At a conference of over five thousand business people, the question was asked, “If you went home tonight and found that a long lost relative had died and left you ten million dollars, would you be at work, tomorrow?” From all over the arena came a resounding, “No!” That should not surprise us considering that a recent Gallup found that 77% of Americans hate their jobs. (Cited from How Then Should We Work). The dominant view in our culture seems to be, “I work to live—as a necessity to get the money I need—which contrasts sharply with the biblical view, which is closer to “I live to work.” Here are three component parts to the biblical view of “secular work.”
1) Our fundamental creation calling is to image a God who WORKS & CREATES.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen.1:27-28).
The first chapter of Genesis reveals that God engaged in activity that is called both creating (vs 1, 27) and working (Gen. 2:2). So, what is the God like whom we are to image? He is a worker. He takes pleasure in working. Since we are made for the purpose of imaging God, we are designed to work, to find satisfaction from working. Work is not a curse, but a blessing; it satisfies something God designed into us. What is the nature of that work? Creating. God subdued, shaped the matter of this world into a design of earth, with three dominions, sky, water, and land, with three rulers of those dominions, the birds, fish, animals. Because we are made to be his images, he put potential into the earth to be developed and shaped by our creativity—whether it is an I Phone 10, a Saturn rocket to take us to the moon, the Olympic games, the Mona Lisa or Rap music. All of this CREATIVE WORK—this exercising of dominion over the natural worldd--was to be done by Adam and Eve in submission to the High King, God, himself. This part of Adam and Eve’s calling remains in effect to this day. For example, consider the world of business:
God’s people can, as agents of His redemptive plan, transform business, stripping it of selfish ambition and pursuing instead what is best for their neighbors. Through business, God’s people can harness mankind’s creativity, and with it nurture His creation, developing products that make the world more satisfying. Through the economic power of commerce, Christians can make the world safer and healthier. The members of Christ’s Church, distributed in offices around the world, can transform greed into good stewardship, showing the world that business has a biblical responsibility to create new wealth and provide a fair return to investors (Matt. 25:14-28). But, with an eye towards the consummation of Christ’s kingdom, we also create wealth in order to create new and satisfying jobs, which offer the hope (and perhaps a glimpse) of a coming world in which there is no poverty.” (Richard Doster, By Faith Magazine.)
2) We were perfectly designed by God to do specific good works.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).
Your “secular” job is not arbitrary, accidental, or unimportant. You were designed for it. To think that a secular job is less important than vocational Christian ministry reflects a heretical sacred/sacred dichotomy of life into the spiritual and physical. This philosophy is rooted in Gnosticism, which views the material world (God’s creation) as less important than the spiritual world. But the physical world matters enormously to God. The physical world will be redeemed by Jesus—there will be a new heaven, a new earth, and new physical bodies. Our vocational good works matter eternally.
3) We glorify God by doing our secular work well.
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ (Col. 3:23-24).
The Lord Christ, the Second Adam, has taken back from Satan, Sin, and Death, the kingdom of Adam. Jesus is restoring the new humanity (us) to our original role as images of God, ruling our kingdom FOR him. The Lord Christ is redeeming VOCATION—calling us to work—to develop the potential of creation FOR the HIGH KING. As Abraham Kuyper has said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not say, ‘Mine.’” So, our vocational work matters.
A generation ago, Christian writer Dorothy Sayers saw the church’s failure to teach the biblical doctrine of work. She asked:
How can anyone remain interested in a religion that seems to have no concern for nine tenths of his life. The church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. (Creed or Chaos).
