WORK & CALLING: Daily Reading Plan #1
Genesis 2:15-20
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."
The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
One of the most important lessons which jumps out from this verse is that immediately after he was created, the first man had a God-given purpose. God placed him into the paradise of the garden of Eden with a job to do. God had created a world which included work needing to be done; He created man with a mission to do that work. Logically, God didn't need to structure the world in this way. He could have created a world that was fully self-sustaining. He could have made human beings to simply live in luxury and enjoy all of God's creation without ever having to contribute anything.
That, however, was not God's design. Even before sin entered the world, human beings were meant to work, to help to accomplish God's purpose. That is built into us. Chapter 3 will reveal that sin changed the nature of our work and our response to it but work itself is not a curse. It is part of our purpose as God's creatures.
This first man's work was relatively simple and straightforward: to maintain the garden of Eden. This purpose will be lost when he sins, later in this story. For those restored to fellowship with God through faith in Christ, that sense of purposeful work begins to be restored, as well. Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
Reflection Questions
- What do these verses say about work and calling?
- How does recognizing God's intention to create us as working beings cause me to take these verses to heart?
