I want to preface what is to come, in this series, with a few books I have been reading that have given me much food for thought, pun intended. Two of them are by Joel Salatin: “Everything I Want to do is Illegal” and “Folks, This Ain’t Normal.” Another book I am almost done with that has given me much to think about as I try and work through how we are to deal with technology and man’s attempts to “make life easier” is "Surviving Off Off-Grid" by Michael Bunker. I think these are worthwhile books to read as we too often are so ingrained in a way of thinking that we need to be jolted out of our slumber and these books may help do just that. Will you agree with all they say, maybe not, but these are books that may help you to look at things differently, and that is what we need today. Also, both authors have a Christian worldview that sees all that is around us as God’s creation and that God has a way He desires for us to interact with it, a view I would pray we would all seek to possess.
God, Work, and Redemption
When we look at any area of life we need to do so with God’s word as our standard, our filter, and this includes when we interact with God’s creation and our required stewardship of it. When I speak of God’s word I mean not only His inerrant word but also His all-sufficient word. If one does not see God’s word as sufficient for all of life then one will not seek to see what God says about every area of life and thus will end up setting up areas that are not judged by the only infallible rule of life, His word. To make God honoring decisions we need to see what God’s word says about every area of life.
I thought I would start with looking at the issue of work because so much of what we have to deal with today is promoted as being “required” so as to reduce our work, save time and increase our ability to spend more effort in recreation. I need to mention here that the idea of saving time is misleading as we all have 24 hours and we invariably fill up every minute. Thus, seldom do we actually save time but instead just rearrange the use of the minutes, now back to the subject of work. The world seeks to tell us we need this device, that program or some other modification to our life because it will reduce our work and benefit us by giving us time to do any number of other “more” enjoyable activities. Due to this propaganda, for most things I do not think this is too strong a word, we need to understand the biblical concept of “work” so as not to be taken in by the many claims of the world and its offerings.
To begin with work is not in and of itself evil. Man was created and given dominion, stewardship, over the garden (Gen 1:26-31) that God created. God calls what he had created, including the work of dominion, very good thus we see that work at this point is not what we think of it as today, but is instead good. Work is not a result of the fall, as most treat it, but is a creation of God and is His means for man to care for His creation. However, when man fell work became burdensome as God’s word reveals in Gen 3:17-19. Adam would indeed keep working but in contrast to before the fall work would now be what we know it as today “WORK.”
Read More at For His Glory
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