“The ability to earn a profit thus results in multiplying our resources while helping other people,” says Wayne Grudem. “It is a wonderful ability that God gave us, and it is not evil or morally neutral, but is fundamentally good.”
Some people will object that earning a profit is “exploiting” other people. Why should I charge you $2 for a loaf of bread if it only cost me $1 to produce? One reason is that you are paying not only for my raw materials but also for my work as an “entrepreneur”—my time in baking the bread, my baking skill that I learned at the cost of more of my time, my skill in finding and organizing the materials and equipment to bake bread, and (significantly) for the risks I take in baking 100 loaves of bread each day before any buyers have even entered my shop.
In any society, some people are too cautious by nature to assume the risks involved in starting and running a business, but others are willing to take that risk, and it is right to give them some profit as a reward for taking those risks that benefit the rest of us. It is the hope of such reward that motivates people to start businesses and assume such risks. If profit were not allowed in a society, then people would not take such risks, and we would have few goods available to buy. Allowing profit, therefore, is a good thing that brings benefits to everybody in the society.
