Is All Work Equal? Yes and No
Paul says every gift is essential for the church to be healthy. Thus, every gift has value. And that implies that every skill and every worker is valuable too. But Paul also says we differ in our functions. Yet there are “higher gifts” and believers rightly “desire” them (12:31). If God grants them, he expects us to use them. If the gift is service, we serve. If it is leadership, we lead “with zeal” (Rom. 12:6-8).
At this moment, two contradictory ideas about work compete for our attention. On one hand, economists say the desire to work is waning. People aren’t rushing to return to work after the disruptions of Covid. Specifically, employers can’t obtain laborers for entry level jobs. People would rather be unemployed than accept a job with low pay, poor benefits, and no prospects. Meanwhile, the church, and especially the faith and work movement, enthusiastically promotes the dignity and value of all labor. We cite Paul, who says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord” (Col. 3:23). In particular, Protestants refuse to call church work “sacred” and ordinary work “secular.” The faith and work movement cheers workers on saying, “All work is holy. Your work matters to God!”
Like all slogans, “All work is holy” must be refined. The idea that all work is holy doesn’t cover dishonest or illegal work. Pushing opioids is work, but it isn’t good work. Further, work can be lawful, yet almost meaningless. There is work that neither lasts long nor matters much. How important is it to sell lottery tickets? Cotton candy? Promotional T-shirts that can’t survive two journeys through a washing machine? It is unpopular but necessary to say it, but all work is not equal in every way.
First, let’s agree that all honest work has dignity. Second, every worker has equal value, whether they sweep floors or run major corporations. Third, both CEOs and cleaners can and should please God at work. In fact, the cleaner may well please God more, since a CEO can easily become impatient or selfish.
Nonetheless, certain positions have more strategic weight than others. The CEO has more impact on a corporation than the cleaning crew. A restaurant chain in my area recently declared bankruptcy due to a series of errors by corporate leadership. A little later, a Christian camping ministry escaped bankruptcy through a series of wise and sacrificial decisions. The labor force at both places was skillful and faithful. The restaurant enjoyed good food, loyal customers, and prices that were low enough to be acceptable but high enough to be profitable. The camp also had good food and programs, but the camp had better leaders in a time of crisis. Situations like these show how leaders have strategic influence. In short, all work can please God and every honest job has worth, but executives exert greater influence than security guards do – I say this as a former security guard.
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Truth, Love, and The Definition of “Inclusion”
Do not advance the lie. Do not agree to the lie. Once you give into the lie, you become defenseless to it and its insatiable demands. It has you in its grip and will not let you go.
“Inclusion” is a word that’s often cited as a motivator supporting the decisions and developments taking place in our society.
“Inclusion” is a good word on its face. But how is it actually functioning?
I’ve seen it and heard it often used as a conversation stopper. Once something is labeled “inclusive,” then its virtue can’t be questioned.“You’re not against inclusion, are you?”
Sometimes, it’s meant to reassure. “We’re just being inclusive.”
What I offer isn’t a full analysis of a concept that I think has many layers to it. But I do believe that this is the way this word/concept is being employed.
So here’s what I think is key: In order to be inclusive of those who struggle, are “different,” reality and meaning and language are being redefined for everyone.
In that case, “inclusion” doesn’t have to do with how we treat others, whether we’re kind, compassionate, etc., but whether we are accepting of the redefinitions of reality and language, including physical, biological reality and language.
Actually, kindness and compassion assume a normalcy of development or experience that some are struggling to be within, which requires special attention and care. The concept of health in general requires such a standard or target.
Today’s cultural understanding of “inclusion” rejects that and instead deems such normalcy as oppressive and even bigoted. Such ideas, words, thoughts are to be excluded, as well as the people who “stubbornly” hold onto them.
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Answering Objections to Saddleback’s Removal from the SBC
To be in friendly cooperation, a church must have a faith and practice that is in step with the BF&M [The Baptist Faith & Message]. Contradicting what the BF&M says about female pastors is by definition not “closely identifying” with the BF&M. Indeed, it’s a direct contradiction of the BF&M.
I have seen a variety of responses to the news yesterday that the SBC has found Saddleback Church to be out of step with “the Convention’s adopted statement of faith” and now no longer recognizes them as a “cooperating” church (Art. 3, SBC Constitution). As many of you know, the presenting issue is Saddleback’s recognition of a variety of female pastors, including one of their new lead teaching pastors. Having female pastors contradicts our statement of faith, The Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M), which says, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
As you can imagine, many of the public responses have been negative. On social media, some of the commentary has been incendiary and dismissive and therefore not worthy of serious engagement. Other critics simply do not like what Southern Baptists believe. Still, there are two objections that I thought it might be worth the effort to answer.
