finding recreation and rest. We could consider many other examples. For instance, the manufacturing businesses that provide consumer durables like washing machines, ovens and TVs, the accounting firm that helps you with your tax return, your favourite clothing store, or the local dairy where you go to get the milk that you forgot to pick up during the weekend shop. The point is we need entrepreneurs and business leaders to start and run businesses that produce goods and services that enable humans to attain their proper end. For this reason, John Paul II has written:

Many goods cannot be adequately produced through the world of an isolated individual; they require the cooperation of many people in working toward a common goal. Organizing such a productive effort, planning its duration in time, making sure that it corresponds in a positive way to the demand which it must satisfy, and taking the necessary risks—all this too is a source of wealth in today’s society. In this way, the role of disciplined and creative human work and, as an essential part of that work, initiative and entrepreneurial ability, becomes increasingly evident and decisive.⁶

In producing goods and services that contribute to human flourishing, it is necessary to employ both labour and capital. Both are needed and important; and both deserve a just return. In some types of businesses capital plays the more significant role as technological infrastructure, land and buildings, plant and machinery, and so on, are particularly important in producing certain goods and services. Furthermore, the return on capital is at once a source of funds for further investment in capital. In other businesses—usually in the services sector—labour usually plays the more significant role.

There is, however, an important distinction between labour and capital. Because work is a critical aspect of human flourishing, it differs from capital in the production process. Through work humans are able to provide for themselves and their families. Through work humans find a form of community with other workers. And through work humans find meaning, purpose, and satisfaction. Work dignifies the human person. As John Paul II puts it:

Work is a good thing for man—a good thing for his humanity—because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfilment as a human being and indeed in a sense becomes “more a human being.”⁷

For this reason, the provision of work by businesses—dignifying work—is also a purpose of business, alongside the provision of goods and services that enable human flourishing. In summary, then, God’s purpose for business—set within the doctrine of creation outlined above—is: 1) to provide goods and services; and 2) to provide dignifying work, both of which enable humans to flourish.⁸ Moreover, because the understanding of flourishing is with reference to humans attaining their created end, God is glorified when a business fulfils its purpose in this way.⁹

In this outline, you will notice that I have not identified the purpose of business with the pursuit of profit. This idea was famously articulated by Milton Friedman in an article in the New York Times Magazine, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”.¹⁰ Of course, it is necessary over the longterm for a business to make a profit in order to remain in business and to provide a just return on the capital that is being used. However: it is one thing to say that is necessary to make a profit; it is another to say the pursuit of profit is the purpose of business. Lots of things are necessary for businesses to do in the context of modern market economies; however, not all “necessary things” should be viewed as “the purpose”. It is necessary for businesses to pay GST, to comply with health and safety legislation, to provide for a just return on capital, and so on; however, these are not the fundamental purposes of a business. To make them so would be to confuse means and ends: the things that are necessary in pursuing a particular purpose, and the purpose itself. For this reason, Jeff Van Duzer has written:

Generating profits is critical. “No margin, no mission.”  Without profit a business dies. But the Genesis model places profit in a proper perspective. It becomes the means to service rather than the purpose of the enterprise.¹¹

In other words, making a profit is necessary for ensuring that businesses are able realise their purpose to produce goods and services and provide dignifying employment, but it is not the purpose of business itself.

Sin, redemption, and working with Christ

A Christian account of the world recognises that, because of human rebellion, sin touches every aspect of human life. Theologians speak of this in terms of the doctrine of total depravity; by this they don’t mean that things are as sinful or depraved as they might possibly be, but rather that every part of human life is marred by sin, and humans are incapable of rescuing themselves from this situation. It is only through the saving work of God in Christ that we are rescued from this devastating and miserable state within which we find ourselves. Jesus Christ accomplishes this supremely in his death and resurrection, whereby he defeats sin, death, and the devil; and this reality becomes our own when we reorientate our lives towards Jesus Christ and trust in him.

The fact that God’s good world has been marred by sin does not void the creation mandate. In the context of business, Christian leaders and entrepreneurs are still called to produce goods and services that contribute to flourishing and to provide dignifying employment, whereby God is glorified; nonetheless, we do so in the presence of “thorns and thistles” which make work “painful toil” (Genesis 3:17-19). There are the “thorns and thistles” of dishonesty and corruption, carelessness and folly, greed and idolatry. There are the adverse circumstances beyond our control, obstacles, and lack, that make running a business “painful toil” at times. Indeed, aspects of what businesses now do and some businesses’ entire activity are focussed on addressing the “thorns and thistles” and the “painful toil” in order to promote flourishing to the glory of God. For example, the practice of employment law and mediation is necessary in a world marred by sin where there is relational breakdown, dereliction of duty, or the failure to honour contractural terms. Because of the presence of sin, then, there is now encompassed within the creation mandate a redemption mandate. Christians in business are called to challenge, address, ameliorate, and remedy the ways in which sin has marred God’s good world through the goods and services they produce and the dignifying employment they provide, alongside how they produce these good and services and employ people.

