The Gospel and Work (Part 2)

If we were to poll people as they walk by and ask them why they work we would probably get a wide range of responses.  When we “poll” scripture we are given greater clarity on the reasons that we give 90K (according to studies on time spent by Americans at work in their lifetime) hours of our life in the employment or leadership of a place of vocation.

1.  We work as offering to God
Paul explains our work and work relationships are truly being to God and for God. When I work well I render my service to God. When I obey my boss I am obeying the God who sovereignly placed Him in authority.

An incredibly important point that is often not spoken of is addressed in an essay by Dorothy Sayers called “Why Work”.  In the article she makes this accurate claim: The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly – but what use is all that if in the very center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever, I dare swear, came out of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, could anyone believe that they were made by the same hand that made Heaven and earth. No piety in the worker will compensate for work that is not true to itself; for any work that is untrue to its own technique is a living lie.…[The Church] has lost all sense of the fact that the living and eternal truth is expressed in work only so far as that work is true in itself, to itself, to the standards of its own technique. She has forgotten that the secular vocation is sacred. Forgotten that a building must be good architecture before it can be a good church; that a painting must be well painted before it can be a good sacred picture; that work must be good work before it can call itself God’s work.

How many times have we given the impression that as long as we obey our boss and don’t cause problems with our co-workers our effort will be good enough.  In truth the church ought to be the source for the best work in our communities.  Should we not create the best music, art, businesses, design and innovation because of who our true employer is? Should we not be ashamed to offer half hearted efforts rather than the best we are able to provide from our God given capacity?  Gospel work is a responsive offering to the person and work of our Savior.  That work should not just be adequate, but as excellent as we can produce.

2.  We work for the benefit of others
Sayer’s article correctly defines work as “the gracious expression of creative energy in the service of others”. Consider the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31. She is praise worthy and a blessing to her family because she works, not to create and identity, but from her identity and for the service of her family. The biblical mandate for men equally supports this truth, calling men to work hard and provide for their family. Scripture says a man who does not follow this command is worse than an unbeliever. (1Tim 5:8)  Work is a communal effort for the benefit of the community.  When work is made an individual pursuit we can trust that inequality and injustice will shortly follow.

3.  We work for work’s sake
There are some who place work under Adam’s fall, believing the very act to be a distasteful but unavoidable reality. Scripture simply does not support this perspective. God commissioned Adam to work in the garden and have dominion over it prior to the fall. The curse effected the productivity of his work, but name his responsibility to work. The Bible is clear that work is a gift from God (Ecc 5:18-19) that is to be enjoyed and producing a rest that can only be had on the other side of a full day of labour. (Ecc 5:12)

We do not work to meet a religious standard or gain acceptance from God. Instead we work hard and well, offering our best to God for the benefit of others so we can bring glory to Him for the strength He gives and the true rest He provides.