Ugo’s bakery on Bauchi Road in Jos had been running for eleven years, and by most measures it was a success. Twenty-three people worked there in two shifts. The ovens started at three in the morning, and by six the delivery vans were out on the roads to Rayfield, Terminus and Bukuru with the sliced loaves that half the city seemed to eat for breakfast. Ugo was a deacon in his church. He had recently pledged two million naira to the new church auditorium, and the pastor had thanked him by name from the pulpit.
Salaries at the bakery were paid “when cash flow allows.” In good months that meant the twenty-eighth. Lately it had meant the tenth of the following month, then the fifteenth, and once, after a flour price increase, the twenty-second. Ugo did not think of this as unjust. Business was hard. Flour was expensive. Diesel for the generator was expensive. He always paid in the end.
On the fourteenth of one month, a packer named Kaltume came to his office. She had worked at the bakery for six years and had never once complained. She was a widow with three children, and she was there because her eldest son had been sent home from school that morning over unpaid fees. Before Ugo could stop her she had knelt on the floor beside his desk, the way she had been taught to address an elder. “Oga, please. Anything you can give. I will not ask again.”
He told her, kindly, that salaries would come next week. She thanked him and left. Then he sat looking at the desk in front of him. On one side was the receipt for a new delivery van, bought the week before. On the other was the printed envelope for the second instalment of his auditorium pledge.
That Saturday his fifteen-year-old daughter, who helped at the shop counter at weekends, asked him a question on the drive home. “Daddy, why was Aunty Kaltume crying in the store on Wednesday? She said she had borrowed from the man who lends money in the market and now she owes him double.”
Ugo told me he did not answer her. He just kept driving. But the question stayed with him for weeks, until he finally understood that his decisions about the bakery’s money were being lived out every month in twenty-three other homes.
Your decisions reach other households
Every employer holds a kind of power that is easy to forget because it is so ordinary. You decide when people are paid, how much, under what conditions and with what security. You decide whether a mother can pay her children’s fees on time, whether a young man can send money to his parents, whether a family eats properly at the end of the month or borrows at ruinous interest. Your decisions do not stay in your office. They travel home with your staff.
The law of Moses understood this power and placed a firm limit on it:
Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates: At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD , and it be sin unto thee.
Look at the reason God gives. “For he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it.” The day labourer in ancient Israel lived from one day’s wage to the next. He went home in the evening expecting that money for his family’s food. To withhold it overnight was to send his children to bed hungry. So the command is specific: “At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it.” Leviticus says the same: “the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning” (Leviticus 19:13).
Most employees today are paid monthly, by agreement, and that is perfectly proper. The principle concerns honouring the agreed time, whatever the calendar, because a worker has planned his life around it. When the salary is due on the twenty-eighth, his landlord, his children’s school and his own body are all expecting it on the twenty-eighth.
Notice also the warning: “lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee.” The worker who cannot get justice from his employer has a court of appeal. God hears the cry of the unpaid labourer. That should sober any employer, and especially a Christian one.
And notice who is protected: “whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers.” The Israelite employer was to treat the foreign worker exactly as he treated his own people. Fair wages are not a privilege reserved for members of your church, your tribe or your hometown. Kaltume was not from Ugo’s people or his church. God’s law made no distinction.
Just and equal
The New Testament speaks to employers through Paul’s instructions to masters in Christian households. Writing to the Colossians, after a long passage to servants, he turns to their owners:
Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.
These words were first addressed to slave owners in the Roman world. Paul was not endorsing that system. In the household codes he wrote, he did something radical for his time: he spoke to masters as people with obligations toward their slaves, and he placed both under the same Lord. If those obligations applied to a master who legally owned his workers, they apply all the more to a modern employer who hires free people under contract.
“Give unto your servants that which is just and equal.” Just means what is right, what is owed. Equal translates a word meaning fairness or equity. Paul is asking for more than the letter of the agreement. He wants the employer to treat his workers with a fundamental fairness that recognises them as people of equal worth, owed honest dealing.
