The Forgotten Theology of Work:
A Biblical Apologetic
June 2, 2025
Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer
Guest: Dr. Renton Rathbun
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 6/2/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Sam Rohrer:
Hello and welcome to this Monday edition of Stand In the Gap Today, and it’s the beginning of a new month as well. This month of May not May. We’re past that, aren’t we? Month of June. Hard to believe. Think with me about this over this past weekend. What have you done? Most people around the world, they did what they did Monday through Friday and that was, well some type of work for many Saturday we call weekend. Well for many it was a play day or a day of perhaps doing work with no pay, maybe doing a different sort of work perhaps around the house and that type of thing. And for only a very small number was yesterday, Sunday, a day separated from work, a day of rest, a day of worship. And it’s this reality of work and rest that holds within I think a very profound biblical foundation and theological purpose such as, for instance, the first command to work given by God to man upon creation where God put man in the garden of Eden with a labor of purpose where it says Genesis two 15 to dress it.
That’s work, to dress it and to keep it. And all through the Old Testament work of various types is recorded and evaluated. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul instructed the new believers of the necessity and appropriateness of work and even established, I’m going to call it a charitable giving policy by linking laziness to sin and a failure to work as the basis for not assisting those who refused to work as recorded in two Thessalonians 3:10 where it says this, we commanded you that if any would not work, neither should he eat. But in our day of relative ease, this principle and concept of work, purpose of work and rest is a principle forgotten. And I think untaught as a result, our lives experience a lack of fulfillment and lack of purpose in the here and now. And I’m going to suggest as a result of that, a loss of heavenly reward even for the true believer in Jesus Christ. The title I’ve chosen to frame this conversation today on our monthly focus on education, biblical worldview and apologetics is this The Forgotten Theology of Work, a biblical apologetic. And my recurring guest is Dr. Renton Rathbun, speaker and consultant on biblical worldview instruction for BJU press and host of his own podcast entitled Renton rathbun.com. That’s where you can pick that up now. Anyways, with that, Dr. Renton Rathmann, thanks for being back with me today. I always look forward to this time together that we can spend,
Renton Rathbun:
Thanks for having me on this important subject.
Sam Rohrer:
Let’s go about how we work, how we work, rest, the purpose for work, the purpose for rest, because unlike what most people they think there is a theological foundation I know which we’re going to talk about in the next segment, but for the sake of definition here, Renton to get us going. Would you define work as the Bible defines it? Let’s start there and then we’ll move into rest.
Renton Rathbun:
Absolutely. I think a lot of times because of the difficulty of work, we often think of work as something that came after the fall, like it was a punishment. But really it all begins long before the fall. In Genesis 1 28 through 30, God makes man and woman and God blesses them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And he says and subdue it and rule over it. He says, all the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, all the living things. And then he gives them every plant and seed to do this subduing work and this ruling work over God’s creation. So God supplied the command and the materials man was responsible to obey the command with those materials. So he needed the skill to do it though. So we can put it this way. In doing or in doing the work, he is obeying, but by doing the work skillfully, he is mimicking.
In other words, his work is to mimic his God, God the Father who and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, how God created the world. He’s to mimic that in obedience and what we call this mimicry and this obedience, we call it a kind of worship. So there is this character of God we have to keep in mind when we’re talking about work, we are trying to mimic and obey. So work, if I were to define it, would be the use of a skill in order to obey God’s command to subdue and rule over his creation.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, excellent. We’ll come back on that. Let’s move not to this. In God’s pattern of creation, you’ve referred to that we have to because everything goes back to creation. God created the Bible says for six days and on the seventh he completed his work and he rested. So let’s go there now, would you define rest as biblically defined and then lay down the linkage between work and rest? Because God laid them out there together and I don’t think we can separate it from purpose, maybe put those together, work, rest and the purpose for each of them.
Renton Rathbun:
Oftentimes we think of God as resting in the way we rest to recover because we are tired. But what we see here, when God rested on the seventh day, he rested from his work, he then sanctifies that day. That means he sets it apart as a special day and God was not tired. But rather this day when God sets something aside, there’s a purpose behind that. So this making a day holy says there’s a special purpose for this day of rest, but we already heard that there’s a purpose for the day of work. So there’s these dual purposes going on. There’s a purpose for work, there’s a purpose for rest. The difference is in how that purpose is spelled out. So one is to mimic and obey. That’s work. The other purpose is what we see God doing in his rest, and this is glorifying himself.
