About 15 minutes to read
This page is about work, from Eden to the carpenter’s shop to the rest that remains for God’s people. If you have lost your job, or cannot work because of sickness, disability, or age, read the part for you first. If your boss is harsh or your workplace unjust, read When the Boss Is Hard. If work or money keeps you awake, read the part on rest. If the weight has brought you to thoughts of ending your life, call 988 or text 988 now, and read the page on getting safe.
Work Before the Fall and After It
Work is not part of the curse. God himself worked six days and rested the seventh (Genesis 2:2). Then, before there was any sin in the world, he gave the man a job.
And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Genesis 2:15 (KJV)
This was a real garden, and Adam was to tend it and guard it. To make, keep, and mend things is part of bearing the image of the God who works (John 5:17). Then Adam sinned, and God spoke to him about his work.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Genesis 3:17-19 (KJV)
The thorns were real thorns in a real field, but the curse reaches past farming. The creature, meaning the whole creation, was made subject to vanity (Romans 8:20). That is why the floor you mopped is tracked with mud an hour later, why the part you fixed breaks again, and why the body that does the work wears out and returns to the ground (Genesis 3:19). The curse did not make work evil. It made work hard, and every ache after a long shift points to the One who was made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13).
The Carpenter and Every Lawful Calling
When Jesus taught in the synagogue at Nazareth, his neighbors could not get past what he used to do for a living.
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.
Mark 6:3 (KJV)
The eternal Son of God spent most of his years on earth working with his hands. No one wrote down a single job he did, and those years were not wasted. When they ended, the Father said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17). And on the night before he died, he took a towel, and girded himself, and washed his disciples’ feet (John 13:4-5). That was a slave’s work, and no one who scrubs, hauls, or cleans up after others is doing work beneath the Son of God.
Some work is seen and some is not. Think of those who clean the halls after the building empties, haul out the trash, and fix the broken door before anyone comes. Done well, it goes unnoticed. People notice only when it is not done. God notices. He is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love (Hebrews 6:10). The psalmist would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of his God than dwell in the tents of wickedness (Psalm 84:10). Keeping a door was humble work, and he counted it an honor.
Before the Reformation, many spoke as if priests, monks, and nuns had a calling from God and everyone else merely had jobs. The Reformers taught from Scripture that every lawful calling is service to God. Calvin likened each man’s calling to a post the Lord has set him to keep, and said no task is so lowly that it will not shine before God when done in obedience to that calling (Institutes 3.10.6). Paul said, Let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God (1 Corinthians 7:24). That does not forbid changing work, for Paul told a slave who could gain his freedom to take it (7:21). It means you serve God where you are. Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).
And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.
Colossians 3:23-24 (KJV)
Those words were first written to slaves. If they could serve the Lord Christ, so can a janitor, a nurse, or a mother at home. The Larger Catechism says the eighth commandment requires a lawful calling, and diligence in it (WLC 141), and forbids unlawful callings (WLC 142). Work that is itself sin cannot be done to God’s glory. All other honest work can.
Servants and Masters, Workers and Bosses
Paul wrote to servants and masters in a world full of slavery, and we should be honest about it. Scripture’s words to slaves are not approval of man-stealing, which it condemns. God’s law put to death the man who stole a man and sold him (Exodus 21:16), and Paul lists menstealers beside murderers (1 Timothy 1:9-10). The trade that seized men and women in Africa and sold them in America was man-stealing, and God’s Word stands against it.
Most of us are not slaves. We agreed to our work, we are paid for it, and we may leave it. So these words bind us with more force, not less.
Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men:
Ephesians 6:5-7 (KJV)
Eyeservice is working hard only while the boss is watching. Singleness of heart is being the same worker when no one is. A Christian employee does his job as if Christ were his supervisor, because he is. Such faithfulness adorns the doctrine of God our Saviour (Titus 2:10).
Bosses are not let off. Paul tells masters to do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your Master also is in heaven (Ephesians 6:9).
Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.
Colossians 4:1 (KJV)
The Larger Catechism places employers under the fifth commandment (WLC 124). They are to care for those under them, and not seek their own ease and profit at their workers’ cost (WLC 129-130). God’s law told employers to pay the hired man before nightfall (Deuteronomy 24:15), and James warns that wages kept back by fraud cry out to the Lord of sabaoth (James 5:4).
When the Boss Is Hard
Peter wrote to servants who worked for harsh men.
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.
1 Peter 2:18-19 (KJV)
Froward means crooked and hard to deal with. Peter points you to Christ, who suffered for us, leaving us an example (1 Peter 2:21). When he was reviled, he reviled not again, and he committed himself to him that judgeth righteously (2:23). He did not call the wrong right. He handed it to his Father. So work well under a hard boss, and leave the reckoning to God.
But patience is not doing wrong when told to. You owe willing obedience to lawful commands (WLC 127). If you are told to lie, cheat, or cover up a crime, answer as the apostles did, We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). You may report wrongdoing, seek what you are owed, and look for other work. If you are being threatened or hurt, get safe first, and tell your elders.
Diligence, Honesty, and Providing for Your Own
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.
