Deuteronomy 25 | Wayfarer

Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light.Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small.You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Deuteronomy 25:13-15 (NIV)

I have mentioned over this past year that I’m working on writing a book. The project is now in the home stretch. We’re designing a cover and in the final editing stage. I’m excited for the launch which should be in the next 4-6 weeks.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me about the book. It’s entitled This Call May Be Monitored (What Eavesdropping on Corporate America Taught Me About Business and Life). The book is not only about the lessons I’ve learned while listening to and assessing over 100,000 business phone calls. It is also my personal story—my early belief that my life’s calling was pastoral ministry, and how God led me down an unexpected path. Along the journey, I discovered something surprising: my faith informed my business—and my business, in turn, refined my faith.

With the content of my book spinning ceaselessly in my head, today’s chapter certainly dovetailed. God through Moses doesn’t flirt with abstractions when it comes to the justice of every day life and business. It rolls up its sleeves, plants its feet in the dust, and whispers,

“Justice is not an idea. It’s how you treat the body in front of you…every one….every day.”

Deuteronomy 25 is a collection of case laws—not lofty theology, but law with calluses. Each vignette is small, but together they form a human braid of justice, dignity, memory, and restraint.

Fair punishment: Justice must be measured, not excessive. Even the guilty remain human.
The ox and the grain: Don’t muzzle the ox while it treads the grain—labor deserves sustenance.
Levirate marriage: A dead man’s name matters—to his children, the community, and to God. Family continuity is an act of mercy.
Honest weights and measures: Cheating corrodes the soul of a community.
Amalek remembered: Never forget cruelty that preys on the weak.

Today’s chapter pulses with a single heartbeat: God cares deeply about how power touches flesh.

That heartbeat was channeled into the foundation of my business when our founders, a married couple, established it back in 1987. Though the name of the business has changed, the mission statement they etched as a cornerstone of who we are as a company remains:

Intelligentics designs and implements customer-centered systems to measure and enhance customer experience. By applying the principles of God’s Word to our lives and work we become examples of servant leadership and integrity, bring measurable value to our clients, and profitably build our lives.

Doing right by clients, team members, and community is at the heart of our mission. It is merely an extension of what God established through Moses thousands of years ago in today’s chapter. It has pulsed at the core of my career with every customer survey, every analyzed phone call, and every client coaching session.

Every interaction between a business and their customer is human. Every interaction between me and my client is human. When business dehumanizes customers, clients, or its own team members in order to profit or gain power, God is offended. It’s a spiritual issue. God wants His people to lead with love-charged integrity both at home and in the marketplace. It’s foundational to building community that thrives.

It’s time for me to start the daily transition from sitting at the table in the quiet with God to sitting at the desk to serve our clients. Guess what?

It’s the same table, and the two are inexorably intertwined.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.
Deuteronomy 25:4 (NRSV)

The mission statement of my company contains the phrase, “…by applying the principles of God’s word to our lives and work….” When Mr. Wenger began the company there were certain decisions he consciously made in structuring the way we did business to adhere to specific biblical principles. For example, while incorporated like any other company he chose to call us a “group” not a “company” because he wanted each member to know that, like the body of Christ, we are all in this together and what each one of us does affects the others.

One of the other principles by which our group does business is tied to a verse from today’s chapter. “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” In the days of Moses grain was usually milled by placing it between two huge, round millstones. In the featured photo of this post you can see me pushing an ancient olive press in Nazareth which operated in a similar fashion. In milling grain, an ox was yoked to the stones and walked around and around and around in circles, turning the millstone which milled the grain. The floor of the mill would be covered with grain and farmers found that the ox would naturally bend down and eat grain off the floor as it worked. Farmers began to muzzle the ox so it could not eat the grain as it worked. The law of Moses said that the ox should be allowed to eat grain freely and benefit directly from the work it was doing for the farmer.

So it is with our group that no member, from the owners down to the newest contract employee is paid a salary in which we get paid a lump sum no matter how much or how little work we do each month. Rather, each member is paid directly from the specific tasks we do on each job for each client. We’re not going to muzzle anyone. The more a member wants to work and the more work we have to do, the more opportunity we have to increase our income. If we choose not to work as much, or we don’t have as much work to do, then our income is going to drop accordingly.

Today, I’m thinking about the fact that many of these laws of Moses which were written thousands of years ago for an ancient culture far different than ours still have relevance today. In fact, many of our own modern laws still trace back, in principle, to the laws Moses chiseled out in ancient times.