Trades

At thirty-seven years of age, with two university degrees and a well-established professional career, I became a tradesman and apprenticed to a carpenter in the home renovation business. Most of my ministerial colleagues thought I had temporarily lost my moorings. But I had several good reasons. My wife and I were called to plant a new church, and without a salary being volunteered, we needed to support ourselves financially (see Financial Support; Tentmaking). Further, I liked to work with my hands and have a natural talent for making things out of wood. But finally I was convinced that I needed to see the work world of the ordinary Christian “from the bottom up.” In the modern Western world professionals are at the apex of the occupational pyramid, business and craftspersons a notch down, with tradespeople and common laborers near the bottom. This is the case not only in so-called secular society but in the church, where leadership positions on boards are normally filled by professionals and executives. It has not always been so and certainly was not so in the Bible. But every day, as I hammered and sawed and ate my lunch with drywall tapers and electricians, sharing their worlds and their loves, I was being educated in what could be called a blue-collar or denim-jeans spirituality.

Trades, as distinguished from professions, are occupations that employ primarily manual skills learned mainly in the context of apprenticeship on the job and result in making things, normally for pay. In contrast, crafts—personal skills employed in an artistic and aesthetic manner—are ways of making things that are intrinsically beautiful whether or not they are useful or sold. A craft may be undertaken as a hobby for the sheer pleasure of enjoying oneself and God’s creation or as a remunerated occupation, such as the work of a silversmith or perfumer. A trade may involve craftsmanship but not necessarily so, as in the case of the electrician.

Trades in the Bible and Beyond

In contrast to the hierarchy of occupations in the modern world, the Bible witnesses to a wide variety of ways of working without rating them on a scale of public importance or divine approval. For example, Deuteronomy prescribes that the king must not enrich himself through his position (Deut. 17:16) and must “not consider himself better than his brothers” (Deut. 17:20). In contrast to the view today that charismatic pastors and religious leaders are likely to be the most Spirit-filled persons, the only Old Testament saint who is specifically said to be “filled . . . with the Spirit of God” is a craftsman, Bezalel (Exodus 31:3). The rich diversity of occupations named in Scripture, more than two hundred in all, has been researched by Walter Duckat in Beggar to King. The entries under C alone are indicative of the significance given by the Bible to trades and crafts: calker, camel driver, candymaker, captain, caravan chief, carpenter, carpetmaker, cattleman, census taker, charioteer, cheese maker, choirmaster, chorister, circumciser, clothier, cook, coppersmith, counselor, counterfeiter (not an approved occupation!), cupbearer, custodian and customs clerk.

Duckat notes that the life of the Hebrews in the Bible was similar to a medieval village, being largely agricultural and fairly self-sufficient. Farming and shepherding were the fundamental occupations for men and homemaking for women, something which in ancient times included crafts such as weaving. But specialists emerged in due course and guilds of craftspeople, merchants and even guilds of prophets were formed for common economic and cultural benefits (Duckat, p. xv). This was the beginning of the modern trade unions. In biblical times people followed in the footsteps of their father or mother with little regard to job satisfaction, that relatively modern obsession.

By the time of Jesus and the birth of the church, there was a stunning contrast between the Greek view of trades and the Jewish. In the Jewish world it was a duty to have a trade. So Jesus was a carpenter and Paul a tentmaker. The Talmud said, “He who does not teach his son a trade is as if he teaches him robbery” (Tosepta Qiddušin 1:11). Duckat notes, “The Hebrews were virtually the only ancient people who preponderantly viewed work as dignifying rather than demeaning” (p. xxi). In contrast, the Greek world into which the church was also born held laboring in contempt. The work of tradespeople was for slaves. Citizens should occupy themselves with contemplation and politics. The tension between these two views is with us to this day and is manifested in the hierarchical arrangement of “valuable work” within the Western Christian mind, even though this was temporarily corrected by Luther (Hardy). The professional minister and missionary are on the top, those in people-helping professions next, then business and then, near the bottom, trades. Someone really serious about serving God leaves the trade world and “goes into the ministry” rather than the reverse.

Trades as a Reflection of Society

With industrialization the world recovered the dignity of trades once again with the worker as the engine of economic development. Karl Marx took this a step further and made manual work, including the trades, as the primary means of finding the meaning in life, without, of course, any reference to a supreme being. This lopsided view of work made an idol rather than a curse of work. It failed to recover work as part of one’s calling, viewing it instead as the whole of one’s calling. But with passing from the industrial society to the information society, trades have slipped once again, giving way to the omnipotent knowledge worker dealing everyday in computer bytes rather than two-by-fours and pneumatic nailers. Routine manual work on assembly lines is being replaced by robots, and most of the trades are desperately trying to project an image of expertise as almost everything from rug cleaning to garbage collection gets “professionalized.”

