Proverbs 12:11, God’s Labour Laws
It has become fashionable to criticise the so-called Protestant work-ethic in the interest of a socialist utopia. This work-ethic, however, goes away back long before Protestantism. It had its rise in the Old Testament! The Hebrews were taught that hard work, honestly done, would yield its own rewards. Warnings abound about the folly of reckless money-speculations. Don’t go the get-rich-quick route that is today making us nations of gamblers. It is no blessing to be freed from the law of labour, nor does God free man from that law. It is not labour itself that is the curse of the Fall; it is sin! Man was to cultivate Eden as God’s happy co-worker. Rather, we should see work as a blessed condition of life. Remember the admonition of Martin Luther on work, “A dairymaid can milk cows to the glory of God.”