There are 6 Basic Business Principals:

1. Reflect Christ in Your Business Practices
2. Be Accountable
3. Provide a Quality Product or Service at a Fair Price
4. Honor Your Creditors
5. Treat Your Employees Fairly
6. Treat Your Customers Fairly

Reflect Christ in your Business

Make no mistake if you adopt this principal it will cost you money! Anyone operating in a manner that glorifies God will be faced with many opportunities to suffer.

Let’s take a look at:

• Proverbs 3: 32 – “For a crooked man is an abomination to the Lord; but He is intimate with the upright.”
• Proverbs 4:24 – “Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put devious lips far from you.”

What do you learn from these two principals: that honesty is rewarded and dishonesty punished.

Be Accountable

Too often those with authority are able and willing to surround themselves with those who support their decisions without question. This may seem like a good idea at the beginning but in the long run it could become a liability.

Why? Because without a proper system of checks and balances anyone eventually drift of course. Even King David who God Himself chose drifted off course when he listened to his generals who told him he was too valuable to risk his life in battle. He stayed in town while his armies fought and then had that infamous episode with Bathsheba, which ultimately  created strife within his household.

Many business people think they are accountable because they operate with a board of directors or hold regular staff meetings. God offers us several answers to this challenge:

One is seeking the counsel of your spouse. Most husbands virtually ignore the counsel of their wives when it comes to making business decisions and yet God’s Word clearly says that He made husband and wife to become one: “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh” (Gen.2:24).

A businessperson can also set up an impartial group of Christian advisors. As this could sometimes be tricky an alternative is to link up with one or two other businessmen in similar businesses in other parts of the country or world and communicate on major decisions by phone or other means.

Everyone needs accpountability, especially those who don’t have to accept it!

Provide a Quality Product or Service at a Fair Price

The value of the products or services a company offers says more to the public about the real character of the company and its people than perhaps any other aspect of the company’s life. Value can be defined as the effective return on a purchase.

When a Christian Business accepts the standard for service and products that the Bible prescribes, the end result will be the best product at the best possible price. For Christians to follow the philosophy of providing high quality at fair prices says a lot about their spiritual commitment. When you truly love others more than yourself you want them to get the best deal possible and in the process you will also prosper.

Honor your Creditors

Business creditors include those who have loaned you merchandise as well as have loaned you money. Too often suppliers are treated like a no-interest source of operating capital. When business is slow it is considered normal to delay paying suppliers to offset the reduced cash-flow.

If you are guilty of simply choosing a cheaper way to operate you are violating a basic bibilcal principal:

Proverbs 3:27 – 28 – Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor; “Go and come back tomorrow I will give it,” when you have it with you.

A Christian who continues to order materials or products and other supplies when there are already past-due bills is being deceitful. This may be hard for you to hear, but just place your self in the supplier’s position.

Treat your Employees Fairly

Fairness is both a responsibility and an opportunity. The employer who practrices fairness is able to share Christ with his employees because he: “Practices what he Preaches.”

Fairness is not only pay and benefits to employees but also involves attitude and relationships. The first step to establishing the principal of fairness is to recognize that all people are important, regardless of their vocational position. If you find that you can’t give the same honor and regard to the lowest ranking employee in your business, you need to stop right here and resolve the issue with God.

James 2:9 – sums it up – “But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.”

Treat your Customers Fairly

If you truly believe that your greatest responsibility is to be a faithful witness for God then your greatest outreach will be with those closest to you.

• In your business, this applies to your creditors, who will listen because your are paying your bills on time and treat them fairly.
• It applies to your employees, who will listen because you treat them with honor and pay them fairly.
• It certainly applies to your customers, who will take you seriously because you give them a good product at a fair price and stand behind your word.

Back Home