“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” –
“Who do you want to be when you grow up?” This was one of the questions that adults seemed to enjoy asking us as kids. By the time I was in Grade 1, I had learned to expect the question and was walking around prepared to shout an answer at a moment’s notice. “Doctor!” used to be my favorite answer. The question significantly influenced my worldview on my identity: who I am and who is/are in control of who I can become. By the looks of it, this is also the experience of many others.
Ask an average adult who they are and before you can breathe twice, most will already be talking about what they do—their work. Of course, your vocation is important. What you do for a living matters, but it is not who you are. I am persuaded that deriving my identity from my vocational work is not only dangerous but can be outright sinful. I hope to showcase that for a believer, deriving identity from work can be idolatrous.
Thus, in this article series, I would like to challenge the worldview that leads us to acquire our identity from our vocations. I would also like to present what I believe is the biblical view that places our vocational work in its right place within the big picture of the gospel. I hope to show that deriving our identity from our vocations is having it backwards. My prayer is that these reflections will encourage you in whatever you do, to work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men ().
Our Identity and Our Roles
From the first sentence in the Bible, one thing is clear: in the beginning, God worked (). Working is not exclusive to humans. The Bible portrays God, angels in heaven, fallen angels, and humans to be working albeit in different ways. But before anyone else did, the first one to work was God—who created the heavens, the earth, and all hosts of these two realms (see , ).
Part of God’s work was creating us, humans. God created us in his image and after his likeness as males and females (). This is the core of our identity. We derive our identity from God. With the gracious gift of being created in the image of God, he also commissioned Adam and Eve to be “fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the havens and over every living thing that move on the earth.” (). Adam and Eve had a mission on their hands.
Although the man and woman had one mission, Scripture portrays them with different roles in fulfilling that mission. For instance, the man seems to have a leading role while the woman has a helping role (see , ). Despite the roles being different, Scripture does not declare or imply that the role of one is more important than the other. The role of the man is as important and as valuable in fulfilling God-given mandate as that of the woman. God authored both roles to complement one another.
Thus far, putting it all together, we see that our identity comes from being images of God (created as males and females). Intrinsic to our identity are our roles, which are parts we need to play to fulfil God’s given mandate to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and have dominion over earthly creatures.
Here Comes Our Work
A beneficial way to think about our vocational work is as a tool at our disposal. My work is a helping tool that supports me in fulfilling my role (as a man, a husband, a father, a pastor) as I seek to accomplish the mandate to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and have dominion over the earthly creatures as an image of God.
My work does not add to who I am. My work does not define what my life purpose and mission are. “Who I am” comes from being created in the image of God. My life purpose and mission come from the mandate that God gave us from the beginning.
To demonstrate these truths, think of a husband and wife who have few kids together. Both husband and wife are equally valuable before God as both are created in his image. The husband has a leading role and among other things he has the responsibility to provide for and protect his family. The wife has a helping role and among other things has the responsibility of nurturing her family. Now, consider home chores of cooking and cleaning. When a husband cooks and cleans, he provides a meal for his family, he provides a clean environment for them to live in, he protects his wife from potential exhaustion/depression (if she had to do all chores alone), and he protects his family from diseases. On the other hand, when a wife cooks and cleans, she nurtures her family with a meal and clean environment, and she helps her husband to build a healthy and clean home. Chores are the same but used to fulfill different roles.
The chores are simply a tool. The same applies for work outside home (even if both husband and wife have a “career” work outside home). The chores/works can be the same but help different people fulfill different roles. Similarly, one person can leverage different jobs/chores to fulfill the same role. Thus, our fundamental commitment is to our roles (as men/women, husband/wife, father/mother, etc.) and our works support us to fulfill these roles.
All Tainted by Sin but Made New in Christ
Before I delve into reflections about work in our contemporary world, it is important to provide context of what the rest of Scripture attests to the nature of work in our world. First, the Bible shows that sin has tainted the experience of working. As part of God’s punishment for Adam and Eve’s rebellion, God made it difficult for them to fulfil the mandate to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and have dominion over the hosts of the earth as an image of God. The ground was cursed, cultivating it involved sweat and pain, the earth became harsh with thorns and thistle, relationship between husband and wife was tainted, and even childbearing involved more pain ().
Sin tainted the image of God in men and women. Sin made it difficult for men and women to fulfill their roles and mission. Sin made it difficult to do any work.
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (a).
Here is where we find ourselves today. For believers (those who have trusted in Christ), we find ourselves having to work within a world with overlapping realities. On one hand, we still live in a world tainted by sin. On the other hand, we live as a new creation under the Lordship of Christ in the Kingdom of God.
So how do our identity, our roles, and our work look like for us who are in Christ? How can we labour with faithfulness, honesty, diligence, and contentment in a world that often does not reward these things?
This will be the focus of Part 2, ‘Doing Our Work as For the Lord and Not for Men.’