Duckat notes that “how work is viewed in any society casts important light on the prevailing thinking, social structure, and values of that people” (p. xx). The thought can be extended. What kind of work is praised casts a revealing light on the mindset of the church and what it really values. Further, it shows what we think of God and whether we are a people who resemble their God.

The gods of antiquity, and especially those of the Greeks, spent their time in debauchery or pleasures. The Hindu gods occupied themselves with everlasting repose. But the God of the Bible is a worker, a craftsperson, a tradesperson—the maker of things and people. Robert Banks’s rich discussion of the metaphors of God as worker shows that almost every human activity imaginable that is for the common good is something God does. So the Talmud credits God with the origination of all trades (Midrash on Genesis 24:7).

How can we demean trades and worship God at the same time? Does our attitude to work constitute a more direct way of “speaking rightly of God” (which is the heart of true theology; see Job 42:7) than our written theological tomes? If hymnology is sung theology (see Music, Christian), is work acted theology? So what can be done to recover the dignity of trades?

Recovering the Dignity of Trades

First, the church can become truly countercultural in treating every member of the body with equal dignity, refusing to estimate the value of people by degrees, income and social approval. This is part of empowering the whole people of God. Why do we interview visiting missionaries on Sunday and not tradespeople to find out how their faith makes a difference to everyday life? The relative absence of blue-collar workers in many churches is a simple reflection that they do not feel welcome or prized. But on a deeper level it is an indication that we are something less than the new humanity (Ephes. 2:15) characterized by a broken wall between formerly separated people. If people of the same “kind” gather together as they would anyway, Christian or not, Christ is not confessed. There is no new creation in evidence.

Second, we can help tradespeople revision their daily work as ministry. Tradespeople need to receive affirmation in ways other than good pay for their sometimes monotonous work. They are indispensable to the healthy functioning of society. A city can manage without a mayor, at least for a while, but not without its trash collectors. As with all other forms of human work, tradespeople serve God (and therefore are “ministers”) by meeting a genuine human need, by making God’s world work, by providing for themselves and their families with some to give to others and by doing what they do for Jesus (Ephes. 6:5-9). Through working as a carpenter for five years, I discovered that tradespeople have many advantages. At the end of the day they can usually see what they have done and say to themselves, in unison with their Creator, “It is good” (Genesis 1:31).

Third, we can explore the contemplative dimensions of being a tradesperson. I quickly discovered that at the end of a strenuous day I slept well. Manual work is healthy and is less likely to kill a person than a stressful profession: “The sleep of a laborer is sweet” (Eccles. 5:12). But there is more. While anyone doing business today must wrestle with the principalities and powers, manual work possibly allows one to reflect and pray more “on the job” than in other careers, certainly so when the tools are laid down. As Paul knew so well, working “night and day” as a tentmaker-cum-apostle—visiting people, teaching in a public hall, meeting with churches and sharing the gospel—was invigorating and often challenging. In contrast, most professionals are spent forces when they finally close the office door and often take work home with them, to the neglect of their families, before they attempt a fitful sleep.

A negative note on this subject was sounded by Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) in the second century b.c. “Conversation with animals and the noise of the hammer and the anvil are not conducive to wisdom” (Sirach 38:24-33), but this seems to be a criticism against work that consumed time that might be spent in the study of Torah. Indeed, most trades, with the exception of certain high-risk construction workers, allow for greater “leisure” on the job to reflect. An example would be the poems and songs written by David while a shepherd.

Finally, the life of a tradesperson is shot through with intimations of eternity and invitations to develop a denim-jean spirituality: forming things by hand, making the connection between bodily activity and mental creativity, creating something of benefit for others, working in teams, learning and teaching in an apprentice relationship life on life, talking with fellow workers about the stuff of everyday life (sports, food, family, play). Trades are like chores; they are not just opportunities to practice spiritual disciplines, but because of their somewhat tiresome nature and service role, they invite us Godward. Usually there is more laughter and play on a construction site than in a pastor’s study. There might even be more prayer.

» See also: Craftsmanship

» See also: Hobbies and Crafts

» See also: Professions/Professionalism

» See also: Unions

» See also: Work

References and Resources

R. Banks, God the Worker: Journeys into the Mind, Heart and Imagination of God (Valley Forge, Penn.: Judson, 1994); R. Banks, Redeeming the Routine: Bringing Theology to Life (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1993); R. F. Capon, An Offering of Uncles: The Priesthood of Adam and the Shape of the World (New York: Crossroad, 1982); W. Duckat, Beggar to King: All the Occupations of Biblical Times (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968); L. Hardy, The Fabric of This World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990); R. Hoppock, Occupational Information: Where to Get It and How to Use It (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967); Jacob Neusner, trans., “Qiddushim,” in The Tosefta, vol. 3 (New York: KTAV, 1979); Jacob Neusner, trans., Genesis Rabbah, the Judaic Commentary to the Book of Genesis: A New American Translation, vol. 1 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985).

—R. Paul Stevens