[Thanksgiving item: Praise God I'm back in BSF! *breakdancing* 1 of the best systems so far in keeping me disciplined in my bible study, will treasure 'my membership' in it.]
The very first question I grapple with when (at last) absolutely and fully convinced that my entire life is to be lived for God's glory is "What should my life's work be?" then secondly, "Is it to gear myself towards full-time church ministry/missionary work?"
The prayerful answer for me is an immediate "No" (although this answer is for this season and may possibly be changed at a later season in His good timing).
When sharing this answer with the people around me, the implicit response I sensed from them seems to be, "Are you sure (this is the prayerful answer/your heart has not been hardened by being steeped in worldliness/you are truly following God)?" Thank God that I have friends who truly care about my spiritual condition and who wants to know if I'm right with God. On the other hand, I admit I'm a little annoyed that they feel I'm not mature enough to perceive my current standing with God. (Let me not be blind when I think I see!)
You see, although I am mostly edified with the teaching on Proverbs during the month of June, I am not fully convinced about the teaching on work.
The lessons I perceived seems to be, work is ONLY for:
i) Putting food on the table
ii) Evangelism
(Correct me if I'm wrong)
I believe that the above are biblical positions and I raise both my hands and feet in support of them. I especially feel that evangelism in the workplace should be more vigourously championed, loving and effective evangelism techniques taught so that more people will become kingdom people.
My problem is with the concept "Only". It doesn't feel right to me that the way I spend 40-50% of my waking life cannot be offered for the glory of God in its own sake unless it becomes "a means to an end". I believe that everything I do can be offered for the glory of God in its own sake. I sing (currently mostly Christian songs) for the glory of God, moving to the kitchen should my mom express her annoyance "with my noise", I connect with friends (prayerfully it is lovingly) for His glory - laughing, making jokes, encouraging them when I can, I swallow my annoyance and do what I don't feel like doing (gritting my teeth and doing my best to discipline my heart so that I'm not cursing in my heart) for His glory, so why can't I simply work for His glory without considering it solely as a means to an end?
(To be continued...)
6 comments:
Hi! Just came across your blog thanks to a link off Gunblad3.
Interestingly enough, my experiences come from the other side - that is that when I express the possibility of an idea to do full time ministry (that is, to gear myself towards it), I get very quietly reminded that there continue to be ways to serve the Lord even as we're not working directly for full-time church ministry work. I think I'm detecting a trend here - there must be something about me!!
Just to add a little comment on what Pastor J taught in the church camp. His direction was to point out to those who think work is important, that the key reasons for working as mentioned in the Bible are as you mentioned - food and evangelism. The counterpoints he provided were geared towards career minded people and people who were more focussed on work so much so that other things suffer such as family and church. And the argument then goes from there - such as earning more money for the family so that they can be better off, or earning more money to support the church, or working extra hard to show that you as a Christian are such a good worker - other Christians should understand that!
What I feel you might have missed in the point on evangelism is that evangelism doesn't cover just directly defending and speaking your faith, but living such good lives that others will glorify His name (1 Peter 2). In that essence, we are not then allowed to become hermits, or all retreat into doing full time ministry - by which we would become evangelists in the pure sense (every time we leave our conclave it's to psycho people into joining us)!
Thus, yes, work is to glorify God as we do what we should do, but we must temper it by remembering that in its essence, work is still nothing more than reasons i and ii. Just as singing is to glorify God, but we shouldn't end up thinking that singing is the only way to glorify God. I think - I pray I am not putting words in his mouth - that Pastor J was focussing more on not focussing too much on work.
Additionally, we each are given different gifts (Eph 4) - this may include working in your present situation - and the money that we earn can and should go to further ministry work and mission work. If you want "other reasons" I guess these could be some.
Hope I didn't miss your main point. Heh.
Hi Hamster
Really glad that you took the time and effort to write out this well-thought out post, it's very much appreciated. Thank you.
