Nineteen years ago I resigned from my position as senior pastor to focus full time on helping churches build strong men’s ministries. As I have talked with countless men around the country about their vocational calling, I’ve come to this conclusion: The poorer a man’s theology of work is, the less fulfilling his work usually is. So, let’s dig into Adam’s calling to subdue the earth.
My friend Hugh Whelchel, in his book, How then Should We Work tells this story:
The arena was packed with over 5,000 business people attending a one-day motivational conference. They would listen to inspirational speakers like General Colin Powell, Dick Vitale and Tony Robbins. One of the speakers asked the assembled business leaders this question: “If you went home tonight and found that a long-2lost relative had died and left you ten million dollars, would you be back at work tomorrow? From all over the arena came a resounding, “No.”
Whelchel continues, The audience response is no surprise. A recent Gallup poll found that 77% of Americans hate their jobs. And I would venture to guess that 95% of the Christian men I talk to think their secular work is less important to God than vocational Christian ministry. Sadly, such heresy has been handed down to us for generations from a version of “Bible-believing” Christianity that devalues the physical body, sees the culture of this word as an enemy to be opposed, and disregards the foundational teaching in Genesis 1 that explains God’s design of Adam and Eve. So, let’s look at some building blocks for a biblical view of work.
A. In the beginning there was work. The Bible begins to talk about work as soon as it begins to talk about anything. The Bible refers to God’s actions to create the universe as work. In fact, he depicts the magnificent project of cosmos invention with language that refers to the regular workweek.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished HIS WORK that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all HIS WORK that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all HIS WORK that he had done in creation (Gen 2:1-3).
The creation narrative account in Genesis is unlike any other ancient account of our origins. In the Babylonian creation story, the god Marduk overcomes the goddess Tiamat and forges the world out of her remains. The visible universe was an uneasy balance of powers in tension with each other. The Greeks account of creation includes a golden age when neither man nor the gods had to do any work. But Genesis repeatedly shows God “at work” using the Hebrew word, mlkh, the word for ordinary human work. Tim Keller observes, In the beginning, then, God worked. Work was not a necessary evil that cam into the picture later, or something human beings were created to do but that was beneath the great God himself. No, God worked for the sheer joy of it. Work could not have a more exalted inauguration (Every Good Endeavor).
B. Our calling to work, is fundamental to bearing God’s image. God is not only the ultimate worker, he designed humans to work as well, since they are his image bearers: Work of every kind evidences our dignity as human beings because it reflects the image of God the Creator in us
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 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 1:26-28).
The close connection of Genesis 1:26 with the mandate to “rule” shows that this act of ruling is a defining aspect of what it means to be made in God’s image. We are called to stand in for God here in the world, exercising stewardship over the rest of creation as vice-regents.
The opening chapters of Genesis leave us with a striking truth—work was part of paradise. It was part of God’s perfect design for human life, because we are made in God’s image and part of his glory and happiness is that he works. “My Father is always at his work to this very day,” said Jesus, and I too am working.” (John 5:17). The fact that God put work in paradise reminds us that it was not a result of the fall, as is often thought. Work was part of the blessedness of the garden BEFORE the fall. Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sexuality…Without meaningful work we sense significant inner loss and emptiness. People who are cut off from work because of physical or other reasons quickly discover how much they need work to thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually (Ibid).
C. The job description of our work is to fill the earth and subdue it and exercise dominion over it. The word, “subdue” indicates that, though all God made was good, it was still to a great degree undeveloped. To subdue the earth is to explore the created world and harness its laws for the good of mankind. From police officers who keep order in civil society to engineers who harness the laws of creation in order to solve human problems to scientists who discover those laws, the human concept of vocation is rooted in God’s call to mankind to subdue the earth. God places creation in the care of people who are to develop it. The potential God has created is to be released. God left creation with deep untapped potential for cultivation that Adam and Eve and their progeny were to develop through their labor. Al Wolters writes describes Adam’s creation vocation as continuing what God has started:
The earth had been completely unformed and empty; then in the six-day process of development God had formed it and filled it—but not completely. People must now carry on the work of development: by being fruitful they fill it even more; by subduing it they must form it even more…as God’s representatives, (we) carry on where God left off. But this is now to be a human development of the earth. The human race will FILL the earth WITH its own kind, and it will FORM the earth FOR its own kind. From now on the development of the created earth will be societal and cultural in nature (Creation Regained).
