What are we looking for in a job?

When we look at our work, we often look through the lens of our own personal fulfillment. Yet the New Testament writers look at it through the lens of our own spiritual formation, an outworking of our salvation and our sanctification. It is a good and desirable thing to have work that fulfills us. There is nothing inherently wrong about pursuing a great job, but we must remember it is not necessary for God's will to be accomplished in our lives. What is necessary is that we are formed into greater Christlikeness in our work. -  Tom Nelson in Work Matters

Book Review - Work Matters

"The worst of work nowadays is what happens to people when they cease to work.” This quote by G. K. Chesterton reveals the high regard in which this famous English writer held work. In his enigmatic style, Chesterton somewhat paradoxically praises work and the worker. Tom Nelson, pastor of Christ Community Church in Leawood, Kansas, also holds work in high regard. In his recently released book, Work Matters, Nelson embarks on a journey in which, as the book's subtitle suggests, he tries to connect Sunday worship to Monday work.

Nelson endeavours to explore work both theologically and practically. He wants the reader to perceive the profound honour of work due to its theological foundation as well as help the reader transform how he actually works. Nelson explicates a theology of vocation by considering work in light of the meta-narrative of the Bible; creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

Simply put, “To be an image-bearer is to be a worker” (22). Nelson maintains that God is a worker, and one of the most important ways we reflect His glory is through our work. We were created for this. However, as a result of sin, work has become difficult, disillusioning, and distorted. “We must recognize that at this point in redemptive history, our work will not be all we want it to be” (47). The futility of work is not the end of this story the author reminds us. Though sin has marred and maimed work, Christ's work of redemption encompasses what we have called 'the daily grind'. Nelson informs us of the positive and negative aspects of the gospel's effects on work. We are encouraged that “as new creations in Christ ... we are again able to do the work we were created for” (58) and yet we are warned that without Christ “your work will never be all that God intended it to be” (61). Finally, the author touches upon a few ideas concerning the afterlife. Our work here on earth will be rewarded. And, writes Nelson, “if our daily work ... in some way carries over to the new heavens and the new earth, then our present work itself is overflowing with immeasurable value and eternal significance” (73).

I found this section of the book very encouraging as I considered my job and the daily work-a-day life that many of us live. These deep theological truths infuse our work with value, significance, and purpose far beyond the accumulation of money. These are the types of teachings which will indeed help us connect worship and work.

Though Nelson never leaves his theological and doctrinal moorings, he moves on to practical implications of the theology he has just demonstrated. Nelson covers topics such as the witness of our work, our sanctification through work, and common grace and our work. He also examines individual work issues such as contentment, calling, giftedness, and growth.

This was a helpful book written convincingly. It offers a solid theological basis for holding work in high regard and helps us see the inseparable connection between our lives as worshipers and our lives as workers. The truths in this book are fodder for continual application of truth from God to our lives as they are lived daily. For and educational and engaging look into vocation and its theology, I recommend this book.

Nelson, Tom. Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship with Monday Work. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011. Print.

A Mixed Bag

In Work Matters, author Tom Nelson brings the following verses from Ecclesiastes to our attention:

    So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
    I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, ... What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.
(Ecclesiastes 2:17-18, 22-23 ESV)

Nelson then goes on to comment

The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that work in this fallen world is a mixed bag. Work is both a curse and a gift. Work greets us with both frustration and exhilaration. Our work gives evidence of our glorious creation as well as our great estrangement from God and our need for a Savior who will redeem us from sin's devastating curse. (42)

A compartmentalized modern life

So often we think of worship as something we do on Sunday and work as something we do on Monday. However, this dichotomy is not what God designed nor what he desires for our lives. God designed work to have both a vertical and horizontal dimension. We work to the glory of God and for the furtherance of the common good. On Sunday we say we go to worship and on Monday we say we go to work, but our language reveals our foggy theological thinking. That our work has been designed by God to be an act of worship is often missed in the frenzied pace of a compartmentalized modern life. (Nelson, Tom. Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship with Monday Work. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011. Print. 27)