The evening market near her mother’s house in Benin City came alive after six. By then most of the traders had finished their day jobs, or had come in from the farms, and they laid out tomatoes, pepper, smoked fish, roasted corn and plantain on tables and mats along both sides of the road. Customers came on foot and on okada, picking their way through the crowd. Business went on until ten or eleven at night.
And all of it happened by the light of kerosene lanterns and candles.
Efe had grown up helping her mother at that market, and she had never thought much about the light. But the year she lost her job at a microfinance bank, she found herself sitting at her mother’s stall most evenings, and she began to notice things. She noticed the black smoke rising from the lanterns, and the way the women coughed by the end of the night. She noticed how much the traders spent every week on kerosene, and how often they complained about the price. She noticed the children doing their homework by candlelight under the tables. And she remembered the harmattan night two years earlier when a lantern had tipped over and three stalls had burned before anyone could put out the fire.
One evening she was scrolling on her phone and saw an advertisement for small solar lanterns, the kind that charge in the sun all day and give a clean white light for six or seven hours. She did some arithmetic on the back of an envelope. Then she did it again.
Three weeks later, she arrived at the market with twenty solar lanterns in a carton and a hand-lettered sign: LIGHT FOR RENT. CLEAN. SAFE. CHEAPER THAN KEROSENE.
She told me later that she nearly turned back at the gate. “I kept thinking, who am I to start a business? I am a banker who has no bank.” But she had seen a need, and she had something that could meet it. That, it turns out, is where every enterprise begins.
Enterprise begins with a need
The Bible opens with God at work. He creates, orders, separates and fills, and then He places human beings in His world with a task: “the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Adam was to cultivate, to develop, to bring forth from the ground what was latent in it. From the beginning, human work was meant to add value to the world God made.
Enterprise is one expression of that calling. It begins when someone notices a need and offers something useful to meet it. The book of Proverbs, in its famous portrait of the capable woman, describes exactly this kind of initiative:
She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.
“She considereth a field, and buyeth it.” The verb considereth means she thinks it through, examines it, plans. She does not buy on impulse. “With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.” She reinvests what she has earned into something productive. “She perceiveth that her merchandise is good.” She knows her product is worth what she is asking. And “her candle goeth not out by night.” She works hard, and her household is provided for.
The New Testament is full of believers in business. Lydia was “a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira” (Acts 16:14), trading in the expensive dyed cloth that the wealthy prized. Her home became the first meeting place of the church in Philippi. Priscilla and Aquila were tentmakers, and Paul worked alongside them in Corinth, “for by their occupation they were tentmakers” (Acts 18:3). Their craft supported Paul’s ministry and later took them to Ephesus and Rome, where churches met in their house.
PunchlineNone of these people separated their faith from their trade. They were believers who made purple cloth and tents. Their business was part of their life before God.
Behind every enterprise lies the question of stewardship. In the parable of the talents, the master entrusted his goods “to every man according to his several ability” (Matthew 25:15), and two of the servants went and traded with what they had been given. The third buried his talent, and his explanation is revealing: “I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth” (Matthew 25:25). The parable is about far more than money, but it makes a point that applies directly to business. Abilities, insight and opportunity are entrusted to us, and fear is not a sufficient reason to bury them. Peter puts it simply: “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). For some believers, that gift is the ability to see a need, organise resources and build something that serves people. Using it well is a form of stewardship.
Notice what Efe did first. She did not start with a business idea looking for customers. She started with traders who were coughing, spending too much on kerosene and risking fire every night. She saw a real need among real people. Many start-ups fail because they begin with a product the founder loves and then search for someone who might want it. The wiser path begins with the people and their problem.
Labouring at the thing which is good
Paul gives the Ephesians a short instruction that carries a whole theology of work and enterprise:
Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
The verse is set in a passage about the new life believers have received in Christ. Paul has just told them to “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). Then he shows what that looks like in practice, and one of his examples is the thief.
Look at the movement of the verse. “Let him that stole steal no more.” The thief takes value from others. He produces nothing. He simply moves what belongs to someone else into his own hands. “But rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good.” The opposite of stealing is not just stopping. It is producing. The converted thief becomes a worker who creates value instead of extracting it.
Read from the angle of enterprise, the verse makes three things plain.
First, honest enterprise is the opposite of theft. A great deal of what passes for business is really a form of taking: the investment scheme that pays early members with later members’ money, the contractor who collects payment and disappears, the seller who passes off fake goods as genuine. The believer’s business should be the reverse of all of that. It should leave customers better off than they were.
Second, the work must be “the thing which is good.” That phrase describes both the activity and the product. The believer’s business should be good in what it offers and good in how it operates. There are profitable businesses a believer should never start, because what they sell harms people. And there are good products sold in harmful ways. Paul calls us to labour at what is good in both senses.
Third, the purpose reaches beyond ourselves: “that he may have to give to him that needeth.” The former thief, who once took from others, now earns enough to give to others. Profit is not the end of the story. It creates capacity for generosity. A believer’s enterprise is a means of providing for his household, employing others and having something to share with those in need.
