Business for the Glory of God by Grudem - Essay Example

?Book Review: Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the Glory of God: The Bible’s Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business Introduction: Glorifying God is a well-conceptualized endeavor in our life to participate in spiritual activities. However, a more novel concept would be the solemn contemplation on the possible interaction between theology and business. And this is what Wayne Grudem’s book Business for the Glory of God: The Bible’s Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business (2003) brings to notice. The glorification of God brings in the concepts of worship, faith and evangelism. But talking about glorifying God in terms of business and commerce is something one would definitely like to take a serious note on. Grudem’s book offers a remarkable guidance on how the joy of God’s creativity can be glorified in terms of employment, profit and commercial notions like money, ownership, productivity, competition, borrowing and lending. Grudem’s book is largely based on various ways of biblical perception connecting theology with business activities. Grudem makes a clear statement here: just like our participation in spiritual activities, the aspects of business equally reflect the nature of our Creator, and glorify Him. This paper briefly addresses the main argumentation of Grudem in favor of establishing a connection between theology and business. Grudem makes a profound as well as equally novel way of looking at professional life by means of glorifying God’s nature. The most elemental argumentation about the possible interaction between God and business is indeed practical: can there be a possible way of glorifying God while engaging ourselves in mundane work and business? According to Grudem, there is indeed a strong possibility of it. This is the base of Grudem’s argumentation in the book. The paper also looks into the relevant issues/aspects addressed by Grudem in the book. In simple words, Grudem’s book is not just a daily stock of business and God talk. It is a rather straightforward and practical business talk with an evidently God-oriented perspective. 2. Main points to ponder: When it comes to describing the many different ways of doing business, a good number of professional as well as ethical aspects are required to be taken care of. That is to say, the notion of business is an umbrella term that includes all relevant aspects ranging from the concept of ownership, competition, profit, to the issues in consumer behavior, promotion, money, and so on. Then where is the connection between God and business coming in such matter-of-fact situations? Grudem seems to provide an appropriate answer and solution: the interaction between God and work. It is indeed not so unusual to visualize such interactions on a frequent basis. Doing business contains the aspect of multiplicity with regard to connecting it to the ways of our worship and other related theological matters. Grudem clearly indicates this sense of multiplicity in his book that business offers (17): “multiple layers of opportunities to give glory to God, as well as multiple temptations to sin.” The essential objective of business is to emphasize as well as accomplish the goal of success. In the theological context, glorifying God is to emulate His own creation and nature in order to lead an honest and successful life. Interaction between God and business is practically possible in the sense that the latter provides us a practical platform for imitating God’s work and nature. This glorification of God is prominent in a number of ways we interact with our customers, coworkers, employees or other businesses. Grudem develops a systematic progress in argumentation while providing readers with essential tips and tricks and strategies on how to imitate God’s ways by making ourselves more effective and efficient in our professional life. The arena of commerce is a vast one where interaction is the most significant element for any kind of success to meet. Grudem makes an orderly classification of nine chapters in order to describe and analyze the various opportunities of business for glorifying God. The multiple dimensions of celebrating God’s glory are: ownership, productivity, employment, commercial transactions, profit, money, inequality of possessions, competition, and borrowing and lending. Being a theological researcher, Grudem draws insightful connections to biblical narratives as well as gospel references designed to help one in doing successful business along with a strong ethical element of Christianity. 2.1 Interaction between God and work: While doing so, Grudem is more vocal about the Christian values and ethics, which are indeed quite relevant for making business a great success story. On a broader note, Grudem’s book draws more positive effects on professional success with theological assistance rather than much negative impact. More specifically, two points of his argumentation stand tall in defending God’s glory in professional life. Firstly, the novel way of looking at the interaction between God and work is an appreciable job done by the author. Business glorifies God in terms of the way it imitates god’s character and nature. In this sense, Grudem is vocal about the honest ways of doing business where the latter is considered less shady and more sincere in its true Christian sense. In other words, Grudem offers a thoughtful guideline of glorifying God by imitating His true ways while dealing with customers, employees, coworkers and other businesses. Giving business an appropriate meaning and purpose is the honest way of dedicating oneself to God’s glory. 2.2 Values of business leadership: Secondly, Grudem’s book is an easy-to-understand guidance for significant management concepts like business ethics and business leadership. A true Christian always devotes himself or herself to the worship of God by means of serving humanity in its honest sense. Serving God is to get familiar with His creation and work. As Grudem argues, imitating God’s creation and nature is also an integral part of doing business minus all sinful temptations. Creating a healthy business environment is the ultimate goal and objective of every business farm and organization. Further, the notion of a healthy business workplace is closely associated with healthy work ethics. A combination of these two elements can be achievable only when there is efficient business leadership in the organization. In the field of commerce, leadership is one of the most essential requirements for success. In this context, Grudem’s book provides remarkable guidance on how to achieve effective business leadership while following God’s ways in dealing with customers, employees and coworkers in business. In other words, Grudem’s book is a reminder that our professional life can actually be a crucial part of how we serve God and impact lives accordingly. 2.3 Marketplace temptations: The concept of business is a complicated one. Its dimensions are as large and vast as any other field of studies. One of the most important points in consideration in serious business is the availability of multiple opportunities for doing both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in business workplaces. While dealing with an enormous crowd of consumers, employees and coworkers on everyday basis, it is most likely that increasing market competition more often leads to vulnerability. In plain words, avoiding marketplace temptations is not an easy job. Success in business requires more practical insights than simply theological assistance. No doubt Grudem has made a straightforward argument favoring professional enhancement by way of god’s glorification. However, making our professional life successful has more requisites than the relevance of business and moral ethics. There are unseen and unpredictable market situations, fluctuating rates of market competition, to name a few of unavoidable business circumstances. Nonetheless, this can be considered as a minor drawback in Grudem’s book given that the book is just a 83-odd pages blueprint for developing a rather God-oriented perspective of business for professionals. Even though small in size, Grudem’s book contains an outstanding presentation of the subject. The primary advantage of Grudem’s book is the fact that the author precisely pinpoints the common misconceptions of business and explores a fresh new perspective of looking at business the way we serve God. Doing business is all about interacting and communicating with our consumers, competitors, employees and coworkers. In other words, it is serving others in the most effective and efficient way possible. Therefore, an appropriate argumentation can be a possible and obvious connection between God and work. So we can collectively argue that Grudem’s book is more about the benefits of looking at business through God’s glorification rather than about the disadvantage of market temptations. Broadly speaking, it opens up more layers of opportunities to create healthy and effective workplace environment and improve it by means of imitating God’s creative work and nature. Using biblical values in business and work is just an added advantage of succeeding in business. 3. Conclusion: Grudem’s Business for the Glory of God is indeed a thoughtful presentation of mixing God with business for a better workplace environment along with enhanced business perspectives and better humankind. Glorifying God in terms of business and work is something that we have never seriously looked into. More evidently, Grudem has not given any conventional theological preaching on business prospects. His contribution is unique and quite remarkable in the sense that imitating God’s work and nature in business is a novel perspective of defining business. Glorifying God in ways of professional interactions and dealings can be more fruitful and effective for the success in business and work. Reference: Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the Glory of God: The Bible’s Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business. Wheaton: Crossway. Read More