Essence of work: Melacha, Avodah, Ergon

The nature and purpose of work, clearly identified way back in Genesis, is such:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. - Genesis 2:15

Why would God command man to work in Eden? Wasn't it already self-sustaining? Because there is something about the nature of work, originally reflected in the Creator and His creation, that honors God. Man imitates God, thereby praising God, through work. What kind of work is it that was originally designed in the Garden? I believe it is the kind that creates something new out of something given.

God alone can create new things out of no-thing. We can't do that obviously, but we can take the things that He creates and turn them into new things. This creating of a new thing out of God's original thing is referred to in the OT as melacha:

Melacha refers to the 39 categories of activity that are forbidden on Shabbat. Melacha, is not "work." At least not the English definition of the word "work." You may not carry a needle out into the street on Shabbat, yet you may drag a heavy sofa across the room. So what Melacha is forbidden on Shabbat? 

The 39 categories of activity that are forbidden on Shabbat, are all labors that have something in common - they are creative activities that exercise control over one's environment.
[..]
This is to teach us, explains the Talmud (Shabbat 49b), which activities constitute melacha: any creative act that was part of the mishkan's construction represents a category of work forbidden on Shabbat. These categories are forbidden by the Torah.

What is interesting is that this concept of melacha can only be understood in the context of Shabbat, or the Lord's Day of rest. In thinking about it in this context however, it makes perfect parallel - For six days, God created. On the seventh day, he rested. Therefore, the way we imitate God with our work melacha is by spending six days of creative activities exercised over one's environment, followed by ceasing these creative activities on the seventh day.

Once sin entered the world through Adam, this is what God had to say:

 And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
    and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
    in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.”
Genesis 3: 17-19

Because of sin, Adam's ability to do work as melacha became corrupted. Also worth noting is that the very first thing Adam did following his sin was to do a kind of work - to make clothing in order to hide his nakedness. As such, you can see how Adam's capacity for melacha had immediately been corrupted - yes, he was creating something out of God's creation, but its intent was not to praise God, but to hide himself from God. For the rest of our world's history, so too our efforts at work, melacha, are going to be tainted by sin and therefore imperfect as designed. Even so, it is not futile; this kind of creative work still brings praise to God when we do it out of a place of worship and humility. John Piper writes:

But the image of God in human work was only defaced. It was not destroyed. All humans have been ambivalent toward work since the Fall. It is hated because of futility (Romans 8:20); and it is loved because of a sense of creative purpose and meaning in life.

By contrast, there is a second kind of work in Hebrew, which is called avodah. This term refers more generally to labor, as compared to melacha's very specific kind of work. Perhaps it could even be argued that avodah is the residual byproduct of God's curse toward Adam's work, the fact that an act of praise was going to be tainted with what was a previously unnecessary amount of labor that would now persist, hindering perfect worship.

When we finally arrive to the NT, a new type of work is described in two places in 1 Corinthians:

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? - 1 Cor. 9:1

And

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. - 1 Cor. 15:58

The same word is used in both places - ergon. From Strong's lexicon:

Strong's Greek: #2041. ἔργον: érgon (from ergō, "to work, accomplish") – a work or worker who accomplishes something. 2041 /érgon ("work") is a deed (action) that carries out (completes) an inner desire (intention, purpose).

Piper writes:

So the Greek word ergon refers to the act of working: “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,” (1 Corinthians 15:58). And ergon refers to the product of the act: “Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?” (1 Corinthians 9:1). The essence of work is to produce a work — an object, or a state of affairs, that did not exist before. The glory of work in reliance on our Creator (big C) is to create (little c).

The NT idea of work therefore is both the act as well as the product of the act. My initial reaction to this strange dichotomy is, how can it be both? How can the act of work generate a product of work that are theologically the same thing, especially when you are in the middle of working, you don't know how your final product will turn out?

The answer - it doesn't matter, because the result is not actually dependent on us.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. - Ephesians 2:10

This is an aspect of salvation that manifests in our sanctification - the Gospel that saves us is the same one that enables us to do 'good works.' We are God's workmanship - that is, His work and the product of His work - are the same thing, and we know this because of what Paul says in Philippians 1:6:

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Since this is what God's workmanship (érgon) looks like, it makes perfect sense that we can engage in melacha, where through God's sanctifying hand, the act of our work and the product of our work become the same. And not only that, but when we engage in the works that God prepared for us before hand, that they have already been declared as good.