Let my people...work?

In our small church I (among other responsibilities) lead a class for the broad category "young adults." Though most of our gatherings have been devoted to covering the biblical basis for major points of the Christian faith ("doctrines" for you initiates) and a survey of the Old Testament (two of our weaker points in most evangelical churches), I took a deviation this last Sunday. We looked at what the Bible says about work.

Why do we work? If our best answer is "to provide for ourselves and our families," we have a strong motivator. Proverbs 16 calls this wisdom: "A worker's appetite works for him;his mouth urges him on." (ESV) What if you are "set for life" or retired? What if you have someone else who supplies all you need? If you have no need for gainful employment does that mean you have no need or responsibility to work? Is work a curse from which the wealthy and dependents can and should escape?

No. Genesis 1 and 2 describe work as part of God's perfect design for mankind in his responsibility to God. God's command in Genesis 1 to "be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over..." creation was not an endorsement of exploiting creation! It was a command to fill the earth with families and larger networks of relationships necessary to cultivate order and beneficial structure. With all that is involved in God's design (like the norms of heterosexual marriage and parenting) the normativity of work is certainly a part. Valuable work according to God's design need not be remunerative; in fact, raising children is clearly one of the most important and most demanding tasks the Bible assigns us (something Laura and I do free of charge).

Since work was part of God's design for mankind before sin, and since our (i.e., only those who "belong to Christ at his coming") eternal home will be in the New Creation (an embodied existence without the curse of sin and death), I fully expect we will work as we worship King Jesus. So, I think work is part of our design.

But then there are some interesting practical directives about work in Paul's letters. In 1 Timothy 5, while giving instructions for how churches should care for widows, Paul clearly commands that children and grandchildren care for widowed elderly relatives. Not to do so is tantamount to denying the Christian faith. Paul even seems to suggest that next of kin should always feel responsibility for elderly widows.

This has practical implications for people my age. Grandparents and parents, maybe even aunts and uncles, need to be among our reasons for working for pay. Or maybe the way to please God will be to be the primary care provider or just a roommate for an elderly relative. We need to be ready to "make a return."

One last thing about work, especially for pay: "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need." (Eph. 4:28 ESV) Theft is the opposite of how Christians should handle possessions, but most of us aren't "into" theft. Still, we work mostly for ourselves (sort of in the middle of this command) when we should work hard so that we might have something to share with anyone in need. Imagine the force of generosity that would be released on this world if Christians in the US worked hard, saved aggressively - not to raise our standard of living - but to give toward all sorts of worthy causes (most supremely, in my mind, Christian missions)!

There is more to be said about work as Christians, but there is also much to be said about rest and caring for one's body, so I'm off to bed.