Work. When you say that word, you invoke a lot more than a realm of human endeavor. When you say work or labor, you’re bringing in a very important biblical category. And work is central to the assignment given to human beings. And one of the things we need to remember is that in the timeline of biblical history and the unfolding of biblical theology, work is not a condemnation or a punishment after the Fall, after sin. Work is there in the garden. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and exercise dominion. There was going to be work in the garden. However, that work is transformed into labor, the sweat of a man’s brow just in terms of the curse after Adam and Eve had sinned.

And here’s where we need to recognize that work, labor, both have a very important place in a biblical worldview. And one of the things we come to understand is that if you have someone who should be working who isn’t and instead is idle, well, there are biblical words for this. There are very clear condemnations of this. He who will not work, let him not eat. There are very strong exhortations towards labor and not just for personal income and personal gain or even just to personally support your family, although that is very important. That’s non-negotiable. It’s also because it is a part of what it means to be made in the image of God. It is a part of what it means to help a society to flourish. It is what, in the larger context, helped to build an economy in which you can have the conditions for human flourishing.

So why are we talking about it today? We’re talking about it because for many, many Americans, and that includes for many American men, work is no longer part of the equation. And the numbers actually are pretty staggering. Jason L. Riley, columnist at The Wall Street Journal, just days ago ran an article with a headline, “American Idle” that’s I D-L-E, “The Work Ethic Goes Out of Style.” The subhead, “One in three working age American men aren’t so much as looking for a job.”

Okay, here’s something about the unemployment statistics, as maintained by the US government, you need to keep in mind. When you are told that unemployment is X, so I’ll just make up a number, say 5%, that doesn’t include every person who should be working. And in particular, you look at men, it doesn’t include all the men who should be working. Instead, those who have timed out in terms of no longer looking for work, they’re not even in the numbers.

So when you look at an unemployment figure, and I’ll just say for this situation, let’s break it out, male unemployment and female unemployment. Let’s just talk right now about the male unemployment, that’s the biggest part of the picture. And for Christians, we understand why we have to start there. The male unemployment figures issued by the government don’t even include millions of men who for some time now have not been looking for work. They’re just out of the entire picture, but of course they’re not out of the situation of not being employed.

So Jason Riley puts it this way. He says that he read last month’s job report, “which showed that the share of American men in the labor force has dipped to record lows. According to the Department of Labor, one in three men were neither working or looking for a job in April. Among males 20 and older, the 66% labor force participation rate is down from 73% in 2006.” He goes on to say later, “The premature absence of millions of able-bodied men from our workforce, combined with the continuing retirement of baby boomers and significant reductions in immigration bodes ill for the country. A life without gainful employment has become a viable alternative for an increasing number of American males.” That’s a shocking statement. I mean, repeat it, that last line, “A life without gainful employment has become a viable alternative for an increasing number of American males.”

Now, I think just about anyone concerned for the health and vitality of American society has to be worried about this because this is not just about workforce participation. It’s not just about employment. It’s not just about the economy. It is about something more fundamental and that is personal character and the work ethic that either does or does not shape a civilization. If you have one out of three able-bodied men, in other words, they are physically qualified to work and they’re no longer either employed or even looking for a job, you are looking at a social and cultural disaster. And I think as Christians, we understand you’re looking at a huge theological problem as well.

And you now have this article running in the Wall Street Journal, Jason Riley’s concern is moral as well as economic, but you know what? The first impact that’s going to show up, and you can quantify this, is going to be economic. He goes on to say, “The long-term rise in male joblessness doesn’t stem from an inability to find employment. It results instead from an unwillingness to search for work. And while labor force participation rates vary by race and ethnicity, factors other than hiring discrimination seem to be playing a larger role in the disparities.” So there are some disparities group by group, but the point is it’s a larger pattern and it affects the entire civilization, the entire society.