Then comes the reason: “knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.” The employer is also an employee. He answers to someone above him. Every decision he makes about his staff will be reviewed by a Lord who sees both the boss’s office and the packer’s home.
This changes the way a Christian employer looks at his authority. His position over others is a stewardship. God has placed people under his care, and He will ask him how he cared for them. The question will not only be “Did you build a successful business?” but also “How did the people who worked for you live while you built it?”
Forbearing threatening
Paul says something similar in Ephesians, and he adds two important details:
And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.
“Do the same things unto them.” In the preceding verses Paul has told servants to work with sincerity, “as unto Christ,” doing “the will of God from the heart” (Ephesians 6:5-6). Now he tells masters to do the same things. In other words, the employer is to treat his workers with the same sincerity, from the same heart, before the same Lord. The relationship runs both ways. There is not one standard of conduct for those below and another for those above.
“Forbearing threatening.” The Greek word means to let go of, to give up. Employers in Paul’s day had enormous power to threaten: beatings, sale, separation from family. Modern employers have their own versions. The query letter used as an instrument of fear. The constant reminder that “there are a hundred people outside who want your job.” The threat of sacking for asking about a delayed salary. The shouting across the factory floor. Paul tells the Christian employer to put all that down. He may correct, discipline and, where necessary, dismiss, but he is not to rule by fear.
“Neither is there respect of persons with him.” God does not show favouritism. He does not treat the employer as more valuable than the cleaner. When the owner of the bakery and the packer stand before God, they stand on exactly the same footing. That truth should shape how a Christian boss speaks to his staff, how he handles disputes and whose side he assumes is right before he has heard both.
PunchlineThe Christian employer is also an employee. He answers to a Master in heaven, who sees both the boss’s office and the worker’s home.
Authority that serves
Before we come to wages, it is worth asking what kind of leadership a Christian employer is meant to exercise at all. On the night before His death, Jesus took a towel and a basin and washed His disciples’ feet, the task of the lowest household servant. Then He said, “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:13-14).
Jesus did not deny His authority. “So I am,” He said. But He showed what authority is for. It exists to serve the good of those under it. The disciples called Him Master, and the Master knelt.
For an employer, that has very practical meaning. It means training people properly before blaming them for mistakes. It means giving credit publicly to the person who did the work, and taking responsibility publicly when a decision of yours went wrong. It means promoting fairly, on merit and character, instead of rewarding the staff who flatter you or come from your hometown. It means noticing when a worker is ill, bereaved or struggling, and responding as a human being before responding as a manager. It means developing your staff so well that some of them may one day leave to start businesses of their own, and being glad when they do.
None of this weakens an employer’s authority. Workers generally follow a leader they trust far more willingly than one they fear. But even if it brought no commercial advantage at all, it would still be right, because it is the way our Lord used His.
Wages that cry out
The sternest words in the New Testament about employers come from James:
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you . Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.
James is addressing wealthy landowners, probably not members of the church, in the prophetic style of the Old Testament. He pictures their riches already rotting: garments motheaten, gold and silver rusting. Then he names the specific sin that has caught God’s attention: “the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth.”
The withheld wages are pictured as crying out. The money itself has a voice. And the cries of the workers “are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.” Sabaoth means hosts, armies. The Lord of hosts, the commander of heaven’s armies, has heard the complaint of the farm labourers who were not paid. They may have no lawyer and no union, but they have a hearing in the highest court.
Notice the phrase “kept back by fraud.” Some employers would never think of themselves as frauds. They have simply delayed. They intend to pay. But James calls the withholding of what is owed a kind of fraud, because it treats someone else’s money as if it were your own working capital.
Then James describes the employer’s lifestyle: “Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.” While the labourers waited, the landowners feasted. That contrast is what makes the sin so ugly. It is not simply that money was short. It is that money was available for the owner’s comfort and not for the worker’s wages.
NuggetThat was the picture on Ugo’s desk. A new van. A public pledge. And a widow on her knees.
Jeremiah pronounced a similar woe on a king of Judah: “Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour’s service without wages, and giveth him not for his work” (Jeremiah 22:13). A beautiful building can be built on unpaid labour. God sees the foundation.