NuggetThe thief takes value from others. The believer in enterprise creates value: working at what is good, so that there is something left to give.
Count the cost
Jesus used an illustration from ordinary building projects to make a point about discipleship:
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it ? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it , all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
The main point of the passage concerns the cost of following Christ. But notice that Jesus assumes something every listener would recognise: no sensible person starts building without first sitting down to count the cost. The half-built tower, abandoned when the money ran out, was a familiar sight and a source of public mockery. “This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”
Many Nigerian cities have their own version: the uncompleted building with rusting iron rods sticking out of the top floor, started in a season of optimism and abandoned when the funds ran dry. Many businesses end the same way.
So sit down first. How much will it really cost to start? Include the things people forget: rent paid a year or two in advance, generator fuel when the power fails, transport, registration, packaging, the cost of goods that do not sell. How long will it take before the business pays for itself? How will you live in the meantime? What happens if sales are half of what you expect?
Proverbs offers a related piece of wisdom about sequence: “Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house” (Proverbs 24:27). Get the productive work established before you spend on comfort. Many young businesses are sunk by owners who take early income as personal spending money, buying the car and the new phone before the business is stable.
Count the cost of debt, too. “The borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7). Borrowing is not forbidden, and some businesses need it. But a loan taken without careful calculation can turn a small setback into a disaster. Start small where you can. Efe began with twenty lanterns bought with part of her severance pay, not two hundred bought with a loan. When the first month went badly, she could absorb the loss.
Diligence, not haste
Proverbs sets two kinds of people side by side:
The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness; but of every one that is hasty only to want.
“The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness.” The diligent person plans. His thoughts are careful, considered and patient, and they lead toward abundance. “But of every one that is hasty only to want.” Haste leads to lack.
Haste in business takes many forms. It is the decision to expand before the first location is profitable. It is the impulse to sign a large contract without reading it. It is the hunger to get rich now, today, without the slow work of building something. Proverbs warns that “he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent” (Proverbs 28:20), and that “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase” (Proverbs 13:11).
Nigeria has seen many schemes that promised to double people’s money in weeks. Some were run by people who sat in church on Sundays. Thousands of believers lost their savings in them. The lesson of Proverbs is simple: when something promises quick wealth without real work or a real product, be very careful. Wealth that comes by labour tends to grow. Wealth that comes by haste tends to vanish.
This is not a word against ambition or growth. The diligent person in Proverbs 21:5 is heading toward plenteousness. God is not opposed to your business growing. But He calls you to grow it with patience, planning and honest work.
Efe’s cousin came to her during her second month in business and urged her to put her profits into a scheme that was “paying thirty percent every month.” She declined, and she was teased for it. Four months later the scheme collapsed and her cousin lost everything he had put in.
Know the state of your flocks
In an agricultural economy, a man’s wealth was his livestock. Proverbs gives him this advice:
Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds. For riches are not for ever: and doth the crown endure to every generation?
“Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.” The good herdsman knows his animals. He counts them. He notices when one is sick or missing. He knows which ones are producing and which are not. He does not leave the flock to look after itself.
Then comes the reason: “For riches are not for ever.” Wealth can slip away. A business that is not watched can drain away through small leaks long before the owner notices.
For a modern business, this means keeping records. Know what you have sold, what you have spent and what you have left. Know which products are profitable and which are not. Know who owes you money. Keep your business money separate from your personal money, even if the business is very small, so that you can see whether it is actually working. Many small businesses in our markets close not because they had no customers but because the owner never knew whether they were making a profit, and the household quietly consumed the capital.
Efe kept a notebook from the first night. She recorded every lantern that went out and every lantern that came back. By the end of the first month, she could see that four had disappeared. That information saved her business. She introduced a small refundable deposit and began registering each trader by stall number, and the losses stopped.
Knowing the state of your flocks also means knowing your obligations. Register your business properly with the Corporate Affairs Commission when the time is right. Understand your tax obligations, and pay them. Where you need help, find a competent accountant or business adviser. Paul told the Romans to render “tribute to whom tribute is due” (Romans 13:7). Honest records and honest taxes belong together.
Sowing in uncertain weather
Every business operates in uncertainty. The Preacher in Ecclesiastes speaks to that directly:
Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be. He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.
“Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” Many understand this as a picture of trade by sea: goods sent out on ships that take a long time to return with profit. Others read it as a call to generosity. Either way, it describes a willingness to send something out and wait patiently for its return.
“Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.” Because the future is uncertain, wisdom spreads its efforts rather than placing everything on one outcome. This is a principle, not a specific instruction about what to do with your money. But it is a wise caution against the kind of decision that leaves a family with nothing if one venture fails.
“He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.” This is a word for those who never begin. Some people wait for perfect conditions: the right economy, the right exchange rate, the right amount of capital. Those conditions never come. If you wait for a completely safe moment, you will never plant anything.
“In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that.” Keep working. Keep trying. You cannot see which effort will bear fruit, but you can keep sowing.
