The fifth purpose of business is to provide business owners with unique opportunities to be financially generous toward God. Because God has been generous with God’s followers (John 3:16), God’s followers are generous with those in need. Christ reminds us of this truth in Matthew 5:42, “give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” John Wesley’s last entry in his private journal included this: “I have kept my accounts exactly. I will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the continual conviction that I save all I can, and give all I can, that, all I have” (Clarke, 1848:12). Wesley captured well the spirit of this fifth purpose.
Christian business owners view philanthropy through a covenant worldview rather than a tax-treatment strategy that also has social benefits. Recall that covenants are inherently life-giving and relationship-forming. When Christian business owners are generous toward God by giving to those in need, they do so with the intention of creating a relationship with the recipient such that they can have a positive impact in other areas, too. Merely writing a check is so easy. Getting involved in another’s life because one lives out covenant theology in philanthropy is harder, but the rewards are richer and eternal.
Biblical Passages on Philanthropy
Philanthropy is discussed often in the Bible. Financial giving and generosity are constant themes in the Old and New Testaments. Some passages discuss or illustrate being generous, other passages teach generosity directly. This researcher will discuss the lessons Christian business owners should learn from the Scriptures regarding financial giving and generosity.
There is much to be said for a capitalistic market that allows for the free exchange of goods and services. Markets are good at increasing prosperity, not only for individuals but for nations too. But while the market is good at creating wealth, it is not good at distributing it. (Sacks, 2002:87-88). Philanthropy is needed to offset the inability of the markets to distribute wealth sufficiently to allow all persons to fully participate in the community’s life with dignity and respect.
Voluntarily meeting the needs of the poor is visceral to Biblical philanthropy and Christian stewardship.
Christian business owners accept the responsibility to meet the needs of the poor under the direction of the Holy Spirit as they live out their stewardship responsibilities.
- “A world in which the few prosper and many starve offends our deepest sense of fairness and human solidarity. You do not have to be a convinced egalitarian to know that disparities of vast, concentrated wealth alongside widespread suffering is intolerable. The real problem is one of responsibility. No one planned this outcome. It happened as a result of billions of transactions, investments and purchasing decisions” (Sacks, 2002:111).
I agree that no single owner can meet all of the needs—that is vastly overwhelming: the presence of need is not always the call of God. But as a group, Christian business owners accept that philanthropy, as directed by God, is a core purpose of God’s call on their lives and their business. Living at community mediums is one of the key ways a business owner creates excess cash to help those who are in need.
Consider Acts 4:32-37:
“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.”
Clearly, what is in view in the Acts 4 story is lending financial assistance to the people in need who are also believers. This passage (and Acts 2) can not be used to justify political systems like socialism or communism, where private ownership is effectively outlawed. This passage has no problem with Barnabas owning a field and selling it. There was not a needy person among them: “It would be great if we could say that about our churches. It would be suspiciously biblical if were doing stuff like this” (Heiser, 2015:10).
While this passage is descriptive of what the early church did and is not necessarily prescriptive for how Christian business owners should behave today, this researcher believes that God is pleased when business owners mirror the heart attitude of the generosity of Barnabas in this story. Christian business owners do what they can to meet the needs of the poor. Christian business owners do not pass this responsibility to the government even though many feel they are over-taxed.
Christian business owners are generous with another who has become poor through unforeseen events.
Consider Leviticus 25:35-38:
“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.”
Sometimes, people become poor without behaviour that can be faulted. Becoming poor can happen through sudden unemployment, medical bills, a house fire, an automobile accident, or other major calamities. Moses commanded the Israelites to be generous toward others who became poor and could not self-support (Leviticus 25:35-38). Christian business owners should be generous toward their brother who has become poor.
The Scriptures assume the poor should be able to rely on the religiously serious as their safety net:
“In light of the whole body of Jesus teaching and the history of the church, there cannot possibly be sincere devotion to Jesus that will not issue in a sincere devotion to his poor. As backup, the Hebrew prophets forever teach that where any spiritual devotion is thought to be a substitute for social justice there is “no acceptable worship of God” (Bruner, 1990:943-944).
