The NIV Faith and Work Bible
The great evangelist Billy Graham believed that “one of the next great moves of God is going to be through believers in the workplace.”
Many churches and Christians are picking upon this important area of discipleship. As Jon Tyson writes in the “Faith and Work Bible” (edited by David H Kim, published by Zondervan), “The gospel calls us not to retreat from the world into the church, but to embody the values of God’s kingdom where ever we are, especially in the workplace.”
Some may see their everyday work simply as a necessity, a means of earning money so that they can give time and resources to their church. It may offer opportunities for evangelism, bringing them alongside their co-workers. But a Christian’s work is so much more than that, as the 75 “Deeper at Work” articles in this Bible make clear. Christians from a wide range of occupations write of the challenges and opportunities of sharing in God’s work in His world which their work provides. It is a wonderful range of accounts: a mother of a special needs child, an astrophysicist, a window cleaner, a diplomat, a cabinet maker, a pilot, a teacher, a car dealer and an unemployed construction worker and many others. It’s refreshing to see manual workers alongside professionals, each of them reflecting on how their work fulfils their Christian calling and furthers the purposes of the Kingdom of God.
There are 45 Core Doctrine articles which relate work and biblical themes as the narrative progresses, from creation, through redemption to our future hope, and original introductions to each book, again showing how faith and work are related.
Four excellent essays, “Faith and Work”, “The Gospel and Work”, “Our Need for Theology” and “Finding Our Story in God’s Story”, give an overview of the whole theme, helping us to to see the scriptures and the place of work in them as a coherent whole, rather than looking to isolated passages.
As Jon Tyson asks in his essay, “What if seamstresses and restaurant servers, analysts and artists, mechanics and mums all saw their work as sacred, and held it to God with holy intent, and did things for his glory so that the mundane became miraculous because it all played a part in the story of redemption?”