As Peter Drucker said, “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”

But do you want to be efficient like a machine, or fruitful like a tree?

Now, what we call technology is simply an array of tools laid out on the bench for us. Technology is therefore a form of wealth. The reason this is important is because the Bible says very little about technology as such, but it gives us a great deal of blunt and pointed teaching on the subject of wealth. If we learn how to deal with wealth scripturally, then we will have learned how to deal with technology.

We have a responsibility to turn a profit on these astounding resources—and that is what is meant by productivity. We have a responsibility to do this methodically, deliberately, and intentionally. This is what I mean by ploductivity. This is deliberate faithfulness: working in the same direction over an extended period of time. Our electronic servants may be super fast, but we should be as deliberate as ever.

One of the first things we must recognize is that work does not exist in the world because of the Fall. Work got a lot more difficult because of our sin, and we do labor under the ramifications of a curse. But God gave the cultural mandate to mankind, a mandate which involved an enormous amount of work, before the entrance of sin. Not only so, but that same cultural mandate is reiterated to Noah, right after the Flood, which means that the presence of sin has not altered the mission (Gen. 9:1). We therefore need to recover a distinctively Christian work ethic as an essential part of the process of salvation and sanctification. It points, like every faithful thing does, to Christ, and in Christ all of these issues are connected. Work is related to tools, and tools are related to productivity. If we want to get it right, we therefore need a theology of work, a theology of tools, and a theology of productivity. “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; He shall not stand before mean men” (Prov. 22:29).

You can, and should, draw conclusions about people based on their work. Our ability to evaluate the labor of others is not absolute because we are limited and finite. Our judgments should be made in all humility. But this does not alter the fact that we still need to evaluate others, and an important part of that evaluation includes the quality of their work. This is why the Scriptures say, “He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster” (Prov. 18:9). Laziness is a destroyer. But how can it be, when it didn’t touch anything, when it didn’t consume anything? The problem is that it did consume something—it burned a lot of daylight.

Christians are involved in building community, which means that we do business with one another. So one of our great challenges is the “cheap grace” approach to work, the one that constantly argues that “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” What is the result of this attitude? Contractors who don’t come close to their estimate or deadline. Wives who manipulate their husbands into doing half their work for them. Husbands who fail to provide wives with the wherewithal to do their work. Students who dither at their assignments. Entrepreneurs who risk all the wrong things. Web designers who flake. Buyers who write and sign contracts they don’t know how to read. Sellers who don’t write contracts at all, on the assumption that regeneration somehow makes everyone’s memories perfect. And so on. And in case any of this stepped on any toes, there is no solidarity between a competent contractor and an incompetent one, or a competent wife and an incompetent one.

People who do not want public evaluation of the quality of their work are people who have no business being in business. They should just buy a shovel and dig where they are told to.

First, work is a good thing, and the hard way is actually the easy way. As a general rule, the difficult parts should be moved to the front of the project. There is a way of avoiding work that multiplies work, and there is a way of embracingwork that saves work in the long run. “The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns: But the way of the righteous is made plain” (Prov. 15:19). As the saying goes, if you don’t have time to do it right, then how will you have time to do it over?

Fourth, the diligent like to have their work speak for them, and unproductive men like to substitute talk for action. Lazy men are good talkers. “In all labour there is profit: But the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury” (Prov. 14:23). Part of the reason that the lazy man is verbally adept is that he has to be ready with excuses. They are on the tip of his tongue. “Can you believe it? My software updated on me in the final paragraph and I had to start over from scratch.” Or, “Aliens kidnapped me. What year is it?” Or, “The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; A lion is in the streets. As the door turneth upon his hinges, So doth the slothful upon his bed. The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom; It grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason” (Prov. 26:13–16).

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12–13, esv).We are not saved by good works (Eph. 2:8–9), but we are saved to good works (Eph. 2:10). Immediately after this famous verse where Paul says we are saved by grace through faith, he then says that we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand for us to do. This salvation by grace is a salvation unto good works.

