by Os Hillman
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving (Col 3:23-25).
I sat across the table from the well known seminary professor and former missionary as he asked me a very direct question: "So, Os, tell me about this faith at work movement." "Well, there's really nothing complicated about it. I believe every person's work can be viewed as a ministry if done with a motive to glorify God based upon Colossians 3:23," I responded.
"How can you say that if you're not sharing the gospel in that job? You would have to be actively sharing your faith for it to be construed as ministry," he argued. "No, that's not true. The work itself is ministry because the word for ministry and service come from the same Greek root word, diakonia. When you are serving others even through your secular work and do it with a motive to glorify God, that's why it is ministry. In fact, the Bible says you'll receive an inheritance when you do," I said.
We continued bantering back and forth on the issue. I continued, "God created even secular work to meet human needs. Man began to divide work into spiritual and non-spiritual terms which introduced a form of dualism in the third and fourth centuries. But God never secularized our work. He desires our work to be viewed as worship."
We concluded our meeting in disagreement. However, a few months later I met my friend at a booksellers convention. "Hey, you were right Os! I've done my study and work really is ministry because it is service. This man went on to write a book on the subject and said this; "Think about this. If you are filling someone's teeth, you are ministering to your patient. If you are playing in a symphony orchestra, you are ministering to the audience. If you are flying an airplane, you are ministering to the passengers. If you wait on tables, you are ministering to the customers. All of that clearly fits under biblical diakonia."
It was the first time I'd ever won a theological argument with a theologian!
Are you viewing your secular work as ministry? If not, pray about how God would have you to serve those in your workplace.
Daily Smile:
A man walks into an auto parts store and says"I'd like a rear view mirror for my Yugo."
The man behind the counter thinks about this for a while, then says "Yup, seems like a fair trade to me."
In The News:
Obama Taking 23 Actions Aimed at Gun Violence
President Barack Obama is taking 23 executive actions aimed at curbing gun violence that don't require congressional action, including measures to encourage schools to hire police officers, increase research on gun violence and improve efforts to prosecute gun crime, OneNewsNow.com reports. The executive actions, which come a month after the massacre in Newtown, Conn., are part of an overarching package assembled by a task force led by Vice President Joe Biden. "This is our first task as a society, keeping our children safe," said Obama, flanked by children who wrote him letters about gun violence in the weeks after the Newtown shooting. "This is how we will be judged." Several pro-life leaders took Obama to task following the press conference, including Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League, who said: "I want to believe the president is sincere in his concern with children, but he's completely turning a blind eye to children in the womb. He was an opponent of laws that would require physicians to provide basic care to children who survive botched abortions. So even children born alive from an abortion procedure and who survive don't deserve to be cared for, according to Barack Obama." A complete list of Obama's executive actions on guns can be found here.
Egyptian Court Sentences Christian Family to 15 Years for Converting From Islam
The 15-year prison sentence given to a woman and her seven children by an Egyptian court for converting to Christianity is a sign of things to come, according to alarmed human rights advocates who say Egypt's Islamist government spells trouble for Christians, Fox News reports. A criminal court in the city of Beni Suef gave the shocking sentence last week to Nadia Mohamed Ali, who was raised a Christian but converted to Islam when she married her husband 23 years ago. After he died, she planned to convert her family back to Christianity to obtain an inheritance, and sought the help of the registration office to process new identity cards between 2004 and 2006. But when the conversion came to light under Egypt's new regime, Nadia, her children and even the clerks who processed the identity cards were all sentenced to prison. Samuel Tadros of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom said conversions like Nadia's have been common in the past, but said Egypt's new sharia-based constitution "is a real disaster in terms of religious freedom." He added: "The cases will increase in the future. It will be much harder for people to return to Christianity."
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