Men, as creatures of dust, are apt to speak of storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, convulsions and revolutions for the purpose of stirring up attention or interest, but God speaks in "a still, small voice" (1 Kings 19:20). Therefore, people tend to be slow to believe the statements by Moses on the Creation or by others regarding the Redemption. That such great things should be so simply stated and quietly completed is an expression of divine nature.

People are not prepared to accept a Savior in the person of a carpenter. Nazareth is too near home to rear a prophet. Men expected a triumphal descent from heaven, an angel convoy with bugles to rouse the masses, chariots and horses of fire, a magnificent royal advent of the Messiah robed in glory and radiant with light — a kingly coming that would amaze men and compel their allegiance.

That the Son of God should appear as a babe, be announced to a few poor shepherds in the fields by night, spend years in obscurity as the son of a carpenter, and humble Himself in the manner of a servant — this was beneath belief!

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was neither a ruler nor a ruler's daughter. She was however of David's line, a royal ancestry to be sure; but her immediate relatives were of a more humble standing. Her husband was a tradesman. As a family, their circumstances were very limited. For example, since they could not afford a lamb as a birth-offering for their firstborn child, a pair of turtledoves (acceptable for those in poverty at the time) provided a sacrifice for the child Jesus when He was dedicated in the Temple.

Jesus was raised in an environment of industry, economy and self-denial. In Nazareth, His hands were hardened by daily toil. He put his shoulder to working with wood, drove the saw and plane, and swung the hammer in honest work. It was not considered a disgrace in those days to ply a trade. Even the rabbis were accustomed to some handicraft. There are some who believe that Jesus constructed plows and farming utensils, as well as the articles of common carpentry.

Paul was a tent-maker, and nearly all the apostles had trades of one form or another. None of them were above working for a living; most were used to menial labor. It seems that there is special dignity and honor in our employment, given that God Himself worked, rested, and then commanded Adam to till the soil and manage the animals. Evidently, the Maker of the world blesses labor. It is apostolic, it is Christ-like, and it is God-like to work.

No system of education is complete that does not harden the hands and toughen the muscles, while it develops the intellect and enlarges the heart. The religion expressed by nothing but pale cheeks and smooth fingers is not the religion of the Bible. A carpenter's workshop and a field of wheat are better sanctuaries for acceptable service than are study halls and monastaries. Scars and knots on the hands are more honorable than rings and gloves.

Only through our work do we attain the true symmetry, strength and glory of godly manhood or womanhood. Genius itself falters when it conflicts with labor, since work is an inherent part of this world. It was men with brown faces and sinewy arms who built the pagan monuments, Temple on Mount Moriah, and walled the Holy City with resolve. Such men circled an Asiatic empire with impenetrable granite in China, spanned the American continent with a thoroughfare of iron from sea to sea, and cut a canal for steamers in forty months across the desert sands where the Israelites had earlier wandered for forty years. It has been men with sunburned features and nerves of steel who have spread commerce throughout the world, navigated its rivers, explored its lands, and subdued the earth as God first commanded. Evidently, an idle man is not God's man!

But the people of Nazareth, about twenty centuries ago, were very much like the people of today. They heard the wonderful words of Jesus, and were astonished. But their surprise gave way to jealousy and indignation. "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joses, and of Juda and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him"(Mark 6:3). In other words, "We know his family and his standing in society. He is only a carpenter and the son of a carpenter. He is one of the common people, a hewer of wood, an obscure tradesman of Nazareth!" What an unintended tribute of respect this was!

The Son of God was the Son of Man. He grew up to human maturity amid toil and tears, eating the bread of manual labor every day, and resting as a wearied worker every night. He mingled with the people, not as a guest, or stranger, or superior, for thirty years. But, as with His fellow-beings, as one of them, He engaged in active industry and was known as an ordinary carpenter.

Today, there are fastidious professors of Christianity who would scarcely have humbled themselves to enter His shop among the chips and shavings, or to have taken His callused hands in their delicate grasp, or to have eaten at the same table with the hungry Nazarene! To some stylish Christians, in these modern times, fingers are only intended for twirling a cane, for folding away mortgages, for lifting to dainty lips domestic wines, for pointing out the large estates and mansions which men call their own. Some men who were once common laborers, made rich by the smiling Providence of God and the hard work of busy hands, have children who turn away in scorn from the tradesman and the laborer. It is astonishing to see how quickly the plain phrases of industry and the flashy words of fashion exchange places in the vocabulary of some people.

True gentility as well as true genius is most often found among the common people who’ve been made healthy and happy by their willing work. Profess in science what you may, cling to whatever social clan you choose, even pity the plain and plodding laborer if you must, but remember above all that the Lord of glory was a common workingman!

Those hands which touched the cripple, and made him leap for joy; the dumb, and turned his tongue to praise; the deaf, and charmed his ears with melody; the dead, and brought him back to life; those same hands that rested in benedictions on little children's heads; that fed the hungry multitudes; that restrained the furious tempest of the sea; that were nailed to the rough timber of the cross; those hands for many years were also skilled in the use of the axe, the adze, and the plane. How strange that the hands of fellow carpenters would also one day frame the wood on which He was crucified!

The people were not ready to accept the teachings of a tradesman as the words of a prophet. They were looking in another direction for truth. They expected something more august, regal, and outwardly magnificent. And to this day, there are many who reject the gospel because it is so simple and familiar in its manner. They fail to apprehend the divinity that wears so plain a garb. They fashion gaudy garments for the divine Word. They supplement the Bible with rituals, creeds, councils, and theologies until "the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 1:3) is lost in the verbiage of the group, instead of held in the life of the soul.

Among the most wonderful realities of the gospel is its manifested love in Jesus Christ, "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:6-7). Yes, indeed, He completely assumed our nature, accepting its toil, its care, its weariness, its hunger, its thirst, its sweat, its suffering, its shame — everything but its sin. It would have been greatly condescending for God's Son to assume an earthly throne and to make Himself a brother to kings and equal with carnal conquerors. Yet He became the apprentice of a carpenter, and endured years of toil as a common workingman, when He was actually the Master and Redeemer of all.

(Excerpts are from the first chapter of Workday Christianity by Randall Caldwell, © 2005 Randall Caldwell, based on a book written by Alexander Clark and published in 1871)