‘…Your Caller is on hold...’
"Vocation is responsibility and responsibility is a total response of the whole person to the whole of reality…The calling of Jesus Christ to belong wholly to him; it is the laying claim to me by Christ at the place at which this call has found me; it embraces work with things and relations with persons…"
-Dietrich Boenhoffer as quoted by Richard Broholm.
Last time we covered three really eye opening points, which I hope didn’t take you by surprise! It takes a while to open up to new ideas, especially if you’ve grown up with different ones. I believe that the main purpose of ‘theology’ is to set people free from difficult questions, to encourage us in our faith (no matter where we’re at!) and to ultimately draw us closer to God! And that’s my hope for this blog and all of the articles I write that you will be set free, encouraged and drawn closer to God.
I take it that most of you reading this blog, are working already, or intend pursue a career of some sort. Even I intend to do something I love someday. There are a lot of ‘feelings’ out there about work and they’re mainly sad ones! There are even negative ideas within the church! Lots of people quote; Genesis 3:17, "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat…" And from this verse many people conclude that this is when work originated, because of sin! I disagree. Didn’t God work during creation week? He worked for six days and then rested on the seventh. And didn’t God place Adam in the Garden of Eden to "work it and take care of it"? Yes he did, Genesis 2:15 tells us that, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."
You see in the bible ‘work’ isn’t such a bad word, in fact when the bible refers to work we see that it is part of life. So how would we as disciples of Jesus Christ approach work in the 21st Century? Let’s see:
God’s creation purpose and intention.
This includes the creation mandate. What was God’s intention for human beings when he created the earth? How do we carry this out today?
Some people might see the task of sustaining the world as part of the creation mandate. Put plainly, taking care of the world! While this ‘green theology’ might normally be seen as a hit with liberal theologians, there is no need to exclude it from an evangelical theology. Look at it this way, if we believe that what God created was and that he gave it to us for our continuing use, then (I believe) it’s fair to say that abuse and neglect are hardly appropriate response, wouldn’t you say?
God’s provision and gifting.
There are a number of passages which speak of the way God the Father has given to us a very diverse range of gifts to carry out our work and that He loves creativity in the way we do our work. The provision of gifted craftsmen in the desert to make the Tabernacle (Exodus 31) is one example. And God’s creativity points in the same direction!
Reflections on the nature, conduct and value of work.
There are many comments on how people perceive work (Ecclesiastes has some very pessimistic reflections!). In the New Testament Jesus uses a number of work parables (e.g. talents, rich merchant, labourers in the vineyard, wicked vinedressers). He meets people in their workplace and some He calls from it (Matthew, the four fishermen) and he also transforms the workplace behaviour of Zaccheus.
Paul uses his work skills to help support his ministry alongside Priscilla and Acquilla in tentmaking (Acts 18:1-4), he also comments on our attitudes towards work for example in Colossians 3:23, 2 Thess. 3:7-12 and some other places. He also restores a runaway worker to his master (boss) in Philemon.
Despite all this we need to develop a theology not just from a list of references to work but from our perception of the entire drift of scripture. One helpful way to do this is to take each of the major divisions of traditional theology and ask, "How does this inform and light up our attempt to draft a sound theology of work?"
Well, I guess we’ll have to find out next time! As I said in the last article this is a pretty big subject, so it might take a while! Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think about the article. I always wonder whether people read what I write, and if they do, do they agree or disagree? I don’t know maybe you could tell me? And that’s just another confession of a Jesus Freak…
Till next time,
-AndyC
