This video was originally published here.
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The purpose of the study was to better understand what widows experience and thus build a service model that engages, educates, and equips them to make wise financial decisions for their lives.

In October 2013, Ronald Blue & Co. asked selected widowed clients who are served out of their Atlanta office to participate in a small, intimate focus group. With this study, Ronald Blue & Co. sought a deeper understanding of their needs, concerns, and desires. Ronald Blue & Co. wanted to hear their unique stories and understand how they wanted to be served, from how often they felt it was necessary to be contacted by their Ronald Blue & Co. advisor, to how much detail and information they needed to make informed decisions, to priorities relating to their wealth and families.

It was Ronald Blue & Co.’s hope that this research would be read and used broadly within their company by everyone who interacts with their clients and that it would provide new and better service insights, paving the way for an enhanced model specifically addressing the needs of widows.

Ronald Blue & Co. was thankful to their Atlanta office for expressing the need to improve and validate how widows are served and for overseeing this project. Ronald Blue & Co. was also thankful to Women Doing Well for facilitating the focus group and conversations, for gathering their findings, and developing a comprehensive and instructional white paper. Ronald Blue Trust supports the Women Doing Well mission of inspiring a movement of women living and giving generously.

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Today’s episode finds us all the way down under—in Australia with our guest Tim Macready. Tim is Chief Investment Officer at Christian Super. He has been responsible for the development of the Fund’s Responsible Investment Approach, which is applied across the entire portfolio and now incorporates Negative Screening and Impact Investing. 

 What we think you’ll love most about this episode is hearing Tim talk about how he set out to create the “perfect, faith-driven fund”. But then he realized…We’re all sinners. He’s a sinner, every company is led by sinners, and every customer is a sinner.

 He talks openly about how that shifted his perspective, some of the tough decisions it led him to, and how he stewards that calling today. As always, thanks for listening.

Useful Links:

How Our Faith Affects the Way We Invest

Where Are the Christian Investors?

Why I Invest in Sinners

This article was originally presented at The Christian Economic Forum 2019.
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The Christian Economic Forum hosts a world-class Global Event each year to connect the top industry leaders and experts from around the world with other individuals who are compelled to act upon the principles of God’s economy. The following paper was presented at CEF 2019.

— by Mats Tunehag

She was amazed and perplexed at the same time. She was treated with respect and dignity. She was a woman challenged with disabilities. But her life had changed. With no or little prospect of ever getting a job, she was now working in a manufacturing company. She was creative, she had made friends, and she made money.

 Women in this country and in this religious context were treated as second-class citizens. If they had mental or physical handicaps they were often further down.

 But the company she worked for employed and offered jobs with dignity to women with disabilities. It was unheard of, and it made a huge difference not only for her, but also for the other women who worked there. It even had a transformational impact on families and the community.

 This woman asked herself, Why is this workplace so different? It changes lives on many levels. She knew that the founder and CEO was a follower of Jesus. So she told herself, If that’s what it means to be a follower of Jesus, I will also follow Him. It was a huge and risky step for a handicapped woman in a conservative Muslim environment.

 What brought her to Christ? A gospel tract? A Jesus film? A Bible study? No, it was human resource management informed by biblical values, underpinned with prayer. Ultimately, it was, of course, God’s doing.

This true story from the Middle East highlights some important issues as we serve God and people in and through business. There is a need for an integrated outlook on work and worship. We also need to understand timing, our call, and God’s role. We need to understand avodah, chronos and kairos.

Sunday Talk to Monday Walk

In the global Business as Mission (BAM) movement we talk about taking our Sunday talk into a Monday walk. This means that whatever we believe and profess in church on Sunday should be permeating our lives and business practices the rest of the week.[1]

 We must strive towards a seamless integration of Sunday and Monday, of work and worship. There is a risk of seeing Sunday and Monday as two separate compartments.[2]

There are pros and cons with compartmentalization. It has been a key to scientific development. But the danger is often that one may fail to see the greater whole, how bits and pieces overlap, interact, and connect.

Water and God

For example, H2O is hydrogen and oxygen. It can be compartmentalized and analyzed; it can manifest itself as water, ice, and steam. If you’re thirsty you don’t want a chemical formula; you want water, the integrated whole.

The church teaches that God is triune; we can observe the three in one, and one in three throughout history. We can compartmentalize God: focusing on the Son, for example. But we mustn’t fail to see how the three divine persons overlap, interact, and connect. It is a mystery, indeed, but nevertheless a truth to embrace.

