Ethics

On November 12, 2024, future Hall of Famer Tom Brady joined Harvard Business School professor Nitin Nohria at a Fortune Magazine symposium to discuss principles of success from his football career that translate to the business world.

Brady emphasized the importance of setting a high standard for work ethic and teamwork. He shared, “I would get in the weight room at 6:30 in the morning. Guys would walk in at 6:45, thinking they were early since the first meeting was at 8:00. I’d joke, ‘Good afternoon!’ The next day, they’d show up at 6:30, but I’d be there at 6:15. By the end, we had a culture where everyone came early and stayed late. We weren’t just punching the clock; we were pushing each other to succeed.”

Brady also highlighted the collective nature of achievement, both in sports and business. “When you succeed, there’s enough credit to go around for everybody. The greatest joy, even as a seven-time Super Bowl champ, is knowing I have thousands of friends and teammates I gave everything for. We played in all conditions, lost and celebrated together. The joy of life was sharing those moments with others.”

He reflected on the deep bonds formed through teamwork: “I didn’t have a brother growing up, but now I feel like I have thousands-from all over the country, all backgrounds. We loved each other and what we were trying to accomplish.”

Brady concluded by encouraging business leaders to find colleagues they love working with and to push each other beyond comfort zones. “It’s okay to feel uncomfortable. That’s how we grow. Unless we stress ourselves-our minds and bodies-we don’t grow.”

You can watch the video here (time stamp 18:38-20:17)

An article in The Wall Street Journal had an interesting title: “The Little Sins We Commit at Work—and the Bosses Who Are Cracking Down.” Here’s how the article started:

Ever used the office printer for your kid’s homework assignment or scrolled Facebook Marketplace during an all-hands Zoom meeting? Fair warning: Your employer may be paying close attention.

Big companies on the hunt for efficiency are deploying perk police to bust employees for seemingly minor infractions that, by the letter of company law, can result in termination. “We have had lots of requests for new controls,” says Katie MacKillop, U.S. director of Payhawk, which administers company credit-card accounts and watches for misuse.

Clients are asking Payhawk to restrict when and where company cards work. For example, a company can limit a lunch allowance to be available only on weekdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and be usable at Chipotle but not at Kroger. In partnership with Visa and Mastercard, Payhawk is developing a feature that sends real-time spending alerts to corporate finance teams and allows them to instantly block suspicious transactions by employees.

MacKillop’s firm doesn’t track what happens to employees who violate company policies, but she says there is little doubt employers are taking codes of conduct more seriously.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Of course, in the Bible, there is no such thing as “little sins.” Every sin is a transgression against the holiness of God.

Does this sound familiar? You’ve read rave online reviews about a restaurant or hotel and made a reservation. Then you show up and wonder if you’re even in the same place the reviewers visited. That’s when you know: They were fake reviews.

Phony reviews make up a big percentage of the total out there—anywhere from 16% to 40%, according to some estimates. Some fakes are raves by employees, artificial-intelligence software, or people hired to wax poetic about the place. Others are negative write-ups by disgruntled ex-employees or competitors.

The problem is so widespread that the Federal Trade Commission just created a new rule that will seek civil penalties for violators who pay for fake reviews or testimonials. Meanwhile, review platforms and online travel agencies are stepping up their efforts to weed out fake reviews before they ever show up online.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The article in The Wall Street Journal continued by listing six ways to check the validity of online reviews to distinguish a fake review from a true review (such as, “look for a picture,” or “avoid extremes,” and “check the timing of the review”). But how about us? How do we tell the difference between truth and falsehood, good doctrine from bad doctrine?

One of the most potentially lucrative new technologies is the advent of generative artificial intelligence programs. The race to perfect AI has prompted companies large and small to invest huge sums of time and money to corner the market on this emerging technology.

One important issue is the lack of a regulatory framework to enforce the intellectual property rights of companies and creative people. Their work is used to train the AIs, which need millions of examples of creative work to properly learn how to replicate similar works.

Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI are investigating whether data output from OpenAI’s technology was obtained in an unauthorized manner by a group linked to Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek. They believe that this is a sign that DeepSeek operatives might be stealing a large amount of proprietary data and using it for their own purposes

Ironically, OpenAI itself has been sued by individuals and entities, including The New York Times, alleging "massive copyright infringement" for using copyrighted materials to train its AI models without permission or compensation. So, it looks supremely hypocritical to complain about DeepSeek stealing their proprietary data, when most of OpenAI’s proprietary data was made by stealing the data of others. In the race to perfect AI, it seems there is no honor among thieves.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is a classic case of “the pot calling the kettle black,” and a blatant display of “he who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones.” It is the very nature of a Pharisee to condemn the very flaws they themselves embody, oblivious to the transparent vulnerability of their own character.

The U.S. Center for SafeSport fired an investigator, Jason Krasley, after discovering he had been previously arrested for stealing money confiscated after a drug bust during his previous job as a police officer. Krasley had been hired by the Denver-based SafeSport center to investigate sex abuse and harassment cases after leaving the police department in 2021.

One of Krasley's cases involved Sean McDowell, a recreational rugby player who reported stalking and harassment from another player. McDowell stated that after initial contact, Krasley stopped responding, and McDowell was later informed of Krasley's termination. When McDowell discovered news reports of Krasley's arrest for theft and receiving stolen property, to say he was shocked would be an understatement.

“I’m still struggling to wrap my mind around it,” said McDowell. “It just seems so off from what their stated mission is.”

The firing and arrest of Jason Krasley has exposed vulnerabilities in the U.S. Center for SafeSport's hiring process, undermining trust in its mission to protect athletes from abuse. Despite claims of robust background checks, Krasley was hired despite past misconduct. The CEO of SafeSport has acknowledged the need for improvement, including audits of Krasley's cases. However, victims like Sean McDowell remain frustrated by delays, highlighting the center's urgent need to restore credibility and ensure its investigators meet high ethical standards.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Those entrusted with leadership roles must be carefully vetted in order to serve with integrity, as failing to do so may lead to potential abuses of the authority entrusted to them.

Twenty years ago, at the moment of its IPO announcement, the most powerful company in the world declared that “Don’t be evil” would be the orchestrating principle of its executive strategy. How did Google intend not to be evil? By doing “good things” for the world, its IPO document explained, “even if we forgo some short-term gains.”

Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO at the time, had some private doubts: as he would later explain in an interview to NPR, “There’s no book about evil except maybe, you know, the Bible or something.” But Schmidt came to believe that the absence of an authoritative definition was in fact a virtue, since any employee could exercise a veto over any decision that was felt not to involve “doing good things.” It took 10 years for the company’s executives to realize that the motto was a recipe for total, corporate paralysis, and quietly retired it.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible offers a more nuanced and comprehensive approach to business ethics than Google's original motto, providing guidance on positive actions rather than just avoiding a vague negative motto (Micah 6:8).

When Sarah Darling dropped some change into a homeless man's cup, she didn't notice anything amiss. But she quickly realized that her diamond engagement ring was missing. Turns out, panhandler Billy Ray Harris noticed it in his cup right away, and held onto it. When Sarah came back the next day, he had it waiting for her.

As a reward for his honesty, Sarah gave him all the cash she had on her, and then set up a site for receiving donations from strangers wanting to help reward Harris' honesty. The site has received an overwhelming response. Along with the money, Harris is getting legal and financial counsel to help him use it well.

And that’s not all: After he made a TV appearance about the incident, his family members, who had not been able to find him for 16 years and had heard rumors that he was dead, were able to track him down. They were happily reunited, and Harris is now working on his relationship with them.

Harris said, “When I think of the past, I think, thank God it’s over. I mean, I feel human now.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sometimes, honesty pays off, but sometimes our honesty may only be for our "Father who sees in secret." (Matt. 6:1-4)

Certain words that many companies use in their annual reports—words like ethical, integrity and responsibility—are meant to convey trustworthiness. But research suggests that companies that use such words in annual filings known are often hiding their untrustworthiness.

The study found that use of “trust” words in annual statements was linked with a decreased interest in the stock of the company in question. Basing their findings on 21 words that seek to evoke a sense of trustworthiness, the authors also found that companies whose annual filings included the words tended to pay about $100,000 more in auditing fees than firms without the words.

Companies using trust words were also about 15% more likely to receive a comment letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission asking them to clarify information on their annual report than companies that didn’t use trust words.

One of the researchers wrote, “Companies likely use trust words to project a positive image and better manage information within the annual report, but it seems that no one is really fooled.”