This is what we call doxology. So God’s highest act is to glorify himself. Our highest act is to glorify God, this doxology, this praise and gratitude towards God a whole day set aside for that purpose. So both the work and the rest have these purposes. They’re both to glorify God but in different ways. The work is to mimic God by obeying his command to subdue and rule the earth. So that’s a way of mimicking our God, but we’re also mimicking our God in rest where we are to glorify him as he glorifies himself. And in those purposes we see glory constantly as the theme of our purpose and purpose in rest and in work we are worshiping
Sam Rohrer:
And that is perfect rent. And that brings us right up to that. Ladies and gentlemen, if you’re just joining us, our theme is this The Forgotten Theology of Work. Now think about it, there is work, there is rest. Six days thou shall work seven days rest. And then there is purpose for both of them. How well do you understand and put those together. The next segment, we’re going to come back, we’re going to talk about more so the biblical foundation and the underpinning for what we’ve just laid out our theme. And then we’ll build this out further as we go through the program. Stay with us. We’ll back in just a moment. Alright, Dr. Renton Rathbun, thank you for being back here with me today. This theme that we’re talking about today, the Forgotten Theology of Work. Before I go and set up this next segment, if you have in front of you again, I would like you to repeat the definition that you cited in the last segment for work. I think it’s worth repeating
Renton Rathbun:
Absolutely. What we came up with was it is the use of a skill in order to obey God’s command to subdue and rule over his creation.
Sam Rohrer:
So ladies and gentlemen, there’s purpose involved in that. There’s creation involved in it, God’s involved in it. Okay, all right. Now that being the case, understanding the concept of work rest and their connected purposes as we are just getting into, I’m going to submit is impossible. Outside the understanding of that, there is a biblical foundation and a theology which incorporates the view of God and what he wants and these essential realities of life. And I’m saying it can’t be done unless we look at these things through the lens of what we term regularly. A biblical worldview, like all components of creation and human life created at the image of God. God established his unchanging pattern according to God’s will, understood according to God’s word. That’s where we go to find out what God’s will is in God’s word and implement it according to God’s way.
Now this is important. God has his way, he has his will. He’s told us in his word, it is a way that we can go. And when we do that, then the fullness of God’s blessing can be realized. On the other hand, Satan and has corrupted every aspect of God’s creation, his will, his word, and his way. And we have that which scripture tells us it is a way that seeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death. So the devil has his way, that’s what he talked to eve about and beguiled her and every person from that point till now has to decide God’s way or the way that Seeth write unto a man. And that implies to all aspects of life. So focusing here, what does the Bible teach us about the biblical foundations and the theology of work and rest? Okay, renin, since the concept of God working in creation, that’s one of the definition of work something done and accomplished. That’s what Genesis two talks about. And then resting reflects the character and nature of God. It has to by its nature. So what does that tell us about the foundation of work and rest and the purpose and how this changed from before the fall when there was those sin to after the fall when sin came into this world,
Renton Rathbun:
Your set up with talking about the way is so important. That’s what all of that is. What’s behind that word skill. So the Lord did not just create arbitrarily. His ways were not ways that were arbitrary ways he named things. Naming is not an arbitrary activity. It is an activity that demonstrates understanding of the object that is named. And in understanding the object that is named, you are able to then craft or work with it, rule over it, subdue it. In other words, put up boundaries for it so that it might prosper better. And so when Adam comes along before the fall and God creates Adam and he says, and he names Adam and then he tells Adam to name the animals and Adam is naming animals. This is a high level of understanding the animals so that he will be able to give boundaries to the animals, give boundaries to the plants so that they might be able to be used best for the subduing and ruling over the creation.
