Jesus is More (But Not Less) than a Carpenter

“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him” (Mark 6:3).

Tom Nelson writes,

“As I slowly pondered these words, I began to reflect on the significance of Jesus spending so much of his time on earth working with his hands in a carpentry shop. Here was the Son of God sent to earth on a redemptive mission of seeking and saving the lost, of proclaiming the gospel, yet he spent the vast majority of his years on earth making things in an obscure carpentry shop.”

Tom Nelson is senior pastor of Christ Community Church (EFCA) in Leawood, Kansas, President of Made to Flourish (a network geared to equip pastors with a more integral connection between Sunday faith and Monday work), and Council member with The Gospel Coalition.

Tom goes on with an amazing insight:

“Several years ago I remember reading a fine book that was winsomely titled More Than a Carpenter. In this book, the author points out a great deal of convincing evidence that supports the deity of Jesus. This is essential to understanding the person and work of Jesus. Yet in no way should we conclude that because Jesus was more than a carpenter, his vocational calling to work as a carpenter was somehow less than important. Clearly the Son of God was much more, but not less, than a carpenter. This incarnational pattern of Jesus’s earthly life speaks volumes about the importance of our day-to-day vocational work.”

Jesus worked. And it was good.

Tom says,

“Think about it for a moment. The very One who was the master craftsman of the universe spent a great deal of time during his 33 years on earth crafting things with his hands. The One who had masterfully fashioned humans from the dust of the earth was making chairs for people to sit on in their houses. No doubt Jesus had strong, well-worn, callused hands. It is all too easy for us to overlook the fact that Jesus knew what it meant to get up and go to work every day. Jesus experienced both the exhilaration and exhaustion of putting in a hard day’s work. Jesus faced work and a workplace profoundly affected by sin. I am sure Jesus dealt with difficult and demanding people in the workplace who complained about this and that.”

How Do You View the Incarnation?

We have a tendency to downplay the incarnation. I am one who, in my pastoral ministry, had repeated the refrain, “Jesus was born in order to die.”

While the ultimate purpose for Jesus’s incarnation was to die and then raise from the dead for our redemption and justification, there is a whole lot more to the incarnation than that.

Jesus lived as a human. This means (of course!) that he worked. This means (of course!) that being a carpenter is not less than other callings in our experience. Jesus did this for years and years! This is another grand lesson from the incarnation.

For the full article from Tom Nelson, check it out at The Gospel Coalition website.

Image by Michael Coghlan. Used with permission. Sourced via Flickr.