In the 1800s, manufacturing increasingly supplanted agriculture as the wellspring of American employment, and labor unions, which first appeared in the late 18th century, grew more prominent and vocal. They began organizing strikes and rallies to protest poor conditions and compel employers to renegotiate hours and pay. The idea of a “workingmen’s holiday,” celebrated on the first Monday in September, was prominent in the late 1800s, and many states passed legislation recognizing it. Congress would not legalize the holiday until 12 years later. In the wake of this massive unrest and in an attempt to repair ties with American workers, Congress passed an act making Labor Day a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories. On June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed it into law.[1]
Poor working conditions and labor unions were most likely the reason for the belief held by many today that work is bad and a result of evil in the world. But this is not true. The One Source of Unfailing Truth paints a different story and explains why a man must work.
Genesis 2.15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. God created work, which was good, for He is good, and the place He created man to work was good.
But when humanity rebelled against God and His goodness, they brought into the world a curse that remains with us, for it is now part of our DNA. To Adam, the first man and the man who rebelled against God bringing into the world this curse, God cursed the fruit of Adam’s work when God said in
Genesis 2.17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
We see this today when we do the right thing but don’t get the right results. In the goodness of God, we still get a lot of good results when we do the right things, but we don’t always get the right results from doing the right things.
One of the right things we are to do is work. We are to work because we are to provide for ourselves and our families. This is what it means to be personally responsible. To be a man. We cannot be men until we provide for ourselves and our families. While this is not the only requirement of Biblical men, it is certainly one of the critical components of true manhood.
One of the New Testament teachings about work is found in 2 Thessalonians 3.10: For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” The early church did not set up mission shelters as we have today. When resources were few, only the most desperate were able to receive them. Everyone else was expected to supply their own needs. Today’s homeless are the recipients of a very generous church, perhaps too generous for much charity today makes it easy for many to not work.
A man feels manly when he provides for himself and his family. God has commanded men to provide for themselves and their families. From the beginning, God made it so with words we are familiar with at a wedding celebration. From Genesis 2.22-24, Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
A woman was to go with a man when the man had a place for the woman to go. That place was his place that he developed upon leaving his parents, thus proving he was able to provide for a woman. A woman was responsible for bearing children obeying God’s command upon creation. As expressed in Genesis 1.28, God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. She was to nurture those children in the home the man provided her. This is her unique responsibility, as the man’s unique responsibility is to provide for her. Neither is more valuable than the other; both are equal in value, but they are unique in purpose, each having their own special purpose in the marriage relationship.
The man who would not provide for his own family was as described in 1 Timothy 5.8 Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. I don’t know what is worse than an unbeliever since the unbeliever is destined for condemnation by God to live forever in torment and suffering in hell. But the man who fails to provide for his family is worse than that person. Apparently, their suffering will be greater.
There is little that makes a man feel more satisfied than providing for his family. Our world struggles with self-esteem, wanting to be told how wonderful they are. Instead, they should do good, like work hard and provide for a family, and then they won’t need others to tell them they are good; they will feel good by themselves because of their good doing. This is true and biblical self-esteem.
But what about women and men being equal, and so work equally? Biblically, men and women are equal in value but not responsibility. Value is our worth by virtue of our creation. Since God created us, we have been given equal value. Like a good father thinks of his sons and daughters. They are equal in value.
But they are not equal in responsibility. Men work outside the home while women work inside the home, nurturing their children. This is taught biblically twice in 1 Timothy 5.14 So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. In Titus 2.4-5 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. This is radical thinking today, but only because men have become increasingly lazy and undependable. My book, MAN Up! is about restoring biblical manhood.
Back to the beginning. There was no woman when God commanded man to work in His perfect environment. In working in that environment, Adam realized he needed a helper, for God made his work so that he would come to that realization. When God created Eve, she was made as his helpmate or helper. As it says in Genesis 2.18, The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Furthermore, when the first couple rebelled against God bringing His curse upon the earth, the punishment of the man we already discussed was upon his work, further indicating he is the provider, but upon Eve, it was in her role as wife and mother indicating these to be her primary roles as God said in Genesis 3.16 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
In theory, a woman suffers no curse until she is married. But truly, she suffers the curse of death for being a born rebel as we all are, and why all of us must be born again to live eternally in the kingdom of God where we will once again work without the difficulties we experience in this world. The curse of Adam and Eve illustrates God’s intention for the roles men and women would play in their marriage relationship.
So, as we prepare to celebrate Labor Day, let us consider whether or not we are truly good laborers. Are we sufficiently providing through work for ourselves and our family, and if we are not, what do we have to do to become the laborers God expects us to be?
[1] ‘Labor Day 2024’, history.com editors, history.com., https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/labor-day-1, (August 26, 2024)
