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| Don’t listen to that voice that says the work you do in the marketplace isn’t as holy or as valuable as the work of a 'full-time' minister. |
Your Work Is Your Ministry
When it came time to recruit those for whom the church would be
founded, Jesus chose 12 men from the marketplace: a fisherman, a tax collector,
a doctor and so on - they all came from the marketplace - interestingly enough,
none of His disciples were priests in the Jewish church, a natural place from
which to recruit if you’re going to start a religious movement - Jesus called
them all from the marketplace of life
OS HILLMAN
"The
Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take
care of it" (Genesis 2:15, NIV).
Imagine
for a moment that Jesus has just completed His three years of training with the
disciples.
He has
been crucified and is now commissioning the 12 to go into the world and
disciple the nations.
Now
imagine Him also making this statement to them:
“Dear brothers, it is now time for you to share what you have
learned from me. However, as you share with others, be sure that you keep what
I taught you separate from your work life. The principles I have shared with
you only apply in situations outside your work life. Do not make them fit into
this context. The miracles you saw in Me can only be done in certain situations
outside work life. Keep this in mind when thinking about praying for the sick
or the lost. These truths will not work in the marketplace.”
Sound
preposterous? It may, but this is the mindset of many in our world today — the
spiritual does not mix with the everyday world of the workplace.
“What happens on Monday has no relationship to what takes place on
Sunday,” they say.
These are
the thoughts expressed so much in our day and time, although they are not
expressed in such direct terms.
Let’s
think more about this idea. When Jesus came to earth, how did He come?
As a
carpenter — a man given to work with his hands and to provide an honest service
to his fellow man. He did not come as a priest, although He was both a King and
a Priest (Revelation 1:6).
When it
came time to recruit those for whom the church would be founded, He chose 12
men from the marketplace: a fisherman, a tax collector, a doctor and so on.
They all
came from the marketplace.
Interestingly
enough, none of his disciples were priests in the Jewish church, a natural
place from which to recruit if you’re going to start a religious movement.
Jesus
called them all from the marketplace of life.
Was it
any accident that Jesus called men and women from the marketplace to play such
a vital role in His mission? I think not.
When God
created the earth, He demonstrated something right up front to human beings.
He
believed in work. He was, above all else, the Master Creator.
He was an
artist, designer, strategic planner, organizer, project developer, assessor,
zoologist, biologist, chemist, linguist, programmer, materials specialist,
engineer and waste management technician.
This work
did not end when He created man, but was only the beginning in His continued
care for mankind.
Whether
we call our work “sacred” or “secular,” all legitimate work reflects the
activity of God. God is honored when we work with the goal of reflecting His
life through our life and work.
So, why
and how did society begin to draw a separation between faith and work?
The Great
Divide: Elevating the Spiritual at the Expense of the Secular
If you were to conduct a survey on an average city street about whether people thought religion belonged in the workplace, chances are high they would say no.
If you were to conduct a survey on an average city street about whether people thought religion belonged in the workplace, chances are high they would say no.
Most
people today see no relevance between God and work in today’s fast-paced
marketplace.
Why is
this? Why do many Christians even believe this? Well, it goes back to the early
years — before the Protestant Reformation.
Os
Guinness, in his book The Call, provides us the necessary history
of how we got to this segmented view of work and life:
“The truth of calling means that for followers of Christ,
‘everyone, everywhere, and in everything’ lives the whole of life as a response
to God’s call. Yet, this holistic character of calling has often been distorted
to become a form of dualism that elevates the spiritual at the expense of the
secular.
“This distortion may be called the ‘Catholic Distortion’ because
it rose in the Catholic era and is the majority position in the Catholic
tradition.
“Protestants, however, cannot afford to be smug. For one thing,
countless Protestants have succumbed to the Catholic distortion as Wilberforce
nearly did.
“Ponder, for example, the fallacy of the contemporary Protestant
term ‘full-time Christian service’ — as if those not working for churches or
Christian organizations are only part-time in the service of Christ.