The first objection appears in a social media thread that Rick Warren himself “liked” on Twitter. The author shares a series of quotations from around the time that the BF&M was adopted in 2000 and observes how many SBC leaders at the time said that the BF&M would never be used to “coerce” Baptist churches. He quotes from one 2000 Baptist Press article which has compelling comments from both Albert Mohler and Adrian Rogers:
“We don’t have the right, the authority or the power to limit anybody,” Rogers noted. “We would resist that. What we are stating is what we believe mainstream Baptists believe…It is not a creed. It is a statement of what most of us believe.”
Other media questions focused on the new BFM’s stance against women serving as senior pastors.
“We would never presume to tell another church whom they may call as a pastor or tell another person whether or not they may serve as pastor,” Mohler said. “We’re not trying to force our beliefs on someone else.”
The author highlights these remarks and others like them to show that the BF&M was never meant to be “binding on individual SBC congregations” (source). He concludes from this that the BF&M was never intended to be a “parameter for cooperation” (source). Both of these observations are wrong and represent a serious misunderstanding of our polity.
Right now in 2023, I heartily affirm what both Adrian Rogers and Albert Mohler said 23 years ago. The SBC does not have the right or authority to tell any church whom they may call as pastor. The SBC has zero authority to tell a church what they can or cannot do or what they must or must not believe. How a church governs itself or chooses its pastors is not what this dispute is about.
This discussion is about whether the SBC has a right to recognize which churches are in friendly cooperation with the convention. Our polity says that the SBC does have that right. Furthermore, the SBC Constitution defines some parameters for determining which churches are in friendly cooperation. The Constitution says it this way:
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Singing in the Face of Suffering
Although the best comfort comes from God’s word, Christians have for centuries reflected on the hardships of life in light of the truth of God’s word in those seasons and written beautiful poetry shaped by the ideas and principles of the Scripture to find perspective and hope in God.
God’s people have never been strangers to sorrow and suffering. In His final instructions in the Upper Room, our Saviour warned us,
Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world (John 16:32–33).
Those words had particular application to the scattering of the sheep after the Shepherd was struck (cf. Zech. 13:7, Matt. 26:31) in His arrest by the Jewish Priests and condemnation by the Romans, but nonetheless we have come to know all to well the abiding application and truth of the Saviour’s words: In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
Affliction and tribulation are not unique to the New Covenant Church. The faithful in the Hebrew Church suffered greatly at the hands of their pagan neighbors and the wicked within the Old Covenant Church as well.
The ancient foe of God’s people works with hateful cunning and power to drive God’s people to despair. In the face of the rage of the devil and his minions, God’s people have for millennia cried to Him in song seeking both aid and solace, for they have learned: He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.
During my time at Grove City College, I spent many hours in Harbison Chapel playing hymns and psalms. Apart from reading the Scripture, there are few things more spiritually fruitful than meditating upon the prayers and praises offered by God’s people from of old.I. Comfort from the Psalter
Growing up Lutheran, we chanted from the Psalter each Lord’s Day, but Presbyterians have a special love for the Psalter and singing from it is an essential part of the worship of God. It is right that in sorrow we turn first to the Psalter for words to sing and pray, since they are words given by God’s Holy Spirit to the Church expressly for our use in prayer and singing.
The Old Covenant saints were often acquainted with affliction at the hands of the wicked, and their experiences can teach us how to suffer and grieve well as God’s people. In their sorrows, the Old Covenant saints found comfort from God’s coming victory. The Trinity Psalter Hymnal provides an excellent resource for Christians who are grieving and lamenting to call out to God in faith and hope.
Psalm 68
Although the enemies of God’s people may have their day and inflict horrible wounds upon God’s holy ones, the psalmist instructs us to draw comfort from the certain glorious triumph of our God.In Psalm 68, David looks forward to the day when all those who hate God and His people will be scattered and perish and God restores joy to His people in His glory:
God shall arise, and by His might Put all His enemies to flight;In conquest shall He quell them. Let those who hate Him, scattered, fleeBefore His glorious majesty, For God Himself shall fell them.Just as the wind drives smoke away, So God will scatter the arrayOf those who evil cherish. As wax that melts before the fire,So vanquished by God’s dreadful ire, Shall all the wicked perish.
