When Pharisees questioned the Lord Jesus about marriage, He answered by quoting Genesis 1:27: “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female’” (Mark 10:6). Jesus interpreted the words in Genesis as describing factual and historical events that were still applicable to His day and age. That same Word remains “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” for us today (2 Timothy 3:16).

Longtime readers of Acts & Facts will be broadly educated on why the doctrine of creation is fundamental to Christian faith.¹ It touches all areas of life, including our day-to-day work. Drs. Henry M. and John D. Morris wrote on the importance of human work and its origination at creation.² But another fascinating story that started about 500 years ago and continues today demonstrates the profound influence for good that biblical doctrine and Bible-believing Christians exercise within a society’s workplaces.

Workers and the Christian Worldview

Christian heritage and doctrine have had a remarkable effect in the workaday world of Western culture. For instance, why do Americans enjoy workplace safeties and privileges that are unheard of in other parts of the world? Why are sons no longer expected to take up the trades of their fathers? Why try to protect workers from danger in the workplace?

Some countries seem to discount these important questions. Yet wherever Christianity has spread, the establishment and recognition of peoples’ freedoms and rights have been foundational precepts. Quickly thereafter, however, secular leaders or organizations assumed credit and disregarded or forgot the pioneering Christian backdrop.

But creationists shouldn’t forget. Heritage matters. Just as American history helps mold the beliefs and behaviors of Americans today, what we Christians believe and hold precious about ourselves is also influenced by our faith history. Our Christian ancestors did much that we should know, admire, and emulate.

Doctrine is very important, but the Bible’s historical influence is often overlooked. If one reads about Labor Day on the U.S. Department of Labor website, nothing is mentioned about the biblical truths that changed how society viewed ordinary workers. But these truths provided the moral foundation for making laws to protect workers. That transformative Christian view of the inherent value of individuals goes back to Genesis 1:27, which reveals that all humans are created “in the image of God” and are not to be abused (Genesis 9:6) or misused (James 3:8–9).

The World’s View: Occupational Standing Equals Social Standing

Sometime before my deployment to Iraq as an Air Force officer, I read an astonishing headline: “Iraqi Peasant Shoots Down Apache Helicopter.”³ While the feat it claimed is surprising, what’s stunning is that in the 2000s someone’s occupational standing was still “peasant.” It’s possible that this person had no work-related legal protections for safety, health, or remuneration and that since the 1400s little has changed in that part of the world for people labeled peasants.

Millions worldwide still perform underappreciated and unnecessarily dangerous jobs. People given similar titles—such as peon, serf, slave, or chattel—have historically had little value given to their health or life. In some societies, the view still hasn’t changed that people in certain societal castes or classes are inferior, are destined to occupy dangerous jobs, or don’t deserve protection.

No culture has been exempt from these views. For centuries people considered it natural that everyone was born into a particular “station.” In Europe and other places there was a class system with royals at the top. Sons of fathers who had dangerous, dirty jobs had meager hope of something better. There was also a distinction between sacred and secular work. The clerical hierarchy, monks, friars, and nuns performed what was considered the highest work while the secular realm had its own pecking order ranging from royal work, noble work, magisterial work, technical work, craftwork, on down to the work of so-called peons.

The value of people was not measured by an intrinsic quality like bearing the image of God but by their station in life. Only those of worthy pedigree were deserving of occupational protections. Unfortunately, the old belief that occupational standing equals social standing remains quite new in some places.

How Biblical Teaching Changed Society

The respect and protections that workers enjoy today in America began with a major religious reformation in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This religious awakening primarily sought to correct abuses within the established ecclesiastical order by elevating the Bible’s authority personally and within the church. But its effect spread beyond the religious sphere.

Unlike many of today’s secular societies, Christian religion influenced many facets of life within Europe from the 1400s to the 1700s. The Bible’s authority exceeded centuries-old beliefs considered to be a natural law of society. Biblical truths even began to profoundly change views about work.

