Everything matters - 23 April 2009 |
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Lots of Christians struggle at various times with the notion that the things that they spend their time doing have little significance. Changing nappies; washing the dishes; driving the kids to school, brownies, and football practice – what’s the point of it all?
Well, the Bible teaches that everything Christians do is significant. Let’s start with 1 Corinthians 15:58:
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.
Here’s how we sometimes (instinctively?) read it:
Alright, everyone, stand firm, be steadfast, immovable, and always make sure you’re doing the Lord’s work, not that other ’secular’ stuff that you’re always fussing about. All that worldly work is pointless; only gospel-work has any real purpose.
But that’s not what the text says. Here’s a literal (if slightly wooden) translation:
Therefore, my beloved brethren, steadfast you must remain, and immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord always, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
The crucial thing is that, for a Christian, there are not two sorts of work: ‘labour in the Lord’, and ‘labour not in the Lord’. Look carefully at the text. ‘In the Lord’ does not qualify ‘labour’, defining a subset of our tasks as significant. Rather, it explains why all our ‘labour is not in vain’. There’s only one sort of work: labour / work in the Lord. All our ‘labour’ is ‘in the Lord’, because we are ‘in the Lord’.
This is why Paul is able to say ‘abounding in the work of the Lord always.’ We’ve got to eat, and sleep, and wash the dishes, and answer emails, and stuff. Paul is not forbidding us from eating and drinking, insisting instead that we devote ourselves to some kind of super-spiritual ‘labour in the Lord’. Rather, he’s saying that all our labour is ‘labour in the Lord’, and therefore none of it is in vain. Like in 1 Cor 10:31, ‘whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.’
So we should actually understand the text a bit more like this:
Alright, everyone, stand firm, be steadfast, immovable, knowning that every single thing you do is the Lord’s work, and therefore nothing is ever in vain.
Thus everything we do is significant. Though we haven’t yet articulated precisely how, we can say with confidence that everything matters.
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Godliness, Minister's Blog