In this fallen world, wealth does have a bias towards self-sufficiency rather than to dependence on God. But this is not something the wealth does to us, but rather something we do with the wealth. Wealth—monetary, technological, or otherwise—is simply and solely a good thing, a gift of God. The sin enters in when the means of self-sufficiency are placed in the hands of someone who has entirely the wrong attitude about autonomous self-sufficiency.

When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage . . . And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day. (Deut. 8:10–18)

Look closely at what the text says here. It says that a host of good things are good gifts from a good God. Full meals, good houses, multiplying flocks and herds, silver and gold multiplying as well, and the same good growth happening to everything else the wealthy possess. All the good comes from outside, from the hand of the Lord. Where does the bad come from then? Moses warns the wealthy about their heart being lifted up. He tells them that they are in danger of forgetting the Lord their God. From that poor beginning, their hearts are lifted up, and they lay claim to the pride of life. They say in their blinded conceit that their own hand was the source of their wealth. Here lies the fundamental mistake, the fundamental problem.

The arrogant human heart is the source of the sin concerning wealth, and the arrogant human heart sins this way in the proximity of wealth. Wealth is not the locus of the sin, but the presence of the wealth is the locus of the temptation. Just as a beautiful woman is not the cause of lust but merely the occasion for it, so also the presence of wealth is not the cause of self-sufficiency. But we see, over and again from Genesis to Revelation, that wealth provides the occasion for the sin of self-sufficiency. As Cotton Mather once put it, “Faithfulness begat prosperity, and the daughter devoured the mother.”

The solution to self-sufficiency is not to banish the goods that we used to forget God, but rather to make a point of remembering God in and through the abundance He gave to us. What was their problem? It was that they did not serve God with joy and gladness for the abundance.

When we sin with a material object, or in near proximity to a material object, the most obvious thing to occur to us is to blame that material object. We blame weapons for murder, alcohol for drunkenness, slow traffic for the anger, photography for lust, and so on. Tools can be simple, and they can be sophisticated. When the hammer twists in your hand, and you curse the hammer, you are cursing a very simple tool. When your computer freezes up, and you curse the computer, you are cursing a very complex tool. It is folly in both cases.

And so we should define a tool in this way: something that is not part of a man’s body which makes something that the man wants to do possible or easier.

Remember, wealth is a blessing, and what you do with it matters. What you do with wealth will either keep it a compounding blessing, or it will wreck everything. But when it is first poured out on you, it is a blessing.

In other words, wealth brings a great deal of responsibility to the wealthy.

Let us break this question into two pieces, giving a paragraph to each one. There are many lawful things to do as we exercise dominion in the world, but which can be done with a sinful motive. You mow your lawn, but it is because you are in a hot envy competition with your neighbor and his lawn. You get braces for your daughter’s teeth because you are hellbent on her becoming Miss America someday. Nothing wrong with the mower or the braces, but a lot wrong with what is going on down in the heart. This problem of motive is addressed through simple repentance.

To whatever extent it is not a blessing, it is not progress. If it is progress, then we must thank God for it—He is the one who gives us the power to get wealth, and there is no appropriate or safe response to that wealth other than complete and simple gratitude.

There is not one blessing that we enjoy that was not given to us by the hand of Jesus Christ. If we insist on ignoring His lordship, His blood, His authority, and His kindness, then the time is coming, and now is, when He will chastise us by taking it all away. If we seek first the Kingdom, then other things will be added. If we don’t acknowledge Him, worship Him, or bow down before Him, He takes away that which was blocking the view, which in our case is all our stuff.

When God establishes the nations of the next Christendom, He considers our frame. He takes us by the hand and teaches us that He is not mocked—a man reaps what he sows, and so do nations. If we do it God’s way, we live in His favor. If we refuse to live God’s way, we suffer the consequences. If we go this way, good things happen, and if we go that way, bad things happen. And to keep us from getting confused, God gave us a book explaining all of that.

The first step toward genuinely productive work is to make it a point to work coram Deo, in the presence of God.

