One way the forces who oppose God can neutralize us as Christian business owners is by getting us off-balance.[1] For example, you become overly focused on following God’s laws at the expense of loving others, or you become too cavalier in following his laws and nearly all sin becomes acceptable. You become overly focused on truth and justice, or you become too careless in guarding truth and justice. Both lead to destruction and should be considered a spiritual warfare issue. Balance is required if you’re going to blaze for Christ.
Taking the Pharisaical Route
This route takes duty and rules to an extreme. You can become overly focused on following God’s laws to the point where you become Pharisaical, losing focus on your relationship with God because you are so focused on following the moral rules of Scripture. Moreover, you are so careful to enforce a strict purity of theology that you lose your love for your fellow man.
Two passages bear on this point, one from 1 Corinthians 13 and the other from Revelation 2.
I know your works, and your labor and patient endurance, and that you are not able to tolerate evil, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you found them to be false. And you have patient endurance, and have endured many things because of my name, and have not become weary. But I have this against you: that you have left your first love[2]
The truth is that God has called us to “carefully follow” His laws (Exodus 15.26, 23.13, Leviticus 18.4, 25.18, Deuteronomy 4.6-23, 5.32, 6.3, 25, 7.12, 8.1, 12.1, Jeremiah 17.24, 22.4, 1 Corinthians 10.12, Hebrews 2.1). Still, He has also called us to invest in loving others with whom we have significant relationships. (Deuteronomy 6.12, 8.11, Philippians 3.13-14, Ecclesiastes 12.1). Yes, the Bible emphasizes duty and obedience. But it also emphasizes a loving relationship between God and His people and for His people to be characterized by loving relationships between them and the lost.[3] The out-of-balance characteristic described in this Revelation 2 passage is that they have been zealous for right theology at the expense of loving God and others.
This lack of love renders us nearly useless in promoting and furthering the Gospel. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a ringing brass gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and I know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I parcel out all my possessions, and if I hand over my body in order that I will be burned, but do not have love, it benefits me nothing.[4]
Without love, our actions of praising God, teaching His word, discerning between truth and lies, and being generous toward God will not matter.
In addition, most who go this direction end up having self-justified sinful pleasures— a vice —that is sometimes private and sometimes not. Their pleasure is needed to release the stress and pressure that build up inside a person who lives a life of strict duty and rules. The outlet can take many forms, such as drinking too much, online pornography, impulsive spending, binge eating, gossip, affairs, hyper-control of those around you, intense anger, and so forth.
If you’re like this, you’ll find yourself confessing your sin over and over because you commit your sin over and over. It’s your relief, your outlet for stress, anger, and the natural need to take a break from all your duties. Paradoxically, you end up living by an extreme theology of grace in this one area of sin, and you continue with it because you don’t know what else to do.
Satan has you off balance. He has you under the bondage of duty and rules. He has you under the bondage of sin. Spiritual warfare is needed. Truth is required to set you free.
Getting back in balance means first, returning to your first love—learning to love God viscerally and genuinely. Intellectual assent to a set of theologies is not love. I’m talking about a real, dynamic, loving relationship with God. It’s hard to describe the vibrantness of this type of relationship—the English language doesn’t have words for what I’m trying to convey. Still, once you enter this covenant relationship with God, you’ll never want anything else.
And when you love God this way, you’ll learn to love others in a new, fresh, and genuine way. You’ll not be so inclined to condemn them for their sin because you’ll be so much more aware of your own sin and the grace that has been extended to you. In addition, when someone does come to God from a life of sin, will you be the father who runs off the front porch to embrace the one returning home, or will you be the big brother who was judgmental and angry at the father’s grace?[5]
Getting back in balance means, secondly, staying in your swim lane by not trying to be the Holy Spirit for another person. If God tells you to speak, then by all means, speak. But if God tells you to be quiet, then be quiet. Just because we might be right theologically doesn’t give us the right to not love them and accept them exactly as they are, right now.
Hence, to wrap up this section, the principle that we learn is this: one of the best warfare tools you have at your disposal is to love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. The second tool is to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22.36-40).
