So often, in America, we define who we are by what we do. We introduce ourselves by our job titles. We ask, “What do you do?” to be polite in small talk. We define others by their occupation.
But there are good reasons to connect what you do with your time, whether that is 9-to-5 work, or managing a household full of children. God created us to work, not as judgment, but in cooperation with a mandate given to humanity long before the fall. Your work isn’t who you are, but it is central to why you are here. When we get that confused, our work can be the most frustrating aspect of our lives.
So, what now?
Editors Russell Moore and Andrew T. Walker of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) assemble leading voices to frame the issue with a gospel-centered perspective. The Gospel for Life series gives every believer a biblically-saturated understanding of the most urgent issues facing our culture today, because the gospel is for all of life.
So often, in America, we define who we are by what we do. We introduce ourselves by our job titles. We ask, “What do you do?” to be polite in small talk. We define others by their occupation.
But there are good reasons to connect what you do with your time, whether that is 9-to-5 work, or managing a household full of children. God created us to work, not as judgment, but in cooperation with a mandate given to humanity long before the fall. Your work isn’t who you are, but it is central to why you are here. When we get that confused, our work can be the most frustrating aspect of our lives.
So, what now?
Editors Russell Moore and Andrew T. Walker of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) assemble leading voices to frame the issue with a gospel-centered perspective. The Gospel for Life series gives every believer a biblically-saturated understanding of the most urgent issues facing our culture today, because the gospel is for all of life.
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Overview
So often, in America, we define who we are by what we do. We introduce ourselves by our job titles. We ask, “What do you do?” to be polite in small talk. We define others by their occupation.
But there are good reasons to connect what you do with your time, whether that is 9-to-5 work, or managing a household full of children. God created us to work, not as judgment, but in cooperation with a mandate given to humanity long before the fall. Your work isn’t who you are, but it is central to why you are here. When we get that confused, our work can be the most frustrating aspect of our lives.
So, what now?
Editors Russell Moore and Andrew T. Walker of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) assemble leading voices to frame the issue with a gospel-centered perspective. The Gospel for Life series gives every believer a biblically-saturated understanding of the most urgent issues facing our culture today, because the gospel is for all of life.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781433646584 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | B&H Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2017 |
| Series: | Gospel For Life |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 144 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 3 Months to 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Gospel & Work
The Gospel for Life Series
By Russell D. Moore, Andrew T. Walker
B&H Publishing Group
Copyright © 2017 Ethics and Religious Liberty CommissionAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4336-4658-4
CHAPTER 1
What Are We For?
Bethany L. Jenkins
THE THING THAT THE LORD CARES MOST ABOUT IN OUR LIVES isn't who we marry or how many kids we have. It's not where we will live or what job we will take.
But it isn't that the Lord doesn't care about the details of our lives; He does (Matt. 6:25–34). It's just that the thing that He cares most about isn't our circumstances — it's our affections. He wants us to grow in our love for Him and others (Gal. 5:22–23). These other things — spouse, kids, home, and work — are good, but they are not ultimate.
Any conversation about faith and work, therefore, must begin here — with work in its proper place. Following Jesus out of darkness and into light, out of death and into life, is our ultimate calling. If we answer it, then we win at life (Col. 1:13; 1 Pet. 2:9; John 5:24; 1 John 3:14). If we don't, then we lose — no matter how successful we might be in our work.
The Gospel Changes Everything
Once we have answered the call to follow Jesus, though, we must understand how this reality manifests itself in every aspect of our lives. For the gospel changes everything, including our work.
But what is the gospel?
The most popular presentation of the gospel in evangelical churches centers on Christ's life, death, and resurrection. It begins with our most fundamental reality — that we are sinners separated from God — and then offers the Good News that God, in His great love and mercy, is willing to forgive us through Jesus.
But this presentation of the gospel is incomplete. Amy Sherman explains:
The glorious truths celebrated in this too-narrow gospel do not, in themselves, capture the full, grand, amazing scope of Jesus' redemptive work. For Jesus came preaching not just the gospel of personal justification but the gospel of the kingdom. ... It is not just about our reconciliation to a holy God — though that is the beautiful center of it. It is also about our reconciliation with one another and with the creation itself.
