Insightful Business Wisdom From the Bible, Research, and Business Case Studies

At its best, business is both purposeful and profitable, dynamic and gainful, commercial and rewarding. Far from being opposites, good business and good behavior go hand-in-hand, and biblical principles can align with best practices. In Wisdom-Based Business, I apply my expertise as a Christian supply chain scholar to draw principles from the Bible’s wisdom literature and from evidence-based research to create a framework for business that is oriented toward excellence and sustainability. This book addresses important issues such as:

• The virtue of profit

• Servant leadership

• Wisdom-based values, such as long-term over short-term, stakeholders, and quality

• Beneficial outcomes of wisdom-based business, including reputation and comparative advantage and the ultimate outcome of eternal impact

Any Christian who works in the marketplace or is training to work in the marketplace will benefit from Wisdom-Based Business’ practical guidance on how to reflect Christian values in their corporate tasks and strategies – and on how those values can be not hindrances but keys to success.

Excerpt from Wisdom Based Business – Pages 123-124

The Wisdom of Quality

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 1 Cor. 10:31

Interestingly, the Bible has a lot to say about the quality of our work and the value we put on it. In order to provide a quality product, not only must the customer feel like the product’s benefits are greater than the costs, but they should feel as though the benefits of the product far exceed the cost. The definition of customer value is simply objective benefits + perceived benefits > cost. When a product provides customer value, the value perceived by the customer accounts for the product quality, the service quality, and the price of the product. All three of these components must be in sync. A great quality product can provide a customer with a bad experience if delivered with poor service or if the customer doesn’t know the product well and has a bad user experience. Great customer service will be devalued if the product itself doesn’t meet the customers’ expectations. Finally, price is easily a go-to proxy for quality. We assume that more expensive wine is better quality, that the $2 Cadbury chocolate bar is going to taste better than the $.5 Hershey’s chocolate bar.

 Proverbs 20 alone discusses the valuation of a product 4 times. Not only should we pay what the product is worth (see Prov. 20:14,17), but we should also charge what a product is worth (see Prov. 20:10, 23). Proverbs 20 speaks to how we buy and sell products. We should expect to pay what a product is worth (honoring the person selling us the product) and charge what a product is worth (honoring the person buying a product from us). In both of these scenarios, whether we are selling or buying, Proverbs has a standard of win-win exchange. Neither the supplier nor the customer should loose in a transaction with a wise person.

Proverbs 20:10 Unequal weights and unequal measures are both alike an abomination to the Lord.

Proverbs 20:14 “Bad, bad,” says the buyer, but when he goes away, then he boasts.

Proverbs 20:17 Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward, his mouth will be full of gravel.

Proverbs 20:23 Unequal weights are an abomination to the  Lord, and  false scales are not good.

This seems like fairly straightforward common sense on paper. However, unequal weights and false scales may be one of the practices I have seen play out most consistently in Christian and secular spaces. Many of my friends in the church have worked in real-estate over the years. A friend who was a successful agent, inevitably sold houses to people in the community as well as people in our local church community. Many times church friends would negotiate the price of a house they were purchasing so low, that it was clear the seller was going to lose out on the deal. In some cases, this is reasonable and there could be a logical argument for it. However, the testimony to the seller was that the Christian buyer did not care whether they benefitted from an exchange with them at all. The Christian buyer would go away and praise God for a deal they felt was blessed, while the non-Christian went away feeling cheated. This is a simple principle in Proverbs that I don’t ever think I have heard preached:

Pro 3:27-28 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it.

There is a key phrase in this verse, whenever it is in your power to do it. In our western mentality of inalienable rights and individual property rights, we get lured into thinking everything we earn belongs to us… because we earned it. However, this is not a kingdom principle. It is a cultural principle in the USA. In 1 Cor. 10:26 Paul quotes Psalms 24:1 when he states,

Psalm 24:1 The earth is the LORD’S, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it.

All that we have is God’s and all that we do and say is commanded to communicate his love and demonstrate his will. There is no better way to reflect the love of Jesus than to lay down our own, hard-earned resources for the blessing of others. Our right to what is ours was not a right that Jesus claimed for himself. He had earned the favor of God and the throne he sat on in heaven. He was perfection, yet he laid it down and freely gave us a righteousness that we did not deserve and definitely had not earned.

Perhaps the reward of blessings as wealth for the righteous is somewhat misunderstood, thus, it is important to keep reflecting on Prov. 3:27b, when it is in your power to do it. This does not mean that you buy products or property at a loss. However, I do strongly believe that it means if you have a profit margin, you have a margin to be a blessing. If there is enough margin between your revenue (the price of the product) and cost (what you paid for the product + cost of logistics), then there is a margin to be a blessing to others…

Jesus challenged the disciples and the Pharisees to live the kind of life where the quality of what they gave to others was not measured by the value of the other person to them. Jesus calls us to love others extravagantly in what we say and do.