Does your Business Speak the Gospel?

Are you a business owner or someone who is in a position of influence in your organization? If you are, do you realize your business or your organization has a great potential to speak and reflect the Gospel to the world in the way you lead your organization?

In Matthew 20, Jesus talks about "The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard." In the parable, we see an owner of a business who goes out to the market-place to hire workers for his vineyard. In the early morning, the owner hires the first group of workers with a promise to pay them a wage of denarius. Then, the owner goes out to the market again at 9 am, at 12 pm, at 3 pm, and at 5 pm to hire additional workers for his vineyard.

Finally, at the end of the day, when the work was finished, the owner started paying wages. Starting with the workers who were hired the latest, the owner paid them a denarius. So, when it came to the first group of workers who were hired the earliest, they expected to receive an amount that was higher than a denarius. But, the owner paid them the same amount of a denarius as they were promised from the beginning. So, the first group of workers started complaining, saying this is not fair.

With this parable, Jesus shows God's character of generosity. Even the first group of workers who were hired the earliest did not deserve a wage of denarius, which was an equivalent day wage for the Roman soldiers. Of course, the workers who came after did not deserve a denarius pay either. What Jesus wanted to show through this parable was God's character of generosity. In fact, this parable reveals the heart message of the Gospel. The Gospel says,

"None of us deserves to be forgiven and saved. Yet, God offers us a wonderful free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ."

So, now the question is, "What would happen if this business owner in the parable actually existed in our modern world?" Probably, the investor shareholders would say that the excessive cash was wasted to pay unnecessary payroll expenses. The investors would say that the cash should have been used for better purposes such as paying out dividends to the shareholders or re-investing the cash back to the corporation for the future returns. On the other hand, the religious workers would say the owner should have saved the unnecessary business expenses and should have given it as a donation to the church for mission works.

Business owners are often told from the pulpit that what they do is not really valuable to God's Kingdom. At best, to save their souls, they are told that they should make a lot of money and give it to the church for its missions. The owner in the parable may not have given the money (which was given to the workers) to the church. But, what is quite fascinating is that it is the way the owner operated his business that resulted in the outcome of displaying God's generosity to the world. And, Jesus was using this business owner's practice of running a business to teach the people about God's character revealed in the Gospel.

What this proves is that business owners have great potentials to speak and reflect the Gospel to the world in the way they operate their businesses.

The implication of this parable applied to our modern context is that the vision, mission, policies and procedures of a business and an origination do actually matter to God. Business policies and procedures can be structured in a way that reflects the Gospel to the world. So, if you are a business owner, or a leader of influence, you are not just there to make a profit so that you can give it to the church. For sure this is important as well. But, God may be more interested in the way you manage, operate, and lead your business for His world. God actually cares about the way we work.