Dear friends,
Apart from sleeping, we spend more of our life working than anything else we do. But what is God’s plan for our work? Indeed, what is work? And how does it differ from doing good works, or does it? After responding to a letter from one of our subscribers, Peter and I explore what Genesis means by our gardening. At the end of our transcript are details of a talk on the subject of work.
Yours,
Phillip
Phillip Jensen: Hello, welcome again to Two Ways News. I'm Phillip Jensen.
Peter Jensen: And I'm Peter Jensen, his brother. Now Phillip, we're going to talk about work. Why did none of us become printers? There were three boys, and none of us became printers, though our father was a successful printer.
Phillip: Our father didn't want us to become printers. It was a hard job. It was not an attractive job. Even though he enjoyed running his own little company, it was just hard, physical, monotonous labour. People mean different things by ‘work’. There are so many alternatives, from the kind of drudgery of some jobs to fascination and interest in other jobs. Is the English teacher reading a novel on a holiday at work or on holidays?
Peter: We need to remember that the milk we drink each morning has been produced for us by dairy farmers who must work 365 days a year to achieve this. Most work throughout most of history has been pretty hard.
Phillip: Much of our discussion on work is really first-world problems about work. For some people, Monday is great, getting back into the office.
Peter: Not only did our father do monotonous hard work, but our mother's work, in the days before washing machines and dishwashers, was hard.
Phillip: Well, it was called ‘washing day’ because it took all day, whereas we've got a nice washing machine that does the full wash in 20 minutes. That is so radically different from the old boiling copper and the ringer that our mother had. She didn't even have a Hills Hoist. Work has changed a lot over the centuries, and the Industrial Revolution transformed work for people. There was pre-industrial revolution work, work in the industrial revolution itself, and work in the 21st century. We are using the same word, but we mean very different things in different periods of history.
Peter: And there are still billions of people in the world who work slavishly for very little.
Phillip: We had a letter on the subject of work from David, and we thank you very much, David, for your letter. Friends, we do enjoy getting feedback. David made some very interesting points about the nature of work.
The first is about unpaid overtime. He writes:
I know a lot of Christians, mostly working in professional roles, who feel obligated to fall in with this, that is, unpaid overtime, to the point that they have little time to serve their natural or church families.
He spoke about his own life in this regard, and he said,
We had to choose in government departments between working unpaid to meet the professional standards that our masters required or cutting corners and going home on time. There are within some parts of our society, professional parts I think in particular, where overwork is normalized and vaunted, and it's not paid for.
Now, that's a problem because people are working without being paid due to social pressure and the fear of losing their jobs. The whole union movement and the 40-hour week that was such a struggle is actually being undermined by social constraints and by computers. Working at home and always being contactable adds to the pressure. We have brought in new legislation recently about that, if I remember correctly. So that's one problem he raises.
Another problem he raises is about attitudes to work that come through sermons. He writes:
I heard occasional sermons about work that were of three kinds. One likened employees and bosses to slaves and masters, and two chided Christians who worked long hours for making their careers into an idol, and then three, seldom did I hear anyone expounding verses about paying workers fairly and promptly.
They are interesting insights about preaching and what preachers are preaching on. Take the third one first. The Bible is very strong about caring for your workers. “The labourer is worthy of his hire”, “you must not muzzle the ox when it's treading out the grain.” We must address that as a society. We care for our employees as a Christian value amongst employers. Chiding Christians for their careerism is a valuable thing to do, but the point that David makes is that sometimes careerism is not what's driven the extra-long hours of work. It's got to do with your employment possibilities and the fear of losing jobs for not living up to unrealistic expectations of the nature of work. In this regard, young professionals are really at risk. Young doctors, young lawyers who hope to get ahead in big law firms really do require working excessive hours. It is a fair point being made.
On the issue of slavery, I might differ with you, Peter, but I think slavery in the Bible means slavery. To jump from slavery to employee and employer does not do justice to the passages about slavery. You may be able to draw implications from how slaves were to work as to how others should work, but I don't think you can just move directly from what slaves are told to do to what workers are told to do.
