What About the Profit Motive?

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What About the Profit Motive?

James 5:1-6

August 14, 2024 • James 5:1–6

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James 5:1-6 Come now, you who are rich, weep and cry aloud over the miseries that are going to come upon you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasure in these last days. 4 Listen, the wages that you failed to pay the workers who reaped your fields are crying out! And the cries of the harvesters have entered the ears of the Lord of Armies. 5 You have lived for pleasure on the earth and led a life of luxury. You have fattened your hearts on the day of slaughter. 6 You condemned and murdered the Righteous One. Does he not oppose you?

Every so often you will hear pastors, theologians, or politicians claim that capitalism is the economic system that is God-sanctioned. In Economics 101 you're taught that the basis for capitalism is the profit motive--that is maximizing profit while minimizing expenses. And while it’s generally true that this system produces the most and greatest variety of goods at the lowest cost, this does not mean that capitalism is inherently moral. By itself it is morally bankrupt because it is driven by and feeds on selfish motives, and if left unchecked, results in greed, exploitation, and eternal self-destruction. In this word of God James turns slightly aside from addressing his fellow-Christian readers, whom he's been referring to as his brothers (and sisters), and aims a Spirit-inspired warning shot across the bow of a specific segment of the population—whether they claim to be Christians or not. He writes, "Come now, you who are rich..."

As with our previous devotion on boasting, where the issue was not our making plans but rather bragging about them, so too here the sin is not and cannot be merely being rich. Scripture abounds with examples of incredibly wealthy believers whose lives of faith we would do well to imitate—Abraham, Job, and King David among them. So long as one is not taking advantage of the poor or denying the basic necessities of life to those in desperate need, Scripture does not condemn making a reasonable profit on one's sale or work (cf. Lev. 25:35-37; Prov. 14:23; 31:18; Eccl. 5:9). Therefore, the matter at hand is not the number of zeroes in one’s bank account. It is how that wealth was and is being acquired, and how it is currently being used. Is it being employed as an expression of one's faith and an extension of God's providential generosity, or as a personal status symbol and an excuse to indulge one's carnal appetites?

Any who put their hope in hoarding up wealth will finally find themselves bitterly disappointed. Money and fine clothes do not last and are of this world only. As Jesus once said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matt. 6:19-20). Nor will any amount of riches be able to shield anyone from the judgment to come. The uber wealthy will not be able to evade God's courtroom summons, and James says that one of the prime evidences of faith (or lack thereof) that God will be looking for is how a person has used the money and resources the Lord has given them. All who have hoarded up riches for themselves will find their glitter melted away and their own stockpile will testify against them, burning through the illusion of their morality like an acid spill. In this closing act of the world prior to Judgment Day, they have stored up treasures to no good purpose as these will all be burned to ash in the end (cf. 2 Peter 3:7-8).

The profit motive not only seeks to maximize income, but to minimize production costs, often at the expense of worker compensation. Without mandating amounts or percentages, the Bible repeatedly insists that workers (and even one's working animals) deserve a fair and livable wage in keeping with the work performed (cf. Deut. 24:14-15; 1 Tim. 5:18). It is callous, criminal, and ungodly to pay one's workers a pittance just because you can or because market forces ensure that they have nowhere else to go. While the deliberately underpaid may have no legal recourse in this world, their cries for relief and justice will rise into the ears of God Almighty, and he will not forget. Like oxen being fattened for slaughter, all whose unbelieving hearts are clogged up with the drive to exploit their workers for the sake of lavish self-indulgence, will find themselves meeting the sword of the general of angel armies on the day of judgment. They will have Jesus, the Righteous One, the Defender of the Innocent, as their enemy, and they will not escape. In contrast, the righteous are generous towards their workers and open their hands to the needy (cf. Deut. 15:11; Prov. 14:31), knowing that all are equally loved by God and one's material circumstances have no bearing on their worth (cf. John 3:16; Ps. 145:13b).