In other words, that’s what we mean by mimicry is going by the way of the Lord or using that skill is part of that mimicry work. And that’s what God tells us to do from Old Testament to New Testament. Be holy for I am holy. In Ephesians one, IMIT imitate God as children would imitate their Father be that way because I mean that’s the most telling, understanding of how someone loves someone else is how they imitate them. So both work and rest are these worship activities that then are demonstrated through this mimicry and obedience. Now the fall accomplished two things. Number one, work would be much more difficult. In other words, the frustration of the creation’s rebellion against our work will cause us to be more and more ungrateful as the sweat on our brow increases, so does our resentment to the one who we’re supposed to be mimicking and obeying.
The second thing that the fall accomplished was in work being more difficult, rest has become more difficult, if I can put it that way. As Romans 1 21 teaches us that at the heart of our rebellion against the Lord is our inability to give him honor and give him thanks. And at the heart of our worship is our work to give the Lord thanks and honor. However, by the time we even get to our day of rest, we have so little honor and thanks to give God that rest appears cumbersome and it looks like more work. It looks laborious, it does not look like what we would call rest. So to the world, work has become the enemy. We can’t wait to get to retirement. Everything has to revolve around my final rest where I don’t accomplish anything in my rest. I am actually retiring into leisure. And so work is no longer worship, it’s this necessary step to the final inactivity that rest has become. That is how the fall has affected how we view work and rest.
Sam Rohrer:
That’s excellent by the way. And that brings up another principle that comes out of that. I’m going to ask you to identify some principles because there are so many in scripture that helps to frame how we as a God-fearing person should view all of life. Yes, but work as a fundamental component established before the fall and now after the fall. Certainly that’s where we all now are. But that aspect of rest and then the purpose bringing back into that aspect of worship as well. And one of them comes out of what you just said, that work is not a punishment from God, but work was complicated by the curse of sin after the fall. So it is not as much fun to work, rewarding to work today because well we’re having to fight the elements, the bugs, the weeds, the temperatures, all of those kinds of things that came as a result of the flood. So that would be one work is not a punishment from God. It was there before. But go ahead, identify some other principles that you think might be helpful for our listeners to help frame their thinking here on this aspect of work.
Renton Rathbun:
Yes, we have become so encultured, if I can put it that way. We think more like Americans than we do Christians sometimes. And so we’re not thinking about work with the principles that are so obvious all throughout scripture. And you can spend almost a lifetime going through and finding principles all through scripture and what God says about it. I’ve picked four things that we can think about that just come right out of Genesis. So as you see what God is doing in his work and as we are to imitate that, we see that his work actually serves others. So in six days he’s creating all this stuff and then he creates man and all this stuff is for him. So the production that God enacts in his six days of work is for man. And so when we’re thinking about what is legitimate work, what’s work that helps me mimic the Lord and helps me obey him, it comes down to what am I producing?
Am I serving others in what I am producing or am I hurting others in what I am producing? And so what we produce, how we produce all can be looked back at Genesis. God produced things with skill and he produced them for others. And what does he keep saying all through chapter one? It was good. And so number one, does our work serve others through its production in its skill and in the final production? Number two, work should mentor the next generation. What you see in God’s work is him having his creation mimic what he is doing. Are we doing that or do we have work that isolate isolates ourselves? Now I know there’s a lot of work that we do from home and I get all that, but there’s still ways of teaching our children or people at church on how good work can be done.
Are we trying to pass on the skillful things that we have learned that helps us worship better in our work? Are we passing those on to the next generation? Number three, work should be intentional. In other words, do we plan out how our worship will be reflected in our work or do we just go to work and hope we feel blessed in it? And oftentimes we will not feel the blessing, but if we’re intentional and we understand what we’re looking for, then we’ll find it. And lastly, our work should be skillful, as I said before, as God is.
Sam Rohrer:
Those are excellent and ladies and gentlemen, think about that. Work should serve others. Work should be taught to others by mentoring. Work should be intentional. How can we glorify God and the others that were mentioned? And there’s so many others, scripture is full of it. So that’s the foundation for work because it comes right out of the character and the nature of God. We have to understand that to come back. We’re going to consider this work the younger generation challenge. What does younger generation think about work? Well, if you’re just joining us, we’re midway through our program today. This is Stand in the Gap today. You’re listening to it. I’m Sam Rohrer and my special guest today is a returning guest, Dr. Renton Rathbun. He’s a speaker and a consultant on biblical worldview instruction for BJU press. He’s been in the classroom teaching young people for over 20 years on both Christian and secular institutions and multiple degrees from many different entities and areas of apologetics to theological aspects of one degree or another and has his own podcasts. Just take just a couple seconds here, Renton, if you don’t mind. Do you have your podcast that you call the Rent and Wrath Fund show you help parents walk through challenges of biblical worldview? Explain that just briefly what you do. So if there are people listening, they may want to know about that.