Avodah

When we deal with Sunday and Monday, with serving God and people, with work and worship, we should learn from the use of the Hebrew word avodah found in the Holy Scriptures. It is used interchangeably for work, worship, and service. Here are a few references:

•       The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work (avodah) it and take care of it. (Genesis 2:15)

•       Six days you shall work (avodah). (Exodus 34:21)

•       This is what the LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship (avodah) me. (Exodus 8:1)

•       But as for me and my household, we will serve (avodah) the Lord. (Joshua 24:15)

Worship in a building is different from manual labor in the field. But that doesn’t mean they are disconnected from who we are—created in God’s image with a purpose both to work and to worship. Work can be worship.[3]

Avodah is a picture of an integrated faith. It is a life where work and worship come from the same root. “Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

 This is also a challenge in BAM as we talk about the quadruple bottom line: financial, social, environmental, and spiritual. BAM is not doing business with a touch of “churchianity.” BAM is not Christians just doing social enterprise. BAM recognizes God as a stakeholder who has a vested interested in the multiple bottom lines and multiple stakeholders.

We can and should set goals in each of these four areas individually, as we plan, operate, and evaluate. We also need to recognize, however, that these areas of impact overlap, interact, and connect; the result is greater than the sum of its parts, as we learn from the story from the Middle East.

We must avoid polarizing. It is not hydrogen versus oxygen, God the Father versus the Son, work versus worship, or financial bottom-line versus a spiritual impact. They are not the same, but they belong together.

Entrepreneurship as Calling

Thus our daily work is intimately related to serving God and people. Our businesses are not a distraction from “doing ministry.”[4]

“Entrepreneurs, managers and all who work in business, should be encouraged to recognise their work as a true vocation and to respond to God’s call in the spirit of true disciples. In doing so, they engage in the noble task of serving their brothers and sisters and of building up the Kingdom of God.”[5]

To work is deeply divine and deeply human. The same applies also to creativity in business. It is a reflection of who we are, created in God’s image. But our work is also a part of God’s redemptive mission throughout history. Thus, our work is part of a greater story—His story. To do BAM for God and people is about making history.

 As Pope John XXIII said, “In the work on the farm the human personality finds every incentive for self-expression, self-development and spiritual growth. It is a work, therefore, which should be thought of as a vocation, a God-given mission, an answer to God’s call to actuate His providential, saving plan in history. It should be thought of, finally, as a noble task, undertaken with a view to raising oneself and others to a higher degree of civilization.”[6]

Timing is Important

BAM must be underpinned by a biblical worldview, informing our planning, operations, and evaluations. One very important aspect of worldview is time. This has implications on what we can do and what God does.

 Time affects how we plan, operate, and evaluate a BAM business, aiming at a positive impact on multiple bottom-lines for multiple stakeholders. As we do this, there are extremes to be avoided: quantifying and monetizing everything or nothing.

Chronos and Kairos

We need to ask, “How is God a stakeholder in our business? How can we aim at a Kingdom of God impact in and through business?” This is where chronos and kairos come in. These are two Greek words for time.

 Chronos is quantitative and sequential; it is the basis of the English word chronological. We operate in the chronos—it is where we plan and evaluate our businesses. It’s where we live our day-to-day lives.

 Kairos is qualitative, the supreme moment, the right time. This is used for God’s intervention, in the fullness of time. We cannot control this, but we can set the stage for it to some extent.

Civil Service as Mission

We can learn from Daniel and his three friends who were involved in Civil Service as Mission. In the first six chapters of the Book of Daniel we observe that Daniel and his friends served God and the nation with professionalism, excellence, and integrity. They served faithfully in the chronos.

 God used this stage set in the chronos to occasionally intervene (kairos moments), to bring glory to Himself, and to transform people and nations.

 However, most days for Daniel and company were just another day, week, year, or decade in the office. It was their faithful and good work (in the chronos) that set the stage for miracles and changed lives; in the right moment and in His own time, God intervened (kairos).

Another Day in the Office

This is essential as we do business. How can we serve our customers, staff, and suppliers with professionalism, excellence, and integrity? We can and should carefully plan, execute, and evaluate accordingly.

We also need to understand that we cannot convert anyone by pushing through or forcing a spiritual impact. So what steps can we take in the chronos to set the stage for the kairos? Or in the words of the apostle Paul, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused it to grow.”

