We finish up today our series on Darrell Cosden’s fine book, The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work. If you are looking for a book that “justifies” work, this is it — and I think we need more of us thinking more deeply about this subject and we definitely need more preaching and church instruction on “work.”
Genesis 1-11 contributes to a theology of work:
1. In ordinary work, we are God’s apprentices, God’s co-workers.
2. Work is not all there is to life.
3. Imaging God physically — this is our destiny and our identity.
4. We live in a world that is redeemed and yet not fully redeemed.
Cosden emphasize God’s judgment, but that judgment is not annihilationist but “transformative” so that we and our work are purged and transformed into something useful for eternity.
Here are three great quotations:
“it is largely (though not exclusively) through our work that we reflect God’s image and co-operate with him in bringing people and the whole creation to humanity’s and nature’s ultimate maturity and future” (129-130).
“Mission is the work (God’s work) for everyone created to be in God’s image and indeed therefore for the whole people of God” (135-136).
“Work is the mission (God’s mission) for everyone created to be in God’s image and indeed therefore for the whole people of God” (136).