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The Native Tourist
reformed/biblical observations on Christianity and culture

Friday, June 06, 2008
Work: Back to the Basics
as in forming a biblical view of work. Work Research Foundation has just published a fine article on this from Ray Pennings. Here's a snippet:


Reformed, Calvinist teaching regarding work can be summarized as follows:

1. God works, and we are called to bear His image;
2. God derives satisfaction from His work;
3. God provides for us through our work;
4. God has commanded man to work, and to work within the framework of His commands;
5. God holds us accountable for our work and expects to be acknowledged through it;
6. God provides particular gifts designed to meet particular needs in the advancement of His kingdom;
7. The Fall has radically affected our work. Work became toil; thorns and thistles frustrate our efforts. Fallen man seeks to glorify himself rather than his Creator through work;
8. Work is an individual as well as a social activity;
God takes pleasure in beauty, and the Scriptures do not focus simply on the functional and utilitarian aspects of work; and
9. Christ worked as part of His active obedience, and the believer's work through Christ is part of that obedience.

A nice summary, dontcha think?

The article is also really worth reading for the excerpts from William Perkins "A Treatise of the Vocations or Callings of Men" which I had never heard of before. Perkins - the quintessential Puritan - sound like a Kyperian when he says:

Every particular calling must be practiced in and with the general calling of a Christian. It is not sufficient for a man in the congregation, and in common conversation, to be a Christian, but in his very personal calling, he must show himself to be so. For example, a Magistrate must not only in general be a Christian, as every man is, but he must be a Christian Magistrate, in bearing the sword.