Jana Monroe had a distinguished 22-year career in the FBI, including in the FBI Behavioral Science Unit. She knows in depth the disturbing depths of human depravity that FBI agents must cope with. In her book, "Hearts of Darkness,” Monroe covers a variety of topics and issues, including her dismay over the often-light sentences given to guilty lawyers, judges, and cops.

For a brief period of her time, Monroe was placed in charge of the FBI’s Financial Institution Fraud department in San Diego. They had received reliable information that there was blatant public corruption in the local courts. After two years, the tireless work of FBI agents and federal prosecutors resulted in the indictments of two local Superior Court judges and a prominent local attorney.

However, Monroe was deeply disappointed by the lenient punishments. One judge and the lawyer received 41 months in prison, and the second judge received 33 months. Monroe writes:

When those sentences were handed down, I immediately thought of all the people doing hard time in serious prisons for being stupid enough or otherwise desperate enough to rob at gunpoint a convenience store where a good haul might be a hundred bucks.

No matter how the money gets stolen - at the point of a gun or by cooking the books - there are repercussions that the law is too ready to ignore when the crook works in a paneled corner office and belongs to all the right clubs.

I strongly believe in ethics. Those to whom law enforcement and justice have been entrusted - police officers, FBI agents, district attorneys, especially judges - are obligated (serve) with integrity and honesty. When they don't, they deserve no better treatment than a guy who tries to knock over a 7-Eleven.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Monroe is right. Lawyers, judges, and law enforcement officers represent government, law and order, righteousness, and indirectly God (Rom. 13:1-7), and must therefore be held to high standards when they blatantly disobey laws and are guilty of crimes.

In September 2024, a Portland, Oregon advocacy group for safe and sustainable transportation rescinded its endorsement of mayoral candidate Carmen Rubio. This was after troubling reports of Rubio’s driving habits came to light. Daily newspaper The Oregonian reported that Rubio damaged a parked Tesla and left the scene without leaving a note.

This seemingly minor incident was of great public interest since it followed previous reports of Rubio accumulating 150 parking and driving tickets over the course of her advocacy career. Rubio also had at least one instance of failing to appear in court, had her car towed due to unpaid fines and fees, and had her license suspended six times.

Initially, The Street Trust advocacy group expressed disappointment but chose to stand by Rubio, citing her commitment to safer streets. However, the incident involving the damaged Tesla prompted the group to withdraw its support. The Street Trust stated that Rubio's actions contradicted their values and that they could not hold candidates accountable if they didn't act when those values were compromised. The group emphasized its commitment to supporting candidates who align with its mission of creating safer streets and promoting sustainable transportation.

While many of Rubio's prominent supporters, including Oregon governor Tina Kotek, did not withdraw their endorsements, Rubio was eventually defeated by another candidate.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Leaders must be held accountable not only for their values, but their actions. Those who serve the public must abide by the same laws that they enforce on others.

After a two-week battle with a sudden fast-spreading infection, Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, passed away. Dean had recently given a deposition alleging that his firing in 2023 was in retaliation for having disclosed what he called “serious and gross misconduct by senior quality management of the 737 production line.”

The Boeing 737 MAX has a troubled safety record, with high-profile crashes in 2018 and 2019 killing hundreds, and an Alaska Airlines flight in early 2024 that had to make an emergency landing after an explosive decompression due to an insufficiently secured door plug.

According to The Seattle Times, Dean was 45 years old, in relatively good health, and known for a healthy lifestyle. In February, he spoke to NPR about Spirit’s troubling safety practices.

"Now, I'm not saying they don't want you to go out there and inspect a job … but if you make too much trouble, you will get the Josh treatment,” Dean said, about his previous firing. “I think they were sending out a message to anybody else. If you are too loud, we will silence you.”

Dean’s death comes two months after another Boeing whistleblower, John Barnett, was found dead of a potentially self-inflicted gunshot wound. Barnett was also in the process of testifying against Boeing about potential safety lapses in the manufacturing of the Boeing 787, and claims that he was similarly retaliated against for his whistleblowing. Barnett was 63 at the time of his death, and known for a vocal criticism of what he perceived to be Boeing’s declining production standards.

