In some places the Bible seems pro-money. In other places it seems anti-money. What, then, should we do? Are paychecks a blight or a blessing?

We especially need encouragement in our places of work, which often leave us feeling spiritually isolated and unsupported. In that context, we first need to seek one another. And then we need to support one another.

Shirking work is not a new problem. In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul called out those who were refusing to work. Withdrawing from work is not acceptable, because it amounts to disobeying God.

What a high privilege! Through your work, you can help unwrap the good gifts hidden within the ground God created. This offers you one more reason to get up and go to work—and to praise God as you do so!

Most of us who follow Jesus want to grow spiritually. But do we usually see our daily work as faith’s fitness center?

This blog is the text of the video: WORSHIP AND WORK? To view the video, click HERE.

This blog is the text of a 5-minute video: WHY WORK? To view the video, click here.

I was twenty-six. A Christian. With a new job working as a state government employee. During those first few days, it didn’t take long for one seasoned worker to size me up. He saw a young man who had been raised in a Christian home, a fresh graduate of a Christian college, and unsophisticated in the ways of the world. I heard later that he had commented to a coworker: “This guy won’t last three weeks.”

Should you earn more than you need for yourself and your dependents? Getting more does not have to be motivated by greed. Instead, you can aim to make enough to be able to share with others. What “others” need your support? People and organizations who depend on the contributions of those with the means to give. Those means are generated by enterprises that turn a profit.

Here’s the problem: for many of us, getting paid for our work connects only loosely (if at all) with God’s Kingdom agenda. We don’t identify our paycheck with God’s will being done on earth as in heaven. At best, money crosses over into something spiritual when we give it to the church or missions. At worst, having cash can seem like a necessary evil—filthy lucre, as the King James version puts it five times.

That’s when I saw Marc. He had pinned a non-Christian in the right angle formed by the steel wall and one side of a Coke machine. Marc was “witnessing” away at the cornered man with some clearly unwelcomed intensity. Suddenly, my face felt flushed. I was embarrassed to be identified with this fellow Christian.

How can we worship when our minds must be laser-focused on chores like cleaning a carburetor, changing a diaper, or filling a tooth?

As suggested in an earlier blog, the current exodus from work opens a door for churches. In that article, I briefly described seven Kingdom-of-God reasons for working. This will expand on the fourth reason: God uses our work to grow us up.

Although I could not see it at the time, my role on Dad’s farm pictured the much larger reality of the human task on God’s earth. The whole farm was Dad’s property, not mine. But within the boundaries he had marked out, I ruled that half-acre. And I did so through my work.

Is imaging God on the job even possible? Can his light penetrate in a profit-obsessed, ambition-centered, self-seeking environment? “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn. 1:5). But how?

As I pointed out In the previous blog, this exodus from work opens a door for churches. In that blog, I briefly described seven Kingdom-of-God reasons for working. This article will expand on the first reason: God tells us to work. We work to obey him.

Jesus, through John, told the church in Philadelphia: “I have placed before you an open door . . .” (Rev. 3:8). Today, the “Great Resignation” offers churches another open door.

The snag for so many of us is that we have been conditioned to think that our “secular” work has little or nothing to do with God’s eternal agenda. A car tire detached from its wheel cannot carry out its purpose. Your work separated from the hope of glory will never realize God’s aim for it. Any job, with no connection to God’s eternal plan, becomes meaningless. Blah.

“Most of us spend a lot of time at work. This means that our Christian identity is being formed much of the time under uncongenial if not downright hostile conditions.” —Eugene Peterson

A friend once sent a link to a blog that began with the comical story of two couples canoeing on a lake. The first couple pull their boat to the dock and step out. The other couple park their craft alongside the first. The man in the second canoe steps one foot in the first, hoping to use it as a bridge to the dock. But in doing so, he pushes his own canoe away—with his other foot still in it. As he does the splits, arms thrashing, he plummets headfirst into the water.