It is not enough to assert that a person should always have an emergency fund that can last six or twelve months, even though this is a good idea. The reality is that most people either do not or cannot do this:
“Depending on the survey, [we learn that] from half of workers making under $50,000 (according to Nielsen data) to 74 per cent of all employees (per recent reports from both the American Payroll Association and the National Endowment for Financial Education) and almost three in ten adults have no emergency savings at all, according to Bankrate’s latest Financial Security Index. Even many in the upper class see their six-figure incomes slip through their fingers. The Nielsen study found that one in four families making $150,000 a year or more are living paycheck to paycheck, while one in three earning between $50,000 and $100,000 also depend on their next check to keep their heads above water” (Pesce, 2020: Online).
Many societies are expensive, so lower-income people will find saving difficult. Those earning a higher income should learn to live at a lower standard of living than possible to be generous toward people experiencing poverty. Waltke (2008:236) said, “The wicked advantage themselves by disadvantaging others, but the righteous disadvantage themselves to advantage others.” Disciples of Jesus Christ disadvantage themselves to become the safety net for those who are poor and experiencing need.
Self-disadvantaging is not just generosity; it is also a matter of justice.
Many times, people become poor because of injustice. Christian business owners can help bring healing and justice into their lives through generosity.
Consider Genesis 18:17-19; God gives Abraham and his descendants their mission: “17 The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”
The two Hebrew words to focus on are righteousness (צְדָקָה (tzedakah); “the state of doing what is required according to a standard” (Swanson, 1997:7407)) and justice (מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat); “a state or condition of fairness in disputes” (Swanson, 1997:5477)). Sacks sees these two words as different forms of justice (Sacks, 2002:113-114): “Mishpat means retributive justice or the rule of law. A free society must be governed by law, impartially administered, through which the guilty are punished, the innocent acquitted and human rights secured. Tzedakah, by contrast, refers to distributive justice, a less procedural and more subsidies… namely a…namely charity and justice.” An act of charity is usually not thought of as an act of justice and an act of justice is usually not thought of as an act of charity. But when possession and ownership are abstracted in Christian stewardship, what would normally be considered charity under other legal systems becomes a moral obligation under Christian stewardship.
God is concerned that no one should be without the basic requirements of existence and that those who have more than they need share some of their surplus with those who have less. Christian business owners have a fundamental responsibility to help create a culture in which each person has a basic right to a dignified life and can fully participate in the community’s life.
This responsibility is even more important when the poor belong to the community of believers. Consider Exodus 22:21-17:
“You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 22 You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. 23 If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, 24 and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. 25 “If you “end money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. 26 If ever you take your neighbor’s cloak’in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, 27 for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.”
Using the oppression of Israel under Egypt’s rule as a contrast, Christians attempt to construct a society in which poverty, persecution, and enslavement are replaced with shared graciousness, self-determination and freedom. I am not arguing for equality of results, but instead, I am arguing for equality of opportunity by ensuring the power that wealthy individuals hold because of their wealth is given away under God’s direction to build up others who, through no individual fault of their own, have experienced a setback that could happen to any person on earth.
Biblical philanthropy builds on itself, creating so much wealth and giving that need can be erased.
This surprising principle is taught plainly in Malachi 3:6-10:
“ 6For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. 7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ 8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”
Notice the last phrase: “until there is no more need.” The God of the universe is saying that if God’s people—not including anyone who is not a follower of Yahweh—will become generous, God will respond by giving more wealth to God’s followers so that these followers can be even more generous to where the need for generosity is fully satisfied. Given the amount of need throughout the history of humankind, this is an astounding promise.
This promise does not support a prosperity gospel, which teaches that within the covenant relationship between God and his followers, there is the guarantee that a believer will experience financial blessings and health, provided the believer shows adequate faith (Wrenn, 2019:425). These financial blessings are a sign of God’s approval of the individual’s faith. Those who experience hardship are thought to lack faith, something that Jesus taught is not always the case (John 9:1-3).
The amounts given are less important than the attitude of the giver.
