Carpentry, Too, Is The Work Of God

Ordinarily when we think of the Spirit of God flowing through Jesus, we think of Christ raising someone from the dead, turning water into wine, or healing a blind beggar by the side of the road.

Yes, these are dramatic examples of the Kingdom “actualized,” the Good News "incarnated," and the Kingdom “come.” Clearly, they are examples of "the work of God."

But have you ever stopped to consider that Jesus spent the majority of His days on earth doing work as a carpenter/stonemason? (Some scholars think He may have done both carpentry and stonemason work. Perhaps He was a general contractor.)

So here’s the big question: Did the Kingdom "come” through Christ during His carpentry years, too? When Jesus did carpentry, was He doing the work of God?

By His own testimony, Jesus only did what His Father showed Him to do (John 5:19). Was this the case during seventeen years of doing carpentry work in the little town of Nazareth?

We don’t know much about the life of Christ during His carpentry/stonemason years. But we do know two things: Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" in Nazareth (Luke 2:52), and He spent about six times more time doing carpentry/stonemason work than He did itinerant preacher/teacher work.

It is significant that when Jesus is 30 years old, at His baptism, God the Father audibly proclaims: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:16-17).”

Think about this. Before Jesus heals a single person, or feeds 5,000, or preaches to multitudes, His Father is “well pleased” with Him.

The Father does not elaborate on what is so pleasing to Him. Certainly Christ’s character pleases Him. But I suspect He is also pleased with how Jesus spends His time and energy up to that point in life, reconciling carpentry with the will of His Father. For Jesus, carpentry, too, is the work of God.

Justin Martyr (2nd Century historian) claimed that plows made by Jesus were still in existence around the year 120 A.D. If so, Jesus must have done superior work.

But whether it was building houses or making plows, certainly Jesus found God's pleasure in His work, knowing He was doing what His Father showed Him to do: carpentry!

For me, this casts “the work of God” in refreshing light.