The Gospel & Work

Russell D. Moore, Andrew T. Walker

• Publisher: B&H Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781433690488
• eBook ISBN: 9781433646584
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

You are not what you do. So often, in America, we define who we are by what we do. We introduce ourselves by our job titles. We ask, "What do you do?" to be polite in small talk. We define others by their occupation. But there are good reasons to connect what you do with your time, whether that is 9-to-5 work, or managing a household full of children. God created us to work, not as judgment, but in cooperation with a mandate given to humanity long before the fall. Your work isn't who you are, but it is central to why you are here. When we get that confused, our work can be the most frustrating aspect of our lives. So, what now? Editors Russell Moore and Andrew T. Walker of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) assemble leading voices to frame the issue with a gospel-centered perspective. The Gospel for Life series gives every believer a biblically-saturated understanding of the most urgent issues facing our culture today, because the gospel is for all of life.

Chapter

What Are We For?

Bethany L. Jenkins

The thing that the Lord cares most about in our lives isn’t who we marry or how many kids we have. It’s not where we will live or what job we will take.

But it isn’t that the Lord doesn’t care about the details of our lives; He does (Matt. 6:25–34). It’s just that the thing that He cares most about isn’t our circumstances—it’s our affections. He wants us to grow in our love for Him and others (Gal. 5:22–23). These other things—spouse, kids, home, and work—are good, but they are not ultimate.

Any conversation about faith and work, therefore, must begin here—with work in its proper place. Following Jesus out of darkness and into light, out of death and into life, is our ultimate calling. If we answer it, then we win at life (Col. 1:13; 1 Pet. 2:9; John 5:24; 1 John 3:14). If we don’t, then we lose—no matter how successful we might be in our work.1

The Gospel Changes Everything

Once we have answered the call to follow Jesus, though, we must understand how this reality manifests itself in every aspect of our lives. For the gospel changes everything, including our work.

But what is the gospel?

The most popular presentation of the gospel in evangelical churches centers on Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. It begins with our most fundamental reality—that we are sinners separated from God—and then offers the Good News that God, in His great love and mercy, is willing to forgive us through Jesus.

But this presentation of the gospel is incomplete. Amy Sherman explains:

The glorious truths celebrated in this too-narrow gospel do not, in themselves, capture the full, grand, amazing scope of Jesus’ redemptive work. For Jesus came preaching not just the gospel of personal justification but the gospel of the kingdom. . . . It is not just about our reconciliation to a holy God—though that is the beautiful center of it. It is also about our reconciliation with one another and with the creation itself.2

Similarly, in its “Theological Vision of Ministry,” The Gospel Coalition states,

The good news of the Bible is not only individual forgiveness but the renewal of the whole creation. God put humanity in the garden to cultivate the material world for his own glory and for the flourishing of nature and the human community. The Spirit of God not only converts individuals (e.g., John 16:8) but also renews and cultivates the face of the earth (e.g., Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:30).3

If we want to understand how the gospel changes everything, including our work, then we must grasp its comprehensive significance. To do that, let’s look at the Bible’s narrative arc—creation, fall, redemption, and restoration—to discover the proper place of our work in light of God’s larger work of redemption.

Creation

The first thing we need to know about work is that it is not a result of the Fall. Work is good. God made us to work. Part of what it means to be made in His image includes working and cultivating His creation (Exod. 35:31; Prov. 22:29):

“Let us make man according to our image, after our likeness. . . .” And God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” (Gen. 1:26, 28)

He gave us dominion—that is, creative stewardship—over His creation. It is creative because we use the raw materials of His creation to build new things, and it is stewardship because, although God has given us authority to cultivate the world, He retains ownership of it. In this way, we are “sub-creators,” as J. R. R. Tolkien puts it, working under God’s sovereignty and delight as a form of worship.4

In Genesis 2, we see this kind of creative stewardship when God brings the animals before Adam to name them:

The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. (v. 19)

Here, Adam is not sovereign over creation; God is. Yet God gives Adam authority to name His creation. Today, in the same way, we work as creative stewards when, for example, scientists name newly discovered elements on the periodic table or farmers till the ground to produce wheat for bread. They do not create ex nihilo—that is, out of nothing—like God does, but they steward His creation to bring forth good things.

