The aim of this paper is to provide the theological bases for the intrinsic value of work by considering the doctrines of creation, redemption and eschatology. While noting that all Christian doctrines are relevant for all of life, the discussion in this paper is limited to three doctrines only. These doctrines were chosen for embodying the breadth of God’s action in history from beginning to end. They are important for our purposes because “if we are to understand what human existence is, and what human beings are destined or called to be, we must see these human beings as belonging within the all-embracing coherences of God’s history with the world”.

My interest in marketplace theology began quite early, without, of course, even having the language to call it “marketplace theology,” and certainly decades before I became a professor of marketplace theology. As a young boy growing up in Toronto, Canada, son of a CEO of a steel fabrication company producing steel strapping for shipping containers, I received a small weekly allowance with which I could go into a store and buy a vanilla Ice cream cone for five cents.