In my previous post I suggested that being a man is about taking responsibility, and that this responsibility has a two-fold dimension: responsibility for a task; and responsibility for people.
Today I want to suggest that taking responsibility in turn has its own two-fold shape, summed up by two great moments in Scripture: the Creation Mandate (Genesis 1:28);
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20).
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Now clearly the Creation Mandate includes the raising of families, but for now notice that it includes things that aren’t. Adam is placed in garden and starts ‘work’ before Eve is even created (and before sin enters the world). Since then men are required to go outside the family and work; to bring order out of chaos. Work is the way we get to bless the world outside our families, while simultaneously providing the means to support them. By way of implication here are two quick thoughts about men and work:
1. Men need to work. The idea of ‘work/life balance’ has the risk of communicating that work is not part of life. But work is part of life, and for men it is an essential part of life. It is cold comfort to tell a guy that he is a ‘good husband and father’ if he is not performing at work; he won’t believe it, and in some aspects it won’t be true. Men need to do well outside the home, if they are to do well inside the home.
2. Men need to undertake work that blesses. Emergencies aside (and a poverty struck nation is one in a constant state of emergency), we should take advantage of the opportunities presented to undertake work that not only provides for our families, but also blesses the wider world. These jobs probably won’t be the easiest, particularly if they involve difficulty, risk or significant levels of responsibility. There is in our Christian culture a temptation to find ‘the easiest job that allows the most time for ministry’. Leaving aside for the moment the suitcase full of assumptions about the nature of ministry, we can note in passing that there is something unmanly about claiming to bless the city, and then systematically discouraging men from taking on the kinds of roles that would most do that.
6 Comments
I agree wholeheartedly Tim.
I think that when a bloke has no work, or feels that his work doesn’t benefit anyone, he is most likely to feel “unfulfilled”. This may even be a big factor in male depression and anxiety disorders.
One of the problems with the way we evangelicals view work, is that we fail to see work as a blessing unless it involves explicit gospel proclamation all the time. Instead, most of my peers have had moments where they feel the only work that blesses people is “ministry work” and have thought about quitting their “purposeless” work for a more “purposeful” alternative (ie. full-time paid ministry). Other friends feel guilty because the message they hear is that it’s selfish to remain in the secular workforce.
Thanks for seeing the value in work and expressing it so clearly Tim.
I suspect that the preference for finding “the easiest job that allows the most time for ministry” will go away if we unpack that suitcase of assumptions about what ministry is.
Of course, since many men are already prone to finding their self-worth in their work, it will take careful teaching and honest truth-speaking to keep people focused on Jesus when they are working jobs which are in worldly terms ‘important’.
But we should never cling to one error just so we can avoid another
Hi Tim, Thanks for this post. Here in Vanuatu there is almost no concept of what the ordinary christian life looks like except for ordained ministry. To obey God is to come and train and then to serve as a pastor/church worker. This means that there is no assurance that an ordinary villager (whether man or woman) will go to heaven.
So I’ve been meditating on this a lot recently. I’ve been particularly reflecting on what Luke 18:29-30 means for the ordinary christian. Usually when I hear it explained, its about leaving home and possessions for professional christian ministry, often missionary work. But this doesn’t explain what it means to leave wife and children… and doesn’t account for the fact that we don’t follow Jesus around Palestine anymore. Essentially, what does it look like for the ordinary christian to follow Jesus? What is it that we all must leave behind if it isn’t our secular jobs? Now, I think I know the answer to that (e.g. 1 Thes 1:9-10) but is that a valid application of the Luke passage?
This is a bigger question than just ‘men’ and ‘work’, I know.
Hi Rachael,
Great to hear from you.
I’m with you in thinking this passage is not so well utilized when used to call people to leave secular work for ‘ordained’ or ‘paid’ ministry - and I certainly don’t think that Vanuatu is the only Christian culture that has an underdeveloped sense of what the non-ordained ordinary Christian life looks like
I think Luke has running throughout his book the concept of stewardship. So Jesus can at once insist that his disciples need to give up everything to follow him (14:33), to sell their possessions to give to the poor (12:33), and at the same time consider them workers who are worthy of their wages (10:7), commend to us the example of the ‘shrewd manager’ and commend Zaccheus even though he only gave away half his possessions. In other words giving up everything won’t necessarily mean giving up everything, and by extension leaving behind won’t necessarily mean leaving behind.
What is does mean is that my disposition to everything is no longer one of ownership or entitlement but rather stewardship and deployment.
Regarding secular employment I suspect our Christian cultures are the victims of ( at least) two errors. Firstly a particular error that automatically privileges ‘Christian’ over ‘Secular’ employment, and secondly a more general error of thinking we can easily/automatically deduce the details of a godly life from the more abstract overarching dispositions of a godly life. So, for example, I am called to love my parents and my children, and this will require that I give instructions to one, and that I NOT give instructions to the other. Nothing in the concept of ‘love’ tells me which. Instead I need to know the details of how God had ordered and designed parents and children to relate.
Hope this helps, I wrote for longer than I planned.
Love to you all.
Tim
PS Regular content should kick off again in March. We have stuff written, and other writers recruited.
We might also note that Luke 18:29-30, isn’t so much a call to give up everything (that comes elsewhere) but rather an assurance that if you do give up everything you will be OK - in other words a call to trust.
Thanks, Tim.