One of my favorite quotes on work is from Dorothy Sayers:
“How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life? The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him to not be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: That the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.”
Sayers’ call to the Church is, I believe, a good summary of what the Scriptures teach about how we as Christians should work. Our faith is more than Sunday-morning service and times of prayer at home (though those things are fundamental); it is lived out in the entirety of our lives. Here are just ten of the many passages that speak to the way we Christians should live at work.
1. "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." – Colossians 3:23-24
2. "Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys." – Proverbs 18:9
3. “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” – Ephesians 4:28
4. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.” – Proverbs 6:10-11
5. “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” – Proverbs 13:4
6. “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.” – Luke 16:10
7. “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.” – 1 Peter 2:18-19
8. “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” – James 4:13-15
9. “And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” – Genesis 2:2-3
10. “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” – Psalm 127:2