Workaholism is an addiction that needs remedy, much like alcoholism. Its symptoms are clear: long hours getting longer, work priorities overriding family and church; no time for recreation (what’s that?!). Workaholics can’t even go on holidays without taking their ball-and-chain mobile phone or laptop. But what is the underlying disease? What drives workaholism?
Christians often don’t know what to do with the Old Testament. We know that Jesus has ‘fulfilled’, ‘abolished’ and ‘reinterpreted’ its teaching; but we also know that “all Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness“ (2 Tim 3:16). So how are the food laws in Leviticus going to train us in righteousness? What kind of rebuke do we get from the elaborate temple descriptions at the end of Ezekiel? Questions like these lead us to push the Old Testament aside. It’s just too obscure, we tell ourselves, and stick with more familiar literature such as the New Testament epistles. We sense a huge gap between the Old and New.
As evangelical Christians, we are keen to read the Bible for all its worth. We believe it is God’s word to us. We still sing, “God is speaking by his Spirit, speaking to the hearts of men, in the age-long word expounding, God’s own message now as then“.