Dean’s attorney Brian Knowles, whose firm also represented Barnett, refused to speculate on whether the two deaths are linked, but insisted that people like Dean and Barnett are important.

Knowles said, “Whistleblowers are needed. They bring to light wrongdoing and corruption in the interests of society. It takes a lot of courage to stand up. It’s a difficult set of circumstances. Our thoughts now are with John’s family and Josh’s family.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sometimes telling the truth can be costly. But this should never inhibit us from standing for the truth.

For years, Wendy’s has been known to be astute in its use of social media to bolster its brand. But recently the company was caught flat-footed, and had to quickly backpedal to defuse a potentially catastrophic public relations scandal.

It started with a corporate earnings call to investors. Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said, “Beginning as early as 2025, we will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing.” Dynamic pricing is a practice wherein the cost of something fluctuates depending on external factors that affect the product’s demand, like the time of day, day of the week, or the popularity of the product.

In response to this earnings call, journalists likened it to the concept of surge pricing in rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft, where rides cost more or less depending on how many cars are on the road.

In response to this news, people on social began bashing Wendy’s, because of what they perceived to be another example of corporate greed. One user on X said, “Imagine standing in line and watching the price of a Frostee increase by $2 as soon as you get to the register.”

The company was forced to respond. Whether or not their response was a reversal of plans or simply a clarification of intent, the company released a statement saying that it had no plans for surge pricing. A spokesperson for Wendy’s said, “We said these menu boards would give us more flexibility to change the display of featured items. We have no plans to … raise prices when our customers are visiting us most.”

Analyst Jennifer Dublino understands the outrage, pointing to unfair practices by corporate behemoths like Ticketmaster that result in customers revolting in droves. She said, “If customers are confused or feel taken advantage of by fluctuating prices, they may opt to purchase from a competitor with fixed pricing.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Those who pursue profits at the expense of everything else often face harsh consequences.

In an issue of CT magazine, author Jordan Monge shares her journey from atheism to faith in Christ. She writes:

I don’t know when I first became a skeptic. It must have been around age 4, when my mother found me arguing with another child at a birthday party: “But how do you know what the Bible says is true?” By age 11, my atheism was widely known in my middle school and my Christian friends in high school avoided talking to me about religion because they anticipated that I would tear down their poorly constructed arguments. And I did.

Jordan arrived at Harvard in 2008 where she met another student, Joseph Porter, who wrote an essay for Harvard’s Christian journal defending God’s existence. Jordan critiqued the article and began a series of arguments with him. She had never met a Christian who could respond to her most basic questions, such as, “How does one understand the Bible’s contradictions?”

Joseph didn’t take the easy way out by replying “It takes faith.” Instead, he prodded Jordan on how inconsistent she was as an atheist who nonetheless believed in right and wrong as objective, universal categories.

Finding herself defenseless, Jordan took a seminar on metaphysics. By God’s providence her atheist professor assigned a paper by C. S. Lewis that resolved the Euthyphro dilemma, declaring, “God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God.”

A Catholic friend gave her J. Budziszewski’s book Ask Me Anything, which included the Christian teaching that “love is a commitment of the will to the true good of the other person.” The Cross no longer seemed a grotesque symbol of divine sadism, but a remarkable act of love.

At the same time, Jordan had begun to read through the Bible and was confronted by her sin. She writes:

I was painfully arrogant, prone to fits of rage, unforgiving, unwaveringly selfish, and I had passed sexual boundaries that I’d promised I wouldn’t …. Yet I could do nothing to right these wrongs. The Cross looked like the answer to an incurable need. When I read the Crucifixion scene in the Book of John for the first time, I wept.

So, she plunged headlong into devouring books from many perspectives, but nothing compared to the rich tradition of Christian intellect. As she read the works of Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, and Lewis, she knew that the only reasonable course of action was to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If I wanted to continue forward in this investigation, I couldn’t let it be just an intellectual journey. Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). I could know the truth only if I pursued obedience first.” I then committed my life to Christ by being baptized on Easter Sunday, 2009.

God revealed himself through Scripture, prayer, friendships, and the Christian tradition whenever I pursued him faithfully. I cannot say for certain where the journey ends, but I have committed to follow the way of Christ wherever it may lead. When confronted with the overwhelming body of evidence I encountered, when facing down the living God, it was the only rational course of action.

