Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 22:4 (Winter 2018)
Article: “They Were Not Brought Up In Idleness”: Matthew Henry, The Old Testament, And Work
Author: Richard C. McDonald

SBJT 22:4 (Winter 2018) p. 53

“They Were Not Brought Up In Idleness”: Matthew Henry, The Old Testament, And Work

Richard C. McDonald

Richard C. McDonald is the Adjunct Instructor of Old Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Boyce College, Louisville, Kentucky, where he also earned his PhD. He is the author of articles such as “The ‘Altar of the Lord Your God’ in Deuteronomy 16.21: Central Altar or Local Altars?” (JSOT, 2013) and several book reviews. Dr. McDonald is a member of Sojourn Church J-Town, Louisville, Kentucky. He and his wife have two boys.

The doctrine of vocation is an essential part of a Christian’s understanding of how to live before God. Gene Veith—who has written extensively on the doctrine of vocation—observes that there is a great need to recover this “liberating, life-enhancing doctrine” in the present day.1 The doctrine of vocation “has become all but forgotten” in the church and in the seminaries.2 To answer this need, Veith develops a doctrine of vocation, basing his work on Luther. However, Veith acknowledges that other theologians have also contributed to an understanding of vocation, “from the Puritans to Os Guinness’s recent book The Call.”3

As Veith points his readers to Luther and the Reformers, this article outlines the teachings of Matthew Henry—a prominent preacher and Bible commentator of the late 1600s and early 1700s—on work as found in his Old Testament (OT) commentaries. Henry was greatly influenced by the Reformers and the Puritans through the training he received early in life from his father Philip Henry.4 Nearly three hundred years after first appearing, Matthew Henry’s commentaries are still in print today and still influence his readers. With his keen insight and profound wisdom, Henry has much to offer in developing a biblical understanding of work.

While Henry does not formulate a systematic doctrine of work, his

SBJT 22:4 (Winter 2018) p. 54

teachings on the matter are easily ascertained from his comments on passages of the OT. His observations are found in narratives in which work or some form of labor is a prominent feature—for example, Jacob working for Laban in Genesis 29 and 30; the rebuilding of Jerusalem in Nehemiah 3—and in the writings of Solomon in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Furthermore, while Luther and Veith ...