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Episode 1: Theology of Work
I am glad to be with you to share on the subject: Bloom Where You Are Planted. This is focused on those who are in the workplace.
You may be an employee or employer in the workplace. But workplace also extends to those that are church-related and those who work as home-makers. Afterall, work can be defined simply as mental or physical activity to achieve a purpose or result.
There are two broad purposes of work. Work is necessary -
Work provides for the basic physical sustenance of life. It can directly produce food or remuneration to pay for necessities. It is our moral duty to provide for loved ones if we have the capacity to do so. The apostle Paul instructed Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:8:
If anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Work is certainly a necessity to sustain life for both yourself and those who depend on you.
Another purpose of work is:
These include what Maslow described as the higher levels of the hierarchy of needs. Beyond providing for our physical needs, it is also to provide for emotional and social needs, as well as for self-actualization.
For instance:
- A social worker may derive satisfaction from alleviating the pain and agony of others.
- A nurse may derive motivation and delight in seeing a patient well cared for.
- A teacher may derive great pride in seeing students develop strong moral values and character.
- A businessman may take pride in providing jobs and therefore a livelihood for his employees.
Therefore, work is more than just for necessities. It enables you to derive a better quality of life. It enables you to find fulfilment beyond merely life’s sustenance. This is observed by the author of Ecclesiastes in Ecclesiastes 5:18 -
Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labour under the sun during the few days of life God has given him — for this is his lot.
Certainly, work brings dignity and self-worth, as well as other intrinsic benefits.
It is also important to note that God ordained work because He is at work. The theology of God also involves the theology of God at work. This is my next point I want to cover ie.
God at Work
Work can be traced right from the beginning of creation. It is not an understatement to describe the theology of creation as a theology of work. This is because creation begins with God at work. As such:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). He brought the material world into being but did not end there. He continues to uphold his creation. This was described by the apostle Paul in Colossians 1:16-17 -
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
In this sense, God continues to sustain His work in creation. He is not some “cosmic do-nothing deity” who stopped working after creation. Theologian David Jensen notes:
God does not sit enthroned in heaven removed from work, willing things into existence by divine fiat. Unlike the gods of the Greco-Roman mythologies, who absolve themselves of work — dining on nectar and ambrosia in heavenly rest and contemplation — the biblical God works.
When God created mankind, he ordained work for two purposes:
The first was for mankind to have dominion over all that He had created. The intention for mankind to have dominion over the earth was clearly stated at the start of creation. Genesis 1:26 states -
Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
While God created the world and saw that it was good, we are responsible to maintain and rule over it! The intention is for us to manage God’s creation for the benefit of all. This implies that mankind is accountable for the well-being of the earth. It requires work in managing and controlling the earth. This is indeed a great honour given to mankind, as the Psalmist declares in Psalm 8:6-9 -
You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
When God commanded Adam to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it”, this command was the “creation mandate” for mankind.
And then there is also a need to work on what has been created. The first task he gave to mankind was to tend the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2:8,15 states -
And the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed…. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
It is interesting to note that in the garden of Eden, we see the first partnership at work: God sets up the garden and he got the first man and woman to cultivate it.
Consequently, God invites us to be involved in his creative work by taking the raw materials of the world and developing them. In so doing, God is involving us to mediate in his active care in the world.
The two words used in Genesis 2:5 for Adam’s “work” are abad (work) and shamar (take care). These words are also used to mean “service to God” and “keeping of his commandments” respectively. This implies we should make no distinction between sacred and secular work.
God ordained work for a second purpose ie. to produce crops for food. Again, this was clearly stated in the beginning. It is stated in Genesis 1:29 -
Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
Therefore, we were not created or purposed to be couch potatoes. He calls us to be co-workers, and that calling does not stop at some official retirement age.
God does not need to rest. But when he rested from work, he was making provision for us, as his partners, to know our limits. This is Sabbath rest for our benefit.
Sabbath was made for mankind and not mankind for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). It ensures that our life is not defined only by work, nor are we in complete control of our life through work. Walter Brueggemann puts it this way:
Sabbath provides a visible testimony that God is at the center of life — that human production and consumption take place in a world ordered, blessed, and restrained by the God of all creation.
This need for rest and rhythm applies very much to our work wherever we are. Our bodies and other aspects of our well-being need it. Certainly, rest replenishes not just the body but the soul as well. God rested not for himself but for us indeed!
Next I want to address the result of the fall on work.
The Result of the Fall on Work
The fall of Adam and Eve as a result of disobedience and sin against God was catastrophic.
We all experience the impact of this fall. It results in a broken and troubled world filled with physical decay, death, suffering, injustice and natural disasters. Hostility or anger towards God, unthinkable before the fall, began to manifest. The fall now has a description.
Another result of the fall is self-preservation and deception. Adam blamed God and his partner for his own failing: “The woman you put here with me … she gave me … and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). We see how the fall warps every aspect of our being and our relationships with God and others.
While death did not befall Adam and Eve immediately after they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, something did begin to die in them. They experienced gradual spiritual death evidenced by the increasing alienation from their identity with God as his treasured creation. This has a contagious effect. We can trace this through Genesis:
Cain committed the first murder. By the time of Noah, the world was hopelessly corrupt and immoral. The flood did some spring-cleaning, but mankind soon returned to its sinful base nature. Sodom and Gomorrah were just “repeats” of what happened after the flood. Since then, there is “nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9b). If anything, the world has gotten worse!
I hope by now, you have a clearer perspective on the theology of work or the value of work.
In the next episode, I will be sharing with you the consequences of the Fall on our work. What has changed and what remains about work? This is what I want you to know in the next episode. Till then, have a blessed week ahead.
Study Questions
1. Based on the theology of work, why did God “rested” after six days of creation?
2. What are the benefits of work?
3. How does the Maslow Hierarchy of work apply to the value of work?