What does the phrase “the work of the Lord” mean?
For many, the phrase refers to church planting, missions, evangelism, pastoral care, preaching, and teaching—work deemed to be the purview of the institutional church and/or a para-church ministry.
At first glance, this definition seems to be the sense of the phrase in 1 Corinthians 16:10, where the term is used in reference to Paul and Timothy. In the above text, however, Paul issued an imperative to the Corinthian believers to “give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord.”
The challenge is that the Corinthians were carnal (1 Corinthians 3:1–3). First Corinthians recorded numerous problems among these Christians, such as, division, partisanship, turf-battles, spiritual insensitivity, failure to grow, sexual immorality, lawsuits, paganism, out-of-order meetings, abuse of spiritual gifts, misunderstanding of Scripture, and confusion surrounding the gospel.
How could Paul expect this unruly group of people to give themselves “fully to the work of the Lord”? Immature believers cannot be expected to plant churches wisely, conduct mission outreach, effectively evangelize, care for hurting people, preach a clear gospel, or adroitly teach truth. How could these carnal Christians give themselves to the work of the Lord?
May I suggest that the key to this conundrum is to broaden our understanding of the phrase “the work of the Lord”?
The apostle Paul wrote that one of the primary purposes of salvation is to release us to do the specific work that God uniquely created each of us to do (Ephesians 2:8–10). This means that God creates everyone with intent and purpose; therefore, everyone’s life work counts.
Furthermore, the word work in Ephesians 2:10 is the English translation of the Greek word ergon, which refers to all types of work, not just what we consider to be church or para-church work. God created each of us specifically for certain work that He wants us to do.
Sin is the major impediment that blocks us from finding and fulfilling our work assignments. Christ is the remedy for sin. Therefore, salvation enables us to be free enough from sin so that we can discover and fulfill our life purpose. The challenge for each of us is to give ourselves to the work of the Lord, that is, to grow in Christ so that we can find and fulfill our life purpose. Even carnal Christians are commanded to do this and therefore on some level they must be able to.
Here is your business tip. Everyone is blessed when they obey God. The best workers in any organization will be people who obey God by embracing Christ deeply enough to transform their lives and, as a result, seek to discover and fulfill their divinely-ordained life purpose. Employers should seek to call each worker into his or her individual, divinely-ordained work so that each worker can do the work of the Lord that has been assigned to them. Concurrently, as the workers are doing the work the Lord, they are enabling their organizations to obey God by fulfilling each organization's purpose. Hence, those organizations are then better aligned with God. Therefore, both workers and employers are blessed when workers find and fulfill their individual life purposes. This is the work of the Lord. |