This passage also gives permission to fail. Some ventures do not prosper. Many successful entrepreneurs failed at their first business, and some at their second. Failure is painful, and it should be learned from. But it is not the end of your calling, and it is not proof that God has abandoned you. Efe’s rainy season was hard: with less sun, the lanterns charged poorly, and fewer traders came out in the downpours. She lost money for two months running. She kept going, and in the dry season the business recovered.
The people your business touches
Every business affects people: customers, employees, suppliers, neighbours. A believer in enterprise must pay attention to all of them. The prophet Jeremiah delivered a fierce word to a king who had built a grand palace:
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.
“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.” The king had a beautiful house. But it had been built by workers who were never properly paid. God saw the unpaid labour behind the polished walls.
God’s law was very specific about this. “The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning” (Leviticus 19:13). Day labourers needed to be paid on time, because they lived from day to day. James warns that the wages kept back by fraud cry out, and that “the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth” (James 5:4).
Many small businesses in Nigeria owe their workers. Salaries are delayed for months. Promises are made and broken. A believer in business must treat this as a serious matter before God. Pay your workers what you promised, when you promised it. If you genuinely cannot, tell them honestly and early, and make it right as soon as you are able. Do not use your own household’s needs as an excuse while your workers’ households go hungry.
Treat your customers honestly too. “A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight” (Proverbs 11:1). In a modern business, that means honest weights and measures, honest descriptions, honest pricing and honouring guarantees. And consider your neighbours: the noise, the waste, the effect on the street. A business that creates value for its owner while imposing costs on everyone around it has not fully understood Ephesians 4:28.
When Efe hired two young men from her street to help with distribution and collection, she paid them every Friday. In her worst month of the rainy season, she paid them before she paid herself. “They were trusting me,” she said. “I could not let my bad month become their bad month.”
Success is not a certificate of approval
Finally, a word of balance. God is not opposed to the prosperity of His people. The psalmist could say, “Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant” (Psalm 35:27). Moses reminded Israel that “it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18). You may pray boldly for your business to grow. You may expect God’s blessing on honest work, and thank Him for every increase.
But Moses gave that reminder because he knew how easily prosperity becomes pride. “And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17). The danger is that success becomes a source of self-congratulation, or, just as dangerous, a proof of spiritual standing.
Commercial success is not proof of divine approval. Some businesses prosper by fraud. Some godly entrepreneurs struggle through no fault of their own. The psalmist in Psalm 73 nearly lost his faith because he saw the wicked prospering. So do not measure your walk with God by your turnover, and do not measure anyone else’s that way either. Jesus warned, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15).
The measure of a believer’s enterprise is faithfulness. Did you work at what is good? Did you treat people justly? Did you plan wisely, keep honest records and pay what you owed? Did your business create something that left others better off? Did you have something to give to those in need? A business that does those things honours God whether it grows large or stays small.
Two years after that first evening with twenty lanterns, Efe had a hundred and forty. She had four workers, a small storage room with solar panels on the roof and a waiting list of traders from two other markets who wanted her to come to them. She was still renting, still collecting, still writing everything down in a notebook, though the notebook was now a spreadsheet.
One trader never paid for her lantern. She was a widow who roasted corn at the far end of the road, and her takings were too small to afford even the modest rental. Efe gave her a lantern every evening and collected it every night without charge. “That is what the business is for,” she said when I asked her about it. “So that I have something to give.”
I visited the market one night in the dry season. From the gate, you could see the whole length of the road glowing with clean white light. There was no smoke. The women were not coughing. Under the widow’s table, her daughter was doing her mathematics homework by the light of a solar lantern.
Punchline“She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.” Efe’s candle had become a hundred and forty lanterns, and none of them went out before the market closed.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What needs do you see around you that no one is meeting well? Could any of them become the basis for honest enterprise?
- Ephesians 4:28 describes a movement from taking to creating to giving. Where does your current work fit in that movement?
- If you run a business, how well do you “know the state of thy flocks”? What records or habits would help you see more clearly?
- How are you treating the people your business affects: workers, customers, suppliers, neighbours? Is there anything you need to put right?
- Have you ever been tempted to treat commercial success as proof of God’s approval, either for yourself or for someone else?
This Week
If you run a business or are thinking of starting one, set aside an hour this week to “sit down first, and count the cost,” as Jesus described. Write out three things: the need your business meets and the people it serves; an honest list of costs and income, including the costs you have been forgetting; and every person your business affects, with one question for each: am I treating them justly? Then choose one practical change, such as separating business and personal money, paying a delayed wage, or starting a simple record book, and make it before the week ends.
A Prayer
Father, thank You for giving me work to do in Your world and for every ability You have placed in my hands. Open my eyes to the needs around me, and give me courage to offer something useful. Teach me to work at what is good, to plan with patience, to count the cost before I build, and to know the state of my flocks. Keep me from haste and from schemes that promise wealth without honest labour. Help me to treat every worker, customer and neighbour with justice, and to pay what I owe. If You prosper my work, keep me humble and generous, remembering that it is You who give power to get wealth. And let my enterprise always leave something to give to those in need. 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.