Proverbs 10:4–5 (ESV) — 4 A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. 5 He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.
Introduction: A Personal Journey
I’ve gone through a bit of a transformational theological journey when it comes to the subject of work. Early in my walk with Christ—after a brief stint at a small Bible college, surrounded by classmates eager to live radically for Jesus—I embraced a perspective that, without saying so outright, devalued the significance of everyday work and career.
Though I never drew a stark divide between sacred and secular work, and I certainly believed every Christian was called to gospel ministry in some way, I rarely considered the everyday labor of our hands to be of much significance in God’s kingdom. Work, in my mind, was mostly a means to an end: a way to provide for ourselves and financially support the global mission. I believed in working hard and doing all things unto the Lord, but I didn’t grasp what God might actually be doing in and through our work.
Practically, this led to a real limit in my preaching and teaching. I could apply biblical truths to church life, personal relationships, and spiritual formation—but when it came to the workplace, my applications often fell flat. And I noticed this difficulty. I would find myself rattling off applications of a given biblical truth in various spheres of life, but when I got to the world of work my applications always seemed to fizzle out.
In hindsight, I’m sure I had some decent points—I’ve always encouraged the church to trust in God’s provision, held up hard work as one significant way to witness for Christ, and have called for integrity on the job—but something was missing. Thankfully, good books and good theologians helped me see the Scriptures more fully so that I’ve come to a more robust theology of work—so much so that one of the only topical series I’ve ever preached from this pulpit was on the subject of work. I even turned it into a short booklet to encourage people to understand the significance of their labor before God.
Big Picture: Why Does Work Matter?
So why does work matter?
Here are a few reasons.
First, work matters because it is godly (like God). God is the great Creator, and he designed us to work alongside him. From the very beginning, we were called to cultivate the earth—a calling that reflects his nature and character in the world he made. To work is to imitate him. Though the fall brought difficulty, pain, and frustration to work, the calling itself remains good.
Second, work matters because it sanctifies. Think about it; work is where we spend a massive portion of our lives. All day long, we will be given opportunities to imitate Christ. Your workplace will stretch you—your patience will be tested, your trust in God will be refined, and your love for people will be revealed as you work. The way we work, our understanding of our identity as we work, the motivation we have for our work, and the character we demonstrate at work all contribute to shaping us to be more like Jesus.
Third, work matters because we need to eat. I don’t want to skip this reason. It is basic to our existence, but should not be overlooked. Paul told the church in Thessalonica that their members should work. He said, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Th. 3:10). Hunger drives us to work.
There’s a great moment in the film Land when a seasoned hunter is teaching the grieving protagonist who has moved to a cabin in the Wyoming mountain wilderness. One day, they catch a squirrel, and after serving up a rather unsatisfying dinner, he tells her: “Eating squirrel is motivation to catch deer.” So true. Sometimes, we’re motivated to work simply because need drives us to do so. It’s okay to take a job—even one that isn’t thrilling or in line with your passions—if it helps meet basic needs.
Fourth, work matters because it is an outlet for love. The things we create, the services we provide, and the tasks we perform should be additive to human life. Work is part of how we love others. We will spend more waking hours working than doing almost anything else. It’s one of the main avenues through which we live out the great commandment—to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:37–39). We should see what we do in our work as part of our small contribution to humanity, love for others because God has loved us.
But if work is so good, why is it so hard?
The short answer is Genesis 3. When sin entered the world, the two most essential aspects of human life—love and work—became an often painful and futile burden. Thorns and thistles were part of the curse, and we experience those thorns and thistles in the imperfections of our work environments.
Many around the world understand this better than those of us who talk about finding a career we are “passionate” about. Too many labor under oppressive systems, anonymity, or even enslavement—without the freedom or dignity we often take for granted.
And beyond the curse of original sin, our personal sin makes work even harder. When we think our work doesn’t matter, we drift toward sloth. When we think our work matters more than it does, we drift toward pride. And either will taint our work.
So we know work will be hard, but Proverbs can help us make sure it’s not harder than it has to be. As we look to into its wisdom, my hope is to discover how we, as followers of Jesus, can approach our work in light of God’s wisdom and kingdom purposes. My earnest desire is that everyone we lead, everyone we co-labor with, and everyone we follow will rejoice that we have wrestled with these truths, that we have allowed God’s wisdom to shape the way we work.