When unfair practice has become common
In many economies, including our own, certain unfair practices have become so normal that employers hardly notice them. It is worth naming some of them honestly, because a Christian employer cannot excuse himself simply because his competitors do the same.
Salaries paid persistently late, with no explanation and no apology. Workers kept on “casual” or “contract” terms for years to avoid the obligations of permanent employment. Long unpaid “probation” or “training” periods. Pension contributions deducted from salaries and never remitted to the pension fund. Wages below the legal minimum. Compulsory overtime without pay. No written contracts at all, so that a worker has no proof of what was agreed. Staff dismissed without notice for falling ill or becoming pregnant.
Not every hard decision is unjust. Businesses face real pressures, and some arrangements, like fixed-term contracts, can be entirely fair when they are honest and properly agreed. But where a practice benefits the employer by quietly transferring cost, risk and insecurity onto people who have no power to resist, a Christian employer should examine it before God.
The deduction of pension contributions that are never remitted deserves special mention. That goes beyond late payment. It is taking money that belongs to the worker and keeping it. Many workers only discover it years later, when they try to retire.
Domestic workers need a word of their own, because they are often the least protected people in any household. The house help, the nanny, the driver, the gateman: many work long hours for little pay, with no agreed time off and no one to speak for them. Some house helps are children, brought from villages on the promise of schooling that never materialises. A Christian household that employs domestic staff must pay them fairly and on time, give them proper rest, speak to them with respect and, where they are young, make sure they are actually in school and kept safe. Any abuse of a domestic worker, physical, sexual or verbal, is a grave sin and often a crime. Where you know of it, the authorities need to be told, and the person needs to be brought to safety.
Scripture gives us a striking example of a leader who refused a practice everyone before him had accepted. When Nehemiah became governor of Judah, the people were already struggling under debt and hardship. The previous governors had drawn a generous allowance from them, as was their right and custom. Nehemiah describes what he did:
But the former governors that had been before me were chargeable unto the people, and had taken of them bread and wine, beside forty shekels of silver; yea, even their servants bare rule over the people: but so did not I, because of the fear of God. Yea, also I continued in the work of this wall, neither bought we any land: and all my servants were gathered thither unto the work.
“But so did not I, because of the fear of God.” The practice was established. It was probably legal. His predecessors had done it, and even their servants had lorded it over the people. Nehemiah simply refused to take what the system allowed him, because he could see what it cost the people beneath him. Later he adds his reason: “because the bondage was heavy upon this people” (Nehemiah 5:18). Instead of enriching himself, he worked alongside his men on the wall and kept a hundred and fifty Jews and officials at his own table, besides visitors from the surrounding nations, all at his own expense (Nehemiah 5:17-18).
That is the posture of a godly employer in a corrupt or careless environment. The custom of the trade does not set his standard. The fear of God does, and his awareness of how heavy the load already is for the people who work for him.
“Everybody does it” has never been a moral argument. The law of Moses was given to a people surrounded by nations with very different practices, and it called them to be different. The Christian employer is called to be fair, even when unfairness has become the custom of the trade.
Honest hardship and cash flow
Some employers reading this will feel unfairly accused. Business really is hard. Exchange rates move overnight. Customers pay late. A government contract is delayed for eight months. There are genuine seasons when the money is not there. What does faithfulness look like then?
First, let the owner feel the hardship before the workers do. If money is short, it should be short for the owner’s lifestyle, his new car, his travel and his building project before it is short for salaries. The landowners in James lived in pleasure while their workers waited. A Christian employer should reverse that order.
Second, tell the truth early. If salaries will be late, say so before the due date, explain why and give a realistic date. Do not leave people to discover it when the alert does not come. Treat your staff as adults who deserve information about decisions that affect them.
PunchlineThird, do not hire what you cannot pay for. Expansion is good, but taking on staff when you know you cannot reliably meet the payroll is a way of financing your growth with other people’s security.