Peter: I agree with that. It is a matter of implications since we don't live in a society with slavery, as far as we know, so it is drawing out principles. David has raised some pretty important issues that need to be talked about. I've always been a keen supporter of the trade union movement. I believe in trade unions. I'm not sure I believe in the ones we've got now, but I do believe in unionism. Interestingly, trade unions have taken the same steep dive that many, many organizations in our society have taken numerically. Whereas once they used to represent a huge proportion of the workforce, they now represent a minority of the workforce.
Phillip: That can be the change in the workforce. We've moved away from manufacturing and that kind of workforce. In industries like building, trade unions are still strong because that's still manual work, but a lot of our work has been moved into air-conditioned offices rather than in factories. And so, the strength of unionism is much less in that kind of context.
Peter: The recent legislation reflects something of the pressure that David is talking about.
I'll push back on David a little, although I don't believe in my pushback, but I want to push back and say, “Well, come on, David, after all, even in our living memory, people work six days a week, certainly five and a half, but sometimes six days a week because Saturday was a workday. It's only in relatively recent mid-20th century times, or perhaps earlier, that Saturday was conceded and that we now have two days off a week. Is it a bit unfair to complain about overwork if you have two days off a week as long as you do have two days off a week and the overtime is not demanded on the weekend?” That's a question I'd put to David, and I would be interested in his reply.
Phillip: His point about the overtime is that it is not paid. So yes, you might say, they used to work six days a week, but he's saying, yes, but we're only paid for five.
It is the third issue that he raises, which is a little bit more of a worry. His third issue is Christian organizations, and he gives the illustration of teachers in Christian schools. They work long extra hours, but they're told that it is not paid for because their whole teaching is their ministry. And so you can't judge teachers' pay by hours worked, and teachers should be working longer hours because of their Christian ministry. It is a problem in Christian ministry generally, let alone in Christian organizations. You and I, as Christian ministers, don't work according to hours. I've never thought of working to hours. In Christian ministry, there is this sense that you just do what needs to be done. But other people are working alongside us who are not employed in Christian ministry, though our whole employment might be. So, Two Ways Ministries employs some people to help, and we're not asking them to work the same as the minister. And yet they do because it's Christian ministry. Is there a difference here? Is professional work different from industrial work? Is family work different from retail work? Are Christian employers in a different situation than non-Christian employers in terms of ministry?
Peter: There are some deeper issues there too, namely that you may find in voluntary organizations, of which Christian ministries may be some, that the money coming in is not made, in the usual way of businesses, by work done for which is then sold, but rather by donations and is difficult to acquire. So I have had people working for me, and their salary is dependent upon the donors giving their money. So, in a sense, the whole setup is voluntary, and you simply work on. I'm not saying it's as good or bad. I like David, and he's raised some issues that are just beginning the conversation. We need to hear a lot more about it and a lot more from people in the workforce, both those who run businesses and those who don't. As he raises this, I think about our father, who was running a very small, basically one-person business, which he enjoyed running, but it was hard work. And he was doing 60 or 70 hours a week.
Phillip: And bringing home the folding and collating of booklets that we, as a family, sat in front of the fireplace, putting together.
Peter: Now, you may say that he didn't give enough to his family. We feel he did, but we understood he was running his own business. When you run your own business, you will put in the effort that's needed in order to do that. Ministry is like that. Ministers are self-employed and therefore more in a situation like our father. There are rewards for this. But it's a bit different when you're employed by the public service and are asked to do things without any extra pay, and that is contractual.
Phillip: We are very appreciative of David raising the issues because it shows the complexity of the gardener. It starts so beautifully in the Garden of Eden, which is what we get to talk about for a while in terms of work, but when you get to the 21st century with the history of the farmworker, the history of the industrial revolution, the history of the computer and electronic revolution, and the diversities of kinds of work that people do, coming to any singular concept of work is a very difficult thing.
Peter: I haven't had the same experiences as David and so many others. I wonder if it stimulated thinking amongst our hearers and whether we could hear more on the subject from other people.