Like Daniel and his friends, we must be prepared for another day, week, year, and decade in the business. No matter how mundane the day-to-day may seem, we must remind ourselves that we are constantly and intentionally shaping the business for God and people, for various stakeholders and multiple bottom-lines.

The CEO of the manufacturing company in the Middle East served faithfully in the chronos—with excellence, professionalism, and integrity. God used that to draw a woman to Himself—there was a kairos moment.

Chronos and kairos can help us to plan and set reasonable expectations, as well as to help us to see the role we can play alongside what God does. Having this view of time can hopefully encourage us to relax and trust God. We plant and water, but God will bring life and growth.

Avodah, chronos, and kairos are key to understanding our calling in the marketplace. This gives us more BAM for the buck.

[1] See https://www.matstunehag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Business-as-Mission-is-bigger-than-you-think.pdf for 12 examples of key Christian values and biblical themes and how they translate into business.

[2] Dorothy Sayers notes in her essay, “Why Work”: In nothing has the church so lost her hold on reality as in her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that, as a result, the secular work of the world is turning to purely selfish and destructive ends, and that the greater part of the world’s intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least, uninterested in religion. But is it astonishing? How can any one remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life? The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. 

[3] Tomas Aquinas’ definition of beauty also has three parts: Integritas (integrity), Consonantia (proportion), and Claritas (clarity). Again, three in one. They can be analyzed one at a time or two in contrast, but it is the combined three that constitutes beauty.

[4] See the video, Business like Bach, https://vimeo.com/152713982 or at https://matstunehag.com/videos/. This very short video makes the cogent point that just as Bach put years of hard work and practice into developing the extraordinary musical gifts given to him by God, some of us are given the gift of business as a way to bring glory to God. We should not see business as a distraction but rather as an instrument worthy of our time, energy, and for “the greater glory of God.”

[5] Vocation of the Business Leader, published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

[6] Mater et magistra. Encyclical of Pope John XXII on Christianity And Social Progress, May 15, 1961.

This article was originally published here.

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by Jerry Bowyer

The confrontation with the moneychangers has been used to enlist Jesus into an ideological war against finance. There are many examples, but probably the best known of them is FDR’s inaugural address in which he extensively referenced this text.

“Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.”

Is that really what this story means? Is it a general indictment of financial commerce? I don’t think so.

We’ve been tracing Jesus’ journey from Galilee down to Jericho into Judea and now to Jerusalem. The pattern has been that Jesus’ denunciations of wealth coincide with two circumstances: proximity to Jerusalem and proximity to the ruling class. Jesus is toughest on accumulations of riches when in Judea, least so when in Galilee. He’s tough on religious and political elites (often the same groups) who extract wealth, as opposed to those who create wealth through work, or even investment. That latter point – tolerance towards financial dealings – was counter-cultural in at least two ways. ‘Conservative,’ that is aristocratic, elites were tied to the land; the newly forming order of financial markets would have been somewhat alien to them.

David Fiensy makes this point in Christian Origins and the Ancient Economy,

The first thing we should say about the ancient economy of the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions is that it was agrarian. This observation is so common as to be beyond dispute.2 An agrarian economy was based on land ownership and farm production…the way to acquire wealth in an agrarian economy was to acquire more land. There was not much else a person could do with wealth but buy land. One could invest in trading and shipping, but it was risky. The culturally acceptable and economically less risky investment was land…

But Jesus tells several parables which involve finance, as opposed to agriculture. There is the Parable of the Unfaithful Steward, and the Parable of the Talents, both of which seem oriented towards a positive view of the investor. In fact, at least one, and probably both, of these parables put God in the role of the investor. This would be odd if Jesus thought of finance as an unrighteous profession.

Therefore, it is unlikely that Jesus’ confrontation with the money changers was simply because they dealt with finance.  Given Jesus’ criticism of the temple and its elites, it seems more likely that their location on temple grounds was at least one part of His objection. The account specifies that He confronted them when He entered the temple, therefore they were on temple grounds. He specifically criticizes their presence there, contrasting it with Solomon’s temple which was to be ‘a house of prayer for all nations’. Instead, it had been turned into a “robbers’ den” – a reference to Jeremiah who also criticized the temple elites of his time. The text makes clear that this activity taking place on temple grounds was an issue.

“And they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to cast out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves;

16 and He would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple.