In Scripture we are told to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). We are told that whatever we do, down to the eating and drinking, we are to do it to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). And we are told to present our bodies as living sacrifices to God, holy and acceptable (Rom. 12:1–2). Now if my body is a living sacrifice, this means that everything it rests upon is an altar. The car I drive is an altar, the bed I sleep in is an altar, and the desk where I work is an altar. Everything is offered to God, everything ascends to Him as a sweet-smelling savor. Faith is the fire of the altar, and it consumes the whole burnt offering, the ascension offering. What ascends to the Lord is the sweet savor of our good works: “So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10, esv). Bearing fruit in every good work is fully pleasing to Him.

Living in the presence of God means that you are living in such a way as to invite or seek His favor. The Sabbath and the tithe illustrate well the trust we are to display in this. Would you rather work hard for seven unblessed days, or work hard for six blessed days? Would you rather try to live on a hundred percent of an unblessed income or on ninety percent of a blessed income? Would you rather have smaller barns blessed or larger barns unblessed (Luke 12:20)? “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Ps. 127:1).

God is not being coy with us. We don’t have the capacity yet to understand the majestic sweep of what He is up to. An essential part of the way that we will gain that capacity over time is by being faithful in the little parts we are given to do first. He who is faithful over little will be faithful over much (Luke 19:17). And I would venture to add that he who is faithful over little will come to understand more and much more.

Remembering the finitude of your labors will keep you humble. Recognizing that your labors have a place in God’s cosmic intentions for the universe will keep you from thinking that your tiny labors are stupid labors. They are nothing of the kind. Your labors in the Lord are not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58).

Of course there is such a thing as ungodly ambition, and it is truly destructive. “For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (James 3:16, esv). And the Lord Jesus established the pattern for us, the pattern of turning away from every form of vainglory. “And I seek not mine own glory . . .” (John 8:50). But we are not to combat this kind of grasping ambition with a Buddhist rejection of desire. The true Christian is characterized, not by a lack of desire, but rather through a desire that is calibrated to its appropriate object, which is ultimately Christ.

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Learning the material in your classes, learning your vocation, learning your trade, are what we should actually be after. Things like grades, promotions, bonuses, etc. are merely measuring sticks designed to tell us if we have met the goal. They are not the goal itself, but simply indicators of it.

So while it is reasonable to glance at the measuring stick goal from time to time, for the most part our gaze should be fixed on the work that is before us. Work for the work, not the award. Those who work for the work, and not the award, are—get this—more likely to win the award. Good students who are always asking, “Will that be on the test?” are students who will likely not profit long term from their labors.

Another key to mastery is realizing that the key to originality is imitation.

Learn what good work is, imitate it studiously, and do that over time. The result will frequently be what others call inspired or original or creative. Lewis again: “No man who values originality will ever be original. But try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work’s sake, and what men call originality will come unsought.”

When people do something over and over again—and this should not come as a surprise—they get good at it. But to some, this seems suspiciously like work.

when everything is a crisis, nothing is a crisis.

But as you are plodding, you will at some point recognize something else. You can go for a longer time. You can walk farther than you can sprint.

But the Bible teaches that whenever a gift is given, there will immediately be a temptation arising in our hearts to steal the glory and gratitude that should go to God alone. That temptation will say, fundamentally, that we owe none of this to God, and that we did it all ourselves. That attitude is what we call the Enlightenment. That is modernist hubris, technocratic arrogance, and purblind puffery.

(Deut. 8:10–18).

Until the resurrection, wealth is a good thing which always tends to distract us from our love for Christ, and the task at hand.

A good example of an erudite worrier would be Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death. But for every book like that, given the propensity of Calvinists to worry excessively about the heart of man, I would recommend that you read three like Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You, Postrel’s The Future and Its Enemies, and Herman’s The Idea of Decline in Western History. Why should Calvinists worry? In the collision between the sovereignty of Jesus in history, and the influence of sin in history, sin is the certain loser.