Paradise Lost
Work exists now in a world sustained by God but distorted by sin.
Keller contextualizes God’s command in the Garden wonderfully:
It was an opportunity for the human race to voluntarily make our relationship with God the primary value of our lives and to obey his Word simply because it was his due.
Sin leads to the disintegration of every area of live: spiritual, social, cultural, psychological, temporal, eternal.
Absolutely every part of human life — soul and body, private and public, praying and laboring — is affected by sin
Things Fall Apart
Okonkwo no!!!!!!
Humankind has suffered from moral schizophrenia: neither able to deny sinfulness nor to acknowledge it for what it is. Alex Motyer, Look to the Rock: An Old Testament Background to Our Understanding of Christ
Thorns and Thistles
Part of the curse of work in a fallen world is its frequent fruitlessness. L. Ryken and T. Longman, “Work, Worker” in The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery
Accepting Fruitlessness
The explosion of books about ‘changing the world’ fits our self-image Andy Crouch
You should expect to be regularly frustrated with my work
Yup! Both of these truths are in contrast to the pride and idealism which lies in the idolatry of work.
God can — and often does — change what he calls us to do.
Deep consolation
Work will still bear some fruit, though it will always fall short of its promise.
Christians have, through their hope in God’s story of redemption for the world he created, a deep consolation that enables them to work with all their being and never be ultimately discouraged by the frustrating present reality of this world… we know that the work in this life is not the final word.
As I have been discouraged with work recently, I think it is all the more important to remember that this is expected — that my work, myself, and everything around me is marred by sin. And that this is all the more reason to rejoice in the redemptive power of the Gospel! My work in this life is not the final world.