Every Good Endeavor
As of late, the topic of work is unavoidable. The topic du-jour is the 9-9-6 culture championed by young founders at AI startups in San Francisco citing "this isn't for everyone," and the outsized impact of doing your life's work six days a week for 12 hours at a time. As a follower of Jesus, it's easy to dissociate and write it off as people being misguided by the things of this world. Yet, the late Timothy Keller would want to challenge us to hold the tension without dismissing it cheaply. I’ll walk through three big ideas, drawing on excerpts from Timothy Keller’s Every Good Endeavor.
Co-Creating with God
God is a creator, and when he created this earth and us in it, he charged man to subdue and fill it. As God's image bearers we are to continue the work he has left off.
When we take fabric and make a piece of clothing, when we push a broom and clean up a room, when we use technology to harness the forces of electricity, when we take an unformed, naïve human mind and teach it a subject, when we teach a couple how to resolve their relational disputes, when we take simple materials and turn them into a poignant work of art—we are continuing God’s work of forming, filling, and subduing. Whenever we bring order out of chaos, whenever we draw out creative potential, whenever we elaborate and “unfold” creation beyond where it was when we found it, we are following God’s pattern of creative cultural development.
Rather than disengaging from popular culture or retreating behind a false divide between the sacred and the secular—treating work as merely a means to an end—we are called to leave the world better than we found it. This becomes even clearer in Revelation, where the New Jerusalem is not an escape from earth, but something brought down to it
Work as Service
Work at its core is an act of serving others. A very fundamental Christian concept articulated well by successful non-Christian entrepreneuers. Take Jeff Bezos' shareholder letter, “We’re not competitor obsessed, we’re customer obsessed.” It shouldn’t come as a surprise that when God assigns skills through common grace for the purpose of serving others—and we are obedient—good outcomes follow. Nor should we be surprised that God expects us to use our talents and abilities to love our neighbor in concrete ways.
Tim uses Paul's story to drive this point home:
Elsewhere, Paul has spoken of God calling people into a saving relationship with him, and assigning them spiritual gifts to do ministry and build up the Christian community (Romans 12:3 and 2 Corinthians 10:13). Paul uses these same two words here when he says that every Christian should remain in the work God has “assigned to him, and to which God has called him.” Yet Paul is not referring in this case to church ministries, but to common social and economic tasks—“secular jobs,” we might say—and naming them God’s callings and assignments. The implication is clear: Just as God equips Christians for building up the Body of Christ, so he also equips all people with talents and gifts for various kinds of work, for the purpose of building up the human community.
The Limits of All Work
In the creation story of Genesis, God works for 6 days and rests on the 7th. Ironically, founding teams in San Francisco would appear to be legalistic Christians by following suit zealously. Scott Wu of Cognition puts it bluntly: "We don’t believe in work-life balance—building the future of software engineering is a mission we all care so deeply about that we couldn’t possibly separate the two" as he asks his employees to commit to 6 days in office and 80 hour work weeks.
Tim frames this issue as a matter of heart:
We look to what we know about God to make this case. He did not need any restoration of his strength—and yet he rested on the seventh day (Genesis 2:1–3). As beings made in his image, then we can assume that rest, and the things you do as you rest, are good and life-giving in and of themselves. Work is not all there is to life. You will not have a meaningful life without work, but you cannot say that your work is the meaning of your life.
Holding Tensions Without Cheap answers
The problem with the 9-9-6 conversation is not simply that it demands too much, nor that it attracts the wrong kind of people. The deeper issue is what work is being asked to carry. When work becomes identity, salvation, and meaning all at once, rest feels like betrayal.
Christian faith offers a different way forward.
Because God is the ultimate creator, we are freed to create without believing we have to solve every problem. Because our work is meant to serve others, excellence matters—but ego does not. Because God rests, we are reminded that the world continues without us.
The call, then, is not to escape the world, nor to burn ourselves out trying to save it. It is to engage faithfully; working hard to better human life, while ensuring work does not become an idol.