Proverbs on Work

We continue today our study on the book of Proverbs with a focus on what the book has to say about the workplace.  I’ve focused my study on proverbs dealing with work, wealth, riches, and money.  These factors of life could hardly play a more important role.  Over a lifetime, a person spends 100,000 hours working.  But jobs come with varying degrees of satisfaction.  A survey found that the average man changes jobs every four and ½ hears and the average woman every three years.  Boredom, lack of fulfillment, inadequate wages, and countless other pressures have contributed to this discontentment.  All professions and labor have their challenges and discontentment.

Imagine the difference in the attitudes we have about work.  We want our jobs to be fulfilling and meaningful.  This is a relatively recent concept – that many people can have meaningful work.  In an agricultural context, most people are simply laborers.  You might have artisans and tradesman who enjoy their work, but most people are simply working to survive.  Proverbs isn’t trying to help you find meaning and fulfillment in work.  But Proverbs is trying to help you find wisdom in your work and help you gain the skills necessary to cope with its pressures and challenges.

Biblical Perspective of Work

Even before sin entered the human race, God instituted work.  “The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it” (Gen 2:15).  This is paying Adam and humanity a compliment – they were to participate in God’s care over creation.  Humans were giving something important to do – be fruitful and multiply. We were co-laborers with God himself.  This is a theme that does not appear in any form in the creation literature of the ANE. 

Work is not a result of the curse of sin.  When God gave Adam the job of naming the animals and cultivating the garden, there is a sense in which God is primarily allowing Adam, created in the divine image, to actually participate in the divine activity as God’s agent.  God chooses to go with whatever Adam decides.  Adam has real authority to name animals – that is, God also uses the names Adam chooses.  God’s care of the world is extended through Adam’s care of the garden.  There is something divine and spiritual about work.  Those who refuse to participate are breaking the divine image.  Those who do good through their employment in some sense are working with God to order the world – whether they believe in God or not.

All work, pleasant or otherwise, has tremendous value in terms of character development.  Work is so important that in the ten commandments, it actually commands us concerning not only rest but work; “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but on the seventh day . . .”  Paul says in 2 Thess 3:10, “If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat.”  This doesn’t mean, “Let this person starve” but “We’re not responsible to help this person out when we distribute food to the needy Christians.”

I’m going to categorize the selected verses into four sub-points.  They are

Work with Self-Motivation

Proverbs 6:6-11 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!  It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest- and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.

The sage here has spent some time out looking at ants.  I grew up around lots of ants in South Texas.  We had huge anthills down there and the sage is right.  Ants are always working.  They carry huge loads, seemingly far beyond what we could imagine them capable of carrying.  Ants don’t have any real commander.  There is no whip-master forcing them to work.  But there the ants are each working like a slave to store food for the winter and to provide for the rest.  Wisdom says, “Be self-motivated!  Don’t be the type who needs someone looking over your shoulder.”

The sage also notices that the ants are smart in their planning.  They each seem to know, in their own anty way, that what they are storing away is going to be needed later.  I read this week about a book called Ants at Work, How an Insect Society is Organized .  The cover asks, “Individual ants manage their incredibly complex colonies with no one in charge—how do they do it?”  We gain wisdom by looking at those ants.  They are planning for the future by some incredible mysterious force.  A reviewer says,  “Gordon agrees with the good book (quoting our passage)...there is no guiding force. They just seem to know what to do and frequently change jobs as needed.”  Somehow they know to plan for the future.  We could be so wise and diligent and prudent.

Work Honestly.  Sleep Well.

·         Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.

·         Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow.

·         The Lord loathes all cheating and dishonesty.

 There are hundreds of verses in the Bible which deal with honesty.  The first of these verses reminds us that “truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.”  Honestly provides an endurance, a security, something solid for posterity.  Deceit may provide cover for a while, but things have a tendency to come tumbling down.  Enron can only keep of the chimera of falsely inflated income and stock value for so long.  If they had chosen to go public with their problems and fix them honestly, Enron might well still be a publicly traded company and Jeffrey Skilling and Phillip Lay would not be in prison.

I think the last verse here is interesting.  Proverbs 20:17  Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.  Notice that the mouth full of gravel is a punishment that doesn’t depend on getting caught.  In other words, it is saying something like this.  Deception might have sweet immediate rewards, but real pleasure in what is gained is soon lost.  The simplest things in life, if honestly won, can give great joy.  The most wonderful gains made, if made dishonestly, cannot be truly enjoyed.  There is an intrinsic punishment that does not demand human systems of justice.  It is built into human nature.