Similarly, in its "Theological Vision of Ministry," The Gospel Coalition states,
The good news of the Bible is not only individual forgiveness but the renewal of the whole creation. God put humanity in the garden to cultivate the material world for his own glory and for the flourishing of nature and the human community. The Spirit of God not only converts individuals (e.g., John 16:8) but also renews and cultivates the face of the earth (e.g., Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:30).
If we want to understand how the gospel changes everything, including our work, then we must grasp its comprehensive significance. To do that, let's look at the Bible's narrative arc — creation, fall, redemption, and restoration — to discover the proper place of our work in light of God's larger work of redemption.
Creation
The first thing we need to know about work is that it is not a result of the Fall. Work is good. God made us to work. Part of what it means to be made in His image includes working and cultivating His creation (Exod. 35:31; Prov. 22:29):
"Let us make man according to our image, after our likeness. ..." And God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth." (Gen. 1:26, 28)
He gave us dominion — that is, creative stewardship — over His creation. It is creative because we use the raw materials of His creation to build new things, and it is stewardship because, although God has given us authority to cultivate the world, He retains ownership of it. In this way, we are "sub-creators," as J. R. R. Tolkien puts it, working under God's sovereignty and delight as a form of worship.
In Genesis 2, we see this kind of creative stewardship when God brings the animals before Adam to name them:
The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. (v. 19)
Here, Adam is not sovereign over creation; God is. Yet God gives Adam authority to name His creation. Today, in the same way, we work as creative stewards when, for example, scientists name newly discovered elements on the periodic table or farmers till the ground to produce wheat for bread. They do not create ex nihilo — that is, out of nothing — like God does, but they steward His creation to bring forth good things.
The Fall
As a result of the Fall, though, our work is now marred with sin so that it is filled with "thorns and thistles" (Gen. 3:18). First, our relationship to work itself is distorted. Instead of seeing work as worship, we see it as a means of self-fulfillment and self-actualization, a way to "make a name for ourselves" (Gen. 11:4). Our willingness and ability to work for God's glory is tainted with pride, selfishness, and all kinds of sinful brokenness. We think of ourselves as entitled owners, not creative stewards.
Our working relationships with others are affected, too. Instead of serving one another in joy, we compete with one another in jealousy. We envy the success of others, thinking we deserve the promotions they receive. We tell white lies to our managers when telling the truth is risky. Like Adam, who said, "Don't blame me; blame the woman," and Eve, who said, "Don't blame me; blame the serpent," we shift culpability away from ourselves, taking credit when sales are up and listing excuses when they're down (Gen. 3:12–13, author's paraphrase).
Redemption
In Christ, though, God has begun His work of redemption in the world and in our hearts. He redeems our relationship with work because He becomes the center of our affections. When our identity is in Christ, not work, then success does not go to our heads, and failure does not go to our hearts. As Tim Keller says, "Faith gives us 'an inner ballast' without which work could destroy us."
Christ redeems our relationships with others, too. When He subdued His enemies and died the death that we deserved, saying, "Don't blame them; blame Me," He unfurled His resurrection power to "restore all the ruins of the fall." And this Good News becomes increasingly precious to us. We no longer need to envy the success of others because we can trust that God gives us all that we need (Ps. 84:11; Rom. 8:32). We can seek integrity and honesty — in big and small decisions — because we do not fear the opinion of others (Matt. 10:28; Ps. 20:7). By His Spirit we now have the power to turn work from a means of personal advancement to a vocational calling that is driven by selflessness, service, and love.
Restoration
And our present work ultimately points to our future destiny, the time when all things will be restored (Acts 3:21). At that time, though, we will not enter a garden, as in the original creation, but a city. Andy Crouch explains why this matters:
Revelation 21:1 is the last thing a careful reader of Genesis 1–11 would expect: in the remade world, the center of God's creative delight is not a garden but a city. And a city is, almost by definition, a place where culture reaches critical mass — a place where culture eclipses the natural world as the most important feature we must make something of.
