If you are a Briefing subscriber, by now the June issue should have reached your mailbox. In these Saturday posts, we have been exploring the related topics of hell, judgement and the Sabbath. First we looked at why good people go to hell and bad people go to heaven. Then JI Packer explained why it is perilous to ignore Satan. Then Greg Clarke revealed who the antichrist is. Then we thought about the Sabbath in connection to the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. In this final Saturday post in this series, Joshua Ng unpacks the idea of that wonderful antithesis to hell: God's rest:

Workaholism is an addiction that needs remedy, much like alcoholism. Its symptoms are clear: long hours getting longer, work priorities overriding family and church; no time for recreation (what's that?!). Workaholics can't even go on holidays without taking their ball-and-chain mobile phone or laptop. But what is the underlying disease? What drives workaholism?

Is it not the seeking of approval from others, be they peers or the boss? A desire for success, or at least the avoidance of failure. Workaholics are their work. When asked at a party what they do, they answer by who they are: “I'm a doctor”, “I'm a lawyer”, “I'm an accountant”. If work fails, they themselves have failed as people. Their self-esteem, significance and self-worth are inextricably tied to their work.

Are you a workaholic?

“No”, you probably say—denial is common. In Alcoholics Anonymous, people often need to be convinced by listing out exactly how many drinks they actually have, and calculating the total over a week or even a day. What if you opened your diary, and counted honestly the number of hours you work per week? Is your pattern of life to work or study seven days a week? That is a common marker for workaholism: the inability to take a day off. There's a good chance your life is about work. It is work that gives you meaning in life.

The Fourth commandment reads:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Ex 20:8-11)

The Sabbath command makes it quite clear that there is a pattern of 6 + 1 ... all work is to be done on the six days, and the seventh is set apart as different, distinct, holy. “Holy” does not mean being dressed up in your Sunday best and sitting in quiet solemnity all day while your pagan friends are out watching movies, playing sport and enjoying themselves. In what sense is the seventh day “holy”? That is, how is it set apart and distinct from the other six days? Answer: no work! It is a ‘holy-day’ ... a ‘holiday‘.

But isn't it just an Old Testament Law that no longer applies today? Before we dismiss it off-handedly like that, we need to see the commandment in the context of both the Old and New Testaments. God's unfolding history from Creation to Heaven needs to be the framework in which we seek to live in obedience to him.

Read the full article online (3724 words).

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