Lesson 11, December 5-11
Sabbath Afternoon
Memory Text: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 15:58
Read for This Week’s Study: Genesis 3:19, Deuteronomy 16:15, Exodus 25:10-30:38, Galatians 5:22-26, Ecclesiastes 9:10, 1 Corinthians 10:31.
Work is God’s idea. In the ideal world before sin, God gave Adam and Eve the task of caring for the garden (Genesis 2:15). Like their Creator, in whose image they were made, they were to be employed in creative labor and loving service. That is, even in an unfallen world, a world without sin and death and suffering, humanity was to be at work.
In this “in-between time” (after the ideal world and prior to the promised one), we are invited to view work as one of God’s blessings. Among the Jews, every child was taught a trade. In fact, it was said that a father who didn’t teach his son a trade would raise a criminal. Meanwhile, Jesus, the Son of God, spent many years doing His Father’s will in honest labor as a skilled craftsman, perhaps providing people of Nazareth with needed furniture and agricultural implements (Mark 6:3). This, too, was all part of the training to prepare Him for the ministry ahead. The apostle Paul was doing the Lord’s work just as surely when he worked alongside Aquila and Priscilla for a year and a half as a tentmaker as he was on Sabbath debating in the synagogue (Acts 18:1-4, 2 Thessalonians 3:8-12). This week we will look at the whole question of work and its role in Christian education.