Fourth, put salaries ahead of your giving. This may sound strange from a pulpit, but Jesus Himself rebuked people who used religious giving to avoid obligations. The Pharisees taught that a man could declare money “Corban, that is to say, a gift” to God (Mark 7:11) and thereby be excused from supporting his parents. Jesus said they were “Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition” (Mark 7:13). A pledge to the church does not sanctify unpaid wages. “Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it” (Proverbs 3:27).
The worker is my fellow creature
Job gives us one of the most remarkable statements of an employer’s conscience anywhere in ancient literature. In his final defence of his integrity, he says:
If I did despise the cause of my manservant or of my maidservant, when they contended with me; What then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?
Job did not dismiss the complaints of his servants. When they “contended with” him, when they brought a grievance, he listened. And his reason goes to the root of the matter: “Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?” The same God formed the employer and the worker. They share one Creator and one human nature.
That truth reaches beyond wages to the conditions people work in. Is the bakery safe? Are the ovens maintained, and are workers protected from burns? Are the hours humane? Is there a way for staff to raise a grievance without fear? Is there a clear policy against harassment, and will the owner act on a complaint even when the accused person is a valued manager? Do workers have somewhere to eat, rest and pray? Are they spoken to with respect?
There is a lovely picture of this in the book of Ruth. When Boaz came to his fields at harvest time, “said unto the reapers, The LORD be with you. And they answered him, The LORD bless thee” (Ruth 2:4). Employer and workers blessed one another. Boaz went on to instruct his young men to protect Ruth, a foreign widow gleaning in his fields, and to leave extra grain for her on purpose. His authority was exercised as care.
A Christian employer’s witness is seen on the factory floor more than in the church auditorium. His staff know whether the man who prays at the end-of-year party is the same man who pays them on time. They are reading his faith in their bank alerts.
It took Ugo three months to make the changes, and some of them cost him.
He opened a separate account for salaries and set it up so that a fixed portion of every day’s takings went into it automatically. He moved the payroll date to the twenty-seventh and told his staff that if it ever had to move, they would hear it from him personally before the day came. He discovered that the bakery’s pension remittances were eight months behind, and he paid them. He delayed buying the second van he had planned for that year.
He also went to his pastor and asked to spread his auditorium pledge over a longer period. He was embarrassed. The pastor, to his credit, said, “Brother Ugo, God is not building His house with your workers’ fees.”
Then he called a meeting of all twenty-three staff, on the bakery floor, between shifts. He told them that he had treated their salaries as though they were his money, that it had been wrong, and that he was sorry. Several of the older workers looked at the floor. Nobody quite knew what to say. An employer apologising was not something they had seen before.
He told me the moment that broke him came a few months later. On the twenty-seventh, Kaltume knocked on his office door again. This time she did not kneel. She stood in the doorway holding her phone, showing him the alert, and said, “Oga, I just wanted to say thank you. My son has written his exams.”
Your decisions reach other households. If God has given you authority over other people’s working lives, use it as one who also has a Master in heaven. Pay what you owe, when you owe it. Put down the threats. Listen when your workers contend with you. And remember that the One who made you in the womb made them too.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- If you employ anyone, even a single house help or driver, how would they describe the way you pay and treat them?
- Are there practices in your business or household that have become “normal” but would not stand up to Deuteronomy 24 or James 5?
- Where might your own comfort or giving be coming before what you owe to others?
- How do you respond when someone who works for you brings a complaint?
- What would it mean for you to remember that you also have a Master in heaven?
This Week
Review the arrangements of everyone who works for you, whether in a business or at home: when they are paid, whether pay has been late in the past year, whether all deductions have been properly remitted, and whether they have a written agreement. Write down one specific change you will make to bring your practice closer to “just and equal,” and make it this month. If you have ever withheld wages unfairly, consider how you might acknowledge it and put it right.
A Prayer
Lord, You are my Master in heaven, and You see both my office and the homes of those who work for me. Forgive me where I have treated what belongs to others as if it were my own, where I have ruled by fear or delayed what was due. Teach me to give what is just and equal, to listen to those who contend with me and to remember that You made them as You made me. Let my workers see my faith in the way I pay them and speak to them. Make my business a place where people are blessed. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.