Back in Galilee in the second century, the Christian apologist Justin Martyr said that during his lifetime it was still common to see farmers using plows made by the carpenter Jesus of Nazareth.

Think about it: the second Person of the triune Godhead spent much of His earthly life working in a woodshop. By that act alone, God forever established the significance of OUR work in this world.

In a new book entitled “The Call,” theologian Os Guinness reminds us that even the humblest work is important if it is done for God. “How intriguing,” Guinness writes, “to think of Jesus’ plow rather than His Cross–to wonder what it was that made his plows and yokes last and stand out.” Clearly, they must have been very well made if they were still in use in the 2nd century.

Today, Christians typically exalt spiritual work above manual work. After all, what’s making a plow compared with preaching to multitudes, feeding the 5,000, or raising someone from the dead? But the very fact that Jesus DID make plows–and make them well–suggests that any work can be done to the glory of God. Any work can be a genuine calling.

By Charles W. Colson

From BreakPoint, 1999, copyright 1999, posted with permission of Prison Fellowship, P.O. Box 17500, Washington, DC, 20041-7500. Http://www.breakpoint.org