Christian Mission and Poverty

Chapter 6: A Protestant Response

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“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps 127:1a). This is as if he were to say: Man must work, but that work is in vain if it stands alone and thinks it can sustain itself. Work cannot do this; God must do it. Therefore work in such manner that your labor is not in vain. Your labor is in vain when you worry, and rely on your own efforts to sustain yourself. It [is fitting for you] to labor, but your sustenance and the maintenance of your household belong to God alone. Therefore, you must keep these two things far apart: “to labor,” and “to maintain a household” or “to sustain”; keep them as far apart from one another as heaven and earth, or God and man. In the Proverbs of Solomon we often read how the lazy are punished because they will not work. Solomon says, “A slack hand causes poverty, but industrious hands bring riches” (Prov 10:4). This and similar sayings sound as if our sustenance depended on our labor; though he says in the same passage (Prov 10:22), as also in this psalm (127:1), that it depends on God’s blessing; or, as we say in German, “God bestows, God provides.” Thus, the meaning is this: God commanded Adam to eat his bread in the sweat of his face (Gen 8:19). God wills that man should work, and without work He will give him nothing. Conversely, God will not give him anything because of his labor, but solely out of His own goodness and blessing. Man’s labor is to be his discipline in this life, by which he may keep his flesh in subjection. To him who is obedient in this matter, God will give plenty, and sustain him well.