13 “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning.
1 Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.
4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
Among the aspects of labour given attention to in the Bible, nothing is any more prominent than the aspect of thoroughgoing honesty in our work. This can be seen in three dimensions.
First, honesty in rendering an amount and a quality of work commensurate with one’s wage. To use the language of Titus 2:1–15: we are not then to pilfer; we are not to steal in little amounts—petty theft. How do men steal on the job? They steal small quantities of time by being late for work; by leaving early; by taking extended and unnecessary breaks; by withholding effort and skill and care required to produce a good or a service; by pilfering materials from the workplace, believing somehow that the employer is not going to miss them. There is to be honesty in rendering an amount and quality of work commensurate with one’s wage.
Secondly, there is to be honesty in rendering a just wage for the labour of the employee. That is the teaching of such text as Leviticus 19:13; Colossians 4:1; James 5:4, and the often repeated phrase in Scripture: the labourer is worthy of his wages. There is to be honesty on the part of the employer in rendering a just wage for the services and labours of his employees.
Thirdly, there is, concerning this thoroughgoing honesty, to be honesty in the sale of goods and services. All of the language referred to in the Scriptures concerning scales, balances, measures, and just weights. In the language of Jerry White, in his book Honesty, Morality and Conscience, on the principal issue that is in those texts.
George McDearmonThe principal issue is to give the full amount in exchange for a fair payment. Also, it is to give full quality for what is paid for and according to what is advertised. Honesty extends to quality as well as amount.God calls us to scrupulous honesty in the exercise of transactions of buying and selling.1
10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.