One’s gainful labour is to be regarded as a blessing, a benefit, an advantage, and as a means of happiness. It is to be regarded as that which promotes one’s welfare. It is far from the prevalent view that work is a necessary evil, that work is but a necessary and resented intrusion upon my life that I must tolerate because I need money, but secretly inside I disdain it. It is far from that. The Christian is to view his or her work as a good and merciful provision of God that is conducive to one’s happiness. To a Christian, his or her work—gainful, domestic, or preparatory—is not just a job, not something burdensome which he or she attempts to make easier by doing as little as possible to get by; no, work is a blessing from God.

In what biblically, is that perspective rooted? It is rooted in the thing itself, that is the activity of work, and it is rooted in the results of work, that is the profit realized from your work.

Now work itself comes to us as a creation ordinance. That is the language of theology: a creation ordinance. Work comes to us as a God‑given institution, given to man in his innocence before the fall, both fundamental institutions, given by the grace and wisdom of God and conducive to man’s welfare. The creation ordinances as we call these institutions, include marriage, parenthood, the Sabbath day, as well as labour. Each of the creation ordinances revealed in Genesis 1:1–2:25 was the product of the goodness and wisdom of God, who gave to mankind these fundamental institutions of life to enhance his welfare. Marriage was to bring benefits and delight to husband and wife; it is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him. Such a design was a benevolence to man and woman of paramount blessing, bestowed to foster their welfare.

There is the matter of parenthood be fruitful and multiply. Psalm 127:1–5 says, Behold, children are the gift of the Lord. They are not the burden of the Lord. That is the language of blessing. Parenthood is a blessing. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. Parenthood is a creation ordinance full of blessing.

So is the Sabbath day. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. We read in Isaiah 58:1–14: Call the Sabbath day a delight! Not a burden, not an intrusion. That language represents the blessing bound up in having one day in seven, wherein we are warranted to lay aside our tools and our worldly labours and refresh body and soul in the exercises of sacred rest and worship. That is a blessing!

Then there is labour. Then the Lord took man and put him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. We consider Ephesians 4:28: Let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good. Labour is good, virtuous, blessed, upright, beneficial. The thing itself is good, given to man in his innocence, to advance his welfare. Psalm 128:1–6 furthers the idea of labour being good in terms of the fruit of one’s labour: How blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways, when you shall eat of the fruit of your hands. Literally, in the original, it says: when you should eat of the labour of your hands. When you shall sit down at your table and eat the bodily provision procured by the profit you have gained, you will be happy and it will be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children like olive plants around your table. Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. This man will be blessed, not aggravated. Lastly that thus in terms of its antecedents includes labour, wife, and children—the simple pleasures of life.

Proverbs 12:11: He who tills his land will have plenty of bread. It is a blessing to have plenty of bread. Proverbs 14:23: In all labour there is profit. Proverbs 31:18, concerning that virtuous worker at home, she senses that her gain is good. The fruit, the profit of a man or a woman’s labours, as well as the thing itself—the labour itself—according to the Bible’s teaching, is simply put: a blessing from God.¹

George McDearmon