Editorial July 19, 1982 Issue

Doing business in the world

BEULAH M. ROEGGE

Considering business in its broadest definition as whatever is connected with supplying needed goods and services, we can see that business should be based on prayer. For through prayer we are able to demonstrate that God, the Giver of all good, divine Love itself, meets human needs. The more any business activity is seen as being under spiritual law, the more equitable are regulatory measures and their enforcement, and the more successful is the business in meeting the legitimate needs of consumers and investors as well as those of management and labor. There is no better place for business and spiritually minded business people to be than right out in the world; this is where the needs are.

Thinking of the world in usual Christian terms as that which is to be redeemed, we will find it not surprising that any business, from the corner store to the multinational corporation, thrives through prayerful support based on an understanding of divine laws. In a sense each truly successful business enterprise—that is, one that meets genuine human needs from the basis of divine Love—overcomes, to some degree, gross materialism and the inclination to exploit sensuality.

The Gospel of John records Christ Jesus praying for his apostles this way: "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."^{John 17:15, 16.} A modern day apostle who spends much of his life in the business world can be assured that his work can rightly be in the world, while at the same time it is not of the world. And such a spiritually positioned enterprise is better protected from evil, including every kind of economic fluctuation.

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