I think the wisdom for us can be said this way.  Always choose poverty or a simpler life if the gains you make demand any form of dishonesty.  If you are dishonest and make a higher income, your actual pleasure in life will decrease.  You might enjoy your money but you won’t enjoy your life.  Sin has such a deceptive way about it.  Don’t fall into its trap.  Look beyond momentary treasure and pleasure.

I often ask my classes, especially when I’m teaching about the message of Socrates, “If you had to choose between being poor but moral, and being rich but immoral, which would you choose?”  Students are very honest.  Most of them will choose being rich and immoral.  One student said, “I want to be rich.  Period.  Whatever it takes.”  The sage here says, “Choose that and your mouth will be full of gravel.”

Work Productively.  Bless others.

Proverbs 12:11
He who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment.

The NLT reads, “A hard worker has plenty of food, but a person who chases fantasies has no sense.”  Here the sage is contrasting the hard labor of farming land and the food it produces to the kind of speculative interests the engage people’s attention.  I have a friend who is constantly dreaming up big business ideas.  Yet he cannot seem to hold down a job.  I think this passage is saying something like this.  “Work hard at what is clearly there to do and what is clearly beneficial to all.” 

I think this passage is discouraging the kind of work that isn’t clearly related to producing a valuable product.  “Keep your fingernails dirty.  Stay close to the land.”  Nothing could be more obvious in its practical value than farming.  I think the wisdom of this verse could be summarized something like this.  Work hard at things that are clearly productive, not fantasies.  Do honest labor that is clearly helpful to others.  Be sure you can tell yourself what your are doing that is helpful to the broader society and culture.  If you are not clear in your own mind about exactly what your are contributing to the broader good, choose a different profession.

Work Moderately.  Live Well.

A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.

Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.

There are certain things in life that are vastly more important than a high income.  Here the sage mentions a good name.  You should value living well more highly than high income.  Your reputation, once lost, can often never be redeemed.  I think the passage is saying that the excessive love of riches leads down a path of self-destruction.

The second verse encourages a kind of contentment that makes us only ‘cast but a glance at riches’ instead of being fascinated with wealth.  It is saying, “Learn to live with a casual attitude about wealth.  Do not love wealth excessively but appropriately.  An interesting proverb here is, “A man’s riches may ransom his life, but a poor man hears no threats.”  In other words, a rich man can be captured for a ransom.  Wealthy people live with a greater threat.  You could think of Patty Hearst.  But the poor, in their poverty, have no threat to worry about.  Choose a life of contentment.

Financial Contentment/Spiritual Discontentment

 

I want to inspire you to achieve a new level of contentment financially and spur you to be discontented spiritually/morally.  So – financial/personal contentment is what we’re after here.  If there is anything I wish for you is to learn to go against the grain of what our culture says about financial success.  I want to inspire you to learn to be content in terms of finances.  We live in a world in which billions and billions of dollars are spent every year to make you feel that you need things.  You need things.  I’ve got a huge multi-billion dollar industry called Madison Avenue that puts messages into your brain – and they’ve been doing this since you were a baby – telling you, “You really need. . .”

 

Let me tell you something that will probably offend you.  If it doesn’t, it should.  You either have too much or you want too much.  Probably both are true.  Contentment sets you free.  When I was a kid, my dad made us all memorize a major chunk of the sermon on the Mount – Matthew 6.  Here, Jesus commands his followers to be as contented as the birds of the air, “They sow not, neither do they reap or gather in the barns.  But your heavenly father feeds them.  Aren’t you of greater value than them?”  But what did he know?  He was only Jesus!  We know better.  I need that new truck!

 

Closing Thoughts

 

Let’s just close by making some basic affirmations.  Work isn’t always going to be fun.  It is sometimes boring, uninspiring, discouraging and tedious.  But God uses work – when we have the right attitude about it – even when it is tedious or overwhelming – to shape us and mold us into his image.  Learn to be self-motivated.  Don’t be the kind of person who has to be watched.  Choose to work honestly.  Even in the details of your job.  Choose the kinds of work that have clear benefits for others.  Avoid the kinds of jobs that don’t have public value.  Finally, work thoughtfully.  Learn contentment.  Having the higher salary isn’t always worth it.  Choose quality of life.  Remember to live simply.