Friday, November 03, 2006
Work: Blessing or Curse?
Reading and Misreading the Bible
Odd things pop up in my mail. In a recent issue of a church newsletter (a prominent Baptist church, by the way), I saw a lead article on “Work and Creation.” The point was to teach the congregation that work was already there from creation, not only from the Fall. That is certainly the case, but I am regularly amazed to see good conclusions drawn from poor exegesis.
The scenario as described in the article is that the world begins formless and empty. God then forms and fills the earth. The author’s conclusion is that God brought great order out of chaos (yes, the author used that word), and thus, for this author, work is defined as bringing order out of chaos, and the claim is made that bringing order out of chaos is what human beings are called upon by God to do. That is what work is, according to the article.
It is certainly true that the Father is always working (John 5:17), and it is also true that God is the supreme Ruler, and we, in His image, rule over the earth. The conclusion again was that God is a God who brings order out of chaos, and bringing order out of chaos is what we are called to do. Bringing order from chaos, consciously for God’s glory, makes work a form of worship [an interesting Calvinistic twist there].
That in my view is a wonderful conclusion. We can honor God in all that we do, and we should worship Him through our actions. But somewhere in here I keep finding the logic to be odd. Go back with me for a moment to Genesis 1:1–2. Does formless and void sound like chaos to you? It sounds like utter simplicity to me! Is God the author of chaos out of which He later brings order, and is “order from chaos” the definition of work that results in worship?
The article notices the reference to gold and precious stones in Genesis 3:10–12 and connects that to Exodus 25–40. The woman was formed as a helper, thus enabling true worship. Acting not as a helper hinders worship. [Women take note!]
All of this is very interesting. It is a creative reading of Genesis 1–3, but is it what Genesis is teaching? As I said earlier, God did not begin with chaos. He began with nothing and made something. He made something simple (something formless and void) and brought complexity to it by adding new information and design to the most basic elements of the newly created substances.
To say that all work is worship and that work originates before the Fall has elements of truth, perhaps, but the curse upon the earth changed the nature of human work. Before the Fall, work was caring for and protecting the good and sinless environment of the Garden. After the Fall (which was quite soon, I believe), the work became burdensome (thorns and thistles, working the soil, planting and harvesting, building safe shelters, acquiring clothes, taking care of families, setting up new communities, protecting yourself and your family from violence, developing language, etc.). Fighting against thorns and weeds does not seem to me to be in and of itself worship.
I do not wish to refute the notion of the dignity of human work. I do believe that work can be dedicated to God and can thus be in some relevant sense an act of worship. But there are two kinds of work. There is preservation of the order God has brought into being (not out of chaos, the evolutionary notion, but out of original simplicity, which has now been filled with information, the creationist view). There is also the effort to restore order where chaos is increasing due to sin and due to thermodynamic processes and other results of the divine curse on the earth. Some work is mere hardship due to the Fall and the resulting curse.
Work of many kinds can be offered as worship, but there is some work that cannot. There is such a thing as sinful work.
Reading the Bible gives some people many creative insights, and they often end up with some good conclusions, but their exegetical basis is at times weak, and they mislead people about what the Bible actually says and teaches. Creation is not “organizing chaos.” Creation is bringing designed purpose out of simplicity. There was no life, but God created life (a highly organized arrangement of simple substances, not chaos, is a necessary precondition for the chemical and physical base on which life can ride).
Human work is not creation in that sense. Human work is taking the complex resources God has given us to make new things (usually simpler than the complex information in the original materials) that allow people to resist the effects of the Fall or allows us to build new things that might improve living conditions. People also sometimes work with God’s natural resources to produce sinful pleasures. People work to destroy one another, they frequently work to destroy the art and culture of another civilization, they develop weapons whose sole purpose is to destroy that which God has created. On the other hand, human work can result in building buildings, improving sanitation, increasing food production, developing medicines, raising the level of education and literacy, better communications, better transportation and many other things. Human work should be thought of as “rule” or “dominion” over the earth, but sin has made the situation much more complex.
Let’s read what the Bible actually says and not suggest that all human work is capable of being presented as worship. I am just not convinced that pornography or pagan temple building or construction of massively destructive weapons are examples of work that can be offered to God as worship.
Where all work will be worship is a description of the Kingdom, perhaps, but that is not our day yet. Clearly the ideals of the kingdom are the ideals of the Christian life. So let’s worship God in all that we do.