Studying Proverbial Sayings
Before we dive into this next section of Proverbs, it’s worth taking a moment to consider how its poetic form works—especially in chapters 10 through 31. The vast majority of Proverbs in this portion are written as two-line sayings or couplets. These couplets are the reason we’re approaching this section thematically rather than verse by verse. One chapter might contain 25 or more couplets covering entirely different topics, so instead of treating each chapter as a unified whole, we’re going to spend about ten weeks exploring ten major themes that appear scattered throughout these chapters.
We have been thinking of Proverbs like a jigsaw puzzle. Proverbs 1–9 are like the corner and edge pieces—they frame the picture, helping us understand what wisdom is, why we need it, and how to pursue it. Chapters 10–31, on the other hand, are like the individual inner pieces. Each couplet gives us a small but meaningful piece of God’s wisdom, and when we fit them together by theme, we start to see the fuller picture emerge.
We’ve already spent time preparing our hearts for wisdom by building that outer frame. Now it’s time to start assembling the picture in the middle—to see how these smaller pieces contribute to a larger vision of godly living.
Each couplet uses a poetic technique called parallelism, where the second line either repeats, contrasts, or develops the idea introduced in the first. This style is a powerful teaching tool—it helps the wisdom stick in your mind, clarifies the intended meaning, and makes the truth more memorable and applicable.
So, each week, we’ll gather and study a selection of couplets that speak to a particular subject. Today’s theme, as I’ve already mentioned, is work. We’re not expecting any single proverb to say everything there is to say on a given subject, but when we bring many together—like puzzle pieces—we begin to see how God’s wisdom speaks with depth and clarity in each area of life.
With all that in mind, let’s consider some of what Proverbs tells us about work.
1. Know The Outcomes
Proverbs often goes out of its way to contrast the outcomes of two types of work: diligent, strategic, wise labor versus lazy, neglectful, and haphazard effort. The book doesn’t hold back in describing the stark differences between the two. We don’t have time here to examine every couplet that contrasts diligence with laziness—but the proverb we read at the beginning of this teaching gives us a clear example:
Proverbs 10:4–5 (ESV) — 4 A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. 5 He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.
Here, we see the vivid contrasts: the slack hand versus the diligent hand, the one who gathers in summer versus the one who sleeps during harvest. The outcomes could not be more different. Poverty and shame are linked to laziness, while diligence leads to abundance and honor.
This teaches us something valuable: It is wise and honorable to work diligently today because tomorrow’s results depend on it.
Of course, we wouldn’t treat this as a rigid universal law. In our broken world, some lazy people seem to get by just fine—and sometimes even prosper in our intoxicated-with-fame-and-beauty culture and attention economy—while many hardworking individuals don’t experience material wealth or recognition. For example, hotel workers in L.A. county would need to earn more than $43/hour to afford a typical two-bedroom apartment where they work, but that ain’t happening.[^1] At the same time, The Real Housewives of Orange County make a good chunk doing what they do. It’s just the nature of the world we live in.
Solomon, however, was writing to a covenantal culture that, at its best, was aligned with God—and he was painting a picture of the ideal. These proverbs show us not guaranteed outcomes, but God’s general wisdom for how the world is meant to work when aligned with his ways. And this general principle is true. It is often a reality that hard work leads to the accumulation of wealth and honor, while an allergy to hard work keeps someone from advancing.
Here are two more Proverbs that help nudge us towards wanting the outcomes attached to diligence.
Proverbs 12:24 (ESV) — 24 The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.
Proverbs 14:23 (ESV) — 23 In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.
These two proverbs highlight the contrasting outcomes of diligence and sloth. Diligence leads to promotion—“the hand of the diligent will rule”—and to profit—“in all toil there is profit” (12:24, 14:23). Sloth, on the other hand, leads to poverty and being subjected to undesirable or forced labor (12:24, 14:23).
Mere talk tends only to poverty, the proverb says (14:23). Sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking talk is productive—and it certainly can be, but sometimes it’s just talk. If it leads to careful planning and diligent work, great, but if talk is all there is then nothing of substance is happening.
Diligence is the desired attribute, according to Proverbs. Throughout this book, diligence is characterized by:
- Hard work, intense energy, and persistence (28:19—whoever works his land will have plenty of bread).
- People who are diligent are self-starters (6:7—the ant who has no chief, officer, or ruler).
- They finish what they start (12:27—whoever is slothful will not roast his game).
- And they carefully plan their commitments (21:5—the plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance).
