Mission in the Marketplace

Sometimes as Christians we can fail to see the world of business as having any connection or relevance to Christianity and spreading the Gospel, we tend to separate business and Christianity, and view these two things as separate options where we must pick one or the other. It is important to know however, that these two things can very much be mixed. We know this because there is strong evidence for it in the Bible. Throughout the Bible Jesus himself as well as others like Paul shared the Gospel within marketplaces and with market contexts. Metaphors including market items and ideas, used as language of redemption, can be seen fairly often, with some examples being wages, ransoms, and down payments being used in metaphors. Both Jesus and Paul did not shy away from using the marketplace as a platform for spreading the Gospel, and many of Paul’s journeys were along trade routes and economic centers. The reason all this information is relevant and important to Christians is because of this divide between the business world and Christianity that we so often are tempted to put into place. This causes some Christians to experience confusion when being called into the world of entrepreneurship and business, and questions regarding this calling often arise. It is important to know that through redemptive entrepreneurship, or simply using established businesses to spread the Gospel and make an impact is a very real calling with much validity to it. Jesus did not shy away from using business to spread the Gospel and make an impact, and neither should we.