The image God gives to describe our relationship to the physical world is that of a gardener, cultivating the garden of Eden (Gen 2:15). We are not to be passive, leaving the garden as it is. Rather, we rearrange it in order to make it most fruitful, i.e. we labor to developing its potential. Their WORK is to rearrange the raw material of the garden so that it produces food, flowers, and beauty. Adam is also to bring out the potential of the human inhabitants of the garden, his wife and children, helping them steward their gifts. This is the pattern for all WORK. It is creative and assertive. It is rearranging the raw material of God’s creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people in particular thrive and flourish. Tim Keller points out that this pattern is found in all kinds of work:
Music takes the physics of sound and rearranges it into something beautiful…when we take fabric and make a piece of clothing, when we push a broom and clean up a room, when we use technology to harness the forces of electricity, when we take an unformed naïve human mind and teach it a subject, when we teach a couple how to resolve their relational disputes, when we take simple materials and turn them into a poignant work of art—we are continuing God’s work of forming filling, and subduing. (Every Good Endeaver).
D. The material world matters. Developing the potential of creation is our primary calling because God’s creation matters greatly to him. In fact, the story of salvation is the story of CREATION. Dutch theologian, Herman Bavinck, argues, “The essence of the Christian religion consists in the reality that the CREATION of the Father, ruined by sin, is restored in the death of the Son of God and RECREATED by the grace of the Holy Spirit into a kingdom of God.” Creation matters immensely to God, because in Bavinck’s words,
The world is a theater, a splendidly clear mirror of his divine glory….This grace does not abolish nature but affirms and restores it. So Christianity did not come into the world to condemn and put under the ban everything that existed beforehand and elsewhere, but quite the opposite, to purify from sin everything that was; and thus to cause it to answer again to its own nature and purpose (Herman Bavinck, Dogmatics Vol 4).
For Christians all work has dignity no matter how menial, because it reflects God’s image in us, but also because the material universe we are called to care for matters to God. The biblical doctrine of creation harmonizes with the doctrine of the incarnation (in which God takes on himself a human body) and resurrection (in which God redeems not just the soul but the body) to demonstrate how “pro-physical” Christianity is. Scripture teaches that this material world is the forerunner of the new heavens and new earth, which will be purified, restored, and enhanced at the “renewal of all things (Matt 19:28). No other religion envisions matter and spirit living together in integrity forever.
God’s view of this physical world means Christians cannot demean labor that has more intimate contact with the material world (working with your hands). Caring for and cultivating this material world is not only significant, it is at the heart of our creation calling. “Secular” work has no less dignity than the “sacred” work of ministry. We are both body and soul. Moreover, the biblical ideal of shalom requires both physical thriving and spiritual. God’s will—his explicit command to subdue the earth—is for the physical earth’s potential to be developed.
Whenever we bring order out of chaos, whenever we draw out creative potential, whenever we elaborate and “unfold” creation beyond where it was when we found it, we are following God’s pattern of creative cultural development. In fact, our word “culture” comes from the idea of cultivation. Just as he subdued the earth in his work of creation, so he calls us now to labor as his representatives in a continuation and extension of that work of subduing (Keller, Every Good Endeavor).
E. The Christian’s call to develop the creation and form culture is as significant as his call TO CHRIST and call to BECOME LIKE CHRIST. (See the last 2 episodes).
God provides purpose for our work by calling us to serve the world, thus exhibiting love for our neighbor. In 1 Corinth 7:17, Paul counsels readers that when they come to faith in Christ it is not necessary to give up their secular work. Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has CALLED him. Paul uses two words, calling and assigned in describing ordinary work that are heavily associated elsewhere in his letters with spiritual commitments—God calling people into a saving relationship with himself and God assigning spiritual gifts. The implication is clear: Just as God equips Christians for building up the Body of Christ, so he also equips all people with talents and gifts for various kinds of work, for the purpose of building up the human community. Our vocational calling is an assignment to serve our neighbor in love.
