Genesis and Human Work

It's interesting that we usually associate the "work" that Adam (and all humans after him) have to do with the curse of the Fall in Genesis 3:17-19.

Genesis 3:17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

But today I was reading earlier in Genesis and noted this verse:

Genesis 2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

So mankind was tasked to work even before the Fall. Adam was a gardener. It was at the Fall that the ground was "cursed" and our work became a source of pain and toil. But work, as such, did not originate with the Fall.

A commentator I was reading said it this way, "Work is basic to humans, and we generally are happier when we have tasks to perform." I think this is probably right. While work is often hard and sometimes we hate it, at the same time, it's often fulfilling. When we don't have any work to do, we get bored, lazy, and idle.

The Apostle Paul says it this way:

1 Thessalonians 4:11 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

So, in the final analysis, work is good for us. It's God-given and God-ordained. Sin in the world has made work hard and often the object of our scorn, but we should not avoid it. Rather we should make the best of it and use it for His glory ("to win the respect of outsiders").