By Todd Paetznick, March 21, 2024

In business terms, value is what something is worth, and worth is what someone is willing to pay to get that thing. This is an important concept to understand when buying or selling a car, a house, or really anything where a negotiation can take place. There can exist a gap between what someone else is willing to pay and what the seller thinks that thing is worth. For example, a person may offer to sell their house for $500,000, but the best offer anyone makes to buy the house is $475,000.  So what is the house worth?  It’s worth $475,000.  A $25,0000 gap exists between the asking and offer price.  

Competition also exists and complicates the value equation. The effect competition has on a thing’s value needs to be considered when estimating value. Think of competition as an alternative with its own price and value.  Using our previous example, if there is another house for sale for $500,000, but it has one more bathroom and one more bedroom, then perhaps our initial offering price was too high.  The competitive difference is referred to as differentiated value.  

Differentiated value makes one offering stand apart; they are different in some way, and that difference has a measurable value.  Understanding the concept is crucial for professional sellers, marketers, business executives, and others.  When a price for something is set, there must be consideration for alternatives with fewer or more components, each with an associated value.  However, it must also be noted that only some additional components or features have the same value or importance for everyone.  Because people have different needs, what is essential for one person may not be necessary for another.  Differentiated Value, then, is the perceived worth of competing alternatives.  

Going back to our example of selling a house, a couple whose children are grown and have left home may value a well-furnished kitchen more than extra bedrooms. In comparison, a young family needs space for their children; they may forego the chef’s kitchen for extra bedrooms. Neither is wrong; they are just different. The perceived importance of one option over the other sets the value.  

Differentiated Value in Our Faith

For the followers of Christ, there can be confusion over why everyone does not immediately understand the value of eternal salvation and why they do not choose to become Christ-followers when they hear the gospel message for the first time.  The concept of differentiated value can help us understand what may happen in people’s heads.  

1.  Short-term tangible rewards can be more alluring than greater, but long-term and largely invisible.  In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were tempted to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to become like God (Genesis 3:5).  The short-term reward of knowledge of good and evil was perceived to be more valuable than their long-term relationship with God, which they could not imagine would ever change.  Like Adam and Eve, people often lack the imagination to see the possibility that the world will ever be different from what they have always known.  (For a good business book that addresses this kind of blindness in people, read “The Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Talib).

2.  People have no experience with an unseen spiritual realm.  However, even knowledge of the existence of an unseen realm is not enough for some people.  On one occasion, Jesus encountered a demon-possessed man and cast the demons into a herd of pigs (Luke 8:26-39).  The pigs ran over a steep bank and were drowned in the lake.  Rather than immediately following Jesus because of his power over the evil spirits, the people drove Jesus out of town.  Why? Fear was the reason listed by Luke (8:37).   But fear of what?  The power of God?  Or was it a fear that Jesus’ works would further damage their livelihoods?  Short-term worry often trumps long-term hope.  

Rather than ignoring the reasons people reject Christ, we should acknowledge their doubts and help them believe.  Even Jesus’ disciple, Thomas, was famous for doubting.  He needed to see the risen Jesus and touch the wounds on His resurrected body.  “So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he [Thomas] said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:25).  Thomas believed when he saw the risen Jesus for himself.  

We are in the season when we celebrate Jesus’ defeat of death. He was the first and only person to die and be resurrected, never to die again. Jesus’ story is different from any competitive worldview. We can start here in our conversations with people who know the story but still don’t believe.