The Fall

As a result of the Fall, though, our work is now marred with sin so that it is filled with “thorns and thistles” (Gen. 3:18). First, our relationship to work itself is distorted. Instead of seeing work as worship, we see it as a means of self-fulfillment and self-actualization, a way to “make a name for ourselves” (Gen. 11:4). Our willingness and ability to work for God’s glory is tainted with pride, selfishness, and all kinds of sinful brokenness. We think of ourselves as entitled owners, not creative stewards.

Our working relationships with others are affected, too. Instead of serving one another in joy, we compete with one another in jealousy. We envy the success of others, thinking we deserve the promotions they receive. We tell white lies to our managers when telling the truth is risky. Like Adam, who said, “Don’t blame me; blame the woman,” and Eve, who said, “Don’t blame me; blame the serpent,” we shift culpability away from ourselves, taking credit when sales are up and listing excuses when they’re down (Gen. 3:12–13, author’s paraphrase).

Redemption

In Christ, though, God has begun His work of redemption in the world and in our hearts. He redeems our relationship with work because He becomes the center of our affections. When our identity is in Christ, not work, then success does not go to our heads, and failure does not go to our hearts. As Tim Keller says, “Faith gives us ‘an inner ballast’ without which work could destroy us.”6

Christ redeems our relationships with others, too. When He subdued His enemies and died the death that we deserved, saying, “Don’t blame them; blame Me,” He unfurled His resurrection power to “restore all the ruins of the fall.”5 And this Good News becomes increasingly precious to us. We no longer need to envy the success of others because we can trust that God gives us all that we need (Ps. 84:11; Rom. 8:32). We can seek integrity and honesty—in big and small decisions—because we do not fear the opinion of others (Matt. 10:28; Ps. 20:7). By His Spirit we now have the power to turn work from a means of personal advancement to a vocational calling that is driven by selflessness, service, and love.

Restoration

And our present work ultimately points to our future destiny, the time when all things will be restored (Acts 3:21). At that time, though, we will not enter a garden, as in the original creation, but a city. Andy Crouch explains why this matters:

Revelation 21:1 is the last thing a careful reader of Genesis 1–11 would expect: in the remade world, the center of God’s creative delight is not a garden but a city. And a city is, almost by definition, a place where culture reaches critical mass—a place where culture eclipses the natural world as the most important feature we must make something of.7

In other words, the main difference between creation and restoration is an abundance of culture—that is, human innovation and work applied to the raw materials of God’s creation. It is apple pies, not just apples. It is structured companies, not just people sitting around tables. It is language, not just guttural sounds and grunts.

Anticipating this future reality shapes how we work today because it gives us hope that our work will one day be fulfilled. As Tim Keller observes, “If you’re a city planner, there is a New Jerusalem. If you’re a lawyer, there will be a time of perfect righteousness and justice.”8

Yet our work in the here and now is only approximate—that is, a close but not exact—reality. When we work to glorify God and love others, we are sub-creators with Him, anticipating the restoration, but we recognize that the ultimate restoration of all things awaits the personal and bodily return of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:13).

Our Vocational Assignments

The more we understand how the gospel redeems our work, the more we understand that our talents and gifts are not ours to keep, but to give away. They are not meant to be used for our own selfish gain, but for the glory of God and the good of others.

Paul says that God gives us “spiritual gifts” to do ministry and build up the church (1 Cor. 12). In accordance with these gifts, he says, each of us has a different role or a...

Table of contents

• Series Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: What Are We For? (Bethany L. Jenkins)
• Chapter 2: What Does the Gospel Say? (Bruce Ashford and Benjamin T. Quinn)
• Chapter 3: How Should the Christian Live? (Greg Forster)
• Chapter 4: How Should the Church Engage? (Tom Nelson)
• Chapter 5: What Does the Culture Say? (Daniel Darling)
• Additional Reading
• Acknowledgments
• About the ERLC
• About the Contributors
• Notes