Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to Greece, and while there, a brother told me a story. It was a story I had heard before, but told in a new way. I would like to share it with you, dear readers, that my brother’s gift might go forward to others. To him, gratitude, and to God, all glory. Our story starts in a hole, a small hole on a hillside near the Aegean Sea. The hole is so small in places that one must inch forward completely prone with a rope tied around one ankle as the only means of getting back out. It is dark, it is tight, there is little or no fresh air, and the work is brutally hard. The workers are mostly slaves; their life expectancy is measured in days and weeks. Their difficult task was to mine silver and lead from the hills of Attica. Being slaves, the workers had little reward for their labor. They subsisted, and sometimes enjoyed the entertainment of the theatre. Yet in the confines of the mine, with its ever-present dangers, toiling away against the rock, despair must have loomed large in their hearts and minds. What good came from this work? What were they accomplishing? Surely, they were wasting their lives for no reason save another man’s gain. Perhaps there were other places they could have been, gifts they could have used. Perhaps they could have done great things, but instead, they were in the dark, dirty mines, risking their lives. Take some time to try and imagine what it would be like to live such a life day after day.
Ephesians 2:10 Meaning
Now, the time came when Greece was under attack from the Persians. Athens, the leading city of Attica, was sacked. Everything seemed lost, but out at sea, a man named Themistocles had built a wall of wood, a mighty fleet with which he attacked the Persian fleet, and vanquished it. Without a fleet to secure their supply line, and in danger of being cut off from their homeland, the Persians were forced to retreat: you can read more about this in Herodotus.
Where did Themistocles get the funds to build his wooden wall fleet? The silver came from the mines of Attica, and the lead used in the construction also came from the mines. The worker toiling in dangerous darkness was essential to the victory that historians say forever altered the course of Western Civilization.
The Kingdom is like this: we may toil in darkness, in difficult conditions, doing what seems trite, and never seeing how our contribution pays off. Nevertheless, God uses our work to accomplish His glorious ends. As my brother put it, “Ministry is like mining.” Be encouraged today that God uses what is weak and foolish in this world. What you are doing matters. He loves us too much to waste us, even if our deceitful feelings tell us we are being wasted.
You see, we are Christ’s workmanship, created by Him to do work that He prepared for us. It is all by God’s design. The miner extracting silver and lead is just as necessary for the story as Themistocles is. We judge merit by sight, but there is a more excellent standard.
The story of the mine helps us when life seems altogether wasteful. I would tell you another story, a personal one, to reinforce the point. It is a very important point, you see, because we must not grow weary in doing good. Even when we do not see the goodness of what we do.
I can remember a season of life when I volunteered my time with a local church doing odd tasks for the pastor as I looked for a place of full-time ministry employment. With no real income, I was living with my family and assisting with the chores on the farm. I remember praying one evening as I threw out corn to the chicken, “Lord, you gave me all this education, I have this wonderful degree from a leading seminary, and here I am feeding a bunch of birds! I want to do great things for you. I want to build up churches, revive people’s faith, and teach the world about your glory!”
I went on for a few minutes, till I recalled what the Scriptures say about the Potter and the clay. It was like God said to me, “Son, right now you need to be quiet and feed these chickens.”
Feeding chickens was not my calling in life, but it was my calling in the moment. Farming was not my vocation any more than merchandising is, but both avocations have shaped me for my vocation. Sometimes our labor is accomplishing something beyond ourselves, and sometimes it accomplishes something in ourselves. I think many times it does both.
The key to contentment, the secret Paul speaks of in Philippians 4:11-13, is to trust God: “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
That is easy to write, and hard to learn. It is simple to understand, but difficult to live. God Himself will help you to learn it and to live it. For that is the beginning of all wisdom, and James tells us that God gives wisdom generously to all who ask for it.
Two stories have been told here. The first is a well-known historical account. It is very doubtful that anyone in this story knew God, and yet a man who did know God could find in the historical account an illustration of Biblical teaching. The second story was a minor episode from my own life. There is nothing especially remarkable about it, yet it also illustrates Biblical truth.
The grain of God’s design is found in history, great and small. The stories you know can point towards the story of redemption. Yes, even the minor episodes of our lives, when interpreted through the lens of Scripture, can be instructive. God doesn’t write junk.
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