The Cultural Mandate: Being God’s Servants in God’s World

N.H. Gootjes’ chapter Schilder on Christ and Culture in Always Obedient: Essays on the Teachings of Klaas Schilder offers some clear, practical wisdom for the Christian living “between the times.”

“Is this a period [between Christ’s first and second comings] in which only the duty to preach has to be fulfilled, and not the duty to work in this world? If applied consistently, this opinion would imply that a Christian should work only enough to enable him and his family to live and fulfill their duties and that in all the rest of his time he has to evangelize.

Such a view clearly goes against the New Testament. For example, when John the Baptist announced the coming of the Messiah, he did not say to the tax collectors, ‘Give up your work, and go out and preach.’ He said in Luke 3:13, ‘Collect no more than is appointed you.’ And when soldiers came, he did not tell them to leave the army to become evangelists. Instead he said, “Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages’ (Luke 3:14). Or to give another example, the problem with Alexander (2 Tim. 4:14) was not that he was a coppersmith but that he opposed the gospel.

The meaning of the time between Creation and Christ’s return is not limited to evangelism. It is also the period in which the Holy Spirit works in Christians to bring them to obedience to God. The Holy Spirit also requires us to see and do our daily work (as soldiers, servants, and so on) in the light of Genesis 1 and 2, even in a world that is no longer a paradise.

It is important to maintain that in this period of the New Testament church, regeneration should become apparent in the way in which each believer fulfills his daily work. Our daily work is more than a necessity to keep us alive. Our life should show that we work as God’s servants in God’s world.”

Gootjes then applies the cultural mandate to various professions, showing that the farmer, the garbage man, and the artist each have value in God’s good world:

“Because of the cultural mandate, our children who have the ability should be allowed to study, to become scientists, to become professors, if they can. Farmers and professors should not despise each other but should cooperate in the mandate to work in this world, each in his own place and according to his own ability…

[Further,] being a garbage man is not humiliating. For it is work that has to be done to keep our society going, as a part of the instruction ‘to keep the earth.’ This commandment implies keeping streets clean and preventing the outbreak of diseases.

And then there are those who have artistic ability. This too is a gift from God to be developed. It is true that artists often have a bad name among Christians. And the artistic world has itself partly to blame for it. They have fostered the idea that the artist must be completely free and completely himself to produce a meaningful artistic work. This often implies that the artist rejects God’s Word and becomes a god to himself. When Christians reject this, they are right. On the other hand, the arts should be seen as a possibility that God has given in creation. Artists, too, should have dominion over their part of created reality.

Seen from the perspective of the cultural mandate, followers of Christ may work in many jobs. In the church no one should despise another because of the work he does. The other is a fellow worker, a servant of God in his field.”

In conclusion, Gootjes offers this advice to pastors:

“This gospel confronts the believers again with the duty instituted from the beginning: to have dominion over the world. God’s gracious gospel puts daily jobs in the light of service to God. Therefore, the minister cannot limit his sermon to the inner life of the believer. Daily work comes within the scope of preaching. The sermon should touch the daily life of the minister’s congregation. Ethics in the workplace and in the schoolroom [should] be mentioned.”