Blue-Collar Church History: The White-Collar Shift, The Blue-Collar Blindspot

Was the Early Church always blue-collar? When did they shift to being predominantly white-collar and why? Was it’s God’ timing or gentrification of the Church? Let’s see why God enabled this shift at just the right time to protect His Church for complex and nuanced heresies. The gnostics are everywhere this time and Irenaeus is having NONE of it.

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Blue-Collar Church History: Blue-Collar Workers in the New Testament, Acts to the Epistles, The Blue-Collar Blindspot

The book of Acts lists several more significant blue-collar Christians of the early Church: the Apostle Simon, a tanner, and quite the trio of tentmakers, including the Apostle Paul. Tanners are emblematic of blue-collar work. They took dead animal carcasses and turned them into usable leather, a critical service for other craftsmen who worked with leather. As a first century Hebrew working entirely with dead things, Simon spent more time unclean than clean, and he would've smelled horrible almost all of the time. He would've been at or near the bottom of any social hierarchy. If Simon ever wanted to go to the temple or offer any sacrifice, he would've had to set aside his livelihood for a time. Simon is about as blue-collar as first-century Hebrews come.

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Blue-Collar Church History: Blue-Collar Workers in the New Testament, Christ’s Apostles, The Blue-Collar Blindspot

What relevance does Blue-Collar have in the Bible? What is it’s place in Church history as seen in scripture? Starting with Jesus and His Apostles, how blue-collar were they? What kind of people did Jesus personally choose to found and guide His Church? We see Christ a Carpenter, and his friends… His friends…

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Blue-Collar Church History: Blue-Collar Workers In the Old Testament

In order to develop a Godly view of blue-collar men and women, it is important to understand that blue-collar workers are central to Christ’s harvest of souls throughout the centuries. God has consistently used people who weren’t the smartest, the best looking, or the most talented. What God required most from His servants was that they showed up, and gave it their best.

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The Blue-Collar Bible: Blue-Collar in the New Testament (Jesus’ Teaching), Excerpt from The Blue-Collar Blindspot

What examples of blue-collar language do we have in the New Testament? What kind of lessons does Jesus teach using blue-collar language? Can we learn anything from Christ's embrace of his calloused hands and upbringing? Read along as we watch Jesus swing a hammer and metaphors elbow to elbow with the least of these.

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Christ as Carpenter: The Blue-Collar Blindspot, Why does it matter?

Jesus - from eternity past - looked at all of the humans in the world and chose a first century Israelite carpenter to be His father. He knew that choosing His father would be choosing His profession, therefore Jesus chose to be a carpenter. What? The God of the universe came down and didn’t choose royalty, nobility, politicians, lawyers, merchants, businessmen, or even priests. Why?

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Christ as Carpenter: The Blue-Collar Blindspot, What do Others Say About τέκτων?

What was Jesus? What did Jesus do for a living? Was Jesus a Carpenter? For a while now there has been an undercurrent in Christian literature to subvert this and try to assert that Jesus was any of a myriad of other things: unskilled day laborer, small businessman, stone mason, or even trained rabbi. This is just plain wrong. Jesus was, IS a Carpenter.

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Christ as Carpenter: The Blue-Collar Blindspot (Cont.)

The Christian tradition has always taught Jesus was a carpenter by vocation. For a while now there has been an undercurrent in Christian literature to subvert this and try to assert that Jesus was any of a myriad of other things. I do not think any of the other options have a strong linguistic or evidential basis supporting them. Let's start with what it says in the scripture itself.

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The Leadership Divide, Defining The Blue-Collar Blindspot (cont)

There are precious few indigenous Christian leaders within the blue-collar community. One of the common earmarks for success in a mission field is a self-sustaining church with indigenous leadership. This is something blue-collar men are provably lacking. Part of the data I collected in my survey of Christian literature was each author’s background.

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Defining the Blue-Collar Blindspot (cont.) The Calendar Divide

The modern Evangelical movement doesn’t come to blue-collar country. By country, I mean the average blue-collar worker’s schedule as compared to the average church’s schedule. Conflicting schedules prevent blue-collar parishioners from participation in most or all church activities. Sadly, this leads to fewer blue-collar parishioners in attendance and thereby reduces the perceived need for odd-schedule Bible studies and worship services.

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Defining The Blue-Collar Blindspot (cont.) The Cultural Divide

From what I’ve seen in my life, the three main features of blue-collar culture are to wake up early, work hard, and build things. Any one of these may also apply to many white-collar workers, but these are foundational pillars of blue-collar culture. As far as white-collar culture goes, I don’t have much direct experience. I do know that the exact definition of what is early, what is hard, and what is building are different for an accountant than for a plumber. The primary values are not the same, and therein lies the difficulty in communication. Each group has different values, and those differences affect the way each group sees the world.

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Defining The Blue-Collar Blindspot

I see blue-collar workers like a people group in a foreign country. There are four main divides that isolate this remote country in the heart of America. A language divide, a cultural divide, a calendar divide, and a leadership divide. Each one adds together to create the borders of this small country. I will outline the problem one divide at a time, like putting legs on a stool.

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The Christmas Carol is the most unGodly piece of Christmas art, Blue-Collar Bible Scholar

The Christmas Carol is the most unGodly piece of Christmas art. It Flies in the face of Luke 16:20 ( https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/luk/16/20/s_989001 )

Also you can by my book about the Blue-Collar blindspot at bluecollarbiblescholar.com/book

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