The Christian DoctrineOf Work

Dateline: 17 September 2014

In This Recent Broadcast from Generations Radio, Kevin Swanson says that when the Pilgrims came to America there were no jobs. But there was a lot of work to be done. That's something to think about.

There is always work to be done, and the Bible makes it abundantly clear that God's people should be workers. The doctrine of work is clearly expressed throughout scripture.

Some Christians think that work is a curse God put on mankind in Genesis 3. That's where Adam ate the forbidden fruit. In response to Adam's sin, God declared, "By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread."  But a full reading of the passage where this happens does not indicate in any way that having to work is a curse from God...

Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food, until you return to the ground…

Clearly, Adam was not cursed (and all mankind after Adam was not cursed) with work itself. The ground was cursed and, as a result, the work of growing food became hard (painful toil). 

Evidently, when God originally put Adam in the garden "to tend and keep it" (Genesis 2:15), the work of tending and keeping was not toilsome. The soil produced food without weeds. I assume there were also no plant diseases, and bugs were not a problem. Imagine for a moment how wonderful that must have been!

The work of tending and keeping the garden in Genesis 2 existed before Adam's disobedience. In fact, God Himself planted the first garden in Genesis 2:8. God is a worker. We are created in His image. We are to be workers. Work is not a bad thing. Work is good.

The Christian doctrine of work is most clearly expressed in Exodus 20:9, where God says to His people: "Six days shall you labor and do all your work." 

That admonition is part of what is commonly known as the Fourth Commandment. But few people realize it is part of the 4th Commandment (if they even know what the 4th Commandment is).

The 4th Commandment is more commonly expressed as, "Remember The sabbath, to keep it holy." While it is, of course, important to remember the sabbath and keep it holy, it is equally important to work six days. Why is the six days of work part of the Commandment left out? 

The commandment to work six days and observe the sabbath on the seventh was modeled by God Himself when he created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh. 

Here are a couple New Testament Bible verses that speak of the doctrine of work:

For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work in quietness and to earn their own living. (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12)

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12)

You will be hard pressed to find a Christian doctrine of sports, or entertainment, or amusement. And the whole modern concept of retirement is also not found in the Bible. But the doctrine of work is there. Six days of it. 

Six days of work, a day of rest. Six days of work, a day of rest. Six days of work, a day of rest. That's the biblical doctrine of work.

Also, notice that in the verse above, the apostle Paul says that Christians should work with their hands. This implies physical work and creative, productive work. Of course, in that agrarian age (before electricity and the internal combustion engine) most work was physical. And gardening— the fundamental calling of all mankind—is certainly physical. But I'm sure there were some jobs in that day that did not require manual work. Paul advised against such jobs.

Now, I'm sure that there are some people reading this who are thinking that a person can go overboard with work. I mean, too much work isn't good, right? There has to be a balance, right?

Well, working six days out of seven is not balanced. But that's what God says in the 4th Commandment, right?

That said, Christians are certainly not called to be working machines, toiling at physically hard work from sunup to sundown. We obviously have other responsibilities besides working six days of the week. For example, we have responsibilities within our families—to raise our children and teach them. 

But can this be done within the paradigm of work? Sure it can. In fact, that's the way God designed families to operate… with mothers and fathers teaching their children while involving them in the daily routines of work. The work of the home (a home economy) was, after all, the cultural norm in an agrarian culture.

This way of life is, however, not the cultural norm now. These days, for a great many people, work is a job away from their families, doing things that are not creative, not truly productive, not satisfying, and barely physical. Working many hours a day in a sedentary office-job comes to mind. 

Speaking of which, I left my job as NY state employee 19 months ago. Many of my co-workers were confused about me leaving. They wondered aloud why I would want to leave a job that paid so well for doing so little. They questioned my sanity for leaving a job that offered so much security and so many benefits. Hardly anyone leaves a state job until they've put in at least 20 years (so they can get a good pension). "You gotta be crazy to leave this job," one person said to me. And I listened to stories about a couple of crazy people like me who, in years past, left the job early, then later regretted it.

If not following the industrial-world expectations about having a job is crazy, then call me crazy. I now work a whole lot harder than I ever did when I had a job. But I'm home, around my family. I'm feeling healthier than I did when I sat at a desk all day (or paced the floor like a caged animal to try and get my blood circulating). I'm far more satisfied. My garden is right next to my workshop, which is a few steps from the door of my house. It is, for me, a dream come true to live this way. To be able to work and not have a job. It is a blessing that I am so thankful for.

I hope never to retire in the modern sense of the word. I would like to grow to be a weathered and bowed old man, working with my hands, in my garden, at my home business… six days a week, until the day I die. 

I've rambled on enough here. There is much more that I could write about work, but I have work to do. I welcome your comments on this subject.