The First Christian

The Encounters With Jesus Series:5

Timothy Keller

• Publisher: Hodder Faith
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781444779509
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Gospels are full of encounters that made a profound impact on those who spoke with Jesus Christ. In the fifth part of his Encounters with Jesus series, Timothy Keller, pastor of New York's Redeemer Presbyterian Church and New York Times -bestselling author of The Reason for God, shows how those encounters can still have a deep effect on us today. By examining an encounter between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, one of his most beloved disciples, Keller clarifies the Christian understanding of faith, and explains its role in answering the big questions of life.This and the other nine in the series make up the complete Encounters With Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life's Biggest Questions.

READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM TIMOTHY KELLER’S LATEST BOOK

Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work

Available wherever books and eBooks are sold

ONE

The Design of Work

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. . . . The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Genesis 2:1–3, 15 (ESV)

In the Beginning, There Was Work

The Bible begins talking about work as soon as it begins talking about anything—­that is how important and basic it is. The author of the book of Genesis describes God’s creation of the world as work.⁴ In fact, he depicts the magnificent project of cosmos invention within a regular workweek of seven days.⁵ And then he shows us human beings working in paradise. This view of work—­connected with divine, orderly creation and human purpose—­is distinct among the great faiths and belief systems of the world.

The creation narrative in the book of Genesis is unique among ancient accounts of origins. Many cultures had stories that depicted the beginning of the world and human history as the result of a struggle between warring cosmic forces. In the Babylonian creation story the Enuma Elish, the god Marduk overcomes the goddess Tiamat and forges the world out of her remains. In this and similar accounts, the visible universe was an uneasy balance of powers in tension with one another.⁶ In the Bible, however, creation is not the result of a conflict, for God has no rivals. Indeed, all the powers and beings of heaven and earth are created by him and dependent on him.⁷ Creation, then, is not the aftermath of a battle but the plan of a craftsman. God made the world not as a warrior digs a trench but as an artist makes a masterpiece.

The Greeks’ account of creation includes the idea of successive “ages of mankind” beginning with a golden age. During this age human beings and gods lived on the earth together in harmony. This sounds at first vaguely like the story of the garden of Eden, but one dissimilarity is very telling. The poet Hesiod tells us that neither humans nor gods in the golden age had to do any work. In that original paradise the earth simply provided food in abundance.⁸ The book of Genesis could not have been more different. Repeatedly the first chapters of the book of Genesis describe God at “work,” using the Hebrew mlkh, the word for ordinary human work. As one scholar put it, it is wholly “unexpected that the extraordinary divine activity involved in creating heaven and earth should be so described.”⁹

In the beginning, then, God worked. Work was not a necessary evil that came into the picture later, or something human beings were created to do but that was beneath the great God himself. No, God worked for the sheer joy of it. Work could not have a more exalted inauguration.

The Forms of God’s Work

It is remarkable that in Chapter 1 of the book of Genesis, God not only works but finds delight in it. “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good . . . the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array” (Genesis 1:31; 2:1). God finds what he has done beautiful. He stands back, takes in “all that he has made,” and says, in effect, “That’s good!” Like all good and satisfying work, the worker sees himself in it. “The harmony and perfection of the completed heavens and earth express more adequately the character of their creator than any of the separate components can.”¹⁰

The second chapter of Genesis goes on to show that God works not only to create but also to care for his creation. This is what theologians call the work of “providence.” God creates human beings and then works for them as their Provider. He forms a man (Genesis 2:7), plants a garden for him and waters it (Genesis 2:6, 8), and fashions a wife for him (Genesis 2:21–22). The rest of the Bible tells us that God continues this work as Provider, caring for the world by watering and cultivating the ground (Psalm 104:10–22), giving food to all he has made, giving help to all who suffer, and caring for the needs of every living thing (Psalm 145:14–16).

Finally, we see God not only working, but commissioning workers to carry on his work. In Genesis chapter 1, verse 28 he tells human beings to “fill the earth and subdue it.” The word “subdue” indicates that, though all God had made was good, it was still to a great degree undeveloped. God left creation with deep untapped potential for cultivation that people were to unlock through their labor.¹¹ In Genesis chapter 2, verse 15 (ESV) he puts human beings into the garden to “work it and keep it.” The implication is that, while God works for us as our Provider, we also work for him. Indeed, he works through us. Psalm 127, verse 1—­“Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain”—­indicates that God is building the house (providing for us) through the builders. As Martin Luther argued, Psalm 145 says that God feeds every living thing, meaning he is feeding us through the labor of farmers and others.¹²

The Goodness of Our Work

The book of Genesis leaves us with a striking truth—­work was part of paradise. One biblical scholar summed it up: “It is perfectly clear that God’s good plan always included human beings working, or, more specifically, living in the constant cycle of work and rest.”¹³ Again, the contrast with other religions and cultures could not be sharper. Work did not come in after a golden age of leisure. It was part of God’s perfect design for human life, because we were made in God’s image, and part of his glory and happiness is that he works, as does the Son of God, who said, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working” (John 5:17).

The fact that God put work in paradise is startling to us because we so often think of work as a necessary evil or even punishment. Yet we do not see work brought into our human story after the fall of Adam, as part of the resulting brokenness and curse; it is part of the blessedness of the garden of God. Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sexuality; it is not simply medicine but food for our soul. Without meaningful work we sense significant inner loss and emptiness. People who are cut off from work because of physical or other reasons quickly discover how much they need work to thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

Our friends Jay and Barbara Belding, entrepreneurs in suburban Philadelphia, recognized this need even among developmentally disabled adults. While working as a special education teacher, Jay was disconcerted by the vocational prospects of his students once they completed school. Traditional vocational training and employment programs often had insufficient work and therefore extensive downtime with no wages. In 1977 Jay and Barbara established Associated Production Services, an enterprise providing quality training and employment for this population. Today the company trains 480 people who are engaged in a variety of labor-­intensive packaging and assembly work for a number of consumer products companies at four facilities. Jay focuses on providing tools and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Also by Timothy Keller
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• The First Christian
• Excerpt from Every Good Endeavor
• About the Author