28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you,
12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
But somehow if you lose sight of its blessed nature, it is also a duty. Concerning the teaching of the Bible, we are to do our work as a duty. In the language of John Murray, in his Principles of Conduct:
Six days of labour are both a duty and a blessing.What is a duty? Simply put, it is that to which a person is bound by moral obligation; the conduct required due to one’s rank, role, position, status in life. Work is a duty. Now I say that based upon this: first, the command of God. Exodus 20:9:
Six days you shall labour and do all your work.It is an imperative; an integral part of the fourth commandment. Work is a duty. It is to be seen that way, because it is rooted in the command of God: six days you shall labor and do all your work. That statement is the perpetual imperative. This is God’s law that creates the moral obligation, that is the duty, in this case, to work. I must work, because if nothing else, God has commanded me to work. And this command is found in other portions of the Word of God. Ephesians 4:28; 1 Thessalonians 4:11; and 2 Thessalonians 3:12—these texts and others perhaps that could be identified, set out that we are to view our work as a duty; that view is rooted in the command of God, and next, that view—work as a duty—rooted in the divinely intended economic order, whereby one provides for himself and those under his charge. A major tenet of God’s economic order is that persons are, in the language of 2 Thessalonians 3:12, to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. A man is morally obligated to provide for himself by means of his gainful labour and to fortify a sense of that basic economic tenet. Paul writes that if anyone will not work, neither let him eat.What is at stake? 1 Thessalonians 4:12 is our testimony to outsiders:
so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.It is a poor testimony to live off the backs of others. It is not proper behaviour to be a parasite, to be in need, to be eating off the table of others, because of your unwillingness to work. Now that is different from a genuine incapacity to work. We are talking about an unwillingness, a refusal to work. This aspect of God’s economic order makes gainful work a moral duty.Another related tenet is this:
If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever(1 Timothy 5:8). And while this has primary reference to caring for elderly parents, the principle I would offer, broadly applies. It is my duty to provide for my family. It is not the state’s duty, it is not the government’s duty, it is not the church’s duty; it is my duty. I must provide for my dependents. Arising from that, again is this view that work, thus, is my duty. If I am to provide for them, then I must work.A final tenet of God’s economic order is that one is to labour in the language of Ephesians 4:28—in order that he may have something to share with him who has need. I am obligated to labour, in order that I might have an open hand with others. If my abundance may be a supply for their want, that I may do so bountifully, that I may contribute to the needs of the saints, because in the providence of God, others who are beset by true need due to a myriad of circumstances, God has ordained that his people supply such need cheerfully and liberally. That being the case, we deduce plainly, that work is a duty.
Being a duty, one’s daily labour—gainful, preparatory, or domestic—is not dead time. It is not wasted time. In that it is a duty put upon me by the Word of God, it is an act of obedience to him. It is time and effort which compose an obedient response to my one Law Giver and Judge. It is a demonstration of love for God in that, this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And among those commandments is this one: six days you shall labour. In other words, we are not just punching the clock; not just getting a paycheck; not just responding to and serving men; we are obeying God, fulfilling a duty clearly laid upon us by the perpetual law of God.
I am to view my work in this twofold way. It is both a blessing—conducive to my welfare—and it is a duty—a moral obligation, rooted in the law of God and in His economic order of things. Those two perspectives are to mold and fashion our attitudes. And again, if we can get our attitudes right, a lot of other things follow that are right.1
George McDearmon
9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work,