Marketplace Ponderings - 3

Gracious Business:

C.S. Lewis was walking through an academic hall in which a discussion concerning Christianity was taking place. The issue at hand perplexing the participants was, “What sets Christianity apart from other religions?”

Lewis picked up on the debate while walking, stopped and said, “That’s easy. Grace.”

Grace is indeed a distinctive feature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What Biblically literate Christian does not know Paul’s truism that “by grace you are saved through faith”? The word grace appears approximately 115 times in the New Testament. Grace is a hallmark of Jesus. Is grace a hallmark of our lives? Is grace a hallmark of our business practices?

I know that in my own life, especially in my business life, there are times when I am “grace-less” in my dealings with others.

Paul instructs us in Colossians 4:6, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”

The context of this passage is relational, Paul is writing about marriage, children, and the workplace, certainly three of life’s most intimate settings. The apostle is exhorting us to be gracious in our words, to allow our communications with others to have a certain seasoning about them that allows others to partake of them. Words can be bitter, they can be sweet, they can be well seasoned.

It is possible to deal with hard issues with gracious words. It is possible to communicate unpleasant decisions or positions graciously. When Christians fail to do so, when we adopt the communication patterns of the world, we caricature the image of Christ within us, transforming Him from one who would not destroy a bruised reed or quench smoking flax to one who would call down fire on the inhospitable.

We are called to be good stewards of our business relationships, to exercise gracious stewardship.

Michael Green points out in his book, Evangelism in the Early Church, that early Christian evangelism “was supremely a lay movement.” Christian business people were significant conduits of the Gospel in the ancient world. The avenues of commerce were the avenues of the Gospel. People engaged in commerce saw something different in the Christians with whom they did business, and one of those elements was no doubt graciousness.

While I have no doubt that Paul’s use of the word “salt” in the above Colossian passage was to emphasize seasoning, let us not forget the preservative property of salt. With that in mind, let us consider that relationships are often nurtured, preserved or destroyed by communication.  Is our communication graciously seasoned so as to preserve relationships?

When I do communicate in a grace-less fashion, I then have the opportunity to apologize, ask forgiveness and make amends. This is an opportunity to share God’s grace that I would perhaps not otherwise have had.  If I have not initially been a good steward of gracious communication, I can then, (by God’s grace!), be a good steward of my grace-less communication by humbly apologizing and thus restoring grace to the relationship.

What testimony would my employees, competitors, and suppliers give? Is there enough evidence to convict me of being a gracious Christian in the workplace?

In addition to introducing grace into my business communications, I must also extend grace into my actions. Stewardship of position, whether of executive or otherwise, entails stewardship of grace. Many believers have bought into the ungodly rationale that the “bottom line” justifies virtually anything. Oh, perhaps we’d rephrase it to indicate that the bottom-line justifies virtually anything not morally or ethically wrong or illegal. That might perhaps allow us to sleep a little better at night, but can a follower of Jesus Christ live with that maxim?

What about grace? We seem to conveniently forget that grace and mercy are often used in a forensic Biblical context, while at other times they are used in an accounting-financial context. This is especially true in Paul’s letter to the Romans. In fact, an amazing thing about Gospel grace is that it is presented in the New Testament in both a legal and accounting context.

Therefore, if God deals with us in grace within legal and accounting contexts do we really think we have a warrant for doing otherwise in our business relationships? After all, if God is simply looking at the bottom-line when viewing us outside of Christ, then the fact is that we all belong in debtors’ prison for eternity.

How can we acknowledge this Gospel reality on the one hand and on the other behave in an ungracious fashion towards others? And let’s remember that it isn’t an issue of whether others deserve such treatment – unless of course we have come to believe that we deserve God’s gracious treatment apart from Jesus Christ!

As soon as we make merit an issue of whether or not we’ll treat this or that person graciously or mercifully we cut the ground out from under our own relationship with Jesus Christ – and we caricature the witness of Christ.

And as soon as we think, “Well, Gospel grace and mercy are for spiritual matters, matters that don’t have anything to do with the material life,” we then relegate Gospel grace and mercy to a fairyland, for what could be more material, more substantive, than eternity?

If, therefore, Gospel grace and mercy are relevant for eternity, they are relevant for the present in business, for grace and mercy in Christ is the business of eternity.

If we cannot transpose Gospel grace and mercy into our business communication, practice and decision-making, if Gospel grace and mercy are not magnetic north, then what does this indicate concerning our experience of and commitment to the saving grace and mercy of Jesus Christ?

Has grace penetrated the core of our character or is it a religious play word we use on Sundays? Are we known as people of grace within the business community?

Do we really think that on that day when we stand before our Lord Jesus that He will accept our excuse, “But Lord, the financial bottom-line is what mattered.”

What testimony would my employees, competitors, and suppliers give? Is there enough evidence to convict me of being a gracious Christian in the workplace?