“Go to your corners!”
It seems daily, amidst this pandemic, those words are increasingly applicable to social media fisticuffs, as tensions run high about how and when to return to work.
As believers we look to Scripture and the Lord for guidance. Today, as I was reading, I ran across two separate articles, that, together, provide a good perspective on what we CAN and CAN NOT know.
First, what we cannot know. Below is a portion of a great article by Bryan Schneider on Covid 19 & Biblical Balance:
We cannot pit life against livelihood. We cannot say, “If you care about life you don’t care about livelihood.” Nor can one say, “If you care about livelihood you must not care about life.”
Christians must hold both of these together in Biblical balance. Without livelihood one cannot live life. Without preserving life one robs another of their livelihood. We must hold these two in balance.
There is most likely no cut-and-dry answer. It is unwise for us to demand a cookie-cutter solution to our present situation. We need to ask God for wisdom.
We need to plead with God to show us how to live in a way that prioritizes both life and livelihood. It is imperative that we keep these two Biblical principles in balance.
Now, for what we can know. J.C. Ryle reminds us in The Duties of Parents that we were made for work.
No created being was ever meant to be idle. Service and work is the appointed portion of every creature of God. The angels in heaven work,—they are the Lord’s ministering servants, ever doing His will. Adam, in Paradise, had work,—he was appointed to dress the garden of Eden, and to keep it. The redeemed saints in glory will have work, “They rest not day and night singing praise and glory to Him who bought them.” And man, weak, sinful man, must have something to do, or else his soul will soon get into an unhealthy state. We must have our hands filled, and our minds occupied with something, or else our imaginations will soon ferment and breed mischief.
So…even as we pray and debate about the practical when to return to work, we know the biblical why we must.
