Pearcey on Integrating Worldview

Amongst other things, firstly we need to understand that we have a clear command to shape and order culture from God’s command in Genesis 1 to “be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue and have dominion over it”, and secondly that our work is not some curse, to make our lives painful and sad, but rather a good thing created by God for our benefit.

So how do we re-integrate our lives and understand our work from a biblical point of view? Nancy Pearcey in her book “Total truth” has developed a model of analysing our work (or any aspect of life) through the frames of Creation, Fall and Redemption.
• Creation. How did God originally create things to be?
• Fall. How has sin corrupted how things are?
• Redemption. How can things be redeemed back to reflect better how God originally intended them to be?

In the workshop of the Gospel and Work Seminar (Leeds:2010), people gathered in work types and asked the following questions.
• What aspects of my job reflect the way that God originally created things to be?
• How has my job been distorted and corrupted by the fall?
• What can I uniquely do to redeem my work place back to something that God originally intended things to be like?

John Murray on Redemption

“Redemption accomplished” is Jesus being our “double cure” who saves us from the wrath of God and makes us pure before God. As our substitute, Jesus died the death we should have died for breaking God’s law, and he fulfilled the law on our behalf. His righteousness is given to us as if we had fulfilled the law. That is redemption accomplished.
“Redemption applied” is the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and this ministry is “missional.” The Spirit continues and expands the ministry of Jesus. The Gospels are accounts of Jesus’ ministry through the power of the Spirit. At age 30, Jesus was baptized by John, and the Holy Spirit came down upon him and anointed him for his ministry. The book of Acts is the extension of Jesus’ ministry through earlier believers. After Jesus’ resurrection and just before his ascension, Jesus said to his disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).