He goes on to say he thinks the culprit, “is a social safety net full of generous government benefits that allow men who won’t work to subsist.” And I think he has to be right. I think he has to be right because if you look at the consequences of not working throughout most of human history, it means you get pretty hungry pretty fast. You have a hard time knowing where you’re going to sleep pretty fast. And we are talking about a third of American men not working and they’re not all in a situation of obvious immediate need. That means many of them are indeed just depending on the government social safety net, which Mr. Riley is right, is full of generous government benefits that allow men who don’t work to subsist. Now, not to thrive, but to subsist.

And this is another big issue. It’s just a reminder to us that according to the biblical worldview, there is a moral tie between, number one, being made in the image of God as human beings and given the responsibility for dominion, it’s translated into work, but there is also a dignity in work that is lacking to those who are not working, or at least willfully not working. There are those who cannot work. There are those who have aged out of the workforce. But that’s not what this report’s about. This report is about those who could be working, they’re able-bodied, they should be working, but they’re not.

And this is where Christians understand this isn’t just an economic problem, it’s not just a political problem. It is a moral problem. And it’s just a good time for us to remember Labor Day is still a way off and unfortunately a lot of Americans, including American Christians, don’t think about these issues in biblical or theological terms unless all of a sudden they have to. I think this is one of these headlines that reminds us.

And by the way, this means parents and Christian parents in particular have to really think about raising their sons to work, to have a work ethic. Now, of course, that’s not just sons. You also have sons and daughters because after all, let me just say classically, when you have a husband and a wife, both of them are going to have to extend and expend labor. And even in a home in which the mom is at home, she is very much working and that’s dignified, God-honoring work. But the distinction here is between those who are working and those who are willfully, and I would say even rebelliously, idle.

There’s another issue that comes up in this article where we are told that in Britain, “Nearly half of Britain’s idle youth now claim to have a work-limiting disability.” That was also reported in the Wall Street Journal about the workforce problems in Britain, and that came from a report by Britain’s labor health secretary, Alan Milburn. Just think about that, nearly half of Britain’s idle youth claimed to have a work-limiting disability. And you’ll notice how this definition of disability has now become basically a cultural rationale for people saying, “I’m not going to work, so take care of me. I’ll live off the taxpayer.”

Clearly, there are men who cannot work. That’s a different issue. They’re not even in these numbers. All of these numbers have to do only with those who could physically be working but are not.

There’s another aspect to work that comes up in recent headlines and this is one that should have the attention of a lot of Christians and Christian parents in particular. This particular summer, the outlook for teen employment is significantly down from where it was just a matter of a few years ago. And thus, USA Today runs a front page article on Wednesday of this week, “Teen Summer Job Outlook is Gloomy.” Now, in journalism speak, gloomy here is to get your attention. It’s not necessarily dismal, but it is statistically important that the numbers have gone down significantly from where they were just a matter of a few years ago. So the rate in terms of teenagers that had some kind of job in the summer, it was as high as nearly 50% in the 1970s and the ’80s. Now it’s down to about 33.8%.

Okay, so this article notes that there are two big issues here. One of them is supply, the other’s demand. Okay, so in terms of supply, you do have a recalibration of many corporations that once employed a lot of teenagers and they’re not so much right now. By the way, it turns out that one of the big issues of stable employment for teenagers is serving as a lifeguard. It turns out that there’s a big need for lifeguards, teenagers who are certified, of course, and well-trained. They are in a unique position to find employment. But in terms of many other areas, including businesses, it just turns out that they are looking to other ways to handle their labor challenges and they’re just not hiring that many teenagers. And that really means a lot of teenagers are robbed of the opportunity to have that early work experience in a summer job.

But the demand side’s the other thing. In other words, there are also millions of teenagers who are now not looking for a job. And some of them, we’re going back to being idle, that that’s no doubt a part of the picture for some. But the other big thing here is the involvement of so many teenagers in a heavy calendar of activities that have nothing to do with a job during the summer. And this is where sporting leagues and so many other things have now entered into the normal experience of many American adolescents. It just is something that parents ought to think about. That does mean they’re doing that rather than something else and that something else might be a job in which at least there was the opportunity for that young person to gain some very valuable workplace experience.