Renton Rathbun:
Yes, and my hope is that it is a very helpful asset to parents. I know podcasts are usually listened to just out of fun or you’re interested in something, but this podcast is designed to help parents really understand what worldviews are coming after their families and have raised themselves up against the Lord. And then how do you respond to those biblically? We try to have a little fun on there to keep people entertained, but we also get very deep into how God’s word can respond to this and how that could be a help to them as parents.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, excellent. Then they can pick it up@rentandrathbun.com, is that correct?
Renton Rathbun:
Yes sir.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, we’ll give that again ladies and gentlemen, if that sounds of interest to you, if you have children, it ought to be put it that way. Alright, let’s move into this. Now we’re talking about the forgotten theology of work and if you just joined us, you’ll need to go back and listen to this program off of our app or off of Stand in the gap radio.com or one of our other podcast platforms that it’s on in order to make all of this fit together because it does the concept of work, the concept of rest and the purpose for both of them come right off the pages of scripture starting with the character and the nature of God, which we just talked about and begins to evidence itself right in the very first pages of the Book of Genesis. Now, looking beyond that, one of the things I note scripture tells us that as a nation’s view of God and right and wrong and life priorities can dramatically change in just one generation.
How do we know that? Well, all through the Old Testament we see the nation of Israel to whom God had delivered the law and manifested his great power. They would in one moment it said in many places and there arose another generation who did not know the God of heaven. Just one generation. It’s all takes actually even less. But that happens. So we know it can happen also in a person’s view will change not just towards God, but God’s will, God’s word and God’s ways as we’ve been talking about and that includes the concept and the purpose for work and rest. Okay, Renton, you work, as I said, with young people day in and day out as a professor, as an apologist, a consultant matters of biblical worldview instruction with BJU press and other things. What are some of your observations that you can make about the attitudes of the younger generation toward work or what we might even call the work ethic?
Renton Rathbun:
Sadly, the young people of today, and of course this is not everyone, I hope our listeners are thinking of many exceptions to this, but for the most part you have a generation who has been taught that their childishness should be rewarded and their childishness should be prolonged. I mean if you really think about it, it was America that prolonged the childishness of that invented, if I can put it this way, that invented adolescence that was invented by America once we decided that school would be mandatory from K through 12th grade. And so that time where kids were usually mentored into a job from their parents or someone in town was now delayed so that they can get through 12th grade. Now, I’m not saying anything good or bad about that, but one of the results of that was that we prolong the childishness of our children.
And so now you take come forward a hundred years and now we have not just the prolonging of adolescents, but now we have the childishness rewarded. We have video games that are created for grown men who are in their twenties and thirties. They even did a study that men between the ages of 25 and 45, 90% of them play video games. Now I don’t know how accurate that is, but it sounds terrible. And so what we find is this generation is coming up and I believe there are three prevailing attitudes of the kids as they look at work. Number one is how can I do work as I live for leisure? So living for leisure is going to be different than living for pleasure. So they live for leisure. So it’s due as little as I can for as much as I can so I can be done as soon as I can and when I can get there, that means I don’t care if I have a nice place to live or if I’m supplying for a family.
All I want to do is stay within as comfortable as I can for as long, long as I can. And that means getting my work done as fast as I can so I can be free to my leisure again, even if that means in my parents’ basement. Number two, the other prevailing attitude is live for pleasure. These are the kids that do end up going to college, but they follow their dreams. They don’t care what they’re actually gifted at, they look at what they think would be cool, a narrative in their mind that makes them feel relevant in something they feel is interesting. And so they pursue that. They don’t care that there’s no real work that’s available for that major. They just want to do it and just hope everything works out well. It doesn’t usually work out and they end up doing what they would’ve done if they didn’t have any degree at all.
