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Work that is Unique to You (The Good Creation)

Work that is Unique to You (The Good Creation)

Last updated on: June 29, 2019 at 3:40 pm by Bob Robinson

Work that is Unique to You (The Good Creation) 2019-06-29T15:40:31-04:00 Bob Robinson

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potter The first herders, musicians, and bronze workers are recorded in Genesis.

“Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron.” (Genesis 4:20-22)

According to Cornelius Plantinga Jr.,

“All of these unfold the built-in potential of God’s creation. All reflect the ingenuity of God’s human creatures – itself a superb example of likeness to God…

To image God, then, human beings are charged not only to care for earth and animals (‘subduing’ what’s already there) but also with developing certain cultural possibilities (‘filling’ out what is only potentially there).

To unfold such possibilities – for example, to speak languages, build tools and dies, enter contracts, organize dance troupes – is to act in character for human beings designed by God. That is, to act in this way is to exhibit some of God’s own creativity and dominion in a characteristically human way.” (Engaging God’s World)

Creation was not a Finished Product

Terence Fretheim wrote,

“Genesis does not present the creation as a finished product, wrapped up with a big red bow and handed over to the creatures to keep it exactly as originally created. It is not a one-time production.

Indeed, for the creation to stay just as God originally created it would constitute a failure of the divine design. From God’s perspective, the world needs work; development and change are what God intends for it and God enlists human beings (and other creatures) to that end.

From another angle, God did not exhaust the divine creativity in the first week of the world; God continues to create and uses creatures in a vocation that involves the becoming of creation.” (Creation Untamed: The Bible, God, and Natural Disasters)

You are Created Uniquely for Your Work

Human beings, created in the image of God, are likened to clay pots that God continues to work with his hands (“We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” Isaiah 64:8*)*, shaped in particular ways for the work he has for each of us.

God knows better than we do why we are shaped the way we are for certain types of work, and we have no right to complain, “Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?” (Isaiah 29:16).

The imagery of humans as vessels made by God for his purposes is picked up by the Apostle Paul in his second letter to Timothy. He writes,

“Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” (2 Timothy 2:20–21).

Ben Witherington III points out three things this passage reveals:

“Different vessels are made for different purposes, but all have a purpose.”
“Any vessel, if it cleanses itself, can be made useful for an honorable purpose”
“The function of any and all such cleansed vessels is good works! Human beings were intended to work, and not just to do any kind of work, but to do good work, doing work in accord with the way we have been fashioned, the abilities we have been given, and therefore the vocations for which we are best suited.” (Witherington, A Kingdom Perspective on Labor).

How have you been created uniquely by God for a purpose? How can you cleanse yourself from what is dishonorable so that your work glorifies God? What work has God placed before you to do with excellence for the well-being of humans and the good creation?

Image by Ed Welsh. Used with permission. Sourced via Flickr.

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Work is a Part of the Good Creation

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