I’ll tell you, just in terms of summer employment, we all go places where there are lots of teenagers working. I always find that very interesting because you can almost see even then, just looking at these young people working, that one’s a hard worker. This one, not so much. This one really comes alive when talking to a customer. That one, not so much. There is an opportunity for those who love these young people and those who employ them to intervene at that point and say, “You know, here’s actually how you do this.” That can be a life changing experience for a young person. I think the fact that so many young people are not going to have that experience, let’s just say it’s put in the category of bad news.

Okay, now let’s turn to questions. And as always, I appreciate the questions sent in. Just write me mail@albertmohler.com. A very, very sweet parent wrote in about a six-year-old boy. Now, I don’t know if this is a mom or a dad and I don’t want to say the child’s name just for privacy’s sake, but here is the question. This boy has achondroplasia, “The most common type of dwarfism. He’s much smaller than his peers and is expected to be about 4’1″ tall as an adult.” The six-year-old boy asked the mom or dad, “Will I be tall in heaven?” Isn’t that a sweet question? You hear the yearning and the concern in a little boy’s voice and the love in asking a parent that question.

So this has to be the mom I see now in this paragraph. “We have talked a lot about how God made Luca in my tummy just the way God wanted him to be. While having a disability has been challenging at times, it’s also given us opportunities to find joy and grace in places we would never have expected. In fact, my gut reaction to his question was, I hope not because it has turned out to be such a blessing.”

Okay, but this mom, and I now realize that as a mom asked this question so sweetly, passes along the question from her little boy, “Will I be tall in heaven?” And let me just say, based upon everything I know from Scripture, in trying to put together biblical theology and come up with an adequate, honest answer to your question, I want to say that I don’t know if Luca will be tall in heaven. Assuming he comes to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and is redeemed and united to Christ, here’s what I do know. Here’s what I do know. In heaven, he will be perfect. In the kingdom of heaven, he will be absolutely perfect. He will be not only perfect, he will be glorified. That is the promise of the Gospel.

And I don’t know exactly because Scripture doesn’t tell us exactly what that means in terms of how tall or not or anything. It just tells us that all things will be well and all things will be perfected, glorified to the glory of God. I just have to assume that we are not meant to know all the details of what that means, partly because not being glorified, we wouldn’t have a way to understand it anyway. Instead, we are just promised that what Christ has accomplished, and will bring to completion on that day, for the redeemed is absolute glorification. And that means that all things will be well and all will be, just to say in human terms, perfect, perfectly well. And I think that is such a sweet promise to all of us, by the way. And in particular to this little six-year-old boy, may God bless him and may God bless his Christian parents for this concern. And you know what? I think all of us have to look for that day, as we are in Christ, for what will be an absolute moment of God’s glory displayed. And we do not yet know what that might be. On that day, being glorified, we will know.

Okay. Just recently on The Briefing, we talked about a case coming from a state in which the Supreme Court of the United States had handed down a directive saying that the case had to be sent back to the state. And the big concern here was the fact that a jury had been basically kept clear of African American members. It was an African American defendant and there was a very clear, and by the way, pretty much acknowledged, it was right there in the data, agenda on the part of the prosecutor to keep African Americans off the jury. And thus, the majority in the US Supreme Court said that that violated the constitutional protection of defendants having a jury of their peers.

And I mentioned that and I said, you know that’s just a very clear issue in which you see that someone says out loud, ‘I’m trying to prevent African Americans being on the jury when there’s an African American defendant,’ and that’s what’s wrong. In other words, yes, there are people saying, “Well, does this lead to some form of identity politics?” Well, identity is still a thing. Identity politics is to be resisted and rejected. So there’s a different thing in which someone’s just saying, “This isn’t the way I want it, or this isn’t optimal.” When you have someone deliberately saying that there’s an effort to not allow African Americans to sit on a jury with an African American defendant, that’s something very different.

