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January 7 - February 26, 2021
when we say that Christians work from a gospel worldview, it does not mean that they are constantly speaking about Christian teaching in their work.
think of the gospel as a set of glasses through which you “look” at everything else in the world.
Christians in business will see profit as only one of several bottom lines; and they will work passionately for any kind of enterprise that serves the common good. The Christian writer can constantly be showing the destructiveness of making something besides God into the central thing, even without mentioning God directly.
Are you thinking about your work through the lenses of a Christian worldview?
asking questions such as:
What’s the story line of the culture in which I live and the field where I work? Who are the protagonists and antagonists?
What are the underlying assumptions about meaning, morality, origin, and destiny?
How does my particular profession retell this story line, and what part does the profession itself play in the story?
What parts of the dominant worldviews are basically in line with the gospel, so that I can agree with and align with them?
What parts of the dominant worldviews are irresolvabl...
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How can Christ complete the story in a ...
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How do these stories affect both the form and the content of ...
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work not just with excellence but also with Christia...
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What opportunities are there in my profession for (a) serving individual people, (b) serving society at large, (c) serving my field of work, (d) modeling competence ...
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A New Conception of Work
Whatever you do, do well. Ecclesiastes 9:10 (NLT)
First, we must acknowledge that there is no neutrality in the world. Everyone who does not acknowledge Christ as Lord is operating out of a false view of ultimate reality, while to confess Christ as Lord is to be in line with ultimate reality.
the reality of common grace. God gives out gifts of wisdom, talent, beauty, and skill according to his grace—that is, in a completely unmerited way.
of creation and culture should have fallen apart by now. The reason it is not worse is because of the gift of common grace.
Without an understanding of common grace, Christians will have trouble understanding why non-Christians so often exceed Christians morally and in wisdom.
the doctrine of sin means that believers are never as good as our true worldview should make us.
the doctrine of grace means that unbelievers are never as messed up as their false wo...
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So we can see all cultural production (and remember, everything
Christians’ disengagement from popular culture usually carries over into dualism at work.
“Dualism” is a term used to describe a separating wall between the sacred and the secular.
People with this view cannot see that work done by non-Christians always contains some degree of God’s common grace as well as the distortions of sin. And they cannot see that work done by Christians, even if it overtly names the name of Jesus, is also significantly distorted by sin.
grasp the importance of what we have in common with the world,
grasp the importance of what is distinctive about the Christian worldview—namely, that the gospel reframes all things, not just religious things.
The integration of faith and work is the oppo...
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Our thick view of common grace will remind us that even explicitly non-Christian work and culture will always have some witness to God’s truth in it.
Christians are never as good as their right beliefs should make them and non-Christians are never as bad as their wrong beliefs should make them,
most people argue—or at the very least, live out—ethics on the basis of cost-benefit analysis. Integrity is profitable; dishonesty isn’t.
It is important to be as skillful, diligent, savvy, and disciplined as we can possibly be. In Colossians 3, verse 23 we are told “whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.”
Thomas Aquinas, the greatest Christian theologian of the medieval era, looked at the four cardinal virtues of Plato—justice, courage, temperance, and prudence—and agreed that these were also taught in the Christian Scriptures.
Aquinas added three theological virtues—faith, hope, and love—to the four cardinal virtues, because these are specifically and uniquely born out of the Christian revelation about the character of God and his grace.
At the end of your life, will you wish that you had plunged more of your time, passion, and skills into work environments and work products that helped people to give and receive more love?
every person is made in the image of God he or she has inviolable rights, regardless of that person’s race, class, gender, lifestyle, or moral character.
wisdom is more than just obeying God’s ethical norms; it is knowing the right thing to do in the 80 percent of life’s situations in which the moral rules don’t provide the clear answer.
Slavery in Paul’s time was not race-based and was seldom lifelong. It was more like what we would call indentured servitude.
If we begin to work as if we were serving the Lord, we will be freed from both overwork and underwork.
Christians should be known to not be ruthless.
Christians should be also known to be calm and poised in the face of difficulty or failure.
Christians should not be seen as sectarian.
if we have an integrated and non-dualistic understanding of work, we know that many people who are not believers are, through God’s providence and common grace, given the gifts to do excellent work. So we will respect and treat those who believe differently as valued equals in the workplace—
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the corrupting effect of the Ring of Power. When you put on the Ring, it magnifies your own will to power; and in doing so, it turns you evil.
The Power of Deep Rest There is a symbiotic relationship between work and rest.
The Sabbath legislation in Israel was enacted after the Exodus from Egypt. It was unique among world cultures at the time. It limited work, profit taking, exploitation, and economic production in general.
In the long run, of course, a deeply rested people are far more productive.
We are also to think of Sabbath as an act of trust.
the Christian view, the way to find your calling is to look at the way you were created. Your gifts have not emerged by accident, but because the Creator gave them to you.