17 And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations ‘? But you have made it a robbers‘ den.”

18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for all the multitude was astonished at His teaching.”

(Mk. 11:15-18 NAS)

Mathew21:12 And Jesus entered the temple and cast out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves.

13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers‘ den.”

(Matt. 21:12-13 NAS)

I’ve highlighted several phrases to draw attention to some points which might be missed otherwise. One of them, I’ve already discussed, is the fact that the moneychangers were confronted after Jesus entered the temple, therefore they were on temple ground. Also, please note the phrase ‘”robber’s den”. I’ve already mentioned that this is borrowed from Jeremiah. But it’s important to see how appropriate this designation was. Jesus calls this a robber’s den because they are robbers. The temple system was dishonest in numerous ways, which we can discuss in great detail elsewhere.

One matter which stands out is the dishonest nature of the currency transactions. According to Alfred Edersheim’s monumental tome, The Temple:

…But by far the largest sum was derived from the half-shekel of Temple tribute, which was incumbent on every male Israelite of age, including proselytes and even manumitted slaves. As the shekel of the sanctuary was double the ordinary, the half-shekel due to the Temple treasury amounted to about 1s. 4d. (two denarii or a didrachma). Hence, when Christ was challenged at Capernaum1 for this payment, He directed Peter to give the stater, or two didrachmas, for them both. This circumstance also enables us to fix the exact date of this event. For annually, on the 1st of Adar (the month before the Passover), proclamation was made throughout the country by messengers sent from Jerusalem of the approaching Temple tribute. On the 15th of Adar the money-changers opened stalls throughout the country to change the various coins, which Jewish residents at home or settlers abroad might bring, into the ancient money of Israel. For custom had it that nothing but the regular half-shekel of the sanctuary could be received at the treasury. On the 25th of Adar business was only transacted within the precincts of Jerusalem and of the Temple, and after that date those who had refused to pay the impost could be proceeded against at law, and their goods distrained,2 the only exception being in favour of priests, and that ‘for the sake of peace,’ that is, lest their office should come in disrepute…

So, the temple shekel was double weight, which no doubt had pious justifications about the glory – literally the heaviness – of the matters of God. But the bottom line is that worshippers had to pay twice the amount, due to dishonest weights and measures. And the mechanics of this financial abuse were carried out by the money changers. That is why Jesus calls them ‘robbers’.

You may notice that I highlighted phraseology which singles out the dove merchants as particular objects of Jesus’ ire. Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels both mention the doves. Luke’s account is generally similar but doesn’t mention dove merchants.

John, however, focuses heavily on the dove sellers, so heavily that he portrays Jesus as speaking only to them.

15 And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the moneychangers, and overturned their tables;

16 and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a house of merchandise.” (Jn. 2:15-16 NAS)

What is the significance of the doves? Under the Torah, the sacrifice of doves was a provision for the poor. Poor people bought doves. The whole system of money-changing was dishonest, but the dove sellers who charged double because of the dishonest shekel were specifically the group which was hurting the poor, such as were Joseph and Mary when they first started out.

“And when the days for their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord

23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every first-born male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord “),

24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the Law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.””

(Lk. 2:22-24 NAS)

Luke doesn’t mention doves, probably because his intended gentile audience would not understand this detail of Torah.  But John has Jesus addressing only the dove-sellers. Why would John be particularly focused on the dove merchants? Remember John was probably the closest to Mary who, as we saw above, was herself exploited by this particular group. Jesus arranged for Mary to adopt John at the cross and according to early church historians, John and Mary stayed together, traveling to Ephesus.

This would also explain Jesus’ anger. His own mother had been exploited by this system. Jesus called out religious leaders for devouring widow’s houses. Perhaps He thought of his own, probably widowed mother. Jesus, on the other hand was not a devourer, but rather was Himself devoured by zeal for God and for the good of the people. That at least is how His disciples interpreted the confrontation with the dove merchants:

“and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a house of merchandise.”

17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Thy house will consume me.””

(Jn. 2:16-17 NAS)

But Jesus was not the only one who was consumed. It was immediately after this incident that the chief priests and the scribes decided to destroy him.

“And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine.” (Mk. 11:18 KJV)

There were consumed with fear at His popularity among the people. Up until then they had merely been irked by Jesus because of His challenge to their religion, but now He was challenging their money, and for that, He had to be murdered.