But let the just with joyful voice In God’s victorious might rejoice;Let them exult before Him! O sing to God, His praise proclaimAnd raise a Psalm unto His Name; In joyful songs adore Him.Lift up your voice and sing aloud To Him who rides upon the cloudsHigh in the spacious heavens. The LORD, that is His glorious Name.Sing unto Him with loud acclaim; To Him be glory given.
The Trinity Psalter Hymnal uses a setting from the Genevan Psalter for Psalm 68, which is both profound and powerful in the way it emphasizes the words and gives hope that God will set all things right.
Psalm 80
As Book III of the Psalter (Psalms 73-89) draws to a close, the psalms seem to focus increasingly on the plight of God’s people as the pagans from the nations come in and oppress the servants of the Living God. Book III (Psalm 89) even seems to end with the question, “Is God still King?”
Psalm 80 calls out from deep anguish to God as the “Shepherd of Israel.” The psalmist (Asaph) reflects on God’s mighty throne “above the cherubim” and on God’s past grace toward His Church: “you who led Joseph like a flock.”While God had planted His people in a good land and shown great care for them in the past, the psalmist quickly turns his attention to the urgent need for restoration and help, because the nations have come in and ravaged God’s helpless people (organ setting):
A strife you have made us to neighbors around,Our foes in their laughter and scoffing abound.O LORD God of hosts, in your mercy restore,And we shall be saved when your face shines once more.
When the enemies of God have come into the Church, His people can be assured their Redeemer will restore His people and give them peace afresh.
Psalm 94
In our grief and sorrow at injustice, God’s people’s thoughts inevitably turn to vengeance. But God has reserved vengeance for Himself (Cf. Deut. 32:25, Rom 13:4), and so He has provided psalms and prayers for His people to use for this very purpose. One of them is Psalm 94. The Book of Psalms for Worship contains an excellent setting (Tune: Austria):We have already witnessed the media transition from reporting on events to now seeming to imply the victims of a mentally ill woman are somehow to blame for an act of unspeakable horror because she comes from a more culturally acceptable community of people than those who are part of a Christian school.
As the wicked use the slaughter of children and elderly to advance an agenda of demonic mutilation of the human body and effacing of the imago Dei, God has provided in the Psalter words both of abundant comfort and prayer:
God, the LORD, from whom is vengeance, God, Avenger, O shine forth!Judge of all the earth, O rise up! Pay the proud what they are worth.O LORD, how long will the wicked, How long will the wicked gloat?From their mouths they pour out violence, Of themselves all wicked boast.
Who the ear made, can He hear not? Who formed eyes, can He not see?Who warns nations, will He strike not? Who men teaches, knows not He?All the thoughts of men the LORD knows; Knows that but a breath are they.Blessed the man whom You reprove, LORD; Through Your law You point his way.
God is aware the wicked seem to be on the ascent and they sit in power for too long. But the saint can take heart, God sees, hears, warns, and teaches. And one day God will give His people rest:
Give him rest from days of trouble Till the wicked are brought down.For the LORD stays with His people, He will not forsake His own.Righteous judgments will be rendered, Justice will return again;Those of upright heart will follow In the way of justice then.
The psalter is our best comfort in affliction, because the words come from God Himself. It is said that when Martin Luther, when he received news of his father’s death, he took his Psalter and went to his room for the rest of the day, and there he found the sufficiency of God’s comfort.
As we sing the Psalter in affliction, we are joining a great company of God’s people stretching back thousands of years who looked to God and His word when they lack the strength to press on.
II. Comfort from the Hymnal
Although the best comfort comes from God’s word, Christians have for centuries reflected on the hardships of life in light of the truth of God’s word in those seasons and written beautiful poetry shaped by the ideas and principles of the Scripture to find perspective and hope in God.
This Is My Father’s World
A well-loved hymn whose third stanza seems especially appropriate for the past week (organ setting):
This is my Father’s world: O let me ne’er forgetThat though the wrong seems oft so strong,God is the Ruler yet. This is my Father’s World!The battle is not done. Jesus who died shall be satisfied.And earth and heaven be one.
The reign of God does not immediately nullify our sadness and sorrow. But Christ who died will make all things new and will have the last say. These words point us forward to one of the closing visions of the Scripture:
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:2–4).
The Scripture does not tell us our grief is something to suppress or to dismiss as “worldly,” but God does promise us there will come a day when all the causes of grief and sorrow are removed forever. That is something to sing about!
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