Marketplace Christianity: Understanding the Kingdom Purpose of the Marketplace

Marketplace Christianity: Discovering the Kingdom Purpose of the gives me a great understanding as a entrepreneur how to do the works of God's Kingdom.
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While the local church is not the kingdom of God, it is a visible expression of the reign of God. But Jesus was equally at home shelling grain on the Sabbath, no less or visiting with taxation officials as he was in the synagogue. There was no divide between sacred and secular. Pastors who recognize that the reign of God is coming, is almost realized, and is present in the marketplace find ways in their preaching and teaching to elevate marketplace ministry.

The Bible is replete with marketplace stories and images. These old stories need telling for they inform each new generation. But modern marketplace stories need telling, too, so that the pulpit becomes a connecting point between stories old and new.

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Inviting a wide variety of marketplace ministers, on an ongoing basis, to tell their stories in the weekly gatherings of the church makes the link between church and marketplace credible and natural. As the church learns to know the opportunities and challenges its people face, it becomes more informed and able to serve and support them.

Which is more important, preaching a sermon or plumbing a house? Preaching interacts with biblical history and text, and brings godly counsel to our times.

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Through preaching, people are enabled to understand God and his ways. Through preaching, unbelievers hear the Gospel and are won to Christ, sin is forgiven, lives are changed, and relationships are reclaimed as people find hope and purpose in living. But plumbing is vital, too, affording safe water, good hygiene, and responsible stewardship of the earth.

Plumbed houses in which Christians live out the reign of God become homes in which children hear godly counsel for their lives, where people are enabled to understand God and his ways. In Christian homes, unbelievers hear the Gospel and are won to Christ, sin is forgiven, lives are changed, and relationships are reclaimed as people find hope and purpose in living.

Ministers in the Marketplace

So which is more important, preaching a sermon or plumbing a house? In reality the Bible never asks the question in this way. There is no evidence of a hierarchy of roles, gifts, or occupations that require the assigning of greater or lesser status. The first book of the Bible establishes the worth of work and that understanding is sustained throughout. To Adam, God entrusted the entrepreneurial work of naming animals and birds Genesis 2: To the disciples Jesus entrusted the work of distributing bread and fish to a hungry crowd Matt.

According to 1 Timothy 5: Proverbs in various ways proclaims the worth of work: Some Christians are of the opinion that in the church, the pastor is the main doer and all others are part of the passive, supporting cast. But the Bible never uses the word in this way. Rather, laos is a term of honor to describe the whole people of God. Pastors are not special in a set-apart sense. Pastors, together with other under-equippers listed in Ephesians 4: According to Ephesians 4, it is the job of some laity—that is, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers—to make themselves useful in equipping other laity—that is, plumbers, interior designers, and engineers—for kingdom purposes.

The role of the equipper is that of teaching, though not necessarily in a sermon sense. Equippers aim to present people with the power and the substance of the word of God 1 Thess. Equipping has to do with repairing and preparing all laity to be effective kingdom laborers Heb. These spiritual equippers construct a biblical foundation for living so that whether the issues being faced are ethical, relational, financial, or something else, marketplace people find themselves equipped to respond in kingdom ways.

And they do so mindful that equipping is inherently relational and does not occur in isolation. One indicator that people have been well equipped is always the understanding that they are part of a community, that they are not alone. Their individual occupations are important to their community of faith, and the body of Christ of which they are part recognizes them as vital components 1 Cor.

Knowing that equippers and the church are deeply interested in their lives and occupations gives marketplace ministers courage, joy, and fulfillment in their work. Understandings gained in isolation are one-sided at best and are rarely accurate or durable.

True understanding occurs through intentional relationships forged through sustained interaction. It is this sort of interaction that needs to innervate churches—particularly pastors—and their marketplace ministry laborers. Marketplace workers have an obligation to round out the understandings of their spiritual equippers. Pastors need to understand the marketplace and believers who work in it. While they cannot be—and should not try to be—experts in every field and occupation, they can become knowledgeable by simply taking an active interest in the issues marketplace people talk about.

What makes a market bullish?


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How does the global economy affect local manufacturing? How does SARS affect hospital staff morale? How exactly does one find oil deep underground or under the ocean floor? How do competition, the presence of a labor union, or a shortage of capital affect a business leader? Many of these issues can be understood through reading. In fact, the business section of the local newspaper should be required reading for pastors.

FCBC Sermon: Jesus In The Marketplace

But reading must be augmented with relationships, and pastors equip their people best by getting out of their own offices and into the offices, factories, shops, fields, and other ministry settings of marketplace workers. A man in a church I pastored invited me to visit his workplace, a chassis-producing factory.

Hundreds of workers elbow-to-elbow like so many robots, nondescript metal taking meaningful shape in their hardened hands. Their ears were covered with protective mufflers to defend them from dangerous factory decibels. Some hands had too few fingers, evidence of battles won by razor-sharp metal. Goggles shielded eyes from flying debris and sparks, but did little to protect against the pervasive pornography affixed to dozens of private workstations.

The work was evidently mindless and monotonous—anything but life-giving. Yet the Christian brother who toured me through his ministry setting took pride in his workplace, introduced me to people with whom he had relationships, and had a deep sense that his work provided a service to people who would eventually use the fruit of his labor to drive families to vacation destinations or church, carry the sick to hospitals or summer Bible camp, or deliver bread to grocery stores or street people.

I thought differently, studied the Scripture differently, preached differently, and—especially—cared differently for my brother. My visit gave our subsequent brief after-church foyer visits a new depth and immediacy. My marketplace brother became my equipper! The apostle Paul evidently became credible in the marketplace.


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Businesspeople can contribute in many ways to the ongoing education of their pastors. As pastors demonstrate their eagerness to understand the marketplace, marketplace workers and leaders ought to entrust to pastors the joys and challenges they face in business. Please enter your name, your email and your question regarding the product in the fields below, and we'll answer you in the next hours. You can unsubscribe at any time. Sign in or create an account.

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