Okay, so one listener wrote in saying that listening to the program, a question came to her mind. She said, “Does this mean that if one day, God forbid or God willing, I end up on trial if there’s a concerted effort on my opposing side to not have Christians in the jury, can I argue that I was denied a jury of my peers?” Well, I think if there was a concerted effort to prevent Christians from serving on the jury when you are on trial, yes, I think that is or should be a basis for an appeal because that is not just. And by the way, I think most Americans would recognize that trying to screen out Christians from a jury with a Christian defendant, that that would be wrong. I’m not a lawyer, I don’t pose as a lawyer, but I’ll just say in moral terms that that, virtually by definition, would be wrong. Whether that would be a successful argument in court, I don’t know.

Okay. A brilliant question from a 14-year-old young woman, “My question is about modern Christian music. What do you think about listening to Christian music and Christian artists that seem very musically talented? And the songs are catchy, but the lyrics are not always centered on the Lord. Sometimes they seem to be giving more attention or even glory to the singer. How do you recommend young people make wise decisions about music?” What a wonderful question. By the way, the young woman who sent me this question also tells me that her older sister will be attending Boyce College this fall and I am very, very pleased to know that.

All right, so what about music? Well, number one, this is a sensitive and I think a very wise question coming from a young person. It’s the kind of question all of us should be asking as believers. Sometimes we understand that there is a good thing that is given to us in creation that can be used in a bad way. So music is one of those things. A song can tell the truth or a song can lie. A song can glorify God or it could rob God of his glory. Even among those who would say they’re involved in Christian music, well, some of it honestly is far more glorifying to God in biblical terms than others. Some of it is lacking a lot of theological content.

Some of it, however, is very musically catchy. And I’ll tell you, this is one of the problems in contemporary worship in many churches where some of the songs that people like to sing unfortunately are not accompanied by words that are, I’ll say, equal to the music. And then there are problems. In some cases, the problem is there’s just not much there. I do see that as a big problem. In other situations, there are things that I think are just theologically and doctrinally, biblically not helpful and some cases worse.

All right, this is a 14-year-old asking me the question about modern Christian music. I would say lean into beauty, lean into doctrine, lean into biblical content. That doesn’t mean that there is not other music that gets our attention. And I’ll be honest, I think there are some Christians who are very worried about music and thus they see it as a great zone of temptation. It can be that. It is also true that when you’re looking at music, it’s really hard to have a set of hard and fast rules because in many cases, those rules turn out to be absolutely arbitrary.

But I want to say to this young woman, again, she’s 14 years old and I’m thrilled by her question because I want to say to her, the very fact you ask the question as well as you ask it means that you’re already light years ahead in thinking this through. And I would say, lean into the music you know will most glorify God. And I just think positively, that’s the best thing I can say. Lean into the music that will most glorify God and which brings the most wholesome, biblical, righteous thoughts to your heart. And understand that music sometimes, and I mean this is something that dictators have taken advantage of, music can sometimes get into our minds. Some people call it a brainworm, it’s just in there and there are some tunes that certainly have our minds. And yet, if we have a choice and we’re listening and choosing what we listen to, I would say lean into truth and goodness and beauty.

All right, a similar question coming from a young man and this is about hymns and how churches should decide which hymns are sung. I will tell you, my wife and I noted that in our incredibly biblical, faithful church we sang on a recent Sunday two hymns and I will say classic hymns that in terms of the author or the composer, there were some issues. What there was not an issue about is the words that we were singing. In other words, the song, if you just looked at the text, it’s absolutely I think not only Orthodox, but incredibly biblical and incredibly hopeful, healthy.

