Deeper Reflection
GIVEN THAT AT LEAST 85% OF THE CHRISTIAN WORKFORCE spends 60-70% of their waking hours in the marketplace,¹⁹ most of our discipleship is carried out in our workplaces. There are two key principles for Christian workers and bosses: (1) Service to Christ; and (2) Accountability to Christ. Ultimately, they are serving the Lord (vv.6-7; Col 3:23-24) and will one day have to give a full accounting to Him for what they have done in their workplaces and how they have done them (vv.8-9; Col 3:25-4:1).In Colossians 3:23, the word “whatever” covers all possible contexts, such that no work is any more or any less significant in God’s eyes. In the work that we do, we are to work “heartily” – translated from the Greek phrase ex psyches, which means “from the soul”. This tells us that our work attitudes come from deep within us and as they manifest in our workplaces they make a tremendous difference in our influence on others.In their book, Your Work Matters to God, Sherman and Hendricks cast a vision of Christian disciples in the marketplace as “people who are known for their hard work, for the excellence of their effort, for their honesty and unswerving integrity, for their concern for the rights and welfare of people, for their compliance with laws, standards and policies, for the quality of their goods and services, for the quality of their character, for the discipline and sacrifice of their lifestyle, for putting work in its proper perspective, for their leadership among coworkers – in short, for their Christlikeness on and off the job”²⁰.

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¹⁹ https://www.theologyofbusiness.com/reasons-why-the-marketplace-is-a-great-place-for-christians/ (accessed 18 Apr 2022). Note that this statistic is given of the American context. It is likely that the working hours of Singaporean Christians would be longer. ²⁰ Doug Sherman & William Hendricks, Your Work Matters to God (NavPress, 1990).