No one in lower Manhattan knew what to expect on one early September morning in 1882. As dense clusters of people surrounded City Hall to get a good vantage point, local police were out in force just in case a riot broke out. One newspaper reported seeing “men on horseback, men wearing regalia, men with society aprons, and men with flags, musical instruments, badges, and all the paraphernalia of a procession.” The Central Labor Union of New York had successfully organized the first Labor Day parade in America.
Although initially observed at the state level, it was in 1894 when Congress officially passed a bill, later signed into law by President Grover Cleveland, designating the first Monday in September as Labor Day. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, it was established to “celebrate the social and economic achievements of American workers.”
Many of the early concerns of organized labor centered around harsh working environments, inadequate pay, and a lack of benefits for workers. However, economic advantages and good working conditions are only part of a deeper understanding of what it means to engage in human labor. It requires going back to the garden of Eden to really grasp such a concept.
Biblical foundations
“We were made in His image, and God told us in Genesis Chapter 1 what it meant,” said David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group (thebahnsengroup.com), an investment strategy and wealth management company. “We were the unique part of creation that was tasked with co-creating with Him, building with Him, taking the raw materials of the world and going about being fruitful, multiplying, filling the earth, cultivating the earth, and caring for the garden. There was a spirit of creativity and productivity that God Himself shared with us.”
According to Bahnsen, who has been an outspoken advocate of work from a biblical perspective, “A proper understanding of the kingdom of God reveals that physical activity and spiritual activity are both important and are not to be seen in opposition to one another.”
One of the primary themes in his new book, Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life, is that humans were created to work and grow God’s kingdom through earthly endeavors. This is a message Bahnsen believes the church needs to recover.
“Our efforts in vocation, commerce, education, technology, and entrepreneurial endeavors are all things that have profound significance to God and are a by-product of what God created us for,” he explained.
Believing that Adam’s labor was a by-product of the curse of sin is an example of wrong thinking when it comes to work, according to Bahnsen. He points out the inconsistency of that view when people don’t consider children to be a by-product of the curse.
“Work existed before the fall and was a blessing, but now, post-sin, the curse would be the sweat of our brow and the thorns and thistles,” he said. “So work and children remain a blessing, and the pains of childbirth and the sweat remain the curse. I’ve never in my life heard any Christian refer to children as a curse.”
“We need to put to rest the misconception that work is punishment for the fall. We know that’s not true,” agreed Rob West, president of the Christian financial service Kingdom Advisors (kingdomadvisors.com) and host of the Faith & Finance radio program on AFR.
“We see in Genesis 2:15 that God gave Adam specific instructions for his labor in the garden,” West explained. “It says, ‘Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.’”
West continued, “Just a few verses later, God creates Eve from Adam’s rib so that she could be his helper and labor with him in the garden. All of this was before the fall, so it’s correct to say that work itself is not a punishment.”
Modern attitudes
However, Americans’ thoughts about work have changed significantly over the years. West cited evidence of this by pointing to a 2023 poll funded by the Wall Street Journal and conducted by NORC (previously known as the National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago. In that survey of 1,019 Americans, two-thirds said hard work was still very important to them. That’s down 16% from their 1998 survey asking the same question.
“There are many possible reasons for this decline, but one could certainly be that fewer people are growing up in the church,” West explained. “Fewer people are hearing God’s Word, which certainly values hard, honest work. Our culture also glorifies leisure and often seems to mock those who work hard. It’s all a lesson in how knowing and applying God’s Word can make a tremendous, positive difference in our lives.”
Bahnsen stressed that today’s increasing mental health problems are exacerbated in a society that fails to grasp God’s purposes for a life of productive labor.
“Many have said work is dehumanizing and that having a greater sense of inactivity is somehow more liberating,” he said. “And then we get shocked when in that boredom, idleness, and purposelessness, people form drug and alcohol problems, mental health problems, loneliness, and emotional anxiety.”
That is why Bahnsen challenges Christians to uphold the value and necessity of hard work by proclaiming the whole counsel of God, including the vital parts of the Christian message – faith, family, community, and work.
“There is a joy that comes from those components that we have been given here on Earth to make life truly beautiful and meaningful,” Bahnsen emphasized. “When we are willing to proclaim a message that strips away activity and purpose, we are stripping away dignity. And when dignity gets stripped away, there is no possible way this can end any other way but with enhanced alienation, anxiety, and depression.”
Productive retirement
A low view of labor not only brings mental struggles to one’s working years but extends into the period known as retirement. According to Bahnsen, the notion that “once you don’t need to work, you ought not to work” is a depressing and dangerous idea.
His definition of retirement is helpful to Christians as they look to the future.
“If the term retirement was more properly defined as the achievement of financial stability and the addition of flexibility in decisions one may make with his life, then I’m all for those things,” Bahnsen said. “But I don’t believe in retirement as the period in which we remove ourselves from any activity.”
“Retirement is a modern idea,” West added. “There is strong cultural pressure to accumulate wealth so that one may have a life of leisure in later years. That’s not biblical.”
Therefore, he advised that while believers might take an extended time of sabbatical rest, their calling in life doesn’t have an expiration date.
“The retirement season is that time in life where we have the most experience and wisdom to share with others,” West said.
Bahnsen agreed that this concept is an essential missing ingredient in today’s marketplace: “We need people who have ‘seen a thing or two about a thing or two.’”
West added, “The idea is to retire not just from something, but to something, and to use our time and God-given skills and abilities to bring glory to the Lord and love others well until the Lord calls us home.”
(Digital Editor's Note: This article was published first in the September 2024 print edition of The Stand. Click HERE for a free six-month subscription.)