Okay, so you look at that and if you know some of these things, well, you do know them. Of course, a lot of the people singing them, I’d say the vast majority of people singing don’t know them. And this is where I think it’s good for Christians to know that if you take the objective reality of a song, it’s not wrong to sing that song, even if the writer of that song, such as Horatio Spafford, that’s the example that it’s in this question. The great hymn, It Is Well With My Soul. Let me just say that years after he wrote that hymn, which is written out of the unbelievable grief of losing his daughters, all of them in a shipwreck. And as you look at that hymn, it is one of my favorite hymns. I just want to tell you right up front, It Is Well With My Soul is one of my favorite hymns. And there are times when I need the comfort of that hymn. There are times when I just exalt as a congregation declares the truths in that hymn. By God’s grace, it is well with my soul. And thus that’s what I’m thinking of. I do know, back in the recesses of my mind, that the writer of the words of that hymn ended up in a very not healthy place theologically, but you know what? It doesn’t change the truth of what is written in those words.

This gets back to one other thing I just want to say. When we look at song, it’s true of much of life. It’s true of all of art. There is an objective and a subjective dimension. The objective dimension is what is it? For instance, in the words of a hymn, what does it say? What doctrine is there? What truths does it proclaim? Or to the contrary, what kind of errors does it contain? But when you look at the objective reality, that’s the first and most important thing.

The second thing is the subjective experience. And the fact is that I have been in so many situations where a wonderful gospel congregation has sung the hymn It Is Well With My Soul and I just believe in the context of Christian worship, it has been an experience that has glorified God and edified the congregation. So I’m just going to say for that, I’m very thankful.

But I’m going to say to the young man who wrote this question, just like I said to the young woman who wrote before, I think it’s really good that you asked the question the way you did, and that tells me you’re already thinking in these terms. And you know what? If I find Christians thinking in these terms, that just makes me very happy.

Okay. A very personal question coming from an older man. He says, “I have a deep desire to be with Christ in heaven where there is no more death, sorrow, crying, and pain. Yet when I talk about this with some close to me, they wonder if I’m okay. I do not feel depressed about life and enjoy many aspects of life. However, as a middle-aged married father, life is an absolute grind many days. Similar to the words of my grandparents before they saw Jesus face to face, I feel a deep desire to go home. Is this feeling healthy and Christ-exalting?”

Okay. Well, that’s a very honest question. Let me just tell you pastorally and theologically, biblically, what I think. I think that by the very way you describe your situation asking this question, you acknowledge that God has worked for you to do right here, right now. You mention marriage, parenting, and then you say marriage, parenting, work. Oh, my. Yeah. Oh, my. Some days all of that can add up, but the fact is that your vocation, your calling of God is made very clear in those responsibilities and in that charge. And I hope and pray that as a believer, you’ll be greatly encouraged in that.

And just understand that when you say grind, it is really important to recognize many saints throughout the history of the Christian church have recognized that the grind is often a greater theological challenge than some kind of just, say, acute situation might be that will pass. The grind does make us yearn for eternity, but the grind also reminds us that we have a job to do in this life. And of course, that’s defined, at least in large part, by the very issues that are articulated in this question.

So you feel a deep desire to go home? Is this feeling healthy and Christ-exalting? Well, in essence, yes, it is good, healthy and can be very Christ-exalting to look forward to being with Jesus. But we also need to pray the Lord will leave us where we are long enough to do what we are needful to do. And that’s true too and be employed, and I mean that in the full biblical sense, to God’s glory in every arena of life. And just we need to pray that we’ll be faithful in all of those things until Jesus calls us home. So we are yearning for eternity, but here’s the other side of that. Right now we are yearning for eternity, as we live out what we hope and pray is faithfulness in this earthly walk, in all that is assigned to us.

One last though on that, I think it’s important for all of us to recognize that sometimes even what we think of as the grind, and I know just the way this is written that this is a husband and a father who finds great joy in both as well, but sometimes we need to recognize the grind as it is experienced, maybe even at work or with other responsibilities, is a part of how God is bringing about sanctification in our lives right here, right now, preparing us for eternity. I think that’s good for Christians to think about as well.