Taking the Cavalier Route
The other side is that you become cavalier about obeying God’s laws because you’re living in the dispensation of grace. You have shed the old, fundamentalist ways of rules and duty. You pour yourself into something good, such as work or family, to the point where you clearly violate some of God’s laws.
For example, you become so focused on your kids with their busy activities every weekend that you attend church only when there isn’t a schedule conflict, such as a sporting event. You’ve certainly not given up on God— it’s just that you’re in that busy season of life with kids where you can’t attend church that often. It’s just not feasible. But as a result, you’re not connected in the body and you take sin less and less seriously over time.
If you’re being honest with yourself, you read the Bible (maybe) once or twice a month. You can’t recall when you seriously sat before God and confessed your sins. You don’t care about people spending eternity without God. You don’t tithe and don’t see what all the fuss about when enjoying a few vices. You’ve (essentially) put God and obedience to him on the shelf.
Or, perhaps you work so hard that you have little time to nurture your relationship with God or spend time with your family. You cease to have fun, cease to experience God’s love, cease to engage at church. You’ve missed family events because of work. You’ve done emails while the pastor was preaching. You’ve ceased to exercise your gifts in the body of Christ. You have little time or energy for much else other than work. You’re clearly disobeying some of God’s laws because of an activity which, in and of itself, is not sin, but when taken to an extreme causes you to sin in other areas.
The cares of this world have choked out your love and faithfulness to God (Matthew 13.22), and while you might think you’re doing just fine, God finds that you’re in serious need of repentance (Revelation 3.15-20).[6]
In both examples, paradoxically, you’re relying on an extreme, unwritten version of grace to justify what is clearly sin.[7]
Satan has you off balance. He has you under the bondage of an extreme version of grace. He has you under the bondage of sin. Spiritual warfare is needed. Truth is needed to set you free.
If you’re out of balance, then find someone to talk to about it. See what they say—and listen to their advice. Then pray their advice through. Learn to love others and take your holiness seriously. In the long run, you’ll find yourself walking more closely with God and being more effective as a business owner.
Bill English, Publisher
Bible and Business
[1] Interestingly, one of the main reasons pastors get fired is because they have an “ism” that they think is the only correct one. This illustrates that Christians can become out of balance with theology, not just politics. See Chuck Lawless. “8 Reasons Pastors Get Fired.” August 11, 2019. Churchleaders.com. https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/356914-8-reasons-pastors-get-fired.html
[2] Harris, W. H., III, Ritzema, E., Brannan, R., Mangum, D., Dunham, J., Reimer, J. A., & Wierenga, M. (Eds.). (2012). The Lexham English Bible (Re 2:2–4). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press
[3] John 13.35
[4] Harris, W. H., III, Ritzema, E., Brannan, R., Mangum, D., Dunham, J., Reimer, J. A., & Wierenga, M. (Eds.). (2012). The Lexham English Bible (1 Co 13:1–3). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press
[5] If you’re unsure about this metaphor, read the parable of the lost son in Luke 15.11-31. This parable illustrates the difficult doctrine of the love of God.
[6] Frankly, we don’t see these types of people in our churches as often as the other group because they don’t have a big need to be in church to begin with.
[7] Not participating in the life and body of Christ through the local church is sin when it is in your control to do so. See Hebrews 10.24-25. Not contributing to the body of Christ through the exercise of your gifts is also sin. See 1 Corinthians 12.7, 14.12. This lack of commitment to the church, lack of participation in the body, and contributing to the body through one’s exercise of one’s spiritual gifts is probably one of the most egregious and overlooked areas of sin within the Christian community. However, the structure of some churches contributes to this problem. For example, it is not unusual for larger churches to select only a few people who actually teach the Word of God. Those who attend with the gift of teaching or preaching are often shut out from exercising their gift. We hire a pastor to do most of the preaching, as if the gift of preaching can only be hired out and exercised by a full-time person. I find it hard to believe that in any given church, there are only a few who have the gifts of teaching or preaching.