One of the first maxims to be undone by the reformers was that occupations were naturally separated into sacred and secular work. Consider a radically different thought about laborers from a commentary on Genesis by Martin Luther.

When a maid cooks and cleans and does other housework, because God’s command is there, even such a small work shall be praised as service of God far surpassing the holiness and asceticism of all monks and nuns….These works in connection with the household are more desirable than all the works of all the monks and nuns….Seemingly secular works are a worship of God and an obedience well pleasing to God.⁴

Another widely read theologian in the late 1500s with lucid and practical sermons was William Perkins, who greatly inspired Europeans and Americans. His sermon A Treatise of the Vocations or Callings of Men, With Sorts and Kinds of Them, and the Right Use Thereof is credited with being the most influential piece stimulating a basic change in the value of “common work” and the “common man” who did it.⁵

English bishop and reformer Hugh Latimer was a student of Perkins’ work. In a message that referenced Perkins’ treatise he stated,

This is a wonderful thing, that the Savior of the World, and the King above all kings, was not ashamed to labor; yea, and to use so simple an occupation [as a carpenter]. Here He did sanctify all manner of occupations.⁶

Before the dominating traditional social order could change, people’s thinking about truth, morality, and other people had to change.

The Basis for Occupational Reforms Was Theological in Nature

Major changes in religious beliefs slowly preceded changes in society. The Bible teaches that “the image of God” that God imparted to the man and the woman on the sixth day of creation is the key distinction between humans and animals. Unfortunately, even in predominantly Christian countries many people don’t believe or act as if their fellow humans are made in God’s image. But after the Reformation, as expressed in charters and declarations going forward, a fundamental philosophical shift about the nature and value of humans occurred.

The biblical doctrine of God’s sovereignty radically modified the view of human occupations. Since all of life was God’s, daily work should be integrated with one’s religious devotion. All work could—and should—be sacred if done for Christ’s glory. The integration of God, society, and self all converged in the exercise of one’s “calling.” Today we may use the word vocation instead of calling, but a calling entails so much more. Perkins’ treatise conveyed this biblically derived concept of calling:

God is the General appointing to every man his particular calling….God Himself is the author and beginning of callings….Every person of every degree, state, sex or condition without exception, must have some personal and particular calling to walk in….Every one, rich or poor, man or woman, is bound to have a personal calling, in which they must perform some duties for the common good, according to the measure of the gifts that God has bestowed on them.⁷

Thus, all people were enjoined to seek a calling for any occupation. This was a serious matter that they were urged to consider after much consultation and prayer.

Since a calling to any one vocation wasn’t considered more honorable than others—honor was derived from how a job was performed and the motivations for performing it—Perkins taught that distinctions between secular and sacred work were to be shunned and not dignified.

Hereby is overthrown the condition of monks and friars, who challenge themselves that they live in a state of perfection, because they live apart from the societies of men in fasting and prayer, which appertain to all Christians, every man must have a particular and personal calling that he may be a good and profitable member of some society.⁸

Perkins had another compelling insight into Scripture: God instituted work not to segregate people into classes but to dignify them as they completed their callings through service to society. This means that people were not created to serve God within their work, but to serve Him through their work. Perkins asserted,

The main end of our lives…is to serve God in the serving of men in the works of our callings….Some man will say perchance: What, must we not labor in our callings to maintain our families? I answer: this must be done; but this is not the scope and end of our lives. The true end of our lives is to do service to God in serving of man.⁹

Beloved preacher Richard Baxter, ministering soon after Perkins’ death, urged people,

Choose that employment or calling in which you may be most serviceable to God. Choose not that in which you may be most rich or honorable in the world; but that in which you may do the most good.¹⁰

One powerful personal benefit that resulted from this perspective was contentment. The belief that one was doing exactly what Jesus desired was a hedge against occupational boasting or envy.

How Christians should work is derived from Colossians 3:23: “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.” This spawned the so-called New England work ethic. Though maligned in stereotypical Hollywood depictions of sour workaholics hating idleness and shunning relaxation, in truth many of the concepts underlying success are embodied in it, such as diligence, high standards, frugality, and thriftiness.

