Work & Worship
The common designation of our acts of devotion is called worship, but the anthropologists usually employ the more technical term, "cultus." For purposes of parallelism and symmetry the term is here employed as the counterpart of culture. Our Reformed Fathers, who employed the Latin, made their motto, ora et labora (pray and work), while we usually speak of worship and work, to divide the activities of life. Sunday is set aside for worship, both individually and collectively; but "six days shalt thou labor and do all they work!"
The Liberals of the past mouthed a good deal of superficial nonsense when they, on the basis of Carlyle's "work is worship," concluded that worship is superfluous in true religion, that it was simply an imposition of priestly legalism. No one would deny, of course, that the way one works reveals his religion, perhaps more truly than the way he talks about it. But Scripture leaves no room for the idea that worship is not well-pleasing unto the Lord. Citing the Bible on that point is superfluous.
Let the reader remember the Psalms of David, the devotions of Jesus and his apostles and, lastly, the worship of the redeemed in heaven. To say that God, the Lord, does not demand worship of his creature, but only service is altogether contrary to the Scriptures and the spirit of religion. Religion, then, has these two aspects, indeed not mutually exclusive inasmuch as one may well pray and sing while working with his hands. Nevertheless, there are two distinguishable activities rooting in religion: cultus and culture, worship and work, ora et labora, aspiration and perspiration. And not only must our aspiration be under the inspiration of the Spirit, but also our perspiration; every ounce of expended energy, whether physical or mental, must be in the service of God, hence inspired.
This is the essence of true religion; faith must inform one's whole being. To restrict religion either to acts of worship, or to deeds of service, is to break asunder what God hath joined together; for God, the Lord, demands both worship and work; religion consists of cultus and culture.
—Henry R. Van Til
The Calvinistic Concept of Culture
Baker Academic, 1959
