What Genesis has to say about Work

The third theme that I would like to pick out from my study of the opening chapters of Genesis is that of work. Specifically, I feel that there are two key principles that can be drawn out for further analysis. The first is work itself and the second is the opposite of work (i.e. not working, or resting).


I want to start by noting that work is part of creation. In designing and manufacturing the universe, God worked. He also gave Adam work to do (Gen 2:15, 19-20). If work is part of creation, and everything God created is good, then work must be good. This is at odds with how work is treated in conventional economic theory. Work is assumed to be a “dis-benefit”, or an opportunity cost. It is a sacrifice of time and effort that people choose to make in order to reap a benefit (e.g. wages or having something to sell). But of course we now live in a fallen world and work, along with everything else in creation, has become corrupted. One of the primary consequences of the fall was that work became tough (3:17-19, 5:29). If God wants to redeem “all things” through Christ (Colossians 1:19-20), then work is one of those things.

If we are all created to work, then in an ideal world nobody should be out of work. As someone who has been unemployed in the past, I know how frustrating and depressing that can be. Aside from the financial pressures, I struggled with the perception that the world was carrying on without me and I wasn’t making a contribution and fulfilling my potential. However, I realised that even though I didn’t have paid work, there was still work for me to do, including the work of looking for work (a full-time job in itself sometimes), voluntary work and domestic duties / home improvements etc. God designed everyone to be productive and therefore I find myself in the surprising position of generally agreeing with Ian Duncan Smith rather than the Archbishop of Canterbury!

So what about rest? It is evident from Genesis that God cares as much about rest as he does about work, if not more so. On the seventh day, God rested (Gen 2:2-3) and, from that point on, he set in motion a weekly cycle of work and rest. Observation of the Sabbath was enshrined in law many centuries later in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8-11) and is repeated many times in the books of the law. The consequences of disobeying this particular law were severe (Numbers 15:32-36).

So how should we apply the Sabbath law today? Firstly, we should recognise that, while it is good to work, it is also good to rest on a regular basis and the ideal pattern is to refrain from work one day in seven. Just like work, rest is also for everyone. To a certain extent, employees in the EU are protected from working long weeks (but there are opt-out clauses). However, when you factor in self-employment, commuting, unpaid and unofficial overtime, domestic duties, caring responsibilities, studying and voluntary work, many of us in reality work very long hours and probably don’t get at least one day “off” per week.

When I was studying for my Masters, I took work-rest rhythm very seriously. Even at the very start of term when exams seemed like a lifetime away, I disciplined myself to get up early and spend all day reading in the empty library. I would then take evenings and weekends off to relax and spend time with my then fiancée. I increased my “working hours” only slightly in the run-up to exams and certainly didn’t join my classmates in doing “all-nighters” in the very full library! I performed much better in my Masters than I did in my Bachelors degree some years earlier, where my work-rest rhythm was much more chaotic, reactive and undisciplined.

While the benefits of a work-rest rhythm are clear to see, it sometimes requires a bit of faith. We need to trust God to provide for our needs and honour our decision to work and rest in accordance with his principles, rather than to take matters into our own hands and put in those long hours. However, let’s be realistic and remember that there are many people in the world today whose hourly remittance is pitiful and have to work very long hours just to make ends meet. They can and should still have faith in God’s provision but that provision doesn’t usually consist of “manna from heaven”. It is up to us, as fellow citizens, to use our political and market power to ensure that every person made in the image of God can experience a healthy and fulfilling work-rest rhythm.

This leads me on to my final point. It seems to me that the Sabbath law goes one step further than to say that each of us should take off one day in seven. Not only should everybody take rest days but those rest days should occur on the same day. You can see how this might have worked in the agrarian economy of the Old Testament but is such an ordinance realistic in the modern economy?

Last Sunday, I went to Argos to buy a TV. The shop was very busy and so were the staff. It occurred to me that these workers were certainly not enjoying a Sabbath (and perhaps I wasn’t either). But did that matter? Perhaps they were happy to work unsocial hours for an increased hourly rate and a day off in lieu during the week.

As an office worker, I very rarely have to work on Sundays (or Saturdays) but my consumer demand is such that other people must work on a Sunday to service my needs (e.g. transport workers, hotel and catering staff, shop workers, clergy, media workers, health professionals etc.). Am I then forcing these people to disobey one of the Ten Commandments? Jesus made it clear that we should continue to do good on the Sabbath (Luke 14:1-6) so it stands to reason that someone who needs urgent (or even non-urgent) medical treatment should not be turned away because the hospital is closed on the Sabbath. But is there other work that could and should be done on one of the other six days of the week to allow the job-holder to join the community Sabbath?

From an economics point of view, an enforced community Sabbath is inefficient (if somebody wants to sell something on a Sunday and another person wants to buy it, they will both be better off if we allow them to trade). But does this efficiency come at a price? There is clearly a trade-off between economic value and social value. Does God not only want us to rest but to rest together? Discuss.