In his new book “Work Matters: Lessons from Scripture” R. Paul Stevens takes us along a journey through the Old and New Testaments exploring the theological meaning of every sort and type of work. The author R. Paul Stevens is professor emeritus of marketplace theology and leadership at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia, and a marketplace ministry mentor.

This marketplace theologian takes the reader through more than twenty biblical accounts of some of the character profiles in the bible and brings out the purpose of their work and how it fits into God’s plan for the world. Out of all the delightful stories in this book one of the many worth commenting on is that of Joseph. His account in the scriptures reads like a modern day soap opera. We see Joseph begins his career as a shepherd following in the footsteps of his father. Then Joseph after being sold by his brothers into slavery ends up in Egypt with a new job working as a slave in house of Potifphar. Then finally Joseph is elevated to the highs position in the land right under the pharaoh and this is where he finds his calling and final vocation. He is trusted with the task of caretaker of all of Egypt’s produce in order to be able to survive the foreseen famine that was to come to Egypt.

But his vocation served to not just protect Egypt but a people and not just any people God’s chosen people. His family being the sons of Jacob and the people of Israel would be care for by his vocation in Egypt. In this R. Paul Stevens reminds us that God is first constantly at work and that as people created in God’s image we to are coworkers with God as he accomplishes his purposes.

I believe in this volume by Stevens through his reflections of these well known Bible passages gives a biblical based theology of work to deal with the question that many who work may be wondering, “Why work? What is the point anyway?” I would recommend this is a great addition to any library as study help to assist in further understanding the Christian theological aspects of our daily labor. ( )

Stevens offers his perspective on what Scripture says about work. He defines work as "any purposeful expenditure of energy--whether manual, mental, or both, whether paid or not." This very broad definition of work allows him to address a number of issues that some might find outside the scope of work in their own perspective. Most of the book is consumed with addressing a particular aspect of work (within Stevens' broad definition) from books of the Bible. The bulk of his attention is paid to Old Testament books. The chapters are brief and limited in their depth of treatment.

This book serves a useful purpose, exploring the purpose and meaning of work from a Christian perspective — an understanding that is sorely lacking in the contemporary world and workplace.

Through no particular fault of the book itself, it took me an excessively long time to work my way through it. Despite appreciating the overall message, the effort Stevens makes to approach the topic from several different angles, and a number of insightful passages I encountered along the way, I just couldn't seem to get into it for extended periods of time. I suspect that I am more at fault than the book itself, though, and so I would still recommend it to anyone interested in the topic. ( )

In Work Matters Stevens creates a simple and accessible primer tot one of the most important aspects of everyday life. Stevens defines work and breaks it down by exploring it through the narrative of Biblical Characters. While there are many books in the field Work Matters is the right length and doesn't bog down in theological details. ( )

I usually want to say something nice about books I get from the Early Reviewers program and my mom did teach me that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. But with this book, that's not an option. Lets agree that the atrocious editing could be a result of the book being an advance copy... good, that's out of the way. What remains is a book that sounded like a great idea to me. Let's examine the nature of work in scripture.... great, that could be very interesting and encouraging. But this book totally fails! Paragraphs are poorly though out and often don't carry the same thought through the paragraph. Many of them end with a sentence that concludes something completely different than what I though I was reading for the last few sentences. Then the overall flow is similar, wandering and strange. Even the overall logic is deeply flawed and so bad as to make me feel like I was reading a high schooler's term paper. Rife with huge jumps in logic such as "scripture says this, which implies that" and yet the implication is not at all clear, or even clearly related. In some cases, this happens for huge chunks of the text, including one large chunk that seemed to be making a Luddite anti-technology argument from scripture, but completely failed to connect the logic.

In short, I only got a few chapters in before quitting because the book is just plain poor writing, actually makes intelligent people who believe in Scripture look bad, and won't actually teach you anything about the nature of work in scripture. I didn't even pass it to someone else, I just tossed it in the recycle bin. ( )