When capitalism is abused and blindly followed, the devil can use it to sow the seeds of division, pitting owners and workers against each other. Instead, Jesus reminds us that the godly use of worldly wealth includes “gain[ing] friends for yourselves“—that is using our God-given riches to build relationships that aid and expand the reach of the gospel—"so that when [your wealth] is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings" (Luke 16:9). Our Lord Jesus is the prime example of this compassionate mindset: he willingly gave up the "good life" of heavenly riches and glory. He lived, suffered, died, and rose so that through the gospel he could freely dispense the wealth of his righteousness to us and all who believe. All for our maximum and eternal profit!

Questions / Personal Reflection:

1.) It is an ever-present temptation to rely on money and what we imagine it can do for us rather than on the Lord. List some of the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs we think money can provide for us. How does each of these really come from the Lord?

2.) Being "rich" is surely a relative term. Most of us in America live a life of ease and luxury hitherto unknown in world history. Whether you consider yourself "rich" or not, how do you (or can you) use the money God has given you to better serve and express your faith and love in Christ?

Prayer: Lord God, you are the giver of all things. You supply my daily bodily needs. In Christ Jesus you have supplied my forgiveness and eternal salvation. Open my heart and mind so that I use your wealth towards what is eternally profitable for me and the people you have placed in my life. Amen.

[1] From the Evangelical Heritage Version.

Bringing Back the Strays

September 11, 2024 • James 5:19–20

James 5:19-20 My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. It's one of the worst feelings that a parent can have: one of your children is missing. I recall a terrifying 20 minutes not long after our family had moved into the parsonage when suddenly we couldn't find one of my sons anywhere. We scoured the house and garage. We ran through church and opened every classroom and closet, shouting his name. Nothing. We were seconds from calling the police when he came walking out of a neighbor's house, safe and sound. Now some might say that our behavior was an overreaction, but experts say the first 48 hours are critical because a missing person can be in serious danger. Moreover, this wasn't just ANY missing person, it was OUR SON. When a family member is unaccounted for the level of concern gets kicked up a notch. James closes his letter with a note of spiritual concern. He gives a hypothetical but realistic scenario: someone among the family of believers has "gone missing" and wandered off, but in this case what they have strayed from is not the playground or their backyard but the truth. Here "the truth" certainly includes the truth of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. If this truth is obscured, denied, or lost, so is eternal life. "The truth" could also include other clear teachings of Scripture, which Jesus calls the Father's Word of Truth (John 17:17). Straying from the truth is a serious matter, one that is best and most easily addressed in the beginning when initial doubts and questions arise. Sometimes people deceive themselves; they get it into their heads that they are smart enough or good enough or strong enough, and they don't need God anymore. Other times false teachers lure souls down the path of error. In any case, any deviation from God's truth puts souls in spiritual danger as it opens us up to the devil's lies and temptations. All wandering begins with a single footstep, but if left uncorrected, we can find ourselves so far distanced from the Lord and his Word that we can't find our way home again and our faith dies lost in unbelief or sin. Something else that's true about missing persons is that there are few things that will unite and galvanize a community more than searching for someone who is lost. The news media, law enforcement, bloodhounds, and helicopters are allocated to the case. Throngs of volunteers form human chains to comb through miles of muck looking for any trace of the individual. As I said before, if someone in our immediate family was lost, we'd have no hesitation about doing whatever it takes to find them and bring them back home. Christians and Christian congregations need to ask themselves if they have the same commitment and concern for their fellow-Christians? If someone in our church family suddenly changes their worship habits or goes down a dark self-destructive path, do we deliberately, compassionately, and gently intervene, or do we just wait on the sidelines, imagining they'll find their own way back in time? Most congregations, like ours, have elder boards or shepherding committees that are tasked with reaching out to the wandering, but this is not only the duty of the spiritual shepherds. Every Christian shares the responsibility of caring for their brother and sister in faith. God give us the compassion and the courage to reach out to our family and friends, who have wandered from the truth, just as we would want someone to search for us if we were lost. We go out with the goal of saving souls, turning them back to the forgiveness of sins and retrieving them with the Word so we can continue rejoice and walk together in the truth. Questions / Personal Reflection: 1.) Consider the times in your life when you wandered from the Lord and his way. Who did the Lord use to bring you back? How did they reach out to you? If you haven't ever done so, thank that person for being God's instrument of bringing you back to his fold. 2.) In his grace God has sent concerned brothers and sisters in faith to bring you back and keep you close to him. Identify the fellow-Christians in your own circle of family and friends, who need your concern, encouragement, and gentle redirection. While such conversations may be awkward at first, you can never go wrong by leading with, "I love you and I'm concerned about you because..." Who knows where the Spirit may lead the conversation from there! Prayer: Lord Jesus, Good Shepherd of the Sheep, thank you for sending pastors, teachers, family, and friends, who loved me enough to reach out to me and warn me when I was wondering from you. Give me and all your people the grace and the courage to do the same so that we may be a forgiven family gathered around your truth and devoted to one another. Amen.

