God Works (Part Three)

“For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things [healed a man] on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.’” (John 5:16, 17)


Examples of how slothfulness “destroys” the world (Proverbs 18:19) are numerous:


1. One may be too lazy to get the education needed to improve the mind and skills God gave him, his family suffers, the world is not helped, the kingdom of God is impeded.

2. Because a man plops down in front of the television or computer every night for hours on end instead of developing good relationships with his children and/or his wife, his family falls apart, his children leave the faith, his children are lost when it comes time for them to raise their own family, and future generations suffer from the breakdown in his own generation, i.e., when he was at the helm.

3. Because a man (along with a whole lot of other Christians) does not work hard enough at making his family’s budget work with a slot for tithing, the work of God suffers, people/cities/entire nations are not evangelized, and the world hobbles on apart from the gospel that brings light and peace and a better world (from which, by the way, his own progeny would benefit).

And the list goes on and on and on. Work is good. Work is not only good, it is very much the good that “makes the world go round,” so to speak. Work makes things happen, and when things don’t happen, things happen. Put less cryptically, work makes the things that ought to happen happen, and when those good things don’t happen, bad things happen instead.

The eighth commandment speaks to the matter of work in this way: Don’t steal. The idea of stealing—taking what belongs to others—presupposes the idea of private property. God created us as individuals who live in community. Just as God is one God but in Three Persons, distinctly Three but living together as One, even so we are to live as distinct individuals with distinctly separate responsibilities, characteristics, goals, accomplishments, gifts, and experiences, but in harmony and unity with one another. People have “boundaries,” and those need to be recognized or there will be trouble.

Everyone should work to meet his own needs: “sponging” or “leeching” is one form of stealing from others. But people do not fulfill their responsibilities by merely working to have their own “separate stuff.” People are to work to give as well. This is the exhortation of the Scriptures Old and New: Work to supply your own needs and to have something to give to others. “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.”(Ephesians 4:28)

So the eighth commandment presupposes work also. Work is not just a good idea, it is essential to living the Trinitarian life God created for us. We are to be busy creating, tilling, tending, caring for, beautifying the world and the people He created, joining Him in His great work of creation and redemption. And failure to do so is theft. Let him who stole steal no longer: work instead!

“God, we give You thanks for all those who have worked in times past and for the myriads working even now from whose work we benefit, and we pray You would make us diligent to work hard and faithfully in our own little corner of the world, knowing our work affects all the world as well. Teach us to live in harmony with one another, the blessed Trinity as our example; teach us to work to give not merely to get or take from one another. We look to You to supply us all of our needs and pray we would be like You in supplying the needs of others. Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.”