No one saw more clearly than Martine Luther that this verse elevated ordinary “secular” work to the same level as the so called “sacred” work of ministry. He translated the Greek word, calling into the German word for occupation. In his commentary on Psalm 147, he looks at verse 13, which says God strengthens the bars of your gates. Luther asks, How God can strengthen the bars, i.e. provide safety and security for the city. He answers, “By the word bars we must understand not only the iron bar that a smith can make, but….everything else that helps to protect us, such as good government, good city ordinances, good order…and wise rulers…this is the gift of God.” In other words, God cares for others through our vocational callings. In Luther’s Large Catechism, when he gets to the petition of the Lord’s Prayer asking God to give us our daily bread, he writes,
When you pray for ‘daily bread’ you are praying for everything that contributes to your having and enjoying your daily bread….You must open up and expand your thinking, so that it reaches not only as far as the flour bin and baking oven but also out over the broad fields, the farmlands and the entire country that produces, processes, and conveys to us our daily bread and all kinds of nourishment.
So how does God feed every living thing (Ps 147:16) today? He does it through the farmer, the trucker, the retailer, the website designer, the police who protect the exchange of money, etc. The biblical view of vocational work is that it is a way to fulfill the two greatest commandments. It is loving God by obedience to his command to develop the full potential of the creation he loves, and which is actually a reflection of himself. Secondly, the biblical view of work is that it is loving our neighbors by serving them through our work. If you doubt how much God uses you to meet the needs of his creatures, just imagine what would happen if everyone were to quit working right now! One author points out:
Civilized life quickly melts away. Food vanishes from the shelves, gas dries up at the pumps, streets are no longer patrolled, and fires burn themselves out. Communication and transportation utilities end. Utilities go dead. Those who survive at all are soon huddled around campfire, sleeping in caves, clothed in raw animal hides. The difference between (a wilderness) and culture is simply work. (Lester DeKoster, Work: The Meaning of Your Life).
Applying These Five Building Blocks to Your Vocational Work
1. The work you do is inherently valuable because it images God, himself who is the ultimate worker and inventor. Work is not some evil that corrupted God’s design but part of the very fabric that makes up God’s nature and therefore God’s intension for mankind, his image bearers. Question: How does the truth that humans cannot be fulfilled apart from working, affect your thinking about your vocation?
2. Our assignment to bear God’s image is a calling from God to exercise dominion over creation, following God’s example: 1) bringing order out of chaos, 2) creatively building a civilization, and 3) caring for all that God has made. Question: How does your vocational work fit into this three-part calling?
3. The command to fill, subdue, and exercise dominion over creation tells us creation is unfinished. Question: In what way is your work rearranging the raw material of God’s creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people in particular thrive and flourish?
4. This physical world matters. The story of the Bible is not that man sins, God sends a savior to atone for our sins and takes us off to heavenly paradise. The story of the bible is that God chose to make his creation a glorious expression of his very nature including humans who are specifically designed in God’s likeness as creator and ruler. So, God entrusted his creation to Adam and Eve to rule over and develop FOR HIM. The chose to rule FOR THEMSELVES as Satan had, enslaving their kingdom to the destructive ravages of evil. But a second Adam has come to fix everything broken by sin and renew the entire cosmos, ruling with renewed man from the New Jerusalem in a renewed earth. Question: How does doing your job well communicate that God’s creation matters?
5. The purpose of work is to serve our neighbor in love. Just as God equips Christians for building up the Body of Christ, so he also equips all people with talents and gifts for various kinds of work, for the purpose of building up the human community. Our vocational calling is an assignment to serve our neighbor in love. Question: How is your job a form of service that expresses love for the human community?
The biblical worldview of work is that Adam’s calling to subdue the earth MATTERS. A generation ago, many in author Dorothy Sayer’s generation did not understand this any more than we get this today. She wrote,
“The church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him to not be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours and to come to church 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.”
