As many of you know, this year I’ve committed to reading/listening to as much of Timothy J. Keller as possible.
It hasn’t gone as well as I thought. Partly because I’m writing my next book (I wasn’t anticipating this), and also because I like reading broadly. So instead of one year of Keller, it might end up being a few years of Keller.
In any case, I previously listed my favorite quotes here for Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters.
I’ll do the same for Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, my latest Keller read.
- “The Bible begins talking about work as soon as it begins talking about anything—that is how important and basic it is.”
- “In the beginning, then, God worked. Work was not a necessary evil that came into the picture later, or something human beings were created to do but that was beneath the great God himself. No, God worked for the sheer joy of it.”
- “The book of Genesis leaves us with a striking truth—work was part of paradise.”
- “Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sexuality; it is not simply medicine but food for our soul.”
- “Without meaningful work we sense significant inner loss and emptiness. People who are cut off from work because of physical or other reasons quickly discover how much they need work to thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually.”
- “According to the Bible, we don’t merely need the money from work to survive; we need the work itself to survive and live fully human lives.”
- “Work—and lots of it—is an indispensable component in a meaningful human life. It is a supreme gift from God and one of the main things that gives our lives purpose. But it must play its proper role, subservient to God.”
- “Work has dignity because it is something that God does and because we do it in God’s place, as his representatives. We learn not only that work has dignity in itself, but also that all kinds of work have dignity.”
- “Work is our design and our dignity; it is also a way to serve God through creativity, particularly in the creation of culture.”
- “The question regarding our choice of work is no longer “What will make me the most money and give me the most status?” The question must now be “How, with my existing abilities and opportunities, can I be of greatest service to other people, knowing what I do of God’s will and of human need?”
- “If the point of work is to serve and exalt ourselves, then our work inevitably becomes less about the work and more about us. Our aggressiveness will eventually become abuse, our drive will become burnout, and our self-sufficiency will become self-loathing.”
- “But if the purpose of work is to serve and exalt something beyond ourselves, then we actually have a better reason to deploy our talent, ambition, and entrepreneurial vigor—and we are more likely to be successful in the long run, even by the world’s definition.”
- “Parents give their children what they need—character—through the diligence required for the chores they assign them.”
- “The gospel frees us from the relentless pressure of having to prove ourselves and secure our identity through work, for we are already proven and secure.”
- “You should expect to be regularly frustrated in your work even though you may be in exactly the right vocation.”
- “In a world where people have on average three to four different careers in their work lives, it is perfectly natural that changing careers may be necessary to maximize fruitfulness. God can—and often does—change what he calls us to do.”
- “Work can convince you that you are working hard for your family and friends while you are being seduced through ambition to neglect them.”
- “Without the gospel of Jesus, we will have to toil not for the joy of serving others, nor the satisfaction of a job well done, but to make a name for ourselves.”
- “Personal idols profoundly drive and shape our behavior, including our work.”
- “Idols of comfort and pleasure can make it impossible for a person to work as hard as is necessary to have a faithful and fruitful career.”
- “Idols of power and approval, on the other hand, can lead us to overwork or to be ruthless and unbalanced in our work practices.”
- “Idols of control take several forms—including intense worry, lack of trust, and micromanagement.”
- “To be a Christian in business, then, means much more than just being honest or not sleeping with your coworkers. It even means more than personal evangelism or holding a Bible study at the office. Rather, it means thinking out the implications of the gospel worldview and God’s purposes for your whole work life—and for the whole of the organization under your influence.”
- “Those in the helping professions (and that includes pastoral ministry as well as medicine) are tempted to feel superior because our work is so noble and so draining.”
- “As Jesus says, to be fully human boils down to loving God and loving our neighbor. Everything else—our accomplishments, our causes, our identity, and our feelings—is a distant second.”
- “For many of us, being productive and doing becomes . . . an attempt at redemption. That is, through our work, we try to build our worth, security, and meaning.”
- “The very definition of a Christian is someone who not only admires Jesus, emulates Jesus, and obeys Jesus, but who “rests in the finished work of Christ” instead of his or her own.”
- “A Christian is able to rest only because God’s redemptive work is likewise finished in Christ.”