The Power of Prayer

September 4, 2024 • James 5:13–18

James 5:13-18 Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? He should call the elders of the church, and they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, in order that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is able to do much because it is effective. 17 Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the land produced its harvest. What numbers are on speed dial on your phone? Likely it's the people you call most often, who are most important to you, standup family and friends whom you can count on to be your first line of defense in an emergency, because in a real emergency help can never come soon enough. You may have heard that now Amazon has made it even easier for us to get help (provided you already own an Alexa). You need only shout out and an operator will send emergency response personnel right away. But while it's smart to seek assistance in trouble, danger, weakness, and injury, James would argue that all human sources of help and healing are in fact one step removed from the ONLY ONE who gives success to any intervention: the Lord our God. Impossible as it seems, God's children can get ahold of him in prayer faster than Alexa--as fast as you can shout and cry, as fast as you can think--God has heard, he's there, he's answering and working according to his will. It is faith in Christ that drives us to seek God first in adversity because faith relies on God's great love and infinite power. God's perfect control of even the most complex situation calms our anxiety and his undeniable love evidenced at the cross means we can rest our bodies and souls in his safekeeping. He won't let anything happen to us that is not in our eternal best interest. Yet much as God wants to be the first one that we call in every distress, he is equally insistent that we be persistent in our prayers. In the original Greek language many of the injunctions to pray in these verses could be more accurately translated as, "Keep on praying!" without stopping. In this way we also put our faith into action, refusing to rest until God intervenes on our behalf. James encourages us to bring everything to the Lord in prayer—our troubles and our joys—because he graciously weaves them into his grand design so that they actually change the outcome of events—if not always in the way we expect. In response to our prayers God rescues the person who falls into misfortune. At the request of his people, he enabled the oil that was applied as a home remedy in ancient times to heal, and he still allows the medicine and medical treatment we receive to be effective. God forgives sins and lifts the spirits of the penitent. And when he deems it necessary, he can still respond to our petitions by performing miracles—just as he did for the prophet Elijah, sealing up water from the heavens for three and a half years and returning it at his request. So, whether a prayer is for yourself or for someone else; whether it's only one person or many voices, never forget that your prayers are effective. They alter the course of events in the physical and spiritual realms because of the One who is on the other end of the line. We cry out to our almighty heavenly Father, who delights to hear us and promises to come to our aid. He will do what is right and best for his beloved children. Our God deserves to be the first and favorite on the speed dial of our prayers. Questions / Personal Reflection: 1.) Take a moment to write down some occasions when God affirmatively answered your prayers or perhaps gave you something even better than you hoped for. Thank and praise him for his kindness and faithfulness. 2.) Sometimes we pray for something or someone earnestly and incessantly, but our request goes unanswered. It might even turn out that the opposite ends up happening. Rather than getting frustrated or full of doubts, what confidence can we still have in God—his love, his goodness, and in his eternal foresight of our lives? Prayer: Lord God, I confess that I often fail to make use of your gift of prayer and thereby miss out on the blessings you have for me. Forgive my neglect and lift me up. May the promise of your faithfulness, power, and grace motivate me to seek you first in every adversity

