Jesus gave work a sense of purpose and fulfillment that helped to revolutionize society in terms of productivity and human dignity (a matter we will explore further in Session 3).
Dr. W. A. Criswell, who for five decades pastored the First Baptist Church of Dallas Texas, preached a sermon titled “Jesus, the Carpenter” on February 10, 1991. His Scriptural text was Mark 6:1-6. Pastor Criswell said this:
Why didn’t God send His Son into the world that He be a Socratic philosopher, or a student of Plato, or at least one of the great political dynamos of the world? Instead,…He is a carpenter, He is a carpenter. Evidently, Joseph died.…And evidently, Jesus took care of His mother and of His brothers and sisters. And He worked with His hands. His hands were callused. He was a carpenter…so that people who toil and work would feel at home in His presence.
A PDF file of this graphic is available here.
Dr. D. James Kennedy, who for many years was pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said this in a sermon titled “the Bible and Civilization,” which he preached in 1983:
Let us consider the matter of labor. Jesus Christ picked up the saw and the hammer and the plane and, in so doing, He wrought a miracle in civilization. Most people are totally unaware of what that did. But it changed the whole concept of work. Do you realize that in antiquity of Greece or Rome that honest work was despised as servile and was consigned to slaves? But Christ came and gave a new dignity to labor. Before the Word of God has come and taken over countries there were only slaves. Half the Roman Empire was slaves; slaves and serfs. But those slaves and serfs in the land where the Gospel of Christ has come have been translated into the working classes. And in America where the Word of God has come more fully than any other land, into the middle classes — and out of poverty and into economic well-being.2
A PDF file of this graphic is available here.
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