Christians in business should seek to fulfil both the creation and redemption mandates with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, they should produce goods and services and provide dignifying work that participates in God’s mission in the world (what is often called the missio Dei) through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. They do this recognising who Jesus Christ is: the eternal Son of the Father who became human for us through the working of the Holy Spirit in the virgin Mary. Jesus Christ is the one through whom creation is made, who continues to sustain creation, and the one who is creation’s rightful heir (John 1:3, Ephesians 1:8b-10, Colossians 1:15-20, Hebrews 1:2-4). Therefore, if we are to understand God’s work in creating, redeeming, and bringing the world to its good end in the realm of business, we must turn to him for understanding God’s mission in the world, and our place in participating with him in that mission.

In coming to trust Jesus Christ and reorientating our lives towards him, we are given the gift of his Spirit who unites us with Christ and empowers us to participate in his Father’s mission. In truth, it is only because of our union with him that our praying, pondering, planning, and working to produce goods and services and provide dignifying employment can, like the simple actions of eating and drinking (or anything we do), be done “all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). It is only as we remain in Jesus Christ in the power of God’s Spirit that our work becomes “fruit that will last” as we go about our “master’s business” (John 15:15-16). Therefore, Christians in business must daily pray “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven” and trust that God will give us the bread, forgiveness, and protection that we need in order as the produce goods and services and provide employment (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4).

Furthermore, Christians working in the realm of business undertake this work in anticipation that God’s purpose for creation will finally come to its fulfilment when Jesus returns in glory, and the victory over sin, death, and the devil achieved at Calvary’s cross and the empty tomb will be fully realised.¹² They are not naive about the reality of sin—and the temptations, obstacles, and setbacks they will face as a result. Nonetheless, they are confident that “their work in the Lord is not in vain” because of what Jesus Christ has accomplished in his cross and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:58). They are hopeful because God remains at work in Christ and, therefore, can live and work in light of one of the verses of one of my favourite Christmas carols, Joy to the World:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

Conclusion

This high-level perspective of God’s purpose for business—to produce goods and services and to provide dignifying employment so that humans might flourish to the glory of God—is like a view from the mountain top. Christians need this view from the mountain top. It enables us to see clearly God’s purpose for business and to help us consider what it might look like for us to produce goods and services and provide dignifying employment to the glory of God in the particular businesses that we own, lead, or work within. It encourages us to ask: What might this look like for me in the business where I’m involved? Yes, the perspective from the mountaintop is needed; nonetheless, Christians cannot stay at the summit of the mountain. It is necessary to come down the mountain to participate with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit in God’s work in the world in our day-to-day lives. For this is where God’s purpose for business is outworked. This is where goods and services are produced. This is where people are employed with dignity. This is the places where humans and human communities might flourish to the glory of God.

¹ John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (p. 84). Kindle Edition.
² John Webster, “What Makes Theology Theological?,” Journal of Analytic Theology 3 (May 2015): 22.
³ Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate (p. 106). Kindle Edition.
⁴ Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (p. 98). Kindle Edition.
⁵ In the words of Albino Barrera, there is, therefore, an “external” and “internal” order to the world. Drawing on the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Barrera contends there is an “external order” to the world because all things have their end in God. At the same time, there is also an “internal order” in which the various parts of creation enable each of the other parts to realise their end. Albino Barrera, God and the Evil of Scarcity: Moral Foundations of Economic Agency (University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 23.
⁶ David J. O’Brien and Thomas A. Shannon, eds., Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage (Orbis Books, 1992), 462. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 32.
⁷ O’Brien and Shannon, Catholic Social Thought, 364. John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, 9.
⁸ The conditions that make work “dignifying work” are addressed my wider book project that is in development, God’s Purpose for Business.
⁹ Those familiar with Jeff van Duzer’s work, Why Business Matters to God, will note a parallel between the purpose for business outlined here and his decription. Van Duzer writes, “There are two legitimate, first-order, intrinsic purposes of business: as stewards of God’s creation, business leaders should manage their businesses (1) to provide the community with goods and services that will enable it to flourish, and (2) to provide opportunites for meaningful work that will allow employees to express their God-given creativity.” Jeffrey B. Van Duzer, Why Business Matters to God (And What Still Needs to Be Fixed) (IVP Academic, 2010), 42. There are, however, some differences between his account and mine. First, because my account of creation views creatures as having certain ends, flourishing is related to those ends and the glory of God. Second, I offer here a fuller account of why labour and capital (the so-called factors of production) differ from one another; this enables us to see that the provision of dignified work should be included as a primary purpose of business. Finally, I prefer the term “dignified work” rather than “meaningful work”, as the former term draws on the ethical concept of the dignity of the human person found in various streams of Christian social thought, notably Roman Catholic social thought.
¹⁰ Milton Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” in the New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970, 122–126.
¹¹ Jeffrey Van Duzer, Why Business Matters to God, 46.
¹² This understanding is based on an “inaugurated eschatology” which “sees the first coming of Christ as the beginning of the kingdom in the present, while acknowledging that the consummation or fulfilment of the kingdom in yet to come.” Stanley J. Grenz et al., Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (IVP, 1999), 46.