Responding to Our Authorities

Question: If I don’t agree with my boss, who is not a believer, how do I humbly communicate a Christian principle to him if it is contrary to his desires in a particular situation?

Answer: There are two approaches you can take, the Daniel approach (Daniel 1) and the Apostles approach (Acts 4). The Daniel approach would be to seek to understand what the boss is trying to accomplish with the procedure he is asking you to implement and then to offer an alternative (Christian) way of doing it as a test to see if it accomplishes the same or better results. This approach works best when the authority does not have an ax to grind but is about bottom-line results.

The Apostles’ approach (Acts 4) would be to make it clear that you will not violate your own ethics even if it means losing your job. If your employer values you, he or she will have to make a choice about whether he or she values you or the outcome more. This approach assumes that the authority is not only pragmatic but adamant about how to achieve the desired outcome, and perhaps even militantly anti-Christian.