Editor’s Note: Jordan Monge is a writer, philosopher, and tutor. She is also a regular contributor to the magazine Fare Forward and for Christianity Today.

Ride sharing apps (like Uber and Lyft) ratings have become almost meaningless. A recent report says, “Confusion over what constitutes 5-star behavior for certain services, combined with the guilt of potentially hurting someone’s livelihood, has people defaulting to perfect scores. Ratings padding is particularly rampant for services involving personal interactions. Everyone is ‘above average’ on some apps—way, way above.”

A customer named Mike Johnson has endured some awkward Uber rides. He once held his nose throughout a trip because the driver was carrying chopped-up Durian—the world’s smelliest fruit. Another time, he was stuck in the back seat while a driver bickered with her boyfriend. Yet another driver tried to sell him a Ponzi scheme. He rated each one five out of five stars.

Johnson explained: “They all seemed like nice people. I didn’t want them to be kicked off the app over my bad rating,” the 33-year-old New Yorker said. “Isn’t 5 stars, like, the norm?”

Ratings are so inflated that Lyft drivers whose scores dip below 4.8 out of 5 stars are asked to boost their performance. Drivers under 4.6 risk getting deactivated.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) God is not afraid to tell us the truth about our sin. 2) Christians should resist this rating inflation and be willing to speak the truth in love to one another.

Calls for a federal investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) are mounting after the latest discovery into the unjust death and burial of Dexter Wade of Jackson, Mississippi. Both attorney Ben Crump, representing the Wade family, as well as civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton, have publicly called for an investigation into Wade’s death.

In March, Wade’s mother Bettersten Wade called police for help, anxious about the whereabouts of her son, who’d gone missing. After repeatedly asking for updates, Bettersten was eventually notified in August--more than six months later. She was told that Dexter had been killed by a police cruiser while attempting to cross the highway. By the time Bettersten was notified of Dexter’s death, he’d already been buried anonymously in a plot of land owned by the county.

Initially, Bettersten says local officials explained the time gap by saying that Dexter had been found with no identifying information. After his body was exhumed, however, an independent pathologist confirmed in an autopsy that Dexter had been carrying a wallet that included the local address that he shared with his mother. These findings suggest that authorities knew where Dexter lived. Yet they made no attempt to contact her about her son, despite the fact that she’d already filed a missing person report.

Their attorney said, “The fact that Dexter had a state identification card and several other identifying items shows us that there was a concerted effort to keep the truth and manner of his death from his family. There is no excuse, not even incompetence, for not notifying a next of kin of an identified man’s death.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Though it's important to differentiate between accidental death and murder, every human is made in the image of God, and therefore loss of life is inherently sacred and should not be minimized or concealed.

Should consumers who worry about the origins of their clothing, coffee, and chocolate focus on a more spiritual item: the Bible? Chances are good that your favorite Bible was printed in China. The over-whelming majority of Bibles sold are printed there, said Mark Bertrand of Bible Design Blog. He said: “A lot of people have misgivings about that. Some of it is, ‘Oh, our Bibles are printed in Communist China.’ Others are concerned about the economic situation, about what conditions these Bibles were produced under.”

The Chinese government’s restriction of Bible distribution is also troubling, said ChinaAid’s Bob Fu. “When brothers and sisters are being persecuted and arrested for their beliefs based on the same Bible, what does it mean to purchase an exported copy that says Made in China?”

China’s only legal printer of Bibles, Amity Printing Company, published its first Bible in cooperation with the United Bible Societies in 1987. Since then, more than half of the 100 million Bibles printed every year have been printed in China (50 million in 2019), making China the world’s biggest Bible publisher.

Printing Bibles is more difficult than printing other types of books, and requires a certain amount of expertise. That’s because of the specialized printing requirements for a complex book such as the Bible. Bibles require thin paper that cannot be fed into standard printing equipment, leather covers, stitched binding, color pages and special inserts such as maps. Most printers outside China do not have the range of facilities to manufacture the same Bibles.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Maybe Westerners seeing “Made in China” on their Bibles, can be a reminder to pray for those who made these Bibles. 2) God can use any instrument he chooses to spread his Word, even unbelieving, communist China (Isa. 55:11).

