Like all of creation, the world has been created through Christ and toward Christ and has its existence only in Christ (John 1:10; Col. 1:16). To speak of the world without speaking of Christ is pure abstraction. The world stands in relationship to Christ whether the world knows it or not. This relation of the world to Christ becomes concrete in certain mandates of God in the world. The scripture names four such mandates: work, marriage, government, and church. We speak of divine mandates rather