Less Is More

August 28, 2024 • James 5:12

James 5:12 Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Just let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no,” so that you do not fall under judgment. They say that sometimes less is more. For example: If you want to accentuate a piece of art or jewelry, it may be best to keep things simple and not clutter it with all kinds of gaudy surroundings. Less is more. When a friend has suffered a terrible loss or is enduring great pain, it can be better to silently stand by their side and hold their hand than to ramble on with words that cannot make things right. Less is more. In this Scripture James tells us that when it comes to swearing and giving our word, less is more. Here we have another one of those instances where the translation of a Bible term and the popular definition of that same word are at odds with each other and can result in some confusion. Typically, when we speak of “swearing,” it involves using profanity, which God certainly counts as unholy. God doesn’t want any unwholesome talk or perverse language to be found on our lips (Prov. 4:24; Eph. 5:4), but in this case "swearing" signifies taking an oath to bolster the truth of what we're saying. Think of the fisherman who stretches his arms wide and says, "I swear I caught a fish THIS BIG!" Now some may wonder, "What's the big deal? What's the harm in such swearing?" James gives us two reasons why not to swear. Let’s start with the latter. While our mouths can easily cinch up the concept of taking an oath down to a single word, "swear," the weight behind that word is quite significant. Swearing is asking God to serve as our witness and for him to judge, curse, and condemn us if our words are in any way untrue. When you think of it that way, the size of that monster fish starts shrinking rapidly! Do we really want God to strike us down for all the times we swore about how many pieces of pizza we ate or how late we stayed up? Too often we casually use swearing to boast, brag, exaggerate, or outright lie. Most events in life are so trivial and mundane that there’s no need to call God as our witness. However, there are times when the seriousness and solemnity of an occasion demands an oath, such as when husband and wife are wed or when someone's guilt or innocence hangs in the balance in a court of law (cf. 8th Commandment; Matt. 26:63). In these high stakes scenarios it is proper to swear and implore God's help in speaking and holding to the truth. We’ve devised all kinds of inventive ways to swear without invoking God directly. The people of Jesus’ day were no different. Rather than swear by God himself, they hoped to sidestep divine scrutiny by swearing by heaven or the earth instead. Others would swear by the Temple or by the hairs on their head (Matt. 5:34-36; 23:16-22). But God is not fooled by our clever word games! He sees the heart that speaks the words! His divine power has made and sustains his whole creation from heaven above to earth below, and he accounts for every hair on our heads (Matt. 5:36; 10:30)! For that reason, it's best not to swear at all! Secondly, James says, Just let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no.” The sad irony is: if I’m in the habit of swearing all the time, I'm actually undercutting my own credibility and reputation. If I need to swear about every word I say or promise I make in order for you to believe me, then I am telling you, "You can’t trust me unless I swear about it!" As with all sin, swearing is self-defeating and self-destroying! For us Christians, it is particularly important that we are trusted and considered credible and reliable in what we say and do. Because our faithfulness reflects on our Savior and impacts how people will regard our witness for Christ. We praise God that Jesus’ lips never lied nor swore a frivolous oath. Instead, his mouth only spoke grace and truth. God himself had promised that he would send a Savior to take away our sins of mind, body, and mouth, and he sealed that oath with the precious blood of Jesus shed on the cross. By being simple “yes/no people,” who follow through on our word we give glory to God and gain opportunities to witness for Jesus. Because sometimes when it comes to our words, less is more. Questions / Personal Reflection: 1.) What are some other important occasions in secular and religious life when it would be appropriate to make an oath? 2.) It is often said that trust must be earned. When someone has broken our trust, we can unintentionally drive them towards swearing by holding them in perpetual disbelief. May God give us the grace to give others the chance to rebuild their trust and reputations again. Prayer: Lord Jesus, guide my heart and guard my lips so that I speak words of truth and love. Help me to recognize my own limitations and to set proper priorities so that I don’t overextend myself and so bring shame upon you with promises that I cannot keep. Amen.