*** w82 7/15 p. 26 Benefiting From Your God-given Conscience ***
[Box on page 26]
Employment Factors to Consider
When a Christian must make a decision about a certain employment, he should give thought first to what he would actually be doing. He might consider these two points:
Is the particular work condemned in the Bible?
The Bible condemns things such as stealing, idolatry and the misuse of blood, so a Christian could hardly engage in work where he directly promoted such things.
Would doing the work so closely link a person with a condemned practice that he would be a clear accomplice?
Even a janitor or a receptionist at a blood bank or a plant making only weapons of war is directly linked with work contrary to God’s Word.—Leviticus 17:13, 14; Isaiah 2:2-4.
Beyond what a person would actually be doing, some additional factors may have a bearing on the overall picture:
Is the work a human service that is not Biblically wrong?
A postman performs the service of delivering mail to homes and businesses. Would a Christian be condemned if among the places where he delivers mail are a few homes of thieves or a firm selling idols?—Matthew 5:45.
To what extent does one have authority over what is done?
A Christian owning a store would not stock and sell idols or blood sausage. He is not in the same situation as an employee at a supermarket that sells cigarettes or blood pudding among thousands of other items.
To what degree is the person involved?
An employee working as a cashier and only occasionally handling cigarettes might conclude that his situation is not the same as another employee who stocks these on the shelves almost all day.
What is the source of the pay or the location where it is done?
In a land where the government gives a church oversight of all social programs, a man might get his paycheck from a religious corporation. But actually his work of maintaining public parks is not on church property. Nor is it religious in nature or viewed as promoting false worship.
What is the overall effect of doing certain work?
Would doing the work stumble many, bringing on ‘reprehensibility’? (1 Timothy 3:2, 10) How would it affect the worker’s conscience?
*** w64 11/15 pp. 682-683 Employment and Your Conscience ***
Christians in the medical profession are individually responsible for employment decisions. They must bear the consequences of decisions made, in keeping with the principle at Galatians 6:5. Some doctors who are Jehovah’s witnesses have administered blood transfusions to persons of the world upon request. However, they do not do so in the case of one of Jehovah’s dedicated witnesses. In harmony with Deuteronomy 14:21, the administering of blood upon request to worldly persons is left to the Christian doctor’s own conscience. This is similar to the situation facing a Christian butcher or grocer who must decide whether he can conscientiously sell blood sausage to a worldly person.
