The Disciplinary and Educational Function of Business
Bp. S. S. Harris. 1 Thessalonians 4:12 That you may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that you may have lack of nothing. I. Whatever their motives may be, BUSINESSMEN ARE ACTUALLY PRACTISING DAILY AND HOURLY THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUES of faith or foresight, prudence, self-control, self-denial, temperance, uprightness. The characteristic virtues of the business world are Christian virtues every one, and in adopting them men have acknowledged the excellence of Christianity. Self-indulgence is recognized as folly, as the foe to all happiness and manliness. Self-denial, self-control, is known in the practical affairs of life to be the condition of all success. Thus far, then, men have learned the great lesson of the Cross, and have taken its principles to be the rules of business life. Therefore it is that, if rightly and wisely conducted, there is no better discipline for the formation of character than business. It teaches in its own way the peculiar value of regard for other's interests, of spotless integrity, of unimpeachable righteousness; and the busy activities of life, in themselves considered, are good and not evil. They are a part of God's great work, and are as much His appointment as the services of praise and prayer. II. Though beyond all question the business energies of the age have been reinforced and guided by the gospel, until discipline, temperance, and self-control have become their permanent characteristics, and though beyond all question the business pursuits of the age are recognized by Christian thinkers and economists as departments of human culture and as part of God's administration of the world, yet BUSINESSMEN, WITH ALL THEIR EARNESTNESS AND SAGACITY, ARE PECULIARLY LIABLE TO BE BLIND TO THESE HIGH CONSIDERATIONS AND IGNORANT OF THIS GREAT ECONOMY. There are two dangers by which they are continually liable to be betrayed: one is selfishness, and the other is worldliness. 1. Profit, of course, is the very essence of success in business. Yet the making of profit is apt to become an absorbing passion with the eager businessman for its own sake. His ordinary relations with men are apt to be more or less controlled by it. He pretty soon begins to wish to make his association pay, and his friendships, and his politics, and everything that he is and has and does. And if he is successful, a certain selfish pride establishes itself in his heart. Then comes avarice, that amazing and monstrous passion of the soul which loves money for its own sake, which grows on what it feeds on, which never can be appeased, never has enough. Woe to the man who sinks into this slavery. 2. Men are simply absorbed and engrossed and satisfied with their business pursuits and interests, and so neglect and forget their religious and eternal interests. Man is more than a denizen of this world. There is a hunger of the heart which nothing but God can appease; a thirst of the soul which nothing but God can satisfy. "That ye may walk honourably toward them that are without." What can give this, spite of poverty or wealth, but the Christian conscience which is void of offence toward man and God? "That ye may have lack of nothing." What can assure this, but the Spirit of adoption, which bears witness with our spirit that we are children and heirs of God? (Bp. S. S. Harris.) Parallel Verses KJV: That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing. WEB: that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and may have need of nothing.