But universities today are so greedy to get those checks cleared that they will invent any major that a kid would desire in order to get them there for four years of payments. And so that’s another problem. And then the third one is that they live for peace. They view work as a place where they fear how they will explain their religion. So they go in already with fear of persecution. So they just want peace. They just want to get their job done, they just want to be viewed as a good person. And so they don’t see their job as a mission field. They don’t see a place that they should engage in some risk for the sake of furthering God’s name. Instead, they see how can I be the most peaceful I can so that I can get through this as fast as I can? And those prevailing attitudes create a very passive and very weak generation for the Lord.
Sam Rohrer:
What you’re describing there for leisure, live for pleasure, live for peace is certainly the opposite of a biblical worldview and it’s the opposite of what we’re talking about here today. Work rest, the purpose of both to glorify God actually a component of worship within both work and rest properly done. You’re describing the exact opposite and the results obviously are consequential, are they not? That being the case with time here, I want you to go on and say, do these things that you just said reflect pretty much equally towards their view of rest as well. Comment on that and then walk into how did we get here? Because this is not biblical, this is not that. What was the prevailing attitude and understanding of work and work ethic in our nation that it’s not? But anyways, how’d we get here? So those two things,
Renton Rathbun:
Yes, that’s a great question. So how we view work, if work is supposed to be a mimicking of our God and an obedience to his commands, if we lose that understanding of work and we live for leisure pleasure, peace, then our view of rest is going to be just as distorted. We’re going to see rest as I need relief and relief from what I have created in my own life through the pain it takes to disobey God’s commands or to walk away from how he has taught us what work is supposed to be. And so we want relief. And so relief will never come in the form of a church service that will look exhausting to that generation. What they want is relief from all the stress that they have created from not working well. And so church then becomes rejected because it’s just another pain that they have to go through.
Another reminder that they’re not doing things well. So it is a great question. How did we get here? I think it was a slow process, especially in America because America does have this, I have incredible riches to it because of a lot of hard work. But I think somewhere around the industrial revolution, I believe that work started to become more and more pragmatic. In many ways it became almost insufferable because of there was a lack of boundaries in what they could do to their workers. So to seek a day where you could be paid and not work was unbelievably exciting. And so if we’re to rejoice and suffering, you can see the pressure that was on the clergy who seemed to have easy jobs compared to these people that were dying at age 50 because of all the work conditions they had. And so you can see the temptation of the clergy to start pulling back on telling them to rejoice and suffering, which then made them give in and say, yes, work is pragmatic, it is hard, we need a rest from it. And I think that’s how we got here.
Sam Rohrer:
Boy, that is interesting. We could spend an entire program on that alone. When you come back, ladies and gentlemen, there’s the other side of it. The older generation, maybe you’re listening to me, are older, some are retired, some are considering retired perhaps. So what is our view? Here’s the thought on this one. The older generation opportunity. Alright, Renton, as we move into the final segment in our theme forgotten theology of work, we’ve talked about work from the beginning, beginning meaning even before creation or during creation. The character and the nature of God is all about work. And he worked six days, created all that is, and on the seventh he rested. And as you made clear, it’s not because he was tired. No, not at all. But he rested because that means he stopped working, he ceased accomplishing that which he set about to accomplish creation.
So he rested, but he set a pattern for all of us. And out of that then came six days, thou shal9+t labor, and on the seventh thou shalt rest. Why rest? Why the Sabbath? And you made it very, very clear for us to set aside the labors of our hands. That work, which is not punishment, it is more and more difficult because of the fall, but it is, as you mentioned in the other segment, there are many principles, work, labor, so that we can fulfill our responsibilities person to fathers to provide for his household. He does that with work, that’s part. But we are to work so that we can provide to others, Ephesians 4 28, that we can provide to others, so help others. That was one thing that you mentioned and that when we work, if we view it as it is as an expression of worship, we will be very concerned about the quality of our work, the efficiency of our work, because it’s a testimony of who we are in Christ.