In other words, the main difference between creation and restoration is an abundance of culture — that is, human innovation and work applied to the raw materials of God's creation. It is apple pies, not just apples. It is structured companies, not just people sitting around tables. It is language, not just guttural sounds and grunts.
Anticipating this future reality shapes how we work today because it gives us hope that our work will one day be fulfilled. As Tim Keller observes, "If you're a city planner, there is a New Jerusalem. If you're a lawyer, there will be a time of perfect righteousness and justice."
Yet our work in the here and now is only approximate — that is, a close but not exact — reality. When we work to glorify God and love others, we are sub-creators with Him, anticipating the restoration, but we recognize that the ultimate restoration of all things awaits the personal and bodily return of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:13).
Our Vocational Assignments
The more we understand how the gospel redeems our work, the more we understand that our talents and gifts are not ours to keep, but to give away. They are not meant to be used for our own selfish gain, but for the glory of God and the good of others.
Paul says that God gives us "spiritual gifts" to do ministry and build up the church (1 Cor. 12). In accordance with these gifts, he says, each of us has a different role or assignment within the church:
A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good: to one is given a message of wisdom through the Spirit, to another, a message of knowledge by the same Spirit, to another, faith by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit. ... One and the same Spirit is active in all these, distributing to each person as he wills. (1 Cor. 12:7–9, 11)
Elsewhere, however, Paul does not limit the application of our gifts to church work only. In 1 Corinthians 7:17, he writes, "Let each one lead his life in the situation the Lord has assigned when God called him." Here, Tim Keller notes, Paul uses words like "calling" and "assignment," which he normally uses in the context of church work, to refer to work outside the church:
Paul is not referring in this case to church ministries, but to common social and economic tasks —"secular jobs," we might say — and naming them God's callings and assignments. The implication is clear: Just as God equips Christians for building up the Body of Christ, so he also equips all people with talents and gifts for various kinds of work, for the purpose of building up the human community.
Our work is a vocational assignment, then, if God calls us to do it and if we do it for the sake of others, not ourselves. This is why some people refer to their work as their "vocation," implying that they don't just feel a strong sense of suitability for it, but that they sense that the Lord has assigned it to them.
This idea of vocational assignment, however, should not be over-spiritualized. As we have seen, our primary calling is to know Christ. Our vocational assignments are merely outgrowths of that calling, which means that knowing Christ is the everyday pursuit that fuels how we exercise our gifts and talents. When pastor Kevin DeYoung, for example, was at a career crossroads, his prayers focused less on his circumstances and more on his heart:
I prayed a lot about the decision. But I didn't ask God to tell me what to do. So what did I pray for? I prayed that God would make me honest in my interviews. I prayed that I would see a true picture of this church and that they would see a true picture of me. I prayed mostly that my heart would be right, that I wouldn't be motivated by pride — either to stay because it was a big church or to move because I could be the senior pastor. ... I prayed that I would make a decision based on faith, hope, and love — and not the praise of man and greed and selfish ambition.
This means that, when we are seeking our vocational assignment, we don't need to search anxiously for "Job Charming," as my friend Dave Evans calls the mythical "perfect" job. Instead, we can find a sense of purpose in every kind of work. As Paul writes, "Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people" (Col. 3:23, emphasis added).
The Church Scattered and Gathered
Although we have each been given unique gifts and talents, we exercise them in unison together. The Bible says that we are "being built together for God's dwelling in the Spirit" (Eph. 2:22; cf. 1 Pet. 2:5). Yet we do this in two different ways — as the church gathered and as the church scattered. When we come together for corporate worship, we are "the church gathered." When we go out into the world to love and serve our neighbors through our work in various places, we are "the church scattered."
As the church scattered, we work in our vocations and fulfill the Great Commission. As Jesus told His disciples, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation" (Mark 16:15; cf. Matt. 28:19). Our workplaces are part of "the world," and "the whole creation" is everything from agriculture to business to government to art and more.
The public ministry of the church — from corporate worship to any other activity in which the church as an institution engages — is, therefore, distinct from individual Christians living out their everyday lives in the world. At the same time, though, individual Christians — though geographically separated — remain one body, working together to glorify God and contribute to the flourishing of their neighbors in their communities.
