What Does the Bible Say about Work
A Christian/Biblical Perspective on the Significance of Work
Apr 1, 2008
God wants Christians provide for themselves and their families. He gives people what they need to earn a living: authority, strength, skills, and talent. Work is His gift, it’s His way of providing for his people. According to Paul, believers who beg, borrow, or steal dishonor the faith because it appears that God is unable or unwilling to provide for them. God doesn’t call his followers to poverty, but to adequacy.
God the Worker
The Bible opens with God hard at work, creating the world. He creates humans in his likeness and gives them talents because He expects them to co-create with Him. God‘s many careers include: artist, designer, strategic planner, organizer, project developer, engineer, biologist, chemist, assessor, zoologist, linguist, programmer, materials specialist, and waste management technician. And how would He have fared on his yearly evaluation? The Bible tells us that His work was “very good” (Gen 1:31).
What Can Christians Learn from God as Worker?
- Work is inherently good.
- Maintaining and reshaping what God has already created is important. It pleases God. It matters.
- Whether sacred or secular, all legitimate work reflects the activity of God.
- God is honored in His work, and people honor Him by doing the work they've been given.
But what about Adam and Dilbert?
One of the most stubborn myths in western culture is that God put a curse on Adam in order to punish him for his sin and that curse is work. As a result, some people view work as something evil that takes their focus away from spending time with God. Scripture doesn’t support this idea, however.
- God himself is a worker. Since God cannot do evil, work cannot be evil.
- God established work before the fall. In Gen 2:15 God places the first humans in the garden to “tend and keep” it. Obviously work cannot be due to the fall since it existed before the fall.
- Work was not cursed, the ground was. Work would now be difficult and frustrating because of the cursed ground.
- God commanded Noah, Moses and other “good guys” to work. If work were a curse, or evil, God wound not encourage people to do it.
God’s Co-Workers
God made people in His image to help oversee His creation. He wants people to manage the world.(Gen 1:26-30) He gives humankind the authority to cultivate and develop earth, to use it to meet their needs, to expose its natural wonders and to cooperate with its natural laws.
Every Christian, through his job, can help accomplish God's purposes when they use their God-given talents, skills and opportunities. God wants all Christians to bring Him glory by using the gifts He gave them to care for and manage His creation. Every Christian is a partner in God‘s work.
The Spirituality of Everyday Work
In Colossians 3:1-3 Paul says to “…Set your heart on what is in heaven… think about what is up there, not about what is here on earth.” How can believers hold a secular jobs but focus on heavenly, not earthly things? Is it possible to bring spirituality into secular work? The answer is yes, because spirituality is about character, not vocation.
Since Christ is Lord over all of life, then He must be Lord over work, too. All work is done under Him. And Christians should do their work in a manner that honors Him and with a quality that earns His approval. God promises rewards to people in everyday jobs, based on their attitudes and conduct (Eph 6:7-9, Col 3:23-4:1) God cares about the material needs of His children as well as their spiritual needs, and their material needs are met in part by the work of the hands of mankind, so all legitimate work is holy indeed.
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