Phillip: We turn to Genesis chapter 2:15:
Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.
The key verse is when we were created, it was for work. Now the very word ‘work’ can mean a diversity of things. According to dictionaries, “mental and physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose” or “a result or financially remunerated effort” or “doing what I have to do rather than what I want to do.” I think this definition of work comes after the Garden of Eden. We don't have to define work here because we’ve been given the framework. In Genesis 2, the man is the gardener, put in the garden to look after it, and chapter 1 tells us that he's to fill the earth and subdue the creation. But was man always intended to be a worker?
Peter: Interestingly, culture arises firstly from agriculture. What is the fundamental work? It is looking after the creation. Were we always intended to be workers? Yes. But I would define work fundamentally as the work of living in the kingdom of God and thus pleasing God in all we do. Now, that's probably not in the dictionary, but you see, our work never ceases from that point of view. To quote the New Testament, “We make it our aim to please Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9), and that is Jesus. Yes, we were created to work.
Phillip: But that kind of definition puts me into a monastery where I don't do any work at all. I'm seeking to please him, so I spend my time in prayer and Bible reading and now and then chanting some psalms.
Peter: One of the great moves of the Reformation was the recognition of the value of everyday work, which may or may not include paid work, and not the idea that work has to be in that way because pleasing the Lord includes the very work we do. Our work involves the production of food and the sharing of food with those who are dependent on us, for example. And that is work. It is also a good work. It is also pleasing the Lord and is therefore far broader than any concept of sitting in a monastery and praying all day.
Phillip: That’s why I like Genesis 2 and work as a definition in terms of agriculture and gardening. The fundamental concept of work is doing what God wants us to do. That is to care for his world. It is fundamentally living by our labour.
Peter: That is true, and it arises from chapter 1 and the image of God in chapter 1, namely, we are to be under him, the governors of the world.
Phillip: So therefore, work is a key element to understanding the relationship of humanity to the creation and humanity to the Creator.
Peter: Our work is a response to God, and all we do comes out of our desire to please Him.
Phillip: Yes, but the ‘do’ part is just a replacement for the word ‘work’. We are to do the work that God has put into our hands, namely to care for his world.
Peter: And he says, “Six days shall you labour,” and if you won't work, you won't eat. Part of the good works that God wants us to do is indeed work.
Phillip: That's inside the garden.
Peter: That’s the original design.
Phillip: The work is social. We'll look at the socialness of it in our next episode but it's social as well in the division of labour. We do not have to be subsistence farmers, and we rely upon farmers for subsistence.
Phillip: Australian farmers produce enough food for six or seven times our population. So we are feeding multitudes of people who aren't Australians, but in our labour we are doing that for them, which is a good thing. But farming is like that. You and I haven't grown anything that I could mention.
Peter: That’s not true; several weeds have come up in my garden, but, yes, we have relied upon the work of others. But do you think all this food growing here in Australia is not the care of nature but the exploitation of nature?
Phillip: No, it's the use of nature. It would be exploitation of nature if it were grown at the cost of nature to be thrown away for human folly. But the nature of the garden that God has given us, even outside the garden after the fall, is a world that is provided for humans to live by. And so to use that world to live by is a right thing. However, if you remember in the law, not only were humans to have the day off, but the animals were too, and the land was every seven years to be let fallow. You can exploit nature, but not all production of food is exploitation of nature. It's governing nature; it's ruling over nature as we are to do, but we've got to do it in a way that is God-honouring and therefore careful of the creation order that we've been given.
Peter: Now, we began with gardening, working in the garden. In the post-fall world, it has become far more difficult. Was it always meant to develop? We see in the post-fall world, for example, that people have moved on to tending flocks. And in Genesis 4, we're told of working with metals and developing music. Was this development always intended? Is it contrary to what we saw originally? Are we always all meant to be gardeners?
Phillip: Psalm 115:16 says, “The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man.” God, in making us in his image, was making us to govern the world, but also he created a world for our habitation. And he wasn't limiting how we were to do that but rather created us in a way that was enabling us to do it. So I don't see anywhere where the Bible criticizes the arts and crafts of humans in their work. Rather, it's spoken of positively. The workers of Tyre who helped build the temple are spoken of very positively.
