Is God in favor of our full employment?
Genesis 1:26-28Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like ourselves. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
Genesis 2:15-17The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”
Genesis 3:17-19To the man he [God] said, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.”
God did not rescind his working design for human beings, but sin created added difficulties that make our work more difficult than God originally intended.
Romans 8:18-25What we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)
Work was not imposed on humanity as punishment for the Fall; it was part of the original design for an abundant and meaningful life. But work was deeply affected by the Fall. The beautiful cooperative nature of creation at the beginning was marred, now requiring hard work to bring it into grudging submission. Humans remain stewards of the earth but their sinfulness and nature’s groaning (Romans 8:22) now make work for humans a constant necessity and only partly satisfying.
Genesis 2:2-3On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.
Although there is no indication that the act of creation on God’s part required the expenditure of energy or effort, the terms “work” and “rest” are used to describe God’s actions and his pause. The choice to rest is not because God was tired but because God was finished with that phase of creation. He also paused because he designed humans to need such a regular change of pace for the sake of wholeness. He set an example, not because he needed a break, but because we need them. There is a sense in which temporary unemployment is rest, but the Bible never describes rest as a permanent objective for creatures made in God’s image. Those who recognize the value of employment (of participation in life) find creative ways to work even when they might be seriously limited in what they can do.
Exodus 20:8-11“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.
The grand act of God’s creation included a seven day cycle that modeled for humans a six day sequence for labor and a one day break. This day of rest was set aside so we could turn our attention to God. Whatever the work we do, it should not make it impossible to set aside one day out of six to rest. This not only provided for humans to engage in focused worship; it also provided a built-in recovery schedule for life. Jesus later underscored this principle when he stated that the Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27).
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.
Solomon’s practical observations about the rhythms of life included several factors that affect our understanding of unemployment. Life is filled with opportunities to rightly use our time, but many of those opportunities come with a limited timeframe. We cannot plant seeds, raise our children, or address many other duties on a personal timetable or at our convenience. Failure to plant at the right time or neglect in bringing up kids when they are still kids will yield heartbreaking harvests. In one way or another, every moment of life offers worthwhile work.
Ecclesiastes 3:9-13What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.
Alongside the abundance of opportunity is our haunting sense of eternity. However full and active this life may be, there is a weight of inadequacy that informs us we have not and cannot do enough. Work is important and employment is meaningful, but it does not meet our ultimate need for God. Life at its best includes our acknowledgement of God and our pursuit of work and leisure as his gifts.