Consider Mark 12:41-4:
“And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
The story of the widow who gave out of her poverty is in view here. When Christ said that the widow who gave two small copper coins gave more than the others, Christ was not referring to the amount given but to the widow’s heart of generosity. Others, Christ noted, gave out of an abundance of wealth. The widow gave all that she owned. A rare attitude of generosity can be discerned in the widow’s giving.
God gives more to those who are generous toward God so the generous disciples can be blessed by giving even more.
This is the thrust of what Paul meant when he wrote:
“The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God” (2 Corinthians 9:6-11).
As a business owner is faithful in a few things (supplies seed to the sower), God gives the owner more material resources (will supply and multiply your seed for sowing) so the owner can understand God’s heart more and is more transformed by learning more about God (you will be enriched in every way), which results in greater generosity (to be generous in every way). Christian business owners do not give to get more money; Christian business owners give financially to get more of Christ (harvest of your righteousness).
A Christian business owner carefully considers to whom the owner is giving.
Matthew 7:6 says this: “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” In this verse, Jesus checks the disciple’s zeal to help others in an unbridled way. This command counsels disciples not to be stupid (Bruner, 1987:275). There is a form of generosity that urges giving in every opportunity. Unfortunately, insensitive giving often harms more than it helps:
“While poor people mention having a lack of material things, they tend to describe their condition in far more psychological and social terms than our North American audiences. Poor people typically talk in terms of shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness. North American audiences tend to emphasize a lack of material things such as food, money, clean water, medicine, housing … This mismatch between many outsiders’ perceptions of poverty and the perceptions of poor people themselves can have devastating consequences for poverty-alleviation efforts” (Corbett and Fikkert, 2009:50).
Christian business owners do not take the (holy) wealth God has entrusted to the owners and give it away simply because there is a need. Again, a need does not indicate God’s call. There is a healthy balance given to us in Scripture and the balance is this: in order to do good, the recipient must be worthy of the gift. Even though a need may be directly in front of the owner, and the owner has the ability to meet that need, the owner must also assess A) if the recipient is going to use the gift as intended, and B) will giving the gift harm the recipient?
Here are some questions to explore:
- Has the recipient reasonably done all the recipient could to better the recipient’s situation or condition?
- Will this gift be used for sinful purposes?
- Is the gift likely to produce the intended outcome(s)?
- Is their need only material?
- Is their need temporal?
- Is there a permanent solution to which you can contribute?
- Are there other support choices this recipient needs to make before receiving a gift from the owner?
Christian business owners balance a God-given zeal to be generous with profits from the business with a God-given responsibility to ensure that resources given are used as intended. Disciples are entrusted both with being generous and being smart. Do not give that which is holy to those who will misuse the gift. Jesus counsel “do not judge” (Matthew 7:1) does not mean “do not think” (Bruner, 1997:275).
Bill English, Publisher
Bible and Business
Sources:
Bruner, F.D. 1987. Matthew, Volume 1 The Christbook Matthew 1-12. Waco, TX: Word Publishing.
Bruner, F.D. 1990. Matthew, Volume 2. The Churchbook Matthew 13-28. Waco, TX: Word Publishing.
Clarke, A. 1848. Memoirs of the Wesley Family. Second Edition. Edited by G. Peck. New York: Lane & Tippett.
Corbett, S. and Fikkert, B. 2012. When Helping Hurts. Chicago: Moody
Heiser, M. 2015. Acts 4-5. Naked Bible Podcast. [Online]. Available from https://nakedbiblepodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Transcript-42-Acts-4-5.pdf [Accessed 10/14/2023]
Pesce, N.L. 2020. A Shocking Number of Americans Are Living Paycheck to Paycheck. [Online] Available from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-shocking-number-of-americans-are-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-2020-01-07 [Accessed 10/14/2023]
Sacks, J. 2002. The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations. London, New York: Continuum.
Swanson, J. 1997. Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament). electronic ed. Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
Waltke, B.K. 2008. Righteousness in Proverbs. Westminster Theological Journal, 70(2):225–237.
Wrenn, M.V. 2019. Consecrating Capitalism: The United States Prosperity Gospel and Neoliberalism. Journal of Economic Issues, 53(2): 425–432.
