Worship AND Work

The Bible teaches Jesus is Lord over every part of our lives, and we can give him glory by acting in a Christlike way in everything we do.

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”. - 1 Cor 10:31

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,” Col 3:23

Biblical World View

God created us to work. The value of work lies in that fact, God has made us to work. We don’t need to call work worship to validate it or sanctify it in some way. Work and worship have distinct vocabularies in the Bible, despite the prevalence of so many who say the word for both worship and work is the same. A proper word study will demonstrate this difference. - see Bible words for Worship and Work

N.T. Wright explains the dual purpose of God’s creating mankind, to work and to worship. To say work is worship is a major confusion and will ultimately result in a poverty of worship understanding.

N.T. Wright

“What the Bible offers is not a “works contract,” but a covenant of vocation. The vocation in question is that of being a genuine human being, with genuinely human tasks to perform as part of the Creator’s purpose for his world. The main task of this vocation is “image-bearing,” reflecting the Creator’s wise stewardship into the world and reflecting the praises of all creation back to its maker. Those who do so are the “royal priesthood,” the “kingdom of priests,” the people who are called to stand at the dangerous but exhilarating point where heaven and earth meet.”

Wright, N. T.. The Day the Revolution Began (p. 76).

Os Guiness

THE “PROTESTANT DISTORTION”

“Such contortions in the modern effort to reinvest work with dignity pinpoint the second of the two grand distortions that cripple calling—the “Protestant distortion.” Indeed, these contortions are a direct result of the Protestant distortion. Whereas the Catholic distortion is a spiritual form of dualism, elevating the spiritual at the expense of the secular, the Protestant distortion is a secular form of dualism, elevating the secular at the expense of the spiritual. . .

“On the one hand, the triumph of secondary callings over the primary calling meant that work was made sacred. Whereas the Bible is realistic about work, . . . the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries lost the balance. Work was not only entirely good, but it also was virtually made holy in a crescendo of enthusiasm that was later termed “the Protestant ethic.” “The man who builds a factory builds a temple,” President Coolidge declared. “The man who works there worships there.” “Work,” Henry Ford proclaimed, “is the salvation of the human race, morally, physically, socially.”

Guinness, Os. The Call (pp. 42-43).

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Worship is distinct