Taken together, we should want to embrace diligence in our work because of the benefits that are sure to come from it. This all helps us recognize that while don’t need to idolize work, we should not demonize it either. In fact, as many in the broader church world have begun to focus on Sabbath and the importance of rest, perhaps we will need to remind ourselves that our work matters. It is all too easy to find Christians today who will suggest that you should never come home late from work, travel far from your family for work, or extend yourself to exhaustion for others. I disagree. Work is good, and sometimes hard work keeps us from obtaining all the rest, leisure, or relationships we might prefer. Instead, we should recognize that both work and rest can be done in ways that magnify the Lord, so we should want to embrace both without making either the ultimate.
2. Develop Your Skill
God’s wisdom doesn’t only call us to work—it calls us to work well, to work with skill. Skill—I love the word. It always reminds me of Napoleon Dynamite, the main-character-awkward-teenager in the early 2000s film. At one point, while trying to make a new student his friend, he asks if the new guy has any skills. Then he blurts out: “Girls like guys with skills. Nunchuck skills… bowhunting skills… computer hacking skills.” I love it. Skills.
Throughout Proverbs, we’re invited not just into action, but into skillful action. The Hebrew word for wisdom, ḥokmah, doesn’t refer only to knowing the right thing to do. It’s a word often used for craftsmen, sailors, artists, and diplomats—people whose excellence wasn’t only in their character, but in their competent skill. In other words, wisdom in work is also about being good at what you do.
The Bible values that. God values that. Here are some couplets that point us in this direction:
Proverbs 18:16 (ESV) — 16 A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before the great.
At face value, this proverb is saying that an expensive gift goes a long way to opening doors for people. But we can also take this in the sense of a skill or gifting that also brings promotion to those who have it. If someone is an expert in their field, if they excel in their gifting, they will likely get opportunities they wouldn’t have without that skill.
Here’s another:
Proverbs 22:29 (ESV) — 29 Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.
This is a compelling picture. Not just someone who works hard, but someone who’s grown in their craft to the point where doors begin to open—kings and queens will fight for their services! Not because they chased influence, but because they committed to excellence and became skillful (22:29).
This is where we need to slow down and think. In our culture, we’re often taught to build platforms, networks, and visibility. A generation ago, relatively few people thought about becoming famous one day, but recent surveys show how a significant proportion of young people would like to become internet famous—today’s kids are almost three times more likely to want to be a YouTube influencer than an astronaut.[^2] I’m not saying skill isn’t involved in being big on the internet, but Proverbs encourages us to quietly develop our skills to build real and lasting impact. It calls us to build skill first—to pursue growth in the hidden places. That’s the path to lasting fruitfulness.
Proverbs is the book that ends with the Proverbs 31 woman—she is noted not just for her character but for her competence. She has business skills, household management skills, craftmanship skills, productivity skills—maybe even computer hacking skills! These aren’t skills learned overnight—she developed her ability over a long period of time. And she uses her strength and her skill to serve others, honor God, and care for her family. Skills.
Not everyone has to be a white-collar worker or professional to live out this biblical vision. The idea is that whatever your calling, you should want to grow in excellence. If you’re a landscaper, become so good that people compete to book you. If you’re a teacher, be the one parents pray their child gets. If you’re a stay-at-home parent, bring excellence to that work each day.
Even Jesus—God incarnate—spent most of his earthly life as a carpenter. A builder. A blue-collar worker. What kind of worker do you think he was? I think he developed his skills over time. He did not slough his work off as unspiritual, unimportant, or unseen. This alone should give dignity to every honest job. He reminds us that excellence doesn’t depend on being seen, but on being faithful.
As Paul wrote in Ephesians, “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people” (Eph. 6:7, NIV). When we whole-heartedly grow our skills, we are like the bamboo tree. After planting, it can take years for it to grow beneath the surface. But then—suddenly—it shoots up rapidly in a matter of weeks. Did it grow in mere weeks? No—it grew during those hidden years underground. That’s what developing skill often feels like—long years of sharpening your blade, working your land, watching God give you growth and opportunity. Skills.
Here are some questions to help you identify where and how you might grow your work skills:
- Are you working with your best effort or just getting by right now?
- What are you naturally good at that you could take time to grow?
- What is one skill you could add that would help you excel in your work?
3. Operate with Integrity
Finally, we must work with integrity. As believers, we are called to reflect the justice and righteousness of God, so we must do our work in a way that accurately portrays the God we serve. God’s wisdom doesn’t just call us to work hard or work skillfully—it calls us to work honestly. Integrity is part of wisdom. Here are some Proverbs that say as much:
Proverbs 11:1 (ESV) — 1 A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.
