Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Does My Work Matter? | The Writings | Proverbs 22

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

What does the Bible say about work? Do I have to have a ministry job to do spiritual work? What's the purpose of work? In today's episode, Patrick shares how Proverbs 22 encourages us to glorify God by working hard at our jobs. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Proverbs 22

Welcome to 10 minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. What does the Bible say about work? How you answer that question probably has as much to do with your own experience in church as it does with the Bible itself. So let's start at the place most people start. After Adam and Eve's sin, God curses Adam saying this, cursed is the ground because of you.

Through painful toil, you will eat. food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you are, for dust you are, and to dust you will return. If that's your first introduction to God's view on work, it's pretty straightforward. Work is a curse. It's anxious, difficult, sweaty. And at best, you can hope to grow a few crops alongside many weeds. At worst, it's just thorns and thistles. And so can we be honest? We've all had jobs like that. My first job was at a Barnes & Noble before it opened. And so I helped construct and then stock the music department.

Back then, CDs were a big thing. And so I spent hours on end moving boxes, opening them up, sorting them into their locations, breaking down the boxes, and carrying them out into the dump and then I just rinsed and repeated. It was mind-numbing work. You can only spend so much time alphabetizing CDs before your brain turns to mushy alphabet soup. It was sweat, it was dust, thorns, and thistles. But let's go back to the main question. What do you think the Bible says about work? And for most of us, this isn't the only thing we think about work. Many of us grew up in environments that divided the world into sacred and secular categories. Now, this could include activities, like going to church, that's a sacred activity. But then watching the chiefs, that was

secular activity. Prayer was spiritual, but eating dinner that was fleshly and secular. In this way of thinking applied to jobs, it applied to our work. There are sacred spiritual jobs, and then there are secular jobs. The sacred jobs are the ones that actually build God's kingdom. At the top of that list are missionaries, and next come pastors, and after that, people in ministry. We read passages like First Timothy 3-1, which says that if anyone aspires to be an elder or a pastor, well, that person desires a noble task. And the message is clear, mature Christians leave behind secular jobs to go do the real important spiritual work. In this way of thinking, secular jobs are basically everything that's not ministry. And if you're stuck in one of these unfortunate, unspiritual jobs,

well, your job is not really to build the kingdom through your work. Your job is to make money and give a tenth of it to the spiritual people so they can get down to the real business. Now, if you can't tell, I have a problem with the approach to work that calls it a curse, that calls it secular and unimportant to God's kingdom, that suggests that normal work has nothing to do with what God is doing in the world. Why do I have that problem? Well, the Bible. And one passage that proves my point is today's passage, Proverbs 22. But before I get there, let me go back to Jen. Genesis, because the story of work doesn't start with the fall of humanity. It starts when God first put Adam into the Garden of Eden. We read this in Genesis 2.15. The Lord took the man

and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it. So there you have it. The first mention of work, and did you notice that this is before the curse? This is in a garden that God declared good. Work is not introduced to us as a curse. but as a blessing, it has a good part, a very good part of life. Even more than that, work is an act of co-creation alongside God. Again, just look at Genesis 2, and it's obvious. God's the one who plants the garden. God did the work, and then he set Adam in the garden to finish the work.

Adam's job was to fulfill God's mission for the garden, to spread the garden until it encompassed the whole globe. In the same way, whatever work we do is to be done for God's kingdom. It doesn't matter whether you're flipping burgers or filling Excel spreadsheets. Your work is kingdom work. Burger flippers feed people for the kingdom. Spreadsheet fillers keep things organized for the kingdom. Paul said of our work in the book of Ephesians, serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do. You see, we are called to serve the Lord in our work, no matter who is our employer, our master, or whatever else.

Here's one last thought about the garden. Adam was called to work it and take care of it. Now, in the Hebrew, the words for work and take care of are exactly the same words used to describe a priest's job in the tabernacle. In other words, Adam's work was sacred work, just like the priest's work. Your work is sacred. Hear that. Your work is spiritual. It's true. Yes, there will be difficulty. Yes, there are thorns and distles, but that's true of any work, even ministry work. But at the end of the day, God cares about your work. It is spiritual. It is sacred. It is part of how he wants to develop and grow his kingdom on earth as in heaven.

And this is precisely why the book of Proverbs has so much to say about work and the goodness of work. We could point out many things, but I want to end here. God doesn't just want to be. want you to do work. He wants you to work hard at your work with excellence. In Proverbs 2213, we read, The Sleggard says, there's a lion outside. I'll be killed in the public square. Now, this little proverb is supposed to make us laugh. The wise man is saying that lazy people will make up any excuse to avoid working. And being a sluggard in the book of Proverbs is not a good thing. It's a foolish thing. He's compelling us to live with wisdom by setting aside our excuses and just going to work. God cares about your work, so you shouldn't be chill about it.

You shouldn't be lazy about it. According to Paul, at the end of the day, remember, you work for God, not your employer. So you better not slack off. You're working for your king. Work diligently. One more verse from Proverbs 22. Verse 29. Do you see someone skilled in their work?

They will serve before kings. will not serve before officials of low rank. Who do you want to be? Do you want to be the unskilled person working for those of low rank or the highly skilled person working for the king? The wise man knows what answer we should choose. We should want to work for the king. And he's saying that if we want to do that, we must work with excellence. We must practice extreme ownership in our job. We must make sure that all we touch, all we do is done to our utmost with excellence. And we ought to do this precisely because we are already working for the king of kings. You already work for the king.

Your work matters. Your work is sacred. Your work is spiritual. Your work is for Jesus. So work hard. Become excellent at what you do. Work with skill. And reject our culture of laziness.