The Starting Point for Christian Ethics

This post is part of the Bible and Business series on Christian ethics for Christian Business Owners.

Ethics in Business

Making correct ethical decisions matters for two reasons. First, when one allows small compromises to encroach into one’s ethics, those compromises will become larger and larger until there are significant moral or legal violations. Second, making correct ethical decisions is tantamount to following God’s commands.

Foundation for a Christian Ethical Framework

Every system of ethics must have an ultimate basis of right and wrong, ethical and unethical. The Christian faith, grounded in the Holy Bible, is the best basis for right and wrong, which a Christian business owner can reference.

Within the Christian community, however, there are differences in how a foundation for ethics is built. For example, Hill has offered a starting point for Christian ethics based on three divine characteristics that are repeatedly emphasised in the Bible:

• God is holy
• God is just
• God is loving

Mott begins his system of Christian ethics in God’s grace, whereas Geisler grounds Christian ethics in the written revelation of God—an “ethic of divine command.” Stapleford starts with Christian theology and the nature of God. I appreciate Stapleford’s observation that “we should be able to determine some elements of Christian ethics from the nature of God, as revealed in Scripture. Even when the Bible does not prescribe specific behaviour, we can still model our lives after the God it describes”, but this starting point feels too hazy to this researcher to be adequate for this research.

A starting point that is more discreet and objective, like the written word of God, which Geisler proposes, seems best to me. But within the written word of God, what commands or principles can be used as the starting point for Christian ethics? To answer this question with the notion that all commands of Scripture combine to create one starting point seems too broad to be helpful to the Christian business owner.

I believe that Christ answers this question in Mark 12:28-34:

“²⁸ One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on, no one dared ask him any more questions.

Hillel said something similar when a Gentile wanted to learn the entire Torah, answering the Gentile as follows: “What is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow; this is the whole law. All the rest is a commentary to this law; go and learn it.” Christ is recorded as being even more succinct in Matthew 7:12: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”[1] Paul said it this way in Galatians 6:2: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.”

The answer to the question of a starting point for Christian ethics in the Scriptures is the two great commands—to the love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5) and to love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18b). These two commands are the most comprehensive commands in Scripture. All other commands “hang on” these two commands (Matthew 22:40). For example, the first four of the ten commandments are “vertical” (love the Lord your God) and balanced by the final six “horizontal commands” (love your neighbor). Thus, the Ten Commandments can be thought of a type of commentary or additional specificity to the two great commands. These commands were given by God to Moses and by Moses to the Israelites in Exodus 20.1-17. Here is the passage:

“¹And God spoke all these words, saying, ² “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ³ “You shall have no other gods before me. ⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, ⁶ but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. ⁷ “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. ⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. ¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. ¹² “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. ¹³ “You shall not murder. ¹⁴ “You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁵ “You shall not steal. ¹⁶ “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. ¹⁷ “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Table 3-5 outlines these commands.[2]

Table 3-5: The Ten Commandments with Topic Domain Assignments

These commands are all given in the second person singular—“You (singular) shall not.” Yet, these commands are spoken to all of Israel. The singular “you” gives them greater personal impact.

Bill English, Publisher
Bible and Business

[1] This verse is commonly known as “The Golden Rule.”

[2] Jewish scholars believe that these commands (sometimes referred to as the Decalogue (Collins, 1992:V6,383.)) (or “ten words”, Exodus 34:28) are universal to all societies since they were given in the wilderness and not within any national boundaries (Sarna, 1991:109). In Roman Catholic tradition, the first and second command are combined into one command with the tenth command being divided into the ninth and tenth command. Protestants usually bifurcate verses 3 and 4 into two commands and keep verse 17 as a single command.