Pastors, then, should see their role not only as preaching the Word and administering the sacraments, but also as equipping the saints for service to the world during their workweeks. For the marketplace of the world, not the church, argues Abraham Kuyper, is "the race track where we wage the contest for the wreath." In a lecture to seminary students, he says,
On behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christians are engaged in a battle with the world. The gathered church is the heavenly, anticipatory eschatological army tent of the Lord and you pastors-in-training are going to be field medics, strengthening the troops, treating their wounds after battle, feeding them with God's Word and sending them back out to take every thought captive for Christ.
We don't have to choose, therefore, between advancing the local church as an institution and supporting the individual Christians within that local church. It is a both-and, not an either-or. Pastors can promote both "the primacy of word and sacrament and the ultimacy of evangelism and discipleship in the ministry of their church and the need for Christian worldview thinking, vocation, cultural engagement, and more broadly, the societal and cosmic implications of the gospel."
The Masks of God
When we are the church scattered, we are "the masks of God" — that is, His agents of His providential love. Luther notes that God could have chosen to give us every good thing by merely speaking a word or waving His hand, as He did in the garden or in the desert. Instead, He chooses to use His image-bearers to create and provide the things we need because He wants us to be bound together in interdependent love, relationships, and communities.
For example, the psalmist praises God, saying, "He endows your territory with prosperity; he satisfies you with the finest wheat" (Ps. 147:14). But how does God do these things in practice? Luther writes:
God could easily give you grain and fruit without your plowing and planting. But he does not want to do so. ... What else is all our work to God — whether in the fields, in the garden, in the city, in the house, in war, or in government — but just such a child's performance, by which he wants to give his gifts in the field, at home, and everywhere else? These are the masks of God, behind which he wants to remain concealed and do all things. ...
Make the bars and gates, and let him fasten them. Labor, and let him give the fruits. Govern, and let him give his blessing. Fight, and let him give the victory. Preach, and let him win hearts. Take a husband or a wife, and let him produce the children. Eat and drink, and let him nourish and strengthen you. And so on. In all our doings, he is to work through us, and he alone shall have the glory from it.
Elsewhere, when Luther teaches on the Lord's Prayer, he says that when we pray for "daily bread," we're praying for everything that must happen for us to have and enjoy it. He explains:
You must open and expand your thinking, so that it reaches not only as far as the flour bin and baking oven but also out over the broad fields, the farmlands, and the entire country that produces, processes, and conveys to us our daily bread and all kinds of nourishment.
Amy Sherman offers helpful categories through which many of us can view our work as masks of God. In her list of God's labors, she shows how we participate in His work:
• Redemptive work is God's "saving and reconciling actions." People who do this work include pastors, writers, counselors, songwriters, and more.
• Creative work is God's "fashioning of the physical and human world." People who do this work include painters, seamstresses, carpenters, urban planners, and more.
• Providential work is God's "provision for and sustaining of humans and the creation." People who do this work include government workers, farmers, repairmen, bankers, and more.
• Justice work is God's "maintenance of justice." People who do this work include judges, paralegals, city managers, police officers, and more.
• Compassionate work is God's "involvement in comforting, healing, guiding, and shepherding." People who do this work are doctors, psychologists, nonprofit directors, welfare agents, and more.
• Revelatory work is God's "work to enlighten with truth." People who do this work are preachers, scientists, scholars, journalists, and more.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Gospel & Work by Russell D. Moore, Andrew T. Walker. Copyright © 2017 Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Excerpted by permission of B&H Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Series Preface,Introduction,
Chapter 1: What Are We For? (Bethany L. Jenkins),
Chapter 2: What Does the Gospel Say? (Bruce Ashford and Benjamin T. Quinn),
Chapter 3: How Should the Christian Live? (Greg Forster),
Chapter 4: How Should the Church Engage? (Tom Nelson),
Chapter 5: What Does the Culture Say? (Daniel Darling),
Additional Reading,
Acknowledgments,
About the ERLC,
About the Contributors,
Notes,