This is about business ethics—ancient merchants would manipulate their scales to gain an advantage, tipping the balance in their favor when buying or selling. It was a common scam. But Solomon says God sees it all. And he hates it. It’s not just a bad business practice—it’s an abomination to the Lord. God hates watching people rip off other people. False advertising. Elaborate scams. Poorly communicated college loans. Taking advantage of others. God hates it. On the flip side, God delights in honest scales. He loves justice—even in the smallest transactions of life.
In Israel’s law, people were required to use one set of weights for both home and marketplace. In other words, your values in private and in public should match. That’s what integrity means. It’s internal consistency. You are the same person everywhere—at work, at home, online, in secret, and in the light.
Proverbs 11:3 (ESV) — 3 The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.
Integrity becomes a kind of moral compass. It helps you know what to do in real-time. When you live by godly principles—truth, honesty, humility—you begin to walk with clarity. In other words, if you walk with integrity, it will give you guidance. It’ll become a kind of inner compass.
But if you take shortcuts, deceive, manipulate—it doesn’t just make life messy. It eventually brings destruction. As this proverb says, “crookedness…destroys them.” And not always in dramatic ways. Sometimes, it’s slow—like trust eroding, opportunities closing, and relationships getting harder to maintain.
Proverbs 16:8 (ESV) — 8 Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.
Proverbs 19:1 (ESV) — 1 Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.
These are sobering verses. They’re saying: don’t trade your character for a paycheck. Don’t build your life on wins if you have to cheat to get them. Don’t sacrifice your name on the altar of gain. Sometimes, doing the right thing might mean losing the contract, declining the promotion, or walking away from the deal. But if you keep your integrity, you’ve kept what matters most.
Proverbs 22:1 (ESV) — 1 A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.
In our culture, so much energy goes into reputation—the curated image, the online brand, the highlight reel. But Proverbs says: don’t just strive for a reputation. Strive for a good reputation. One that reflects the truth about who you really are. That’s the kind of name worth building.
Let’s be people who aren’t out to build a resume but a good name. Let’s go after character. The modern workplace is a field of ethical landmines. Data privacy, artificial intelligence, intellectual property rights, truthfulness in advertising, political correctness, and new morality all require integrity. And a bedrock of integrity leads to honesty in business dealings, fairness in our interactions, trustworthiness in our responsibilities, and consistency between our words and actions. Let’s be known as consistent, faithful, reliable, dependable, and valuable members of the organizations and workplaces we are honored to serve.
God has placed us there for a reason. King Jesus came, died, rose, and ascended so that all who believed in him could be brought into God’s kingdom and sent out into the world as a new holy nation representing him to the world. Our workplace is a space for us to imitate God through our efforts, become more godly as we confront work-related difficulties, provide for our material needs, and love God and people well. In short, our work is an opportunity. After we’ve been in our cemeteries for a hundred years, no one will remember our work, but we will have taken this temporary thing and turned it into eternal praise to God. Let’s go!
Further Reading
- Business for the Glory of God by Wayne Grudem
- Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller
- Work by Ben Witherington
- Whole-Hearted Work by Nate Holdridge
[^1]: WSJ.com: World News, Striking L.A. Workers Want Hotels to Help Build Affordable Housing [^2]: prnewswire.com: LEGO Group Kicks Off Global Program To Inspire The Next Generation Of Space Explorers As NASA Celebrates 50 Years Of Moon Landing
Group Study Questions
Head (Knowledge, Facts, Understanding)
- How does Proverbs teach us about the contrast between diligence and laziness, and how does this shape a biblical understanding of work? Here are some related cross-references: Proverbs 6:6-11, 10:4-5, 12:24, 13:4, 15:19, 21:5, 24:30-34.
- How does the Hebrew concept of ḥokmah (wisdom) expand our view of skill and craftsmanship in the context of Proverbs?
Heart (Feelings, Impressions, Desires)
- Have your feelings about your job or daily responsibilities changed after hearing that work can be an outlet for love and worship? If so, how?
- Have you ever felt the tension between wanting your work to matter and feeling like it doesn’t? Explain.
Hands (Actions, Commitments, Decisions)
- What is one area of your current work life where you could commit to greater diligence as a form of worship to God? What specific skill can you commit to developing over the next season, and how will it serve others and glorify God?
- Are there any areas in your work life where you need to turn and re-commit to integrity? What is one step you can take this week to reflect God’s justice and righteousness more accurately?
