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WORK, LEISURE AND WORSHIP. WE WORSHIP OUR WORK , WE WORK AT OUR LEISURE , AND WE PLAY AT OUR WORSHIP. SIMILARITIES BETWEEN WORSHIP AND LEISURE. Free Will Integration Personal Well Being. PURPOSE OF WORK. BRING DOMINION OVER THE EARTH RESTRAINS INHERENT EVIL
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WORK, LEISURE AND WORSHIP WE WORSHIP OUR WORK, WE WORK AT OUR LEISURE, AND WE PLAY AT OUR WORSHIP
SIMILARITIES BETWEEN WORSHIP AND LEISURE • Free Will • Integration • Personal Well Being
PURPOSE OF WORK • BRING DOMINION OVER THE EARTH • RESTRAINS INHERENT EVIL • ESSENTIAL TO SATISFACTION, FULFILLMENT, PURPOSE, MEANING TO LIFE • MEET THE NEEDS OF THE TRULY NEEDY
HANSEL’S FOURCOMMANDMENTS OF CONTENTMENT • Thou Shalt live the here and now • Thou Shalt not take thyself too seriously • Thou Shalt not hurry • Thou Shalt be grateful • Don’t hurry your work but enjoy the process • Work is work and leisure is leisure • Love those for whom you work with a servants attitude
How to Build an Ethic • John Wesley’s Quadrilateral • 1. Scripture • 2. Life experience • 3. Tradition • 4. Reason
THREE CLASSICAL MODELS • GREEK • Leisure is truly worthwhile and for the privileged • work is disdained and only for slaves • Through leisure we realize our true humanity • contemplation, thinking, dreaming, appreciation of beauty, relationships • PROTESTANT • Industry, individualism, frugality, ambition, success all have virtue • Leisure is time off from work and a reward for hard work • Leisure activities: family welfare, worship, catharsis, purpose • reading, writing family budget, visiting friends, sewing, chopping wood • HEBRAIC • Balance of work and leisure • Leisure is evident in dance, feasts, celebration of life, hospitality to travelers, time for relationships • Johnston says this model most typifies Biblical Christianity • Says we may look in vain for fully developed theology of leisure
Biblical Norms for Work and Career Choices • 1. Calling • 2. Service • 3. Work • 4. Human responsibility
Biblical norms for Career Choices • 1. Calling • (divinely appointed career) • Specially chosen vocation which reflects who you are • Call to be saved, a disciple and member of the body • Decision is made in prayer with God • God will first put the desire in your heart to follow a particular career • Problems: • Only one right choice • Anxiety of making a wrong choice • Defense that others cannot question the choice • 2. Serving (Service) • One who waits on tables and who washes feet • 1. Meet needs of others • 2. Have to ability to fulfill those needs
Norms (cont) • 3. Work • Curse of God transformed the nature of work from satisfaction/joy to toil/sweat • The grace of God in Christ makes work both toil and joy, sweat and satisfaction • Work can be both good and bad depending upon whether or not it is performed in faithful obedience to God’s will DT 30:10 • 4. Human Responsibility • We are created capable to make choices and either suffer or enjoy the consequences • It is not an either-or but our responsibility to choose • God has given us the ability, opportunity and requirement to decide • 1. Gaining accurate self knowledge • 2. Gaining accurate knowledge about specific vocations • 3. Gaining accurate knowledge about the needs of the Kingdom