Peter: Okay, is work compulsory?
Phillip: Well, for Christians the answer is yes, inasmuch as we are contributing to the welfare of others. In Titus chapter 3, the Apostle is teaching and exemplifying that each of us must be responsible for the care and benefits of each other. In our love for each other, we are all to contribute to the welfare of each other. If someone is not willing to work for the benefit of others, then he shouldn't take the benefit of other people's work, and so those who do not work do not eat. It is required for us to work as much as we're able to.
Peter: But retirement comes, and then old age kicks in. Our work is, in the end, to please the Lord because we don’t ever run out of the capacity for good works. Here we say, in summary, to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. Now, that is very important as we get older. You may be in a room, unable to move out of your bed, but you can still pray for people.
Phillip: My father-in-law worked in public service most of his life, but he was always a gardener. When he stopped working for the public service, he didn't stop gardening. In fact, he increased his gardening, and the characteristics of his gardening were lovely. He never went shopping; he would go to shops to see some of his friends, and while he was there, he'd pick up a few things. But he always took some of his gardening produce with him, and he would take clippings and share stories of clippings with people behind the counter. He was part of a community. He would wander up and down the shopping mall, having made friends with different people in different shops with his vegetables, which he shared with them so freely. He always worked in his garden, but he was no longer in commercial work. He just went to see his friends and picked up a few things while he was there, and his work of gardening never ceased.
Peter: George was a wonderful man, and he served in the Second World War. That was another sort of work. But the thing about his wandering around and being friends was also fulfilling the work of the Lord.
Phillip: Yes, it's loving your neighbour.
Peter: The structure of our society says that we work and then we retire. And then we live in hedonism. When you retire, it's called the golden period.
Is there a danger that we can worship the idea of ‘work’?
Phillip: Yes, and to go back to David’s letter, I think he is reacting against the push by preachers attacking people for finding their identity in their work and turning their work into a career and careerism. It is right that we attack those things. There's a difference between doing a job and having a career. David is right. Sometimes people work long hours, not because they have their identity in it and they are careerists, but because they're required to do so for their job. They are quite right in that. We do have to care for our workers so that we do not abuse the privilege of having their fellowship. But there are also large numbers of people being taught to find their identity in their progress in a career. That is a terrible mistake because my serving God by work is not the same as serving my self-identity by my work.
Peter: Yes, and in Christian circles too, there's a tendency to worship professional work. So I've often heard people say, “My son, my daughter is going to be a professional of some sort,” but they never say, “My son, my daughter is going to be a prison officer.”
Phillip: Or a street sweeper or a garbage collector.
Peter: But they are the people we really need.
Phillip: Some of the people who make the greatest contribution to human health are plumbers. Clean water and good sanitation are fundamental to public health. Yet, there's a career job snobbery. But it can also be in identity with us ministers. When I'm asked to define or describe myself, what am I going to say on the back of a book about Phillip Jensen? I want to say I'm the third son of Arthur and Dorothy Jensen.
And I'm the husband of Helen, the father of three, and the grandfather of thirteen. That's who I am. What I do is what I do, and I'm very thankful to God for the privilege of doing that. But it's not who I am. That's a mistaken category.
Peter: Otherwise, it can be immensely damaging to find yourself unable to do that any longer if that's who you are. You are fundamentally a child of God. That's the greatest honour and the greatest self-identification that any of us can have.
Phillip: Can I just mention the Queen's Birthday Conference? We don't have a Queen's Birthday Conference anymore because we don't have a queen. But in 2017 we did have a Queen's Birthday Conference, and it was on the subject of work. There's a talk that you can download from phillipjensen.com. We’ll put the link below in the notes for you. The talk on work covers a much broader range of things than what we talked about today.
Links & Recommendations
For more on this topic, check out this Queen’s Birthday Conference 2017 sermon by Phillip. It’s called Working for the Lord.
https://phillipjensen.com/resources/work-for-the-lord-2/
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