Christian Business Review 2022: Pressing On Toward God's Goal

BIBLICAL BUSINESS GOALS
BOOK EXCERPT
the costs. We know that God is watching even when others
are not.
SET PRIORITIES FOR THE USE OF TIME
There is no biblical principle that sets normal business hours
at 40, 60, or 80 hours a week. The preponderance of evidence
in Scripture seems to indicate, however, that a six-day work
week is not excessive.
We seem to have developed two opposing perspectives
in business today. Employees tend to think that anything
beyond 40 hours should be a bonus (overtime), and owners
think that anything less than 80 hours is being lazy. Both
sides have adopted extremes.
When a business owner adopts an excessively long work
day that seldom provides any time for relaxation and other
outside activities, he or she establishes an unwritten policy:
“If you don’t work long hours, you won’t get ahead in this
company.” This puts the employees (particularly managers)
under great stress and eventually makes them less productive.
The attitude in such companies is known as the burnout
mentality. Owners work their best people until they drop,
then find someone else to replace them. The turnover in such
companies is usually enormous, with high salaries the necessary
enticement to attract more workers.
Other owners who adopt this style in their own lives think
that if they pay the good people enough, they will be able
to keep them. I have found that money is only a temporary
motivator. It is true that too little pay will usually force good
people out, but too much pay will not keep them on a job that
totally dominates their lives. In fact, as soon as they have
accumulated enough money to live on a lesser salary, they
will leave and trade dollars for time.
SET ETHICAL PRIORITIES
Once you have established money and time priorities in your
business you need to establish some ethical priorities. A few
of the common areas of business ethics violations are taxes,
fraud, and misuse of company assets. We will examine
each of these areas before outlining the biblical principles for
dealing with unethical conduct.
TAXES. Perhaps nothing represents a Christian businessperson’s
spiritual values more clearly than that person’s attitude
toward paying taxes. No one likes to pay taxes; even
the people who recognize the necessity of collecting taxes
for roads, schools, and defense rarely count taxpaying as a
privilege. But to actually cheat on income taxes or any other
tax is a sin, and sin separates us from God.
Unless you believe that your relationship with God is the
most important asset you have in this world, sin will easily
ensnare you. I personally believe that cheating on income
taxes is the most common sin among Christians in business.
Much, if not most, of it is so well concealed that even the
best auditors cannot detect it. But God already knows.
Over the years I have probably heard just about every
possible way to cheat on taxes. I have met professing Christians
who never paid their apportioned amount and rarely, if
ever, thought of their evasion as a sin. Many of these people
were generous givers to God’s causes. Many did wonderful
jobs of speaking out for the Lord and working to spread the
Gospel. Yet all of them had one characteristic in common: a
lack of peace and fulfillment in their spiritual lives.
These people might fake being dynamic Christians when
they are out among others who feed their theatrical abilities,
but when they are alone they realize that something is missing
from their relationship with Jesus. …
FRAUD. I am constantly amazed by the degree of dishonesty
in our society that the average American accepts as normal.
We often see clear evidence of politicians’ dishonesty, and
yet we reelect them to public office. We hear of athletes who
break the rules, and yet fans organize campaigns to keep
them in sports. One area in which most Americans will not
tolerate dishonesty is in the business world. It’s not that
Americans demand more of their business leaders; it’s that
they see themselves as the victims of business fraud.
Many studies over the last several years have attempted
to measure the honesty index of the average American, both
consumers and merchants, and the results are saddening.
Consistently, the most acceptable kind of fraud is practiced
against insurance companies. Many businessmen surveyed
felt they had the right to collect from an insurance company
once they had paid into a policy for several years. They saw
insurance policies as something like annuities, from which a
person who pays a certain amount in has the right to draw a
certain amount out.
One common area of fraud is medical fraud. Even
well-meaning Christian doctors sometimes conspire to cheat
an insurance company on behalf of their patients. The procedure
is simple: increase the bill based on the patient’s deductible
amount. Then discount the bill and the entire amount
is paid. Many Christians … are concerned about this practice
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CHRISTIAN BUSINESS REVIEW Fall 2022