“For another thing, Protestant confusion about calling has led to
a ‘Protestant distortion’ that is even worse. This is a form of dualism in a
secular direction that not only elevates the secular at the expense of the
spiritual, but also cuts it off from the spiritual altogether.”
Therefore,
it is understandable why we are where we are today. Over many centuries, we
have been trained to believe that the two worlds of spiritual and secular are
to be separated.
Now it is
easier to understand why the separation of church and state is such a debated
issue.
Consider
these facts about Jesus and Paul’s ministries:
o
Of 132 public appearances in the New Testament, 122 were in the
marketplace.
o
Of 52 parables Jesus told, 45 had a workplace context.
o
Of 40 miracles recorded in the book of Acts, 39 were in the
marketplace.
o
54 percent of Jesus’ reported teaching ministry arose out of
issues posed by others in the scope of daily life experience.
Work, in
its different forms, is mentioned more than 800 times in the Bible — more times
than all the words used to express worship, music, praise and singing combined.
Jesus and Paul saw their work as ministry. Paul wrote: “And
whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that
from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the
Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:23-24, NKJV).
In their
book Your Work Matters To God, authors Doug Sherman and William
Hendricks state the following regarding holy versus unholy vocations:
“The architect who designs buildings to the glory of God, who
works with integrity, diligence, fairness, and excellence, who treats his wife
with the love Christ has for the Church, who raises his children in Godly
wisdom and instruction, who urges non-Christian coworkers and associates to
heed the gospel message — in short, who acts as a responsible manager in the
various arenas God has entrusted him—this man will receive eternal praise from
God. That is what really matters in eternity.
“In short, God’s interest is not simply that we do holy activities
but that we become holy people. Not pious. Not sanctimonious. Not otherworldly.
But pure, healthy, Christlike.
“This whole idea of secular versus religious is a Greek idea.
These Greek ideas, clothed in biblical language, have, for the most part, been
passed down unchallenged to succeeding generations of Christians.
“As a result, most of us today bring assumptions to the biblical
text, assumptions based on a worldview articulated by Plato, Aristotle,
Plotinus, and other Greek thinkers.
“Likewise, if you have been around much Christian teaching, you’ve
undoubtedly been influenced by at least some Greek ideas. Nothing overtly or
purely pagan. But I suggest that Christianity in our culture has absorbed from
its tradition a number of subtle beliefs that trace back to Greek philosophy.
“Now, I am not ‘down’ on philosophy. Nor am I ‘down’ on the Greek
philosophers, for they have provided us with many insights into philosophical
questions. Nevertheless, reading the Bible through their eyes — through Greek
glasses — can severely distort the truth of God’s Word.
“We will think that the Bible says things it does not say, and
overlook important things it does say. The result will be a distorted view of
life. And a distorted view of work. Wearing Greek glasses, one would tend to
ignore or disparage everyday work. This is how work looks when viewed through
these lenses.”
Sherman
and Hendricks make an excellent assessment here of how many Western societies
have been affected by the philosophies and culture of the Greek influence.
We in the
United States may speak English, but we think Greek. Our focus on competition,
segmentation of life from the secular to sacred, rationalism and reasoning all
move us to a goal of a more intellectual position in our faith instead of a
simple, trusting faith.
The root
of this is the Greek/Hellenistic civilization. It has been so much a part of
our thinking and way of viewing life that we have lost our ability to
understand God and relate to Him as the early church did.
As the
church grew and extended its borders outside Jerusalem, believers became
influenced by a wide array of philosophies.
The
purity and power of the message were affected by the dominant culture, which
became the Greek culture.
The time
following the two major Jewish revolts of A.D. 70 and A.D. 135 saw a Greek,
man-centered view of the world reshape the church.
Early
Greek scholars, like Plato, introduced dualism, which says life is divided into
two compartments: the spiritual or eternal, and the temporal realm of the
physical.
Plato’s
dualism entered the church through many of the church fathers who were Greek
philosophers who converted to Christianity. They attempted to reconcile Greek
thought with Christianity.
Os
Hillman is
president of Marketplace Leaders and author of Change Agent and the TGIF Today God Is First daily
devotional.
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