Everyone’s Calling

In the twentieth century, evangelical churches so emphasized the call to foreign missions that many believers came to embrace the conviction that if one is thoroughly committed to Christ, he or she will enter the foreign mission field. Without doubt, the call to the work of foreign missions is a high and noble calling and the need for laborers is great. Pastors and churches should have the greatest commitment to supporing foreign missions. However, in many cases, a misplaced understanding of a calling to foreign missions led many parents to put their children in boarding schools in foreign countries while they labored in a neighboring country. Sadly, many of their children have grown up dealing with the detrimental aftermath of having parents who chose the mission field over the family. The call to parenting was dismissed by a supposed call to missions. 

Similarly, it is sometimes the case that young men (especially in doctrinally serious churches) find themselves feeling torn as to whether they should embrace a secular vocation or go into full time gospel ministry. Often well-meaning congregants encourage young men who have a strong interest in studying God’s word, theology, and the work of evangelism to pursue ministry. Of course, those God calls into the ministry of the gospel will have evident marks of His gifting for such work. However, every serious minded believer should have those interests in varying degrees. 

Every serious-minded believer should desire to go to seminary (see p. 14 of Guy Richard’s Reformed Theological Seminary pamphlet) to study the biblical languages, together with systematic, biblical, exegetical, and historical theology. In fact, all believers should long to grow in their knowledge of Scripture and theology. The desire to give oneself to a deep study of Scripture and theology out not be limited to only a select few who have been called by God to preach His word and shepherd His flock. However, it is not “more spiritual” or “more fulfilling” for an individual to leave a vocation in which he has evident gifts in order to enter full time pastoral ministry.

Nostalgic reminiscence about the experience one had in youth group, an evangelistic outreach, or campus ministry in college can also tempt individuals to adopt a functional sacred/secular dichotomy. It is easy to long for the simple joys of youth––especially when they were tethered to the privilege of having mentors and spiritual leaders who left a lasting impression on us. This is not a sufficient enough reason for a young man to leave a legitimate vocation in order to pursue gospel ministry. 

A number of years ago, a young man reached out to me in order to talk about pursuing full time gospel ministry. This individual was a college graduate who had a desirable position working for a reputable corporation. He was an accomplished specialist in his field. When I began to ask this young man questions about his interest in going into ministry, he began to reminisce about the experience he had in a college. He had a campus pastor who met with him regularly and was there to pray with him and counsel him every time he had a struggle with maintaining sexual purity. He told me that he believed that being a pastor to others in similar situations would be the “most fulfilling” thing someone could do with their life. He was disinterested in the idea of remaining in his current vocation and serving as a ruling (i.e., lay) elder in a church. This young man had elevated the call to gospel ministry over a secular vocation, almost exclusively on a nostalgic experience he had in college. 

Believers must reject the idea that if they are thoroughly committed to the Lord and the work of His kingdom then they will leave their ordinary callings to serve as an officer in His church, pursue pastoral ministry, or enter the foreign mission field. 

Embracing Vocations 

Needless to say, everyone who is called by God to enter gospel ministry should embrace this high calling and fully give themselves to this significant work. That was the singleminded devotion of the apostle Paul to his calling. When the apostle came to refute the accusations of the false apostles in the church in Corinth, he sain, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). In 2 Corinthians 12:15, he told the members of the church, “I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.” Finally, in 2 Cor. 11:23–28, Paul defended himself from the accusations of his detractors by noting the extent he went in his calling to be a minister of the gospel. He wrote, 

“Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure, And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

However, it was the same apostle Paul who wrote the following about God’s call for believers to embrace their ordinary vocations: 

• “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches” (1 Cor. 7:17-24).
• “So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God (1 Corinthians 7:24).
• “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:23–24).
• “Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thess. 4:11–12).
• “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. . .Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living” (2 Thess. 3:10–12). 

This is the clear teaching of Scripture. The better part of men and women in the church are called by God to do whatever work He has gifted them to do with all diligence, quietness, contentment, and an eye to God’s glory and the good of their fellow men. This was a principle in the early church, and one that was ultimately recovered by the Reformers during the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. 

The Reformation and Vocation 

The sacred/secular dichotomy, in the sphere of work, was prevalent during the medieval era of church history. The Reformers reