Because You Probably Won’t Be Fed By Ravens…

There is one verse of scripture that I wish had been deeply ingrained in me before we moved to our present community nearly 35 years ago. The verse is Proverbs 24:27

Do your planning and prepare your fields
before building your house. NLT

Don’t build your house and establish a home until your fields are ready, and you are sure that you can earn a living. GNT

The Voice Bible extrapolates another aspect of this principle:

Complete your work outside, and get your fields ready for next season; after that’s done, build your house.

We made our move “on faith” with some of the building blocks in place for a plan of what we were going to do, but not all the foundation clearly laid.

Over the past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to interact with people who are in their junior or senior year of college. The first question is always, “What are you studying?” or “What is your major?” The second question is always, “What are you planning for after graduation?” The results are often similar:

Where they want to live	Mostly certain
Who they want to marry	Somewhat certain
What they plan to work at	Mostly uncertain

Mostly without exception there is great hope and faith that the job is going to simply appear. That’s just not always the case.

A few years ago, I was in a discussion with someone about the differences between the Protestant (Exodus 20) Ten Commandments and the version taught in the Roman Catholic Catechism which drops the second (statuary; graven images) and splits the last (coveting) into to separate entities.

The point was made that you can make an argument for fourteen commandments. Certainly one of the extra ones that they are counting, in verse 9, is what the KJV renders as:

Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work

Granted, many translations render this as ‘you have six days to work’ but it’s easy to see it as what God considers the normative lifestyle if not a direct commandment.

The point is that the Bible writers teach a philosophy of work, a work ethic for the follower of God. Colossians 3:23-25 teaches us that all work needs to be seen as work as unto the Lord.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Another translation says to “work heartily” (ESV).

Ephesians 6:7-8 reiterates this:

Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.

A verse in 2 Thessalonians (3:10) is more hardline however:

If a man will not work, he shall not eat.

Sociologist Max Weber wrote the book pictured at right in 1904 which looked at two different approaches to work, especially highlighting the Puritan or Calvinist ethic. Wikipedia notes the nuances of this:

It is common for those in a Protestant work culture to skip lunch (traditionally being sustained from a large breakfast) or to eat lunch while doing their job. This is in contrast to Catholic cultures which practice siesta at lunch time, and neo-Confucianist cultures such as China, Korea and Japan which have a one- or two-hour lunch break.

Without debating the philosophy of lunch breaks, it’s clear that for Weber, the work ethic foundation to a capitalist society was based in an interpretation of scripture.

…Well, we’ve digressed a long way from where we started. My point today is that we remember that before we can build our houses (both figuratively or even literally) we have to know where our next dollar (or pound, or peso, or rand) is coming from. We can’t put the cart before the horse and make a move, commit to someone in marriage, or buy a house without knowing how we are going to pay for the necessities of life.

Yes, there are times people strike out in faith. The Psalmist said he had “never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging for bread” (Psalm 37:25) and in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said that if we “seek first the Kingdom of God” all these things [in context: food and clothing] would be given us. And yes, Elijah was fed by ravens.

However, most of us will not be fed by ravens.

Whether you want to see it as a consequence (or curse) of the fall of man, or as a blessing that we get to co-partner with God in subduing the earth, the general principle of scripture is that we are to work in order to have food, shelter, medicine, security, clothing and transportation.

 

A Meditation on Labor (Day Weekend)

^{The Message Romans 12.1} So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. (italics added)

This is the Labor Day Weekend in Canada and the United States. Ruth wanted to find some worship content having to do with the theology of work, only to discover that, from a worship leader’s perspective, there isn’t much out there. The second verse below, which some of you know better as, “Do everything as unto the Lord;” is a reminder that our worship life toward God is holistic. We don’t worship only on Sundays or only in song, but we can make elements of what Eugene Peterson (in the quotation above) calls our “everyday, ordinary life” an offering to God.

by Ruth Wilkinson

Labor Day is part of a weekend that historically stands to celebrate and honor workers and those who have worked to humanize working conditions. Part of that celebration, aptly enough, is a day off work. (And all God’s people said, “Woohoo!”)

And while everybody likes a day off, there’s more to work than just obligation born of necessity.

The God who created us modeled us after himself.

This is a God who imagines and designs and builds.

A God who plants and grows and provides.

Who teaches and directs and supervises.

Who looks after animals and cares for people.

And he put within us the same inclinations and capacities as exist in himself.

Whether we’re earning a wage, or just helping a neighbor in need, our work is a gift from the Father who loves us and made us to be like Him.

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In the beginning, The LORD put the man in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Then God brought to the man every wild animal and every bird of the sky, so the man could give them all their own names.

In the same way, whatever work you do, do it willingly, with all your heart – working for the Lord, and not only for a human boss.

The soul of the lazy one craves everything and gets nothing…

But the wise one rises early, providing food for her household and jobs for her workers.
She studies, and invests, and makes an honest profit;
She wraps herself in strength, because her arms are strong.
Her lamp does not go out at night.
She learns her trade and uses her tools.
She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out to the needy.
And when winter comes, she’s not afraid for her household.

The soul of the lazy craves everything and gets nothing…
but the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.

So let the thief steal no longer, but let him do honest work with his own hands, so he has something to share with anyone in need.

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O grant us, God, a little space
from our daily work set free.
To meet within this holy place
we’ve built apart for Thee.

But this is not the only place Your presence may be known;
In all our daily work, Your grace and blessing you have sewn.

Around us rolls an endless tide –
labor and trade and care.
Today we choose to turn aside
for one brief hour of prayer.

But this is not the only place Your presence may be known;
In all our daily work, Your grace and blessing you have sewn.

Work can be prayer, if it is wrought
as you want it to be done;
And prayer, by you inspired and taught,
can with our work be one.

For this is not the only place Your presence may be known;
In all our daily work, Your grace and blessing you have sewn.

– Scriptures based on Genesis 2, Colossians 3, Proverbs 13, Proverbs 31, Ephesians 4
– Hymn by John Ellerton, 1870, Edited by Ruth Wilkinson

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Consecrating our work to God:

I wanted to include Take My Life and Let it Be as a conclusion to Ruth’s liturgy, but searched for a tune different from the traditional one, or the Chris Tomlin one. This one is sung in the UK, and uses the tune Nottingham by Mozart.

Should Christian Content Online Be Free?

When I first looked at this topical article, I didn’t think it would fit here at C201, where articles are more devotional and Bible-study oriented. But then I looked at how the author, Daniel Darling handled this, and decided this is exactly the kind of issue people wrestle with online. As always you are directed to read the articles at their original source, where this appeared as No, All Christian Content Shouldn’t Be Free. (Once there, be sure to also click through to read today’s scriptures.)

A few years ago, when I was a pastor, I had a hard time explaining to a rather cranky member why we, as a church, had to pay for a license to use Christian music in our worship services. “They should give it away freely. Why do I have to pay for it? I thought this was ministry. Why they are out to make money?” What made this man’s beef all the more interesting is that I had just concluded, a day earlier, a long conversation with him about what he considered unfair pay at his work. The irony was lost on him, but not me.

But alas, this complaint about Christian content costing money is one I’ve heard in a variety of forms most of my adult life. It goes something like this:

Christian publishers should not be so eager to make money. Why not give their books away free?

Christian musicians should not charge to sing at a Church. Why not sing for the Lord?

Christian conferences should offer all their content online, right away, for free, right now.

Well-known speakers shouldn’t charge so much to speak at someone’s church. They should just come to be a blessing.

So, the question is this: Should all Christian content be free? And to this I say a hearty, “No!”

I understand the desire to get resources into the hands of those who can’t afford them. The impulse to break down financial barriers so  people can hear the gospel and so God’s people can grow is good. I’m thankful for all of the free content, readily available online and elsewhere. But we must understand that good content always has a cost.

For free stuff, somebody, somewhere was kind enough to fund the spread of the good news. Praise God for this kind of generosity. May He raise up more Christian philanthropists in this generation.

But I want to tackle this idea that there should never be charge for Christian content–books, sermons, study guides, music, teaching textbooks. This is not a right argument on many levels.

First, the Bible says that hard work should be rewarded with adequate payment. Paul said to Timothy that “the worker” is worthy of his wages. Christians shouldn’t succumb to greed and materialism. This is a sin and can be a soul-sucking snare (1 Timothy 6:9). But money is offered in Scripture as a reward for hard work. Work was instituted by God at Creation, before the Fall. And the rewards of hard work are woven into the mandate to subdue the earth. To diminish reward is to cheapen, in my view, the value of hard work and to soften the God-glorifying act of creating.

Secondly, Christians should be rewarded for their ministry work. We have this idea that because someone is in “full-time” ministry that they should give their time and effort away for free. But Paul told the Galatians that those “One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches” (Galatians 6:6). In other words, those who benefit from the teaching ministry of others should support those who teach. How this works out in real life often differs. Some work full time and get their sole paycheck from a Christian organization. Others are “tent-makers” who, like Paul for a season, offer their ministry work in a part-time or free basis. Still, there are many who have some combination of an agreement. But, the principle still stands: there is nothing wrong with someone getting paid for their Christian content (music, books, preaching, etc). In fact, there is everything right.

Third, by depriving Christians of payment for their work, at times, we could be causing them to disobey Scripture. Scripture says that a man who doesn’t provide for his family is “worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). Paul scolded lazy men who refused to provide for their families (2 Corinthians 3:10). Sometimes in our desire to demand free Christian content or when we grow upset at Christian organizations for charging for content or services, we forget that the men and women working in those organizations would like to feed their families, have health insurance, and own homes just as we do. Many serve and work at drastically reduced rates. They consider their vocation a calling, a mission, a chance to serve the body of Christ. But, that doesn’t mean the should work for free. Imagine if you were asked to do your job for free–if you had no paycheck to take home to support your wife and children? Imagine if someone demanded you do your job for free? You wouldn’t do that. You couldn’t do that. And neither should we expect editors, writers, web guys, recording artists, pastors etc give us the best and most edifying Christian content without cost.

Of course there are many caveats to this. There are legitimate and illegitimate ways to make money in the Christian world. There are, sadly, pastors who fleece their flocks and live lavish lifestyles off the backs of poor widows. There are some who claim that financial prosperity is a sign of God’s blessing. This wicked and destructive teaching is anti-gospel. And there are times when Christian organizations make decisions based on revenue streams rather than what is enriching for the body of Christ. That is wrong.

But let’s trust that these are a few examples out of the many faithful believers who serve the body well and deserve to be paid fairly for their labors. Let’s not simply rush to the conspiratorial idea that “That publisher/organization/church/pastor is just out to make money.” You actually don’t know that. It could be they are serving with an earnest desire to bring the good news of the gospel to those who need to hear it.

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Daniel Darling works with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention (ERLC), the same organization as Dr. Russell Moore, who we’ve featured over the years here at C201 and Thinking Out Loud. His blog at DanielDarling.com ranks in the top 100 Christian blog list.

Six Days Shalt Thou Labor

Exodus 20:9 (NIV)

⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work

I couldn’t help but notice this passage a few weeks ago. As I read it, I thought about the number of families that are faced with massive household consumer debt, and wondered if perhaps this offers a solution. Even if one of the income earners in a house picked up something on Saturday, that could mean an extra 20% income, provided such jobs were available.

But the note in my NIV Study Bible was somewhat dismissive, saying something to this effect, ‘A shorter work week in an a modern industrialized culture is not in view here.’

Furthermore, we focus on the distraction of the six-day work week here at our peril, because our entire attention in this commandment should be devoted to the practical and spiritual implications of the concept of cessation from labor for the purposes of sabbath rest (i.e. to rest as God rested, to give God worship, etc.).  The Voice Bible says in essence that you’ve got six days to get everything else done, the seventh is a day of rest.

⁹ You have six days to do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is to be different; it is the Sabbath of the Eternal your God…

Still, I believe we skip a possible secondary takeaway from verse nine too easily, especially in western society where ‘long weekends’ and ‘casual Fridays’ push us further and further toward a four day work week.  It’s said that we live in a culture of entitlement, and certainly we feel we are entitled to enjoy a certain degree of comfort and a certain number of consumer goods; so we amass great levels of personal debt to obtain those things.

While we should be pleased if our employer offers us extra work that will help reduce that debt, our labor laws insist that we be paid overtime, which means the employer thinks twice before offering us extra hours. And I do wonder what the agriculturally-based readers of the Decalogue in Moses’ time would think of our modern concept of vacation.

The website Theology of Work Project looks at different areas where the Bible addresses this topic.

John MacArthur notes the erosion of the work ethic in a sermon devoted to this topic that you can either read or listen to online.

When God doesn’t matter anymore, then there is no universal, transcendent standard for behavior. And natural human corruption runs rampant to the degree that any individual person chooses to live. And one of the basic moral virtues that disappears in a culture is work…work. People once worked hard because of the influence of Scripture and because Scripture is a reflection of the will of God. God is the authority and the Bible is the revelation of His will as that authority. Work, you see, is a virtue, work is a moral behavior.

People worked hard because they believed they were accountable to God and they were accountable to the revelation of God in Scripture. They had reverence for biblical authority and they had a basic fear of God. Even those who weren’t particularly evangelical Christians understood the place of God in society, understood the place of Scripture in society that it was the will of God and understood they had a transcendent responsibility before God to behave in a certain way. Now that God doesn’t matter, and the Bible is ridiculed and removed, if not banned from speaking authoritatively on any subject, there is a kind of fearless immorality. And one of the things that’s going to disappear is the virtue of work…the virtue of work. Sinners are happy to think that they answer to no one, but to themselves.

And later

Somebody made the suggestion that originally man was a gardener and the curse turned him into a farmer. Originally man was a flower arranger, and the curse turned him into a plow horse. The Fall did not introduce work, it changed its nature. And as the nature of work that is the punishment, but not work itself. Work neither began nor ceased with the Fall, it just took a different shape. It went from being a righteous blessing solely to being a righteous blessing with a curse on top.

And so, man seeks to restore the glory of work with the sweat of his brow, and all of his ingenuity he goes after this cursed earth, using the wonderful creative gifts that he’s been given because he’s in the image of God to abstract out of the richness of this planet everything that he can possibly extract, to provide value to his life, to provide meaning to his life, to provide provision for his life and those in his family, to provide for the needs of others and most importantly to bring dignity upon himself as one made in the image of God who demonstrates God-like creativity…

…In Psalm 104 we read, “He made the moon for the seasons, the sun knows the place of its setting. You appoint darkness and it becomes night in which all the beasts of the forest prowl about. The young lions roar after their prey and seek their food from God. When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens. Man goes forth to his work and to his labor until evening.” God has ordained that men work originally six days a week here. You go to work in the morning and you finish in the evening. Work is designed by God to redeem the curse in a measure. You look at the civilized world, you look at the world that has flourished, you look at the western world in particular, and now, of course, many ascending nations in Asia and other parts of the world, and you see the magnificence that is extracted out of the creation by work. Go to Africa, and you see parched lands, starving people, murderous tribal warfare…people don’t work. It’s a tragic reality.

Work was always God’s design for us to be able to draw out all that is in this creation for the demonstration of our nobility being created in the image of God and for the glory of God and for the benefit of all man. It can be redeemed. It must be redeemed and that’s why we work. You know how that works. You redeem your yard every week. And if you went away for six months and came back, you would find out what the curse would do…just no water for six months, that will do it. Or just open all the windows and doors in your house and leave for six months and come back and see what’s inside. See what lives there. It’s a battle and we all understand that battle. We extract goodness out of His creation. That was Adam’s job and now we have to fight against the curse to extract that goodness. We are called to that work because it is noble and because it is God-glorifying.

This is a sermon/article rich with commentary on this topic, and I encourage you to click the above link to get into more of it.

I offer this today not to try to bring back the six-day work week, but rather to allow us to reconsider our attitude and our approach to the five-day work we do.

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The Reformation Study Bible offers a theology of work:

God’s purposes in ordaining work

That people should be self-supporting Ge 3:19 See also Ps 128:2; 1Th 4:12

That people should find self-fulfilment Ecc 2:24 See also Pr 14:23; Ecc 3:22; Ecc 5:19

That people should serve others Eph 4:28 See also Pr 31:15; 1Th 2:9; 1Ti 5:8

That people should glorify God Col 3:17 See also 1Co 10:31; Eph 6:5-8 pp Col 3:22-24

Consequences of viewing work as God’s ordinance

Work is seen as a moral duty Tit 3:14 See also Pr 6:6; Ecc 9:10; 1Th 4:11; 2Th 3:7-12

Any legitimate work may be seen as God’s calling Ge 2:15 See also Ex 31:1-6; Ex 35:30-35; Ps 78:70-71; Mt 13:55 pp Mk 6:3; Ro 13:6; 1Co 7:17,20-24

Work is seen as a stewardship from God himself Col 3:23-24 See also Mt 25:14-30 pp Lk 19:12-27; Eph 6:5-8