You're right in saying that the teaching on work during church camp has value in correcting our society's current obsession with work and career-minded people and you're right in saying that my post with respects to evangelism has neglected lifestyle evangelism which is also a necessary point to note in the way we work.
What I was trying to emphasize in my post is that there is value in work in itself beyond putting food on the table and evangelism (including lifestyle evangelism) if it is not immoral (e.g prostitution, gambling etc).
God creates every person, not only with eternal spiritual needs but with temporal physical needs. When secular work fulfills a temporal physical need within God's purpose (for discussion, we'll ignore the cases where sinfulness subverts the feeding of normal needs with abnormal lusts *used in the broadest sense of the word*), that work has value in itself, for the glory of God.
When Adam was created, even before the fall, he was called to be a gardener and animal keeper. Christ Himself, before His properly appointed time was also a carpenter.
Bible Study Group time (note: I'm not saying bible study; hearing Him everyday is non-negotiable to leading Christ-centred lives) is not more sacred than work nor work more sacred than bible study group time. Where God is truly Lord in our lives, both are done for the glory of God and they will be ordered in accordance with His priority in that particular circumstance of their lives.
Thus if I'm a teacher, I'm in the ministry of teaching, I'm a toilet cleaner/road sweeper, I'm in the ministry of cleaning, if I'm a maid, I'm in the ministry of housekeeping, if I'm a doctor, I'm in the ministry of healing as long as I'm doing my work, fulfilling man's temporal physical needs in the way God intended it to be.
In saying this, I'm not saying that full time church work/missionary work is of little value, on the contrary, especially if they are teachers of spiritual truths, due acknowledgement must be given for their work in ensuring the sainthood of all believers that all priests may bring glory to Him in their individual domains.
Definitely with you when you mentioned that all of us are given different gifts and having our money further ministry/mission work.
In saying all these, I sincerely believe I'm not a careerist and I truly believe that there is value in work itself that goes beyond putting food on the table and evangelism. As you can tell, this is not yet a fully thought out position so do pray for me as I search to know the truth that I may order my life correctly.
If there are weaknesses in thinking for above, I'll be happy to hear from you to be corrected. Thank you for taking the trouble to correct me.
Hi again CD,
Thanks for your response and thanks for your thanks which I don't feel are really necessary ;). We continue to need to encourage one another and learn from the Word together as brothers and sisters in Christ. I didn't set out to correct you, honestly, and am a little miffed at myself that it seemed that way. Need to watch my delivery of words.
I do differ from you in certain points - I have to draw back from saying in a horrified way "No!! CD!! That is wrong!! Heretic!!" =P (Joke hor. JOKE)
1 Thess:2 and 2 Thess:3 give good reasons for work, and Paul even mentions what is wrong with idleness. Not so much that it's wrong to be idle per se - "you lazy bugger, you, that's wrong!" - but rather that being idle results in 2 things. The first being that as Paul implies, work is to prevent themselves from being a burden to others, which is a very Christian mindset. Who in his or her right mind won't want to sit back and receive cash for doing nothing or little? Paul says, work, so you don't end up sucking off someone else. The second result of idleness is being a busybody (2 Thess), from context seeming to imply that they're poking their noses where they don't belong.
On the flip side, we look at what reasons Paul gives for working in his context - to not be a burden, and interestingly enough, "to give you in ourselves an example to imitate". Talk about leading by example!
Why did I bring this up har.
I think one of the hallmarks of God's word is consistency. Meaning Jesus can't contradict (and doesn't) what God says or even Solomon through God's wisdom says. Now we have two instances (at least) in the Bible talking about work. In neither section is there a mention of the ministry of the work itself. Paul for example does not mention the wonders of tent making.
Admittedly Paul is not the best figure to be speaking about - he's a teacher! But nonetheless, he also does not egg on the people to do their work for pleasure, for the ministry of that work itself.
Having said all this, what is important to note is that in all areas of our lives we still should conduct ourselves in a manner which pleases God in our day to day business. In that light, we should work in a way that benefits others such as ta-baoing lunch so that you can finish up something that someone else needs to move on, or sacrificing some time with your PS2 to ask after a patient.