Proverbs 6:6-8 (KJV)
Solomon means a real ant. No one stands over her, and the work still gets done. The sluggard always means to start after a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands, and poverty comes on him like an armed man (Proverbs 6:10-11). Paul told the idle in Thessalonica, If any would not work, neither should he eat, and commanded them to work quietly and eat their own bread (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12). Notice would not. That word is for the unwilling, not the unable.
Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
Ephesians 4:28 (KJV)
Thou shalt not steal is also a command to labor (see the commandments in plain words). The Larger Catechism says it requires truth, faithfulness, and justice in our dealings, and paying back what we have wrongly kept. It forbids fraud, unfaithfulness in matters of trust, and idleness (WLC 141-142). At work that means honest hours, leaving the company’s supplies where they belong, and not calling in sick when you are well.
But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
1 Timothy 5:8 (KJV)
Paul wrote this about caring for widowed mothers, and it reaches every household duty. It does not demand a large wage. It demands what you honestly can. A modest paycheck faithfully earned and brought home is a holy thing.
When Work Becomes an Idol
Work can become a god, and so can the money it brings. Jesus said, Ye cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). Mammon is wealth, pictured as a master that wants your whole heart. Then Jesus turns straight to anxiety, because worry is one way mammon rules us. Your Father feeds the birds and clothes the lilies, and you are worth more than they (Matthew 6:26-30). Take therefore no thought for the morrow (Matthew 6:34). It forbids anxious worry, not planning.
Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.
Psalm 127:1-2 (KJV)
The psalm does not tell the builders and the watchman to stop working. It tells them the outcome is in God’s hand. The man who works past midnight because everything depends on him is eating the bread of sorrows. Going to bed can be an act of trust.
Ecclesiastes sees the worker whose heart taketh not rest in the night, and calls such toil vanity (Ecclesiastes 2:23). Yet it also says a man should make his soul enjoy good in his labour, for that is from the hand of God (2:24).
God also built rest into the week. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work (Exodus 20:9), and the seventh is his, for the servant as well as the master. Since Christ rose, that day is the Lord’s Day. Laying your work down for a whole day confesses that God, not your job, holds your life. Read How to Keep the Lord’s Day.
When You Cannot Work
Maybe you were laid off, or your body has given out, or a disability keeps you from the work others do. Maybe you are old, and your work has gone to someone younger. It can feel as if you no longer count.
Your worth was never in what you produced. You bear God’s image whether you work or not. Paul’s word about the man who will not work does not touch the man who cannot. For him the church is told to support the weak (1 Thessalonians 5:14), and Paul worked with his own hands to do just that (Acts 20:35). Receiving that help is not shameful. It is Christ’s body doing what he made it to do.
If you have lost your job, read My work or my home is gone. If illness has gone on for years, read When it has gone on for years.
To the old, God says, Even to hoar hairs will I carry you (Isaiah 46:4). Of the righteous the psalm says, They shall still bring forth fruit in old age (Psalm 92:12-14). The tree is a picture, and the fruit it pictures is real. Prayer, counsel, and telling the next generation of God’s strength (Psalm 71:18) are work too. So is bearing weakness without bitterness. His strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
If losing your work has made you think others would be better off without you, that thought is a lie. Call 988 or text 988, and tell someone near you today.
Christ’s Finished Work and Ours
Here is the most important thing to say about work. It cannot save you.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:8-10 (KJV)
Christ kept the law we broke, and he bore the curse we earned. On the cross he said, It is finished (John 19:30), and on the third day he rose. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God (Hebrews 4:9). He that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his (Hebrews 4:10). The believer has stopped working to be saved. If you have been trying to earn God’s favor by being a good worker, stop. Turn from your sin and trust the work Christ finished. If you do not know him yet, read the gospel.
Then you will work gladly. A saved man does not work to be accepted. He works because he has been accepted, and God receives his weak work for Christ’s sake.
Yet notwithstanding, the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in him, not as though they were in this life wholly unblamable and unreprovable in God’s sight; but that he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections.
Westminster Confession of Faith 16.6
That takes in a floor mopped well for Christ’s sake and a meal made for tired children. Your labour is not in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58).
Scripture tells us a little of what lies ahead, and we should not say more than it says. Those who die in the Lord rest from their labours, and their works do follow them (Revelation 14:13). In the city to come there shall be no more curse, and his servants shall serve him (Revelation 22:3). Isaiah speaks of new heavens and a new earth where God’s people shall not labour in vain (Isaiah 65:17, 23), and faithful Reformed teachers read that prophecy in more than one way. So hold any picture of work in glory loosely. What is sure is that the curse which made work bitter will be gone.
What to Do This Week
- Give your work to God each morning. Pray Moses’ prayer, Establish thou the work of our hands upon us (Psalm 90:17).
- Do the unseen part well. Pick one thing no one will check, and do it as to the Lord.
- Set right what is crooked. If you have padded hours or taken what was not yours, confess it to God, and pay it back where you can (WLC 141).
- If you are over others, check your wages and your words. Pay what is just, and pay it on time. Speak without threats.
- Honor plain work. Thank the person who cleans your church or your child’s school.
- Lay the work down on the Lord’s Day. Finish what you can on Saturday, then trust God with what is left.
- Give from what you earn. Set something aside for the church and for someone in need (Ephesians 4:28). If someone in your church is out of work, tell the deacons and help.