Image God Through Your WorkSample

Perhaps work being redeemed is a new concept for you. You’ve heard that people can be redeemed or freed from slavery to sin through faith, but how could something like work be redeemed?

Although God created work as good, it was cursed or judged when Adam and Eve sinned. What once had been a source of blessing and joy would now be difficult and futile. But this, too, has changed in Christ.

Work now has a reward because God sees how we’re laboring in faith and will be sure that we will receive God’s blessing for all we do. Work has been set free from the bondage to judgment and futility and now has a purpose: to bring glory to God. Since the fall, the world has been thrown into chaos, but through our work, we can bring it back into order. So, when you file that stack of papers or clean out that junk drawer, you’re doing holy work.

Even though we still feel many ill effects of the fall, Jesus brought with Him a better perspective on work as well as a new promise. All our work, no matter what that work looks like today, can be viewed as gospel work.

Of course, part of the work that the Lord ordained women to do is “multiply” and “fill the earth” with other image-bearers. Usually, they do this through marriage and their own bodies. This great good can be a source of real joy and satisfaction. For other women, though, marriage or childbirth is not how they will fulfill God’s command to make disciples. While the Old Testament was focused on a woman’s outward beauty and her ability to birth children, sons in particular, the New Testament’s view of womanhood and work is very different. Women in the New Testament are no longer judged by their outward desirability or their fertility. Their worth is not determined by whether they’re married or have children. Today, as before, Christian women receive the sign of the covenant (baptism), just like their brothers. They receive the Holy Spirit and are given gifts to serve in whatever context God calls them to (Acts 1:14; Rom. 12:1, 3–7).

Now, instead of being focused on natural childbirth (although that, as I said, can be a great good), all believing women are to be intent on bringing God’s kingdom rule to the earth. They can do that through any avenue of service or work they’ve been gifted for. God’s good work is as unique as each woman’s DNA, and no woman should feel inferior to any other woman because her gifting is different.