Business Ethics, Business Practices, and the Power of the Parable

Abstract

Business practitioners and academics areconstantly seeking guidelines for improvingethical business practices. In this paper weattempt to explain how the New Testamentparables can be used to provide insight intothis topic. A number of parables deal directly withbusiness topics such as wealth (money andproperty rights) and stewardship (servants). While admittedly the primary purpose of theseparables is not to offer business guidance, webelieve that a number of parables can helpguide business professionals in making ethicaland effective business and personal decisions. Furthermore, while neither author is a trainedtheologian, we believe that the laity can offervaluable insights on applying the Scriptures totheir professional lives. In our paper, we first examine the ethics of business as it relates to the fundamental issue of wealth and wealth accumulation. Thequestion being ``Is wealth evil in and ofitself?'' While we conclude that wealth is notevil in and of itself, the possession of wealthmay lead to potential ethical pitfalls. Anumber of parables concern wealth and listexplicit virtues or traits to be emulated aswell as traits to be avoided. Thus theparables provide guidance for the use of richesand avoidance of pitfalls. Parables also helpwith the issue of stewardship, critical inbusiness practice.While the parables provide support for a numberof modern day business practices, the parablesalso hold warnings for business managers. Themanager owes a responsibility to the owner ofthe wealth, but all wealth and gifts areultimately those of the Creator, God. We arereminded that while the ways of earthly wealthmay be complex, the way the heavenly wealth issimple.