The day of the Lord

The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night (1 Thes 5:2).

People sleep during the night or stay up getting drunk. Either way they are not alert (v.7).

Christians live in the daytime (v.4), even though for the world it is still dark. They are experiencing the already even though it is not-yet. Therefore, they should be alert for Christ's appearing and doing the things of the day. That doesn't mean having your head in the clouds and being idle, but working (v.12-14)

Tomorrow's Monday, so unglamorous as it sounds, I'll be at the office as a child of the day. Today was the Lord's day, but so is Monday.

Gospel & Culture: A Faith and Work Conference

Redeemer, NY has arranged some big name lecturers to talk about the Gospel and Culture. Video here, or audio here. Looks fascinating.

• After You Believe - N.T. Wright
• Why Business Matters to God - Jeff Van Duzer
• Creating Power - Andy Crouch
• Why Work Matters - Dr. Timothy J. Keller
• Art Matters for God's Sake - Adrienne Chaplin
• Natural Law, God, and Human Dignity - Robert P. George
• Challenging the Darkness - Towards a New Christian Renaissance - Os Guinness
• Culture As Liturgy - James K. A. Smith
• Faith-Based Diplomacy: Bridging the Religious Divide - Douglas Johnston

Happy Easter!

It's Sunday today!

The first Christians neither lived nor thought in terms of a [church] year; they lived in terms of a week and they thought of the work of redemption in terms of a week. In this way concentration on the cross and the resurrection was even more marked than it has ever since succeeded in being. Where the Early Church made a new beginning from the point of view of the calendar was the keeping of Sunday, the first day of the week, the day following the Sabbath. Sunday was a day of gladness, because Christ rose at dawn on that day, the first working day of the Jewish week (Mark 16.1 f.). Every week the earliest Christian congregations met for an Easter festival. Continually, with the interval of only a few days, Easter returned anew

[...but,] in the faith of the Early Church the resurrection is linked with the cross and with death. Therefore the suffering of Christ was given a place in the weekday and the Christian community early in its history came to regard Wednesday and Friday as two 'station days' in his suffering. Wednesday was the day of the betrayal, Friday the day of the death. Accordingly, the Didache and Hermas (beginning of the second century) speak of the keeping of these two days. In this way the whole week is devoted to Christ's death and resurrection. Station days are the feast of the cross, Sunday is the feast of the resurrection. On station days the rule was to bow down and bend the knee, on Sunday to stand up and look towards heaven, in free and erect position, singing praise.

pp. 192-193, The Living Word, Gustaf Wingren)

If weekdays are work in the world for most Christians, and Sunday is when we gather together and rest, then that I think that says something about the posture we ought to have as we engage with the world and do our work - i.e. it should be self-sacrificial.

Is Luther's concept of vocation outdated?

At the Reformation, with monasticism in his mind's eye, Luther rightly declared that Christians could serve God as truly in their daily work as in their Sunday worship. This was a great step forward. But why does this Protestant conception of Christian vocation sound much less convincing today? Because we live in a quite different world from Luther's.

(p. 96, AM Hunter, PT Forsyth)

As a Luther fan you will know it pains me to admit that Hunter has a point. The world of work is different in many ways. In particular:

• Work is less about creating things of clear benefit to people, but more about creating money.
• We are much freer in the choice of career we follow.
• There is much greater tension between benefiting your employer, benefiting your fellow workers, and benefiting the customer. Where do you find the balance?

I'm not sure of that I have a theology of work that is able to answer these newish challenges. I am yet to read or hear anyone else express such a theology either. Any ideas?

For what it's worth, you can read below what Hunter thinks. Writing in the 70s he is unsurprisingly concerned for the worker primarily.

The long and short of it is that Christian ethics cannot now rest content with calling on such people to glorify God in their station. We of the Christian church must seek to promote such a re-organization industry as will give the worker freedom to live as a man should, find joy in his work, be able to maintain his family, and become a responsible partner, to some degree. in the industry of which he is a part.

(ibid, pp.96-97)