Vocation: every sphere of life

A calling for everyone

For much of the Middle Ages the word ‘vocation’ (vocatio) usually meant a call to the monastery, the convent or the priesthood. There were religious orders and theologians who honoured ordinary labour, but many believed the life of prayer and contemplation was the higher road; the Catholic Church today teaches that all the faithful, in every state of life, are called to holiness Lumen Gentium 40. The Reformers read Scripture and saw a different picture. Luther, in 1520, taught that all the baptised are priests before God, and that the shoemaker, the smith and the farmer each serve their neighbours through their own work and office Luther, To the Christian Nobility. Calvin wrote that the Lord has appointed each person a particular way of life and calls these ‘callings’, like a post where he has stationed us, so that we do not wander aimlessly through life; and no work done in obedience to one's calling is so mean or lowly that it does not shine and count as precious in God's sight Calvin, Institutes 3.10.6.

Paul uses the language of calling too: "Each one should remain in the situation he was in when he was called" (1 Corinthians 7:20). The word is klēsis (κλῆσις), and many scholars think Paul means first God's call to faith in Christ. But that call reaches people where they are, slave or free, married or single (1 Corinthians 7:17-24), and the place where it finds them becomes a place to serve him. So Paul can say even to slaves:

Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being, as for the Lord and not for men, because you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Colossians 3:23-24

This is not an endorsement of unjust orders; Paul also tells the slave, "if you can gain your freedom, take the opportunity" (1 Corinthians 7:21). It is the dignity of serving Christ in any honest task. Matthew Henry notes: "Those who fear God, will be just and faithful when from under their master's eye, because they know they are under the eye of God" Matthew Henry.

Tending the garden, seeking the city's peace

Work did not begin with the fall. God blessed the first human beings and told them to "fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28), and he "took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it" (Genesis 2:15). Reformed writers often call this the ‘cultural mandate’. To rule is not to exploit but to cultivate and keep, as stewards of what belongs to God. Matthew Henry says of Adam in the garden that even the heirs of heaven have work to do on earth, and "if they do it with an eye to God, they as truly serve him in it, as when they are upon their knees" Matthew Henry.

That calling reaches beyond the church door. When God's people were carried off to Babylon, the city of their conquerors, he told them neither to hate it nor to withdraw from it.

Seek the prosperity of the city to which I have sent you as exiles. Pray to the LORD on its behalf, for if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Jeremiah 29:7

Jesus called his disciples the salt of the earth and the light of the world: "let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). Augustine noticed the end of that sentence. Had Jesus stopped at good works, he says, he might seem to make human praise the goal; but by adding the Father's glory "he teaches that we should not seek as an end to please men with our good works, but referring all to the glory of God" Augustine.

Every square inch

Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), a Dutch pastor and journalist who later served as prime minister, founded the Free University of Amsterdam in 1880 and opened it with an address on ‘sphere sovereignty’ Abraham Kuyper, Sphere Sovereignty. Its most quoted sentence says, in substance, that in the whole domain of human life there is not one square inch that Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not claim as his own. Under that one Lord, Kuyper argued, each sphere of life — family, church, state, school, science, art, business — has its own God-given task and authority, and none should swallow the others: the state must not rule the church, the church must not rule the state, and neither may swallow the family.

Kuyper and Herman Bavinck also taught ‘common grace’ Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace. God "causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45); he restrains sin and gives gifts of skill, learning and beauty to believers and unbelievers alike. So a Christian can thank God for the surgeon who does not share her faith, or for a poem by an unbeliever. Bavinck's great theme was that grace does not abolish nature but restores and renews it Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics.

The vision has its dangers. Confessing that Christ is Lord of every sphere can slide into thinking that Christians must control every sphere. That is triumphalism, and no culture, nation or party is the kingdom of God. Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36), and "whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant" (Matthew 20:26). In twentieth-century South Africa some Reformed churches gave theological support to apartheid, and in 1982 the World Alliance of Reformed Churches declared apartheid a sin and its theological defence a heresy. We stand before the same temptation, and the call is to serve.

Other traditions think deeply about this too. Catholic social teaching speaks of human dignity, the common good and subsidiarity, the principle that larger bodies should not take over what smaller communities can do, and sees human work as sharing in the work of creation Catechism of the Catholic Church. Lutherans speak of God's two kingdoms, his rule through the gospel in the church and through law and government in the world, and teach that Christians may hold public office Augsburg Confession, Art. 16. The Anabaptist tradition held that the sword stands outside the perfection of Christ Schleitheim Confession, Art. 6, and still stresses the church's witness as a community of peace and discipleship rather than of power.

Rest, and glory to God alone

Work is not our master. The fourth commandment gives six days for labour, "but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God" (Exodus 20:10). The Heidelberg Catechism explains that commandment as gathering faithfully on the day of rest to hear God's word, use the sacraments, call on the Lord and give to the poor, and, all the days of our life, resting from our evil works and letting the Lord work in us by his Spirit, so beginning the eternal Sabbath in this life Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 103. "In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat — for He gives sleep to His beloved" (Psalm 127:2). On the Lord's Day, see Worship centred on the Word; on rest itself, Why should we rest?.

This course began with the story of the Reformation. The Reformers' cry Soli Deo gloria, glory to God alone, is not fulfilled only in cathedrals or on great stages. It is fulfilled in a kitchen where a child is bathed, a classroom where tests are marked late at night, a hospital ward or a factory floor on the night shift, an office where the accounts are kept honestly when no one is checking. There we glorify God by serving our neighbours, and on the Lord's Day we gather, tired, to enjoy him again, as we shall enjoy him for ever. For more, see What is work for? and How should we live?. With Paul's words this course ends.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 10:31

Practice