These virtues are considered valuable today. And the temperament of workers may be rather agreeable if they believe the influential theologian John Cotton’s teaching that

we may not only aim at our own, but at the public good…and therefore faith will not think it has a comfortable calling unless it will not only serve his own turn but the turn of other men.¹¹

Sharing the biblical value of honesty also impacted how people worked. Everyone was expected to take up a legal and “honest trade” while serving the Lord through “an honest day’s work.”

The belief of heartily undertaking one’s work “as to the Lord” extended further to do one’s work as the Lord did His. A novel belief grew in Christian communities that people shouldn’t feel shame performing so-called lowly tasks, for even God’s son Jesus was a servant to many and washed His disciples’ feet (John 13:1–16). In commenting on the calling to serve others, John Cotton elaborated on the extent of its application: “So faith is ready to embrace any homely service his calling leads him to, which a carnal heart would blush to be seen in.”¹²

Tending to unseemly human needs was beautifully demonstrated by the first American pilgrims who cared for one another—and the Mayflower crew members who'd abused them—during their first tragic winter in North America.¹³ The offshoot of this Christian belief was a broad understanding that no work is really menial and neither are the people who perform it.

A Testament to the Foundational Creation Message

In some nations, recognizing the inherent value of all workers remains a bizarre or threatening ideology. But Western society was enriched by Christians teaching a historical Genesis whose message affirmed that humans were created to work and that each person has inherent value by bearing God’s image. Added was the example of Jesus Christ and the commitment of Christians to follow Him. The lesson from Perkins is that changed beliefs always precede changed policy.

Lack of a hierarchical religious/secular distinction, the intrinsic value of good work and of laborers who complete it, growing liberties for parents who want their children free to choose occupations outside their social “class,” sacrificial service—many Americans consider these to be self-evident, even when they’re uninformed about the theological roots from which the concepts grew.

This is a testimony to the lingering influence of Christian doctrine. The ripple effect of laws stipulating decent working conditions, protections from hazardous occupational exposures, disclosures about dangerous work products, compensation for job-sustained injuries, and better pay happens when citizens believe there’s a solid moral justification to implement them.

By following the perfect example of the Lord Jesus and the Scriptures He affirmed, our Christian ancestors were a blessing to society—and Christians today should love and repeat this.
 

References

1. Morris, H. M. 2017. Creation Is the Foundation. Acts & Facts. 46 (2): 5–7.
2. Morris, H. M. Man and His Labor. Days of Praise, September 5, 1994; Morris, J. D. Labor. Days of Praise, September 7, 1992.
3. The story was later determined to be false when the “peasant” came forward to say he did not shoot down the helicopter. The ‘Apache’ Farmer’s Tale. BBC News. Posted on bbc.co.uk April 23, 2003.
4. Ryken, L. 1986. Worldly Saints. Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books, 228.
5. Ibid, 27.
6. Wright, L. B. 1935. Middle Class Culture in Elizabethan England. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 174.
7. Morgan, E. S. 1965. Puritan Political Ideas 1558–1794. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 50.
8. Ibid, 52.
9. Ibid, 56–57.
10. Green, R. W. 1959. Protestantism and Capitalism: The Weber Thesis and Its Critics. Boston, MA: D. C. Heath, 72.
11. Miller, P. and T. Johnson, eds. 1963. The Puritans, vol. 1. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 320.
12. Ibid, 322.
13. Guliuzza, R. J. 2019. How Beautiful Is the Body of Christ. Acts & Facts. 48 (12): 17–19.

* Dr. Guliuzza is the president of the Institute for Creation Research. He earned his doctor of medicine from the University of Minnesota, his master of public health from Harvard University, and served in the U.S. Air Force as 28th Bomb Wing flight surgeon and chief of aerospace medicine. Dr. Guliuzza is also a registered professional engineer and holds a B.A. in theology from Moody Bible Institute.