Royal Priests

In the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2:5-15, when Adam comes to the garden "to work it and care for it" we naturally assume the task of farming, tending the trees and plants, caring for the ecology of the garden.

The Hebrew word ‘abad’ in v.5 and 15 is a common word for agriculture and working a field, but in fact, it is more frequently used for the work of a priest.

We should actually think of Adam first and foremost as a priest, caring for the sacred grounds of God. This portrays Adam as God’s partner, maintaining order and keeping chaos at bay and sustaining the equilibrium that God had established in the cosmos, and cultivating the earth to bring out its rich potential as a display of the Creator’s wisdom and generosity. The farmer is actually a priest.

The implications of this picture are endless. It removes the artificial line between sacred and secular. Every kind of work, normal everyday, down-to-earth labor can be offered up to God as an act of worship. Farming, cutting hair, plumbing pipes, forecasting weather and writing software are expressions of our innate human creativity carried out for the glory of God. This perspective infuses our ordinary, mundane lives with the presence of God.

Martin Luther King Jr. grasped this clearly. He frequently told his audiences, “if it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.’”

Just as Jesus turned water into wine, so our mundane daily work can reflect the glory of God, and ordinary people become what Peter in the New Testament called ‘royal priests’ (1 Peter 2:9).

Image Sources:
Ugandan farmer - Jan Beniest - Creative Commons
Auto-mechanic - Single Solution NJ
Martin Luther King Jr. - The Judiciary Report