Tentmakers
Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla (because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome); and he came to them. So, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked; for by occupation they were tentmakers. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded both Jews and Greeks (Acts 18:1-4).
When I was very young, Friday evenings were the most exciting time for me. It was when my father sat in his chair, where we were never allowed to sit, and he would line up all his children and give each one of us our pocket money. The speed at which I got from my home to the corner shop to buy sweets would have challenged the world’s greatest sprinters. I never once thought about what my pocket money cost. One day very, very early in the morning, my father took me to where he worked as a baker. I remember he sat me on a bench and I watched him mix the dough in big machines and slide loaves of bread into vast ovens. It was the day I learnt where the burns on his forearms came from, as he caught them on the oven sides, pushing the bread into the heat.
That experience taught me about my relationship with my Father in heaven. Even as mature Christians, we often think of God only as a provider. Of course, He is a provider. Every material and spiritual blessing comes from His gracious heart and hand. But, like Moses on Mount Nebo, He wants to take us up and show us the wonders of His work of grace. He wants us to enter into all that He has done and will do in Christ. He wants us to know Him.
We were made to work. Adam was a gardener, Jacob a shepherd, Ruth a farmworker and Esther a queen. There is a dignity about the work God gives us to do. We see this in Paul as he worked with his friends, Aquila and Priscilla, as a tentmaker in Corinth. There is a seamlessness between his manual work and his ministry in the synagogue. He told the Ephesians elders in Acts 20 he had not shunned to declare to them the whole counsel of God (verse 27). Then he added, “Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities, and for those who were with me” (verse 34). The Lord Jesus worked as a carpenter – and from the cross, He ensures John cares for His mother, Mary.
So often we compartmentalize our lives. God sees them as a whole. It was as Adam worked in the garden of Eden that God came down. Enoch walked with God throughout the day. David learned communion with God as a shepherd. Ruth learned to trust God on a farm. Even today, in Christian service, we speak of tentmaking as a means to an end. God doesn’t separate out our lives or treat our secular work as secondary. The Lord Jesus was never ashamed to be called the son of the carpenter or indeed the carpenter. It was as such that He manifested the majesty of the love and grace of God. And God seeks to witness to that same love and grace that He has poured into our hearts through the work He has given us to do.
“And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Colossians 3:17).
