When I was working on my doctoral dissertation in 2020-2022, I began writing about organizations. My goal was to examine what the Bible has to say about organizations. One of my first hurdles was to define organizations.
When you think of an organization, what comes to your mind? I think about an organization as a large business. But in my doctoral classes, because I was in the organizational theology track, we spent time talking about a definition of organizations, and we concluded that an organization is “people working together.” Given that definition, you soon realize that there are lot of organizations.
Think about how many instances of “people working together” there are in the world. Families, neighbors, friend groups, religious groups, volunteer groups, non-profits, educational institutions, health agencies, governments, athletics, creatives, and of course businesses of all shapes and sizes. My guess is that you are probably a member (formally or informally) of at least a handful of organizations.
So I had to narrow my doctoral dissertation. I decided to focus on businesses (and ultimately changed that to togetherness). Most dissertations start with a literature review, which is a search for and reading of books and articles by people who have worked on the field of study one’s dissertation is related to. To study business, I got a whole bunch of books about the intersection of theology, the bible, and work.
Here are a few titles:
- Rituals For Work by Ozenc and Hagen
- Bring Your Human To Work by Keswin
- The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization by Senge
- Framing Organizations by Bolman and Deal
- Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work To God’s Work by Keller and Alsdorf
- Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship For The Common Good by Sherman
There are so many more books out there about this topic. If you’ve read one of the above, or a different one, what do you think? Do you have a favorite book on the intersection of work and biblical theology?
Whether you are an employed worker of some kind, whether you are retired, whether you are unemployed, or a student, we can all benefit greatly from attempting to think about our work from the perspective of biblical theology. To put it another way: What kind of workers does God want us to be?
This coming week on the blog, as we continue our study through 1st Thessalonians, Paul teaches Christians about how they should think about and perform their work. I think you’ll find what Paul says to be very meaningful, no matter your station in life. Are you working like God wants you to?
Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 