Proverbs 16:26 ESV
A worker’s appetite works for him; his mouth urges him on.
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+16%3A26&version=ESV]
Reality is reality. Sometimes that sucks. Sometimes that’s awesome. Sometimes, as here, we need to take a second and a third and even a fourth look before we understand both sides of the problem. This verse falls into the third category (actually, to be honest, any mildly complex thing will do the same). We work because we want to eat, of course. Even the most callow man can recognize the incentive. It may be weakened, for the skilled moocher or by welfare, and it may be hated, as by Marx and all his ilk (who demand work become the merest tittle of existence, the greatest of victimizations), but nevertheless it is known. Yet this truth is only the first step; it is an incomplete understanding. By God’s grace, we can go farther, find the joy beneath the drab (as well as the warning).
The first truth, ‘We eat that we may work,’ is established and understood; let us take a single step forward. ‘We work in order to honor Him, and He provides for those who honor Him through that work,’ comes next. A more complex truth, but a necessary step. God calls man to honor Him ceaselessly: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Col. 3:23). Paul does not leave the command there, though; he ascribes also to it a result: “… from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward” (3:24). On this earth, so long as it is to our good (Rom. 8:28) and His glory (Is. 6:3-4), this inheritance is one of provision. The Fifth Commandment declares as much in saying of those who obey righteous authority, “your days [will] be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Ex. 20:12). This is the real reason that work puts food on the table, that it is in honor to God.
You may have seen the fatal flaw of this argument already. What about the unrighteous? Surely his work, though it feeds him, is not to God’s honor? Quite the contrary. Psalm 49:16 gives us a just admonition: “Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases.” All the glories of man, all the fruit of his labor insofar as it has worth (once it has been purified as by flame (Zec. 13:9; 1 Pet. 1:7)), is bound only to one place: to His people, to Him. Isaiah 60:11 says as much: “Your gates shall be open continually; day and night they shall not be shut, that people may bring to you the wealth of the nations, with their kings led in procession” (Consider, too that, Isaiah’s promise does not indicate that its fulfilment is only after the Second Coming; the trigger is indeed the coming of Christ, but not the second one). The wicked man does not seek to honor God, it is true, but he cannot help, being in His image and His creation, honoring Him by implication; God forebears for a time, gives the wicked even such provision as might be turned back to His glory, and in the end God takes that which is to His glory, damns the one who would not willingly render it (Matt. 25:14-30).
We can refine this truth yet further. We work to His honor, and He provides, but we can sharpen our sight, consider how each part of the proposition functions. How do we work to His honor? How does He provide? To the first, we work to His honor by taking dominion; to the second, He provides for us in part by the means of that work, that taking of dominion. God called man to a grand calling: to steward creation, to raise it to a greater glory than it was at the beginning (Gen. 1:26; Mark 12:1-2). Man’s self is part of that creation, though, to be used as He ordained, to be cared for as His temple, a means of praise to Him (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Thus, though man’s taking dominion, God cares for men; in a healthy society, a man’s own labor and the labor of those in close relationship to him are the most proximate causes of his flourishing, though the Lord often reminds His people of their dependence on Him, of the true origin of the provision which He works through their hands, as He did with Job and with Elijah (1 Kings 17:1-16) and with Paul (2 Cor. 2:17).
With all this in mind, and remembering that we have only touched on the glories of His wisdom and grace even in this subject (Eph. 2:7), we must see clearly that only in Christ can man have a healthy understanding of and relationship with work. By the Fall, work has been made a drudgery, a terror, a drain (Gen. 3:17-19). For fallen man, this is eventually what it must resolve into. He has no transcendent purpose, no heart of flesh which feels God’s blessing (Ez. 36:26), no joy in relationship with Him. He can nudge up on the borders of truth, but he cannot enter into it, would refuse to embrace the truth were it shown to him. Thus, work becomes something to dread; the curse of the Fall hangs heavy on his shoulders.
For the righteous, it need not be so. Certainly, we have hearts full of sin even now, so that the weight of the Fall’s curse is still felt, but by His grace we are cleansed day by day of that evil. We have been given a heart of flesh, a new life and an eternal life (John 3:1-16). We can look at work and understand it down to our bones not as drudgery and slavery but as the labor of a child for his Father, gift and offering of praise as Colossians 3:17 calls us to. We can rejoice in taking dominion, in walking in the footsteps of Christ whose sovereignty our dominion is a reflection of (Col. 1:16). Thus, we can work and know that our Heavenly Father cares for us, His children (Matt. 6:26, 7:7-9).
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.