Work as Worship

We are called to be contributors by Dave Huber

There’s a song we frequently sing at our church during weekend services. The first verse picks up where all good theology begins, in Creation, when “God on high stepped down into time.” The bridge builds our anticipation until, as the drums crescendo and the pitch climbs, we belt out that first climactic line of the chorus: “You and I were made to worship.”

It’s a great song, and it’s great theology. We were indeed made to worship. But if we look back at the Creation narrative of Genesis 2, we might find a different picture of worship than expected.

The Work Of Our Hands

The verb in the Old Testament often translated “to worship” comes from the Hebrew root עבד (‘avad). (Click here to dive deeper into Dave Huber’s Avodah word study.) Its semantic range orbits around the concept of service, whether serving people (freely or as slaves), serving God or idols (usually in the context of temple service), or serving in some vocational capacity (whether paid or unpaid).

Significantly, this word appears twice in the Creation narrative as an infinitive construct, indicating purpose, with the man (אדם, ʼadam) as its subject. In other words, Adam was indeed made to עבד (‘avad). But far from the picture of Adam as a liturgical worshipper, offering sacrifices and singing ancient Psalms and listening to announcements about the annual potluck, instead we find Adam worshipping God through the work of his hands.

In Genesis 2:5-6, the scene opens in a barren land: no shrubs, no plants, no rain and, perhaps most troubling, “no man to work [עבד, ʻavad] the ground.”

This is a bit of a crisis moment in the text. As Victor Hamilton has noted in his commentary on Genesis (NICOT), “If plant life is to grow in this garden, it will be due to a joint operation… . God is not a tiller of the soil and man is not a sender of rain. But the presence of one being without the other guarantees the perpetuation of desertlike conditions.”1

We read in the text that God upheld his part of this arrangement: He planted a lush garden in the east corner of this barren land (2:8) and provided mist to water it (2:6). But how will this garden flourish without a gardener?

The answer comes in verse 7, when the Lord God forms the man from the dust of the earth, fills his lungs with the breath of life and places him in the garden. After a brief parenthetical description of this now-fertile land (2:9-14), the text resumes where it left off: with mankind being placed in the garden “to work it [עבד, ʻavad] and take care of it [שׁמר, s̆amar].”

From man’s very first moment in God’s good world, he is given a task to perform.

Called To Be Contributors

And lest we think this vocational calling is exclusive to males, God goes on in the text to create Eve, a “helper” (עזר, ʻezer; Genesis 2:18). Despite past abuses of this word, “helper” is no term of inferiority. In fact, elsewhere in the Scriptures, it is used consistently to describe God’s own relationship with His covenant people. Clearly, “the helper” is not a position of weakness but of strength.

But what exactly is Eve to help with? Most often this phrase is read in light of the marriage union that is about to be introduced (Genesis 2:24). While I think there is certainly some application for marriage, it seems a bit backward that God would create a helper for something that Adam doesn’t even need help with yet.

Instead of only looking forward in the text for our answer, we must also look backward. The closest referent to the need for a helper is not marriage but the calling to make a meaningful contribution to God’s world (Genesis 2:15). After all, God’s command to “fill the earth and subdue it” (often referred to as the Cultural Mandate) was given to both male and female (Genesis 1:28-30) and cannot be fulfilled until both male and female participate in its execution.

If this is true that mankind was made to work, then Genesis 2 has much to teach us about work. Allow me just four quick observations from the text that should shape our vocational theology.

First, work is good. We often think of work as a fallen reality, something difficult and burdensome, a necessary evil in order to fund the good things we really want to do. While it’s true that work bears marks of the fall (see Genesis 3:17-19,23), it was originally a good part of God’s good world. As pastors, we should remind our congregants that work is a good gift from God’s hands.

Second, work is meaningful. In Genesis 1:30, God bestows the vegetation of the garden as food to every living creature. Adam and Eve are given an incredibly important task: to work in and protect God’s good garden. This is not just some menial task to keep them busy. No, the entire created world depends on them doing their job well. As pastors, we should help our parishioners not merely endure their jobs but find meaning and value in their vocations.

Third, work is essential. If we were made to work, then work is not a peripheral add-on but a central aspect of what it means to be human. The growing reality of unemployment is not a minor setback in life; it is a violation of God’s creation design. As pastors and leaders, we should treat unemployment as a violation of human dignity, and we should provide support for the unemployed with the same energy and resources as we do for those in marital crisis.

Finally, work is sacred. There is an underlying idea conveyed in some churches that liturgical worship (“the sacred”) is what really matters, but work (“the secular”) is merely a necessary evil. However, the Creation narrative turns this theory on its head. Work is not opposed to worship, but rather (when performed in line with God’s creation design), it is a central avenue for worship and mission in God’s world.

In the garden temple, Adam and Eve were not called to sit in a pew and sing songs and listen to a sermon. They were called to honor God through their work. And just as God was honored (even worshipped) when Adam and Eve tended the garden well, so God is honored when we plumb toilets or design architecturally sound structures or create Excel documents with fully functioning macros.

When we stop to reconsider the role of עבד (‘avad) in the Creation narrative, a different picture of worship emerges. God intended mankind to live seamless lives where our work is an ongoing act of God-honoring worship. Simply put, when performed as God originally intended, work is worship.