In our previous Why Am I Here? (The Answer) daily teaching we saw how, according to to the Genesis account, mankind was created to image God (Gen. 1:26a). But there’s still plenty more to see. So, as we make our way to the ultimate reason for man’s existence we will first continue to survey the opening chapter of God’s Word, looking back to the initial revelation of man’s creation to understand why we are here. We pick up today in the second half of Genesis 1:26.
Tag: work
As we continue to prepare the way for the answer to the question, “Why am I here (on earth)?” we come to Solomon’s first case study to deconstruct supposed self-satisfiers. He begins with the subject of work, briefly introducing the subject at the beginning of the book and then developing it further in chapter two. In the third verse of the book he wrote,
What profit has a man from all his labor
In which he toils under the sun? (Eccl. 1:3)
He used a financial term (“profit”) as though he was doing a kind of cost-benefit analysis. What’s the ‘bottom line’ from all of man’s labor? He gets around to the conclusion shortly after asking that question and the review he gave wasn’t exactly glowing, though it did start off promising.
“You are the salt of the earth” (Mt. 5:13).
That statement (“you are the salt of the earth”) not only tells us something about Jesus’ disciples it also tells us something about the world; it implies that the world is rotting. It’s similar to Jesus’ next statement, “You are the light of the world” (Mt. 5:14a), which again, tells us something about His people, as well the world they live in; namely, that the world is in darkness. So if you’ve ever watched the news and thought something like, “This world is going crazy,” not as a manifestation of a ‘holier-than-thou’ mentality but as a kind of ‘knee-jerk reaction’ to either the reported or celebrated sin of men and women, you’d be closer to a biblical worldview that you might have at first realized.
