Tending Our Garden – Fourth Commandment

Tending Our Garden

Exodus 20.8-10; Deuteronomy 5.12-14

“Remember the Sabbath day, observe it, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.”

Genesis 2.15

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden to work it and keep it.

Don’t neglect your private garden.

The garden in Eden where God placed Adam and Eve was a special place. It was their home, and to Adam was entrusted the responsibility of “working” and “keeping” it. The first word implies the conscious attempt to develop all that is good and fruitful and useful for the benefit of man and creatures; the second work implies guarding the garden against anything that might corrupt it. Like Adam, we are called to work and keep our own garden – our home and family life and everything that comes into it. Here we need to think about ways of keeping our homes beautiful and efficient, as good stewards of the Lord. Raising a family and guarding against worldly influences coming in from pop culture are also included in this work. You’ll need time to work at family relationships, both with one another and with the Lord. The work of hospitality, of using our homes and resources to show the grace of God to others, also falls into this category. Then there are the normal routines of maintenance of property that come with the turf, as it were. Our homes and families are like the talents given to the servants in Jesus’ parable (Matt. 25:14-20). God expects us to work with them so as to bring a return of beauty, goodness, and truth from what He has entrusted to us. And it is hard work to develop our garden, but an important aspect of the work God gives us to do six days a week.

Do you think of your life at home as work given to you by God? How might you take up this work more earnestly?

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“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.