On another note, your example of Bible Study Group time raises a whole different set of questions. Do read this linked blog entry on why we go for Bible study groups in the first place - and if you agree with the articles, maybe you'll see it from my point of view - that you simply cannot compare bible study group time with work time in terms of ministry.
To sum up, being a doctor is good and well, being a good Christian doctor (thoughts and words reflect His kingdom) is good and well. But I would venture to say that time spent in fellowship with other Christians is still more important, for reasons espoused (and I agree with them) in the articles aforementioned. While full time ministry doesn't then beckon, we each conduct a full time ministry - in the pew, on the streets, at work, in school, at home, at play. That is, work plays a part but not the whole part or even a large part. I'm sure there were doctors and teachers of languages in the days of Paul's life. Yet nowhere does he commend them for that.
Please don't take this as correction, but as a discussion, and let's see where it takes us. Thanks for being patient with me!
Hi Hamster
Sorry for taking such a long time. I've yet to craft a response and will do it in a while.
Thanks for being patient. :)
Hi Hamster
Thanks for sharing your insight. Indeed, you are right in saying that work should never become an idol in life - the full part or even a large part.
And you're indeed right that belonging to small groups/ bible study groups is a great way to serve the body of Christ and belonging to one is as important as having a job/going to school. In saying that a job/going to school is as important as bible study (the sword cuts both ways :) ), I'm not trying to imply that belonging to a small group is unimportant, rather that in (doing the much needed) correcting (of) the careerist viewpoint, not to fall towards the other extreme and think that the only part of life that really counts to God are religious activities of church. (Thank you for highlighting these articles!)
Eph 6:5-8 'Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favour when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.'
The way I understood the passage is that even a slave's work is doing the will of God, God viewing it with dignity and an extension of what He wants us to do in our lives.
I probably got too enthusiastic in saying work=ministry. While the nature of ministry versus work is different, I feel that their importance in glorifying God is the same. I don't deny that the world as a whole had overemphasized the importance of a career in a person's life, and thus they need the gospel so that they may gradually move towards ordering their priorities the way God had intended. In educating the unsaved though, I don't think it is God's will that we should move towards the other extreme and think work in God's will is only for evangelism and food on the table. Life is more than just evangelism, Work is more than just a platform.
Hmmm... maybe I'm an oddball but I also don't view washing toilets or sweeping roads as being pleasure, especially if it's meant to be my work. So, like you, I also don't believe in working for pleasure. However, a road well-swept/ a toilet well-cleaned serves another/many human persons' needs. The work in thus serving people has value in itself and thus we can take pleasure in a work well done and in the value it creates in work (and working well) itself.
Right now, the only activities I consider more sacred are 'Prayer' and 'Bible Reading' (that's for me personally, now, perhaps as I know Christ more, these may changed. It may *and rightfully so* not be the same for others) because I believe these are the times we connect with our King Himself as He had graciously opened the privilege to us. All other activities are of equal value to bringing Him glory whether it be 'loving your neighbour as yourself' or 'loving each other as Christ has loved us'.
In saying all these, I am also not minimising the importance of full-time church workers/ministers. For their challenging work of equipping, preparing, supporting and aiding all saints in their work (Eph 4:11-12), they deserve the honour and respect appropriate for their service.
It is really my pleasure to discuss this with you. For most bloggers, it is a pleasure to see the (well-intentioned even if differing in viewpoint) comments left by readers because it means that the issues discussed are of equal importance to their readers which warrant them leaving their viewpoints behind. It also serves as a good standard to prayerfully think through my position so that I may correct them and order my life accordingly.
May our love abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that we may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. (Phil 1:9-11) Take care, brother (I think).
Hi CD,
Yes I'm of the male persuasion. I wonder what gave that away. :)
No other comments, just take care too, sister. Thanks for being so humble and loving in your reply!
Take care, and God be with you.
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