James 4:13-17
Come those who say “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit.” (I don’t know about you, but that sounds exactly like my BAM Plan) whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
Taking one verse and holding it high while neglecting the context in the whole story of God is often unwise, but this verse in particular seems to single-out the BAM Planner directly. The statement, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit,” could be the first line in any business plan. Albeit, it’d be best to choose a city for your business, it’s hard to research the market of “such and such.”
So what do we do? Are we simply to add the phrase “If the Lord wills…” to the beginning of our business plans? I don’t really know. Perhaps if I better understood the historical context or the greek root I’d gain some new heady understanding, but for now I’m kind of stuck.
I’m willing to wager, however, that the author is getting at an issue of the heart. What is our context for doing BAM? Is it to boast about how successful a businessman we are; and a Christian businessman at that? Are we creating our own “pyramid of Christ” with BAMers sitting pretty at the top?
As BAMers, we need to be conscience of our pride. A helping of humble-pie can go a long way in the life of a Christ follower. After all, whatever it is we think we know, we really don’t know much. And it is well within the realm of possibility that we will be chatting with Christ one day and find that BAM was one of the silliest ideas we ever had.That the savviest missions minded practitioner was the little old lady down the street who woke each day and made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for the neighborhood children and that this indeed was the best missions model.
