Equal Pay

People seem to be preoccupied with so-called “equal pay” in this country. I seriously wonder why that is. Not because I don’t understand such a simple concept, but rather that I wonder if people really ought to be making such comparisons at all, given that the very concept of a “wage” is subjective, from man’s point of view, and objective from God’s. Let me see if I can explain this to you, from a Biblical perspective.For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing.

And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he *said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ They *said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He *said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard *said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’ When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius.

When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’

But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ So the last shall be first, and the first last.
The premise of this magnificent parable is that it wasn’t until evil thoughts entered the minds of some that malcontent arose. The landowner acted honorably with all, yet the workers suggested a breech of integrity somehow. No such breech existed, for at the time of each negotiation, the workers were satisfied. Relations didn’t degrade until subjectivity reared its ugly head. As is the case in the parable above, a work agreement (a contract) constitutes an agreed upon value for the work in question, even before the job commences. This is standard practice in any business venture between two or more parties. It begins with negotiation.In a simple world, everyone would share the exact same scale of values (e.g., God’s). If this were the case, the so-called “art of negotiation” wouldn’t be a necessary part of contract negotiations. Contracts would be easy to draft and the need for lawyers would dwindle significantly, if not disappear altogether. However, we live in a world where value is fluid, often whimsical even, based on the mindset of the individual assigning it. This means that, in theory, there’s always some degree of disagreement between parties.In business, compromise becomes the bridge between negotiating parties. Most of us have signed lengthy contracts drafted by attorneys seeking to establish the greatest possible value for their clients. If you’ve ever signed a lease agreement or purchased a home, you know what I’m talking about. We pay lawyers to maximize our interests within the legal instruments we sign. When we sign, we are stating that we agree to whatever compromises are described in the contract, which really just explains, often in monetary terms, a balanced equation (in theory, each side has “equal” amounts at the close of the transaction).The very nature of contractual negotiations means that it behooves each party to stress their scale of values upon those on the opposite side of the table. If they don’t, they risk being outmaneuvered and compromising too much, accepting a diminished value of their interests. Since value fundamentally must settle somewhere, it ultimately lands in the pocket of the ones with the greatest ability to negotiate. As it is, the best sales professionals are the ones able to establish the greatest value to their interests, typically resulting in greater profit.The greatest salesman of all time is Satan. Think about it. He was able to get one third of the angels and the first two humans to betray God. What was he selling? Value, of course - only the value in his portfolio was only perceived as great to the temptable nature of those he was negotiating with. He knows there’s no greater value to you than your soul in light of eternity, but he plays that down while pumping up things of temporal value - things that appeal to our lusts. He’s a master at his craft. “By the abundance of your trade you [Satan] were internally filled with violence, and you sinned” (Ezekiel 28:16).Since this isn’t an MBA class, I’ll leave it at this - not every transaction ends up with a balanced equation, from God’s perspective.A person might spend their entire life amassing a so-called “fortune” (even the term “fortune” is subjective). But who says having a lot of money means you’ve garnered a lot of value in your life? Who says that the values you’ve exchanged for all that “wealth” were actually advantageously traded for? Is it possible that you may have made many poor contracts with the god of this world and in fact, while you have a very large bank account, you have diminished value in your life?For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?The greater one’s ability to divorce themselves from the world’s scale of values, the more successful they will be with their negotiations. Whether they are working for wages, purchasing, selling, or trading, the more they fight the good fight for things of true value, the greater their portfolios will be.Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.So, getting back to where we started here, people seem to be preoccupied with so-called “equal pay” in this country. This is a trap that the god of this world uses to lead people away from the true value of knowing and investing in the Lord. While most people are fighting both figurative and literal battles over wages, I’d argue that both parties involved in such disputes are confused, terribly so. Like the workers in the opening parable, their focus is perverted and therefore they lack contentment in life.But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. 

But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 

But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.The Bible tells us to orient our scale of values to the Lord’s, for His are perfectly balanced with eternally weighted things.A just balance and scales belong to the LORD; all the weights of the bag are His concern.I pray that you don’t fall into the whole “equal pay” war being waged by many in this world. Whether you think even the secular argument holds water or not, that isn’t the point the Holy Spirit’s trying to make with you right now. What He’s saying is make sure you don’t find yourself at the negotiating table with an agency of the god of this world, Satan, himself...for chances are, you will forfeit something of much greater value than whatever it is he’s trying to sell you.

Love in Christ,

Ed Collins