One of the great blessings which was given to Nehemiah in the course of his life was blessing of a people ready for work. “So we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a mind to work” (Neh. 4:6). The gift of an honest work ethic is a very great blessing from God. A reputation for hard work was once the legacy of the sons of Puritans and Huguenots. Although the memory is dim, we still refer today to “the Protestant work ethic.” This is like an impoverished man in the gutter recalling how wealthy his great-grandfather was. Like the prodigal son in our Lord’s story, we have been busy spending without replenishing. Over the course of many years, I have even heard many Christians say that they have come to hate doing business with other Christians. While our work ethic is not entirely lost, as a cultural manifestation it is certainly in shambles.
Christians should endeavor to do everything to the glory of God and should therefore want their work to be first-rate. Our bodies are to be living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1-2), and the work of our hands is part of that sacrifice. When this is our attitude, we may in good conscience ask God to bless the work of our hands. “And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands” (Ps. 90:17). But instead of this a theological slovenliness has overtaken us. Instead of thinking that the work we do is an offering to God and should therefore be the best, we have taken to abusing the doctrine of forgiveness. The work of Christians should be a by-word for quality. But because Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven, as our bumper sticker wisdom has it, we think that other believers have a responsibility to cut us some slack whenever we deal with them in a dishonest and slipshod fashion. Of course this standard is flexible enough for us to abandon it when another Christian is trying to shortchange us.
But think for a moment. When a Christian is deciding to take his business somewhere, how often does something like this occur? He says to himself, “So and so is a Christian brother. If I take my business there, then maybe . . .” We all know that the remainder of the sentence is, “. . . then maybe he will give me a deal.” But why do we not reason in the other direction? Why do we not reason that since so and so is a Christian brother we might want to add ten percent to the bill? The apostle Paul taught Christian servants that when their masters were also Christians they should make of point of working hard for them because “those who are benefited are believers and beloved” (1 Tim. 6:2). We do not do this because we do not think biblically about our work.
We have come to believe that our work is our own possession and that we therefore have the right to dispose of it however we see fit. But in the biblical pattern, the Lord of all is the Lord of all our work. We rest for one day and are refreshed and enabled to work before Him for other six. But the modern man wants to work for five in order to play for two, and if the union negotiations are successful, work for four in order to play for three.
Hard work is a form of service, a means of giving. The work we do is closely connected to the essential dignity of man. When God created Adam and placed him in the garden, work was assigned to him before the fall. He was called to tend the garden, and name the animals. In our expulsion from the Garden of Eden, God made sure the work got more difficult (sinners don’t do well on Easy Street), but the work itself still retains its dignity. But in a fallen world, that dignity is constantly falling into disrepair. We must pay attention to it, and it is here that modern Christians have not done well.
Evangelical Christians have successfully built up a genuine subculture in American life. Unfortunately, it is a fifth-rate subculture. In Christian book stores, we have our own retail outlets all over the country to serve the various needs of Christian communities. These retail outlets market the work of our hands, and display their quality for all to see. Now if a fair and impartial observer were to head out across our country in search of the well-done, would he ever find it necessary to go anywhere near those stores which sell what we produce in the name of Christ? We used to build cathedrals; now our churches look like factory outlet malls. We used to write music that still inspires; now we have trouble getting past three chords. We used to write and read tremendous novels; now we rave over When Thumps the Heart. All these things are the fruit of our moral, intellectual, theological, and physical laziness. Christians aren’t perfect, just asleep on the couch.
If God is kind to us and grants repentance, perhaps it may be said of us someday that we “had a mind to work.”