So it’s a reflection of our God, all of these things, ladies and gentlemen. So within that context, we’ve talked about work and rest, but we can only achieve these things if we have a biblical worldview of them. And as you just described in the last segment, the younger generation has the exact opposite. The purpose of work is really to reach the goal of leisure work to the extent that it can help me find pleasure, work the standpoint, help me to talk about peace and what I think about something spiritual, whatever. I mean it is very much like the worldview of syncretism that you described, but that being the case that brings us now to where we are because the overall foundation, the younger view. But now let’s talk to those who are parents and grandparents and those that may be in retirement are heading toward retirement. Speak now to that older generation, those approaching normal retirement and their attitudes toward work, rest, and purpose. And if you want, you can combine that into how this older generation can and what they should do to help correct this mindset of our younger generation, which only ends up in destruction and poverty.
Renton Rathbun:
We live in a country that has an embarrassment of riches. I mean, our homeless typically have cell phones. I mean, this is the world we live in. Retirement age is becoming older and older because we are becoming more and more healthy. Jobs are becoming less and less physical. And so the standard of when one ought to retire is getting older. And we still complain about that, but it’s actually a reflection of blessing. But as we start approaching retirement age, our attitude should not be one of seeking the kind of rest that the world is trying to taunt us with. In fact, what we find is more people that retire and seek leisure actually find that there is no purpose in leisure and without purpose. Our health begins to wane because God constructed our bodies with a purpose, with a purpose. And so with purpose comes this need to accomplish things.
And so I would say to those are that are near retirement, you should look at retirement not as a time to seek out leisure, but to free you up, to be more helpful in your local church. I believe that the church as a whole, not every church, but the church as a whole has failed with Titus two, Titus two commands that the older should teach. The younger, older men should be teaching young men, older women should be teaching young women. This is a command. This isn’t something that would be interesting or helpful to try out at your local church. This is a command that the Lord wants. This is how he set up his church. If you’re thinking, if you’re getting closer to retirement, think about how can I then give more time to my church and be a person that can instill myself more and more into the next generation?
Because here’s the thing to answer that second question, what’s a biblical worldview for our purpose of work, rest and all those sort of things. I think the older generation, what has happened to the older generation is that they have been taught to become wallpaper in their church. They have been taught to accept the idea that they are no longer useful in a highly technical, highly self-indulgent age. Age, I think they have been taught to keep their mouth shut so the younger generation can take on greater responsibility because in the end, everyone knows that your church isn’t going to make it if all you have is a bunch of white haired people and you don’t have young, young couples and children. And that is important. You need to have young people, young couples, and you need children. All that’s very important. But sadly, the ones that are teaching the older generation, these things, our churches, we have forsaken Titus to, we have been told to hand over the reins to the next generation and we should, but we should hand over those reigns only after they have been mentored, trained, tested, and guided by the older generation.
As Titus two commands, I mean, we have become ridiculous in that we have come to believe that wisdom is demonstrated best and how well one handles their technology. That if they can’t handle Microsoft Word, how can they give me a word of advice if they can’t handle their cell phone, how would they possibly know how I feel about the world? Since my world revolves around social media yet scripture reminds us true wisdom is found in those with gray heads who have experienced God’s work in their hearts, who have studied God’s word for most their lives, who have been tested by the Lord and have not been found wanting and we’re wasting it. What I would tell pastors of churches today is start obeying Titus two. Use the wealth of the older to guide and teach the younger because without that, what we have is the blind leading the blind. We hand over responsibility way too early to the younger. We start teaching them and doing that, that the older are beyond their use now and they have accumulated an entire lifetime of use that we need to use for our children. And what I would tell the older generation is this, do not go gently into that good night. You need to rage against the idea that you are no longer useful. You need to insert yourself into the next generation for the sake of the next generation.
Sam Rohrer:
Wow. Brings us right up to the end, Dr. Renton Rathbun Renton rathbun.com. You can find information from him and the podcast particular ladies and gentlemen, I hope that this focus today on the forgotten theology of work has been helpful to you. Planted some seeds, questions, a consideration. God is all about work. He’s laid out what we should do. Do we worship him in our work? Do we worship him in our rest? How do we do that? And even when we’re older, work doesn’t go away. It does change. How are we doing in that regard? See you back here tomorrow.
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