Biblical Foundations for Engaging the World Marketplace Christian Network

MIND THE GAP

Why Work? Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship Work in a Fallen World? What is Work? Meaningful Work Now?

Why Work? Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship

Marketplace Christian Network God works. Work is a Blessing Work was wholesome and enjoyable Reflect God’s creative nature through our work Commissioned to have dominion over creation Foundations of Genesis 1

Marketplace Christian Network GE 2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. To work – cultivate (work in any sense) and ‘to serve’ by implication and to worship. Take care – guard, to attend to Humankind was to serve and protect created order and not to exploit it for our own pleasure. Same words used for worshipping and keeping God’s command

Why Work? Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship What is Work?

Marketplace Christian Network Work Becomes Worship Authentic worship can only be in Christ. It is not driven by a liturgy or a call to worship, a change in style or a methodology. Redemption does not signal the beginning of worship. Instead it marks its once-for-all cleansing. It is washed in the blood of the Lamb and turned into a following after of the example of Christ and into continued deliverance from the intrusion of fallen worship. Our redemption and our worship is henceforth one with the other. Our entirety, not just a narrowed spiritual corridor or mere churchgoing and ministry, is swept up in newly complete living. Work becomes worship, just as worship becomes duty and delight. Eden is no just restored; it is surpassed, for in his redemptive outpouring, God gave us the supreme gift of Christ-in- us-in-Christ. Unceasing Worship – Harold M. Best

Marketplace Christian Network All Legitimate Work is Sacred Work Rom 12: 1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual[1] act of worship.1

Why Work? Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship Work in a Fallen World? What is Work?

The Curses & Consequences Marketplace Christian Network "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. GE 3:18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. GE 3:19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return. Ground was cursed Work was made more difficult It was no longer a pleasure

The Terrible Thing Called Sin Marketplace Christian Network It has corrupted us. It has corrupted the family It has corrupted the people we work with. It has corrupted the environment we work and live in.

Paul Addresses the Greek Dualism Marketplace Christian Network

Hierarchy of Vocations – A Christian Caste System Marketplace Christian Network Foreign Missionaries Pastors Church workers or staff in parachurch Social Workers, Doctors, Teachers Tradesmen Salespersons, Lawyers, Traders, Businesspersons

The idea that the service to God should have only to do with a church altar, singing, reading, sacrifice, and the like is without doubt but the worst trick of the devil. How could the devil have led us more effectively astray than by the narrow conception that service to God takes place only in church and by works done therein… The whole world could abound with services to the Lord – not only in churches but also in the home, kitchen, workshop, field. (Martin Luther quoted in Feuchts, p. 80)

Why Work? Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship Work in a Fallen World? What is Work? Meaningful Work Now?

Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship 1.A Renewed understanding of Salvation 2.A Renewed understanding of Mission 3.A Renewed understanding of Calling Meaningful Work begin with

Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship For God so loved the ‘kosmos’ John 3:16, the kosmos, refers to all of Created Order Revelation speaks of ‘New Heaven and New Earth’ Col 1:19 – ‘through him to reconcile all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven’ Heb 2:8 – ‘in putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him.’

Redemption of Christ Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship Is for the ENTIRE World, the COSMOS the Universe

Redemption of Christ is not just… Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship 1) Bringing the Gospel to the ends of the earth 2) Involving Social Action It is also the Reconciliation & Redemption of ALL of God’s Created Order to HIS Purposes.

Redemption of Christ also includes the redemption of the Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship Arts and Culture Education Business Science and Engineering Families Media Work & Labor Public Square Legal Finance Healthcare

Mission of God Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship Abrahamic Covenant Gen 22:17: 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

Mission of God Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship Abrahamic Covenant in New Testament Gal 3:6 GAL 3:6 Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." 7 Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8 The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." 9 So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Mission of God by Christopher Wright Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship Read Bible in the light of : God’s purpose for his whole creation, including the redemption of humanity, and the creation of the new heavens and new earth. God’s purpose for human life in general on the planet and of all the Bible teaches about human culture, relationships, ethics and behavior. God’s historical election of Israel, their identity and role in relation to the nations, and the demands he made on their worship, social ethics, and total value system.

Mission of God by Christopher Wright Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship the centrality of Jesus of Nazareth, his messianic identity and mission in relation to Israel and the nations, his cross and resurrection. God’s calling of the church, the community of believing Jews and Gentiles who constitute the extended people of the Abraham covenant, to be the agent of God’s blessing to the nations in the name and for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"In nothing has the church so lost Her hold on reality as in Her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that, as a result, the secular work of the world is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends, and that the greater part of the world’s intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least, uninterested in religion. But is it astonishing? How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life? The church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. Today

What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes on him is to make good tables.... No piety in the worker will compensate for work that is not true to itself; for any work that is untrue to its own technique is a living lie.... She has forgotten that the secular vocation is sacred. Forgotten that a building must be good architecture before it can be a good church; that a painting must be well painted before it can be a good sacred picture; that work must be good work before it can call itself God’s work." By: Dorothy Sayers Source: Creed or Chaos, Sophia Press, 1949, 1974, pg 77-8

Cape Town Commitment Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship The whole Bible reveals the mission of God to bring all things in heaven and earth into unity under Christ, reconciling them through the blood of his cross. In fulfilling his mission, God will transform the creation broken by sin and evil into the new creation in which there is no more sin or curse. God will fulfil his promise to Abraham to bless all nations on the earth, through the gospel of Jesus, the Messiah, the seed of Abraham.

How do I now FIT in God’s plan? Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship Life Experiences Gifts & Talents Personality Passion History Environment

Marketplace Christian Network A Ministry of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship Focus It is about finding God’s call in our life for ministry and missions rather than finding personal fulfillment (or self-actualization)

Marketplace Christian Network Contact Information Free Book – pdf download Lausanne Occasional Paper No. 40 Chinese & Arabic versions available