Theology of Work (original) (raw)
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“The Creation Narratives and the Original Unity of Work and Worship in the Human Vocation"
Work: Theological Foundations and Practical Implications (eds. R. Keith Loftin & Trey Dimsdale; London: SCM Press, 2018), 11–29, 2018
Work is central to the human vocation from the beginning of creation. This essay explores the unity of work and worship in the Garden of Eden, the profanation of work through covenant-breaking in the Garden, and the efforts to recover the sanctification of work in the rest of the biblical narrative.
For a vast number of people today, Christians included, work is “not working” for them since they have never been taught a biblical theology of vocation. Indeed, work is often seen as the obstacle to life, the antonym for fun and enjoyment. Many people think and speak as if work itself is their curse in life, or God’s curse on them.
A Biblical Theology of Work and Creativity
A Biblical Theology of Work and Creativity, 2020
This paper is written to assist believers in their understanding of the biblical doctrine of ‘work’ and ‘creativity’. The primary aim of the paper is to show that God is our fundamental example of work and creativity. Believers will be challenged to consider that our God, ordained work to be pleasurable, and benefiting to his creatures. Of importance is understanding that the Bible teaches that our labor and creativity is fundamentally basic to our existence and is indispensable to the primary task of God’s creatures. That task being to bring Him glory. Cultural and traditional motives and attitudes to’ work’ and ‘working’ will be examined in the light of the Scriptures. The aim is to encourage work and creativity as the primary activity of worship in our New Covenant historical setting. Finally, this paper seeks to encourage believers to redeem the time and to serve and honour God with their human endeavor for the praise of His glory.
Does God work? Shall we work in heaven? In search of a theological foundation for human work
Theology of Work. New Perspectives, 2025
In the last decades, both Protestant and Catholic thought have tried to build a “theology of work” by rooting the dignity of work in the divine plan of creation, redemption, and eschatological fulfillment. Especially considering Protestant bibliography on this topic, two questions need further study. First, whether God Himself works, that is, whether creation and redemption can be viewed as God’s work. Second, considering the link between the beginning and the end, should we presume that there will be human work in the new creation? In my analysis two elements are highlighted. First, the attempt to build an ontology of work is a theological progress as it comes from the Protestant area, where traditionally, metaphysics was not well considered. Second, speaking of an ontology of work implies recognizing the role of human cooperation with God in the realization of the new creation. In this sense, I find an interesting nuance in the literature as, among Protestants, it is normally said that through our work, we can anticipate the new creation while, among Catholics, the point is that through work, we help God to build the new creation, that is, we collaborate with His providence in the coming of the Kingdom.
UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2017
In the first creation account, Gen 1,28 God mandated man to conquer the earth and subdue. Immediately after the fall in Gen 3, God spells out work as the only way through which man would get his daily bread. It follows therefore, that work remains a conditio sine qua non for man’s survival whether he is at peace with God or no. Hannah Arendt the French philosopher understands work as having a self perfective dimension. Plato in his Republic groups the organization of his political society according to the work every group does. This paper footnotes Paul’s instruction to the Thessalonians to project work as part and parcel of man. It views work as that which perfects man. The researcher believes that without work, the human person can neither be perfected nor can he survive. Thus, the paper documents that work is not just a virtue for survival, it also perfects the human person in as much as it perfects nature. The researcher takes work from the backdrop of its holistic dimension as ...
The unique description of creation given in the climax of the book of Job acts as an invitation to study it more carefully and conveys for us very practical relevance, narrowing an anthropocentric view of creation and broadening a theocentric view of creation and Job’s horizons about the way God orders his world. The peripheral nature of humans in God’s two speeches indicates that God’s ordering of his cosmos is beyond human comprehension. The question in the background of the paper is: To what extent God’s speeches can be used as a paradigm to question the so-called anthropocentrism charged to Christian traditions. Our goal is to interpret theophanic speeches by analytical and descriptive approaches to their context, genre, and structure and by synthetic and interpretative approaches to their content and theological profile. Some theoretical and practical conclusions are offered at the very end.