Labor Days - Bob Levin

Work…

 

     …. a blessing?

                        Genesis2:15

                        Exodus20:8-11

 

The Greco-Roman world was not alone in looking down upon manual work. That attitude was common throughout the ancient world. The God who liberated the Jews worked for six days and commanded human beings to do the same. That is the opposite of Hindu tradition, which conceives of God as a mediator for Yogesh war (“god of Yoga”)

                                                                                                      …Vishal Mangalwadi

 

One of the greatest causes of poverty in the developing world is the lie that work is meaningless…A major component of the Judeo-Christian worldview, however, is the dignity of labor, and this is one of the key tools for lifting people out of poverty.

                                                                                              … Darrow L. Miller

 

  … a curse?

                        Genesis3:17-19

Biblical mandate for technology—“work smarter, not harder”

 

            God is architect, builder,technologist… Genesis 1:1

Humans, in image of God, commissioned to

“rule & subdue physical world”… Genesis 1:26-31

 

      Contrasting world views

           

           Animism - “spirit in the tree” >>>  fear, placate physical world

 

          Buddhism >>> escape physical world,not use it

 

          Hinduism- reincarnation, fatalistic, caste  

     >>> ‘born above work… born to carry dung’

 

    It is virtually impossible to find a Brahm in guru in traditional India who resembles the Apostle Paul—a rabbi who made tents for a living. Brahmins said that manual work was the duty of lower castes, a result of badkarma from their previous births. Mahatma Gandhi was the first Indian leader who…  [tried to]import the Pauline work ethic into India

                                                …Vishal Mangalwadi 

 

                     From the hour of their birth some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.                                                   

… Aristotle

           

  Only a society with a theological climate that values human dignity begins using technology as a force for human emancipation and empowerment.

                                                                                …Vishal Mangalwadi 

 

 

                     The chief glory of the later Middle Ages was not it cathedrals… it was the building for the first time in history of a complex civilization which rested not on the backs of sweating slaves or coolies but primarily on nonhuman power.

                                                … Lynn White, Princeton professor of Medieval history 

 

 

  Personal work vision

 

Colossians 3:23

 

I Corinthians 10:31

 

 

   Recommended reading—The Book That Made Your World by

                                                Vishal Mangalwadi