L. Russ Bush, Director
Center for Faith and Culture
Odd things pop up in my mail. In a recent issue of a church newsletter (a prominent Baptist church, by the way), I saw a lead article on “Work and Creation.” The point was to teach the congregation that work was already there from creation, not only from the Fall. That is certainly the case, but I am regularly amazed to see good conclusions drawn from poor exegesis.
The scenario as described in the article is that the world begins formless and empty. God then forms and fills the earth. The author’s conclusion is that God brought great order out of chaos (yes, the author used that word), and thus, for this author, work is defined as bringing order out of chaos, and the claim is made that bringing order out of chaos is what human beings are called upon by God to do. That is what work is, according to the article.
It is certainly true that the Father is always working (John 5:17), and it is also true that God is the supreme Ruler, and we, in His image, rule over the earth. The conclusion again was that God is a God who brings order out of chaos, and bringing order out of chaos is what we are called to do. Bringing order from chaos, consciously for God’s glory, makes work a form of worship [an interesting Calvinistic twist there].
That in my view is a wonderful conclusion. We can honor God in all that we do, and we should worship Him through our actions. But somewhere in here I keep finding the logic to be odd. Go back with me for a moment to Genesis 1:1–2. Does formless and void sound like chaos to you? It sounds like utter simplicity to me! Is God the author of chaos out of which He later brings order, and is “order from chaos” the definition of work that results in worship?
The article notices the reference to gold and precious stones in Genesis 3:10–12 and connects that to Exodus 25–40. The woman was formed as a helper, thus enabling true worship. Acting not as a helper hinders worship. [Women take note!]
All of this is very interesting. It is a creative reading of Genesis 1–3, but is it what Genesis is teaching? As I said earlier, God did not begin with chaos. He began with nothing and made something. He made something simple (something formless and void) and brought complexity to it by adding new information and design to the most basic elements of the newly created substances.
To say that all work is worship and that work originates before the Fall has elements of truth, perhaps, but the curse upon the earth changed the nature of human work. Before the Fall, work was caring for and protecting the good and sinless environment of the Garden. After the Fall (which was quite soon, I believe), the work became burdensome (thorns and thistles, working the soil, planting and harvesting, building safe shelters, acquiring clothes, taking care of families, setting up new communities, protecting yourself and your family from violence, developing language, etc.). Fighting against thorns and weeds does not seem to me to be in and of itself worship.
I do not wish to refute the notion of the dignity of human work. I do believe that work can be dedicated to God and can thus be in some relevant sense an act of worship. But there are two kinds of work. There is preservation of the order God has brought into being (not out of chaos, the evolutionary notion, but out of original simplicity, which has now been filled with information, the creationist view). There is also the effort to restore order where chaos is increasing due to sin and due to thermodynamic processes and other results of the divine curse on the earth. Some work is mere hardship due to the Fall and the resulting curse.
Work of many kinds can be offered as worship, but there is some work that cannot. There is such a thing as sinful work.
Reading the Bible gives some people many creative insights, and they often end up with some good conclusions, but their exegetical basis is at times weak, and they mislead people about what the Bible actually says and teaches. Creation is not “organizing chaos.” Creation is bringing designed purpose out of simplicity. There was no life, but God created life (a highly organized arrangement of simple substances, not chaos, is a necessary precondition for the chemical and physical base on which life can ride).
Human work is not creation in that sense. Human work is taking the complex resources God has given us to make new things (usually simpler than the complex information in the original materials) that allow people to resist the effects of the Fall or allows us to build new things that might improve living conditions. People also sometimes work with God’s natural resources to produce sinful pleasures. People work to destroy one another, they frequently work to destroy the art and culture of another civilization, they develop weapons whose sole purpose is to destroy that which God has created. On the other hand, human work can result in building buildings, improving sanitation, increasing food production, developing medicines, raising the level of education and literacy, better communications, better transportation and many other things. Human work should be thought of as “rule” or “dominion” over the earth, but sin has made the situation much more complex.
Let’s read what the Bible actually says and not suggest that all human work is capable of being presented as worship. I am just not convinced that pornography or pagan temple building or construction of massively destructive weapons are examples of work that can be offered to God as worship.
Where all work will be worship is a description of the Kingdom, perhaps, but that is not our day yet. Clearly the ideals of the kingdom are the ideals of the Christian life. So let’s worship God in all that we do.
L. Russ Bush, Director
Center for Faith and Culture
# posted by burningbush @ 10:31 AM 
