People: God’s Purposes for Business – Part II

Every business needs people to perform all sorts of tasks. So, investing in employees is essential to building the business and making it profitable. Treating people well brings Christ to the marketplace. Helping the employees be the best the employees can be will demonstrate God’s heart toward them. Hence, this researcher state the second purpose God has for business as follows: Business exists to enable each individual to develop and express their God-given creativities and passions. Julian (2002:19) notes that while employees may apply for a job, Christian business owner should see past the job application and consider the unlocked potential in that new employee.

Every part of the business needs high-quality people. Nothing can replace honest, talented, hard-working people. Employees are needed to perform many important tasks and processes, examples of which are (in no particular order):

• Sell products and services
• Provide customer service
• Produce products
• Deliver services
• Pay the bills
• Enforce compliance
• Process payroll
• Recruit new candidates
• Train new employees
• Manage information
• Manage core processes
• Collect payments from customers
• Manage cash flow-
• Provide management and leadership
• And hundreds of other tasks

Employees will not arrive at the front door fully trained, seasoned professionals, ready to go, day 1. As the employer, the owner is directly responsible for building and training each employee. Christian business owners can significantly affect the community’s culture by properly managing and building up the employees.

3.5.3.1  Biblical Passages on Being an Employer

The Scriptures have more to say to employers than most believe. This section will outline what the Bible says about being an employer. Employers have significant obligations to employees. When owners fulfill their obligations to employees, God is glorified.

Be fair to one’s employees

Job 31:13-15 (The Holy Bible, 2011) says this: “If I have denied justice to any of my servants, whether male or female, when they had a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?”

Also, consider Job 31:38-40: “If my land cries out against me and all its furrows are wet with tears, if I have devoured its yield without payment or broken the spirit of its tenants, then let briers come up instead of wheat and stinkweed instead of barley.”

Job knows he can sin by A) denying justice to any of his employees, B) demoralising his employees, or C) not paying his employees their compensation in full, on time. These three temptations are called out by Job as sin. Job knows God will ask him about this, so Job discerns a connection between his actions as an employer and God watching his behaviour.

This passage applies to business owners today. God is watching each owner’s behaviour. Each owner should consider the day when God calls each of us to account for our stewardship of God’s business.

In addition, Job states a theological truth: the employer and employee are equally valuable to God because both are made in God’s image. Gender, race, economic status—none of these creates inequality before God. Biblical Christians do not divide over that which is sacred: gender, ethnicity, economic entrustments or individual talents. Instead, Christian business owners find the hand of God in the other’s persona.

Fairness is also mentioned in the New Testament: “Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven” (Colossians 4:1).  God has been more than fair with each of us, so in our stewardship role, we should reflect God’s fairness to our employees by being fair to them.

Part of treating an employee fairly is to avoid threats directed toward employees: “And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him” (Ephesians 6:9). Christian owners refrain from threatening employees because the owner recognizes that both the owner and the employee are equal before God. “In other words, “Let your approach be positive, not negative.” Hence, not, “Unless you do this, I will do that to you,” but rather, “Because you are a good and faithful servant, I will give you a generous reward.” Before threatening, the slave stood helpless. He had no means of defending himself, not even, generally speaking, before the law. But as a believer he did have a real Defender” (Hendriksen and Kistemaker, 1953-2001:265).

To summarise, fairness means:

• Paying full compensation on time
• Ensuring justice is enforced for your employees
• Accepting and dealing fairly with employee grievances against you, the owner
• Making sure that you don’t demoralize your employees

Never Defraud Your Employees

This consideration is similar to the previous consideration of being fair to one’s employees, but it has a more narrow focus on fraudulent activity. Two passages from Scripture talk about fairly paying workers to avoid fraud: “Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight. You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning” (Leveticus 19:13). “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due” (Romans 4:4).

It is good that we accrue unpaid wage liabilities on the balance sheet. Such accrual reflects God’s heart. Wages are not charity but a liability for the employer. Because a business owner cannot have a payroll liability to the owner’s self, business owners pay themselves last, not first. The owner has no moral obligation to pay the owner’s self. And while an argument from silence, I find it interesting to note that the Bible never portrays masters as getting paid before their workers.

Now, nearly every business experiences a downturn at one time or another, and owners may find it temporarily difficult to pay their employees their full compensation on time due to a lack of cash flow. So, what is an owner to do? Here are several ideas:

1. Rightsize the business as fast as possible so that the company is not spending more cash than what is coming in from current revenue
2. If an employee offers to work and not be paid, do not agree to this
3. In more dire situations, the owner may need to offer some level of equity or the promise of a future cash bonus to justify the work the employees are performing. Employees must be given something of equal or greater value as compensation
4. Do not cut marketing, sales, or other revenue-generating activities
5. If payroll needs to be reduced, it is better to eliminate positions than reduce all compensation by a certain percentage

Do Not Exploit Your Employees

This consideration focuses on not abusing the owner’s power over an employer. Exploitation occurs when employers use their power to extract more value from their workers than is given in compensation, creating a situation in which the workers are unfairly paid.

There is also the element of a power imbalance. The employees accept less than fair compensation because they may have little choice in agreeing to the terms of employment. The Bible speaks to this sin: “For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages’” (1 Timothy 5:18). The Bible also says, “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 3:5).

Two more Scripture passages apply here. “Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty” (Proverbs 22:16) and Deuteronomy 24:14: “You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns.”

There are several principles here to consider in relationship to not exploiting one’s employees. First, there exists a market rate for competent work. Christians who employ others should strive to pay market rates, even if the power imbalance with an employee might allow the owner to negotiate the employee’s labour at a less-than-market rate.  The owner’s standard is not how cheaply the rate is at which the owner can hire good talent, but instead, the standard is how best can the owner use the owner’s inherent power as an employer to be fair with each employee’s compensation. Many employers—even Christian employers—look at compensation through a legal lens. But Christian business owners should be far more concerned about what God thinks than what a judge might think. Regardless of what options might be available to the owner legally, the owner should be concerned first with obeying God and not exploiting employees.

Secondly, the Scriptures do not differentiate between for-profit and nonprofit entities. There is no concept of a corporation in the Bible, so the for-profit/non-profit nuance is irrelevant when it comes to compensation. The Scriptures simply says that a worker is “worth his hire”—the compensation should “fit” his work. This applies to ministry work as well. Church boards should take note. There is no justification in Scripture for paying an employee less simply because they are in full-time vocational ministry. When church members enrich themselves by not paying their full tithe and then ask their pastors to work for less compensation, this is a form of oppression, exploitation, and stealing (1 Timothy 5.17). This is sin.

Third, the Scriptures do not differentiate between race, gender, or pedigree. It is sin to pay different wages to different people for the same work output and quality simply because they have a different skin tone, different X/Y chromosomes, or come from a lower or higher class in society. Christian business owners do not do this.

Employers treating employees fairly and giving them a place to express their God-given talents is one of God’s purposes for business.

Bill English, Publisher
Bible and Business

Sources:

Hendriksen, W. and Kistemaker, S.J. 1953–2001. Exposition of Ephesians. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House (New Testament Commentary).