A business thrives when it concentrates on its core and falters when it wanders from it. A maker of plastic dollhouse bathtubs lost everything when he moved into the glamorous but competitive canoe business. Crown Zellerbach, whose core was growing and harvesting trees and producing paper goods, built a successful food service division but found it far removed from what it fully understood, so it sold the division and returned to its core. The same principle applies to the church. When it opened a grocery store near its Pasadena campus, a full-time minister had to keep inventories, place orders, and balance the books. He lost time for Bible study, sermon preparation, and visiting the flock. The motive of better products at honest prices seemed right, yet the venture deviated from the church's calling and failed. Satan likewise tempts God's people to drift from their core purpose by listening to him, even a little. Business is also a place to apply God's Word, since loving God with the whole mind means putting His mind to work in business, education, and family life. Psalm 15 sets the standard for dealing with others: keep a promise even when it hurts, lend without crushing debtors with high interest, and refuse bribes. Believers are to be honest in their work ethic and in all business dealings, including with family, so that those around them see a difference.

Troubles in American industry, such as General Motors' job cuts, plant closures, junk credit rating, and unsustainable healthcare and pension burdens, are not accidents but consequences of sin coming home to roost. Numbers 32:23 warns, "be sure your sin will find you out," and Galatians 6:7 says, "whatever a man sows, that he will also reap." Poor management is part of the problem, but behind weak financial and business judgment lies a spiritual root: selfishness, along with pride, greed, hatred, envy, corruption, and deception, all of which surface under intense competition. The days of business offering a quality good or service at a fair price have largely passed, at least for big business. Ruthless competition leaves those who refuse to join in sordid practices weak, isolated, and marked for attack, so that one is either predator or prey. God addressed this long ago through the prophets. In Hosea 12:7-8, He condemns the merchant who holds deceitful scales and loves to oppress, yet claims his wealth proves he is blameless. God exposes him as a boastful, deceitful sinner, and Amos 2:6-7 details further such deeds. An anything-for-profit model can only produce inequity, mediocre products and services, and strife. Together with a relentless market that punishes inefficiency, it will destroy even the mightiest corporations, and the poor and weak usually suffer most. Such business breakdowns are signs that a crisis looms.

Bribery and coercive dealmaking corrupt commerce and politics alike, and God forbids them outright. Exodus 23:8 commands, "You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous," with no exceptions. Business and political bargaining often hide bribes behind euphemisms, and the claim that everybody does it does not make the deals moral or good for the nation. A recent example is a leaked diplomatic cable in which the US ambassador to France, acting for Monsanto, urged retaliation against European nations that resisted genetically modified crops. The bribe was the promise of strengthening the European biotech voice, and the threat was a target list of penalties. This was a business war waged by a government on behalf of a corporation to force its products on others. Solomon admits in Proverbs 17:8 that a bribe acts like a charm, and that it seems to bring success to giver and taker alike. That is why people use it, even though God forbids it. But every sin, including offering or taking a bribe, is subject to the law of unintended consequences. Payment may not come immediately, but it always comes, just as Adam and Eve's sin ultimately produced the culture that led to the Flood. Congressional earmarks work the same way. They are unrelated favors attached to legislation to buy votes and re-election, and together they drive the nation toward bankruptcy.