One of the most common questions I am asked by employers and managers is, “Should I only hire Christians?” There are some—who have had bad experiences hiring Christians—who ask, “Why hire Christians?” Clearly, this is a perplexing issue.
One of the reasons for the confusion around this issue is a generally accepted presupposition, that is, if a person claims to be a Christian, we tend to believe them. Perhaps we need to reconsider this presupposition.
Consider a principle that Jesus used to discern false prophets. Jesus didn’t believe the words of the false prophets but looked at their fruit (works) to validate their claim (Matthew 7:15–16). The principle is to look at the works to validate the words.
Applying this principle to the identity of Christians, we should examine their works to validate their words. Therefore a professing Christian is genuine when his or her works look like Christ’s. After all, Christian means “a follower of Christ.”
In his humanity, Christ was the oldest son of a carpenter. Being an obedient son (Luke 2:51), Jesus most likely followed the common Jewish tradition of his day and apprenticed under his father beginning around the age of twelve. Since his public ministry did not begin until age thirty, he spent eighteen years as a carpenter.
We don’t know much about his career as a carpenter; however, since Jesus epitomized excellence, I believe it is fair to assume that he was a brilliant carpenter. He was undoubtedly the model worker—faithful, honest, trustworthy, dependable, excellent, timely, custom-centric, thorough, diligent, submitted, efficient, accurate, proactive, positive, and a team player. In other words, Jesus practiced a biblical worldview of work. (See Titus 2:9–10 and Colossians 3:17–4:1.)
If Jesus is the model for excellent workers, then employers should look for people who work like Jesus. In my experience, finding someone who works as Jesus did is very difficult. Therefore employers need to be diligent to train their workers in a biblical worldview of work. If you can’t hire people who work from a biblical worldview, you must train them.
Here is your business tip: Hire people based on their works (actions) rather than their words (profession). Hire people whose work reflects a biblical worldview of work as Christ’s did. If you can’t find people like this, then you must train them. If you don’t hire and/or train people who work like Christ, you will experience the reality of Proverbs 26:10. You will be like the archer who wounds at random, having no strategic direction to your arrows.
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