Work Isn’t the Curse
When God creates us to reflect his image to the world, the first way that happens is through dominion. Dominion is a strange word for us, so what exactly does God mean? Dominion isn’t a word we use very often. Dominion means benevolent rule, stewardship, or care. It means work. We have been created for dominion—for work. Our creativity, our management, our organization, our labor– all of this reflects God to the world. We’ve all had a taste of this. We’ve all done work that was meaningful, that we took a sense of pride in.
I do my job just to get by.
-Three in ten American workers
My job is just a stepping stone for something better.
-Two in ten American workers[i]
Half of America agrees: work is a curse. This Monday we celebrate Labor Day. For many, the best part of Labor Day is that they don’t have to labor. And isn’t that what the Bible teaches? After Adam and Eve rebel, God levies this curse on Adam:
[C]ursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground…[ii]
Work is a curse. Historian Roger Hill agrees:
“From a historical perspective, the cultural norm placing a positive moral value on doing a good job because work has intrinsic value for its own sake was a relatively recent development… Work, for much of the ancient history of the human race, has been hard and degrading… the Hebrew belief system viewed work as a ‘curse devised by God explicitly to punish the disobedience and ingratitude of Adam and Eve’… Numerous scriptures from the Old Testament in fact supported work, not from the stance that there was any joy in it, but from the premise that it was necessary to prevent poverty and destitution.”[iii]
There you have it. Work is a curse. And haven’t you felt the curse of work? Haven’t you felt the thorns, thistles, and sweat?
I’ve held a number of jobs: umpire, swim coach, fast food restaurant cook, I’ve worked at a deli, worked at a call center, been a Detention Officer, worked landscaping, worked in fundraising, and, of course, as a pastor. And every one of those jobs had thistles and sweat. They were all hard in their own way. No one has a job without thistles and sweat.
There’s a scientific theory that I think sums up this “thistles and sweat” reality of work well: entropy. Entropy is the phenomenon that things break down from order to disorder. Why did our air conditioner break only two and a half years of installation? Entropy. Why does the sliding glass door stick? Entropy. Have you ever put earbuds in your pocket?
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The Priesthood of the Father, Giving Up the Son
Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Thursday, December 22, 2022
The Son is the priest who offers Himself without spot to God, and the Father is the priest in giving His eternally beloved Son as a sacrifice for the sin of His people. Jesus has been “given for us” by the Father (Isaiah 9:6) so that we might be reconciled to God.In his outstanding book Christ Crucified: Understanding the Atonement, Donald Macleod gives an intriguing insight about the priestly role God the Father played in giving His Son up as an atoning sacrifice. He writes,
“[Luke 22:19 and Romans 8:32] point to a priesthood of God the Father, ‘giving’ or ‘giving up’ His only Son. . .What can we say as to the precise nature of the Father’s action at Calvary? The New Testament answer is breathtaking. He acted in the role of priest. Just as Jesus ‘gave’ His life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45) so God the Father ‘gave’ His one and only Son; just as Christ ‘delivered up’ Himself as a fragrant offering (Eph. 5:2) so God the Father ‘delivered up’ His own Son (Rom. 8:32).”1
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Tithing and Obedience
Brothers and sisters, as men and women who live in the wealthiest society that has ever been, the Church in America is in the position of being able to do more for the Kingdom than any other generation. Yet, I fear we will go down as one of the stingiest generations in all of church history. The average American lives more lavishly than all the Caesars of Rome and all the Pharaohs of Egypt. Yet the average church in America can barely afford to underpay a single minister. What are we doing?
11 then it shall come about that the place in which the Lord your God will choose for His name to dwell, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution of your hand, and all your choice votive offerings which you will vow to the Lord. – Deuteronomy. 12:11
As the awful stench of hellish Canaanite sin wafted its way up to the heavens from the land, God was preparing His people on the edge of those borders and teaching them how to live for Him once they occupied it. Of course, they would need good weapons to fight the giants like Og, king of Bashan. They would need armor to withstand the urban warfare in all the various cities. And when they finished taking over and putting to death all those whom God commanded, they would need tools to farm and sew, seeds to plant, wells dug to retrieve water, and all sorts of other things that were essential for them to live.