Washington Post columnist Ty Burr believes the current American political climate is characterized by a sense of crass rule-breaking and flagrant boorishness. Such repugnant behavior was once regarded as an unfortunate side effect of political polarization. Now it is not only well within the mainstream but considered necessary to rally one’s political base. And Burr traces the genesis of this degeneration not to a particular political scandal, but to the release of a movie.

Burr wrote in a recent Post editorial: “Notions of entertainment and personal behavior were turned on their heads. Where audiences had once valued class, they now reveled in the joyously crass.”

Burr is, of course, referring to Animal House, the 1978 collegiate comedy depicting a fictional frat house. Starring John Belushi, Donald Sutherland and a host of other famous names, it elevated the previously unknown National Lampoon magazine into a hitmaking brand for film comedies.

Burr says he saw a preview screening of the film at Dartmouth College, where screenwriter Chris Miller was in attendance. Miller was a Dartmouth alum, and had based his film on the real-life antics of his fraternity, Alpha Delta. Burr writes:

That night, you could feel the collective mood swing like a compass needle toward a new north. The movie fed into and articulated a growing frustration with an overbearing political correctness, the fear that you couldn’t say what you wanted to without stepping on someone’s toes. Which, of course, made a lot of people want to step on someone’s — anyone’s — toes.

Burr says after the film’s end, he quickly saw its prevailing attitude reflected in the raucous student response to it:

Still burned onto my retinas is the image of screenwriter Miller being carried down Fraternity Row on the shoulders of a mob of cheering students, their faces flushed with happiness. What were they celebrating? Nothing less than the permission to indulge their privileges without guilt or responsibility.

Possible Preaching Angle:

All of us are influenced by the media that we consume and the truth--or lack thereof--within it. Let us be discerning in both our consumption and our production, of the messages we receive, counter, and amplify, so that God's character is revealed through our conduct.

Why are patterns of behavior so powerful for good or bad? As Todd Rose has written in his new book, “our brains are lazy.”

On a neurological level, our reliance on norms is tied to the fact that our brains are energy hogs. Neuroscience has shown that 95 percent of our cognitive activities are unconscious, and these whirring hard drives in our skulls—roughly the size of your fists put together—consume about 20 percent of our physical energy. If you work on a tough cognitive task such as learning a foreign language or playing a musical instrument, you’re using about one hundred more calories per hour than you would watching television (unfortunately not enough to replace going to the gym). But most of your brain’s efforts go toward just keeping your body functioning normally.

Because our brains require so much fuel, norms play a critical role. Like beasts of burden, they help to carry much of our cognitive load so that we can use the executive and decision-making parts of our brains to take care of more immediate business. By providing a basic level of predictability, norms are like trusty autopilots, sparing us additional work that would otherwise cause our neurological hard drives to overheat.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As Christians we are instructed to follow the example of the Lord Jesus and his teaching and avoid the behavioral patterns of the world. With the help of the Holy Spirit, our minds can be trained to follow the norms of Christlikeness, rather than our former way of thinking in the world.

Claiming that courts need to adapt to new modes of communication, a judge in Saskatchewan ruled in favor of a grain buyer suing a farmer for backing out of a business deal.

According to court documents, grain buyer Kent Mickleborough sent a mass text message to a variety of potential vendors expressing a willingness to purchase a certain tonnage of flax at a set price. Chris Achter, a local grain farmer, responded in the affirmative. Mickleborough says he spoke to Achter over the phone, then texted a photo of a contract, asking in a text to “please confirm flax contract.”

Achter responded to that text with a thumbs-up emoji. He ended up not delivering the flax by the agreed-upon date, however, because the market price of the flax had increased and he was looking for a better deal. In the lawsuit, Mickleborough claimed that the thumbs-up emoji indicated a willingness to adopt the terms of the contract; Achter, however, disputes that claim, saying that he intended only to confirm receipt of the document, not a commitment to sign it.

Justice Timothy Keene wrote in his ruling,

This court readily acknowledges that a (thumbs-up) emoji is a non-traditional means to “sign” a document. But nevertheless, under these circumstances this was a valid way to convey the two purposes of a signature … This appears to be the new reality in Canadian society. Courts will have to be ready to meet the new challenges that may arise from the use of emojis and the like.

Possible Preaching Angle:

God desires honesty in all business transactions and financial commitments. Operating with integrity means honoring business commitments.