Yet, one of the more peculiar things God mentions to them, as being absolutely essential to their life and survival in the land, is tithing. In case we forget where the word “tithe” comes from, it comes from the offering Abraham made to Melchizedek, who was a priest of the LORD, King of Salem, and a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ. After routing four particularly nasty Canaanite kings, Abraham took the spoils of the victory. He acknowledged that a tenth part of it belonged to God. Then, believing He was standing in the presence of God, he handed the gift over to Melchizedek, who received the offering and blessed him. In doing this, Abraham acknowledges that His victory over the pagans was not due to his military prowess, intelligence in strategy, or the sizable force he mustered… He was announcing that his victory was entirely due to the grace of God, which is why God deserved the spoils.
Here in Deuteronomy 12, God is reminding His people of the same thing. Like Abraham, they were about to go in and route the Canaanites. And before the swords were drawn, God took a moment to remind them to behave like Abraham and remember the tithe. He told them, when you go in and fight the pagans, do not forget that 10% of what you recover belongs to Me. And not just during the fighting but as a perpetual statute for that generation and their children forever.
This ongoing commitment to giving 10% to the LORD was a gift to God, acknowledging that man cannot prosper on his own and that Yahweh alone protects us, sustains us, and keeps us. This 10% was an act of obedience from the people to their covenant Suzerain. It was a humble acknowledgment that everything they owned was because Almighty God provided it and graciously allowed them to steward the other 90%. A point we would do well to remember.
Now, as far as where the contributions were applied, they went to the upkeep of the temple, to fund the ministers who served there (such as the Levites and the Zadokian High Priest), and to make sure that the knowledge of Yahweh would extend throughout all the world (Isaiah 11:9). To say that differently, as the people of Israel conquered one godless nation, God was collecting resources to reach all the godless nations.
With that, the tithe was a monetary value representing everything the people in the land produced. That means if you were to add up all of the produce, the new livestock, the metal coins procured, and everything else, 1/10th of that yearly income would go directly to God. For example, if they made 100,000 dollars a year, they would set aside 10,000 to the Lord. No questions asked.
The reason was simple. The Lord Himself commanded that way of living. This was not for His benefit but for their own! When we tithe, we acknowledge that God is sovereign over every facet of reality. There are no hidden parts we get to squirrel away for a rainy day. When we tithe, we take our life into our own hands and commit to trusting God no matter what. We acknowledge that under the administration of God, He can sustain us better with 90% than we could on our own with 100%.
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How God Shows Himself to the World in General and Special Revelation
Creation, however, does not tell us all that we need to know. It doesn’t explain why things aren’t right in the world. It doesn’t tell us about our sin, our need of forgiveness. It doesn’t tell us about the mercy of God, and the gift of his Son to die for us. It can’t show us how to repent and believe in the Savior to find eternal life. So, it is good news that God has given us his word in writing.
If God is there, why doesn’t he show himself?” I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard this.
King David answers this question brilliantly in Psalm 19. “He does!” says David. God does show himself to the world in two very different but complementary ways:
First, God shows himself to us in his creation. This is called general revelation.The heavens declare the glory of God,and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.Day to day pours out speech,and night to night reveals knowledge.There is no speech, nor are there words,whose voice is not heard. (Ps. 19:1-3)
The fact that anything exists is evidence of a self-existent Creator.[1] For it is true that “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.” Moreover, all that does exist bears remarkable structure, form, and design.
From the configuration of the atoms to the astonishingly intricate complexity of proteins and other basic building blocks of living cells to the movement of the stars and galaxies all of these “declare the glory of God” and “proclaim his handiwork.”
The great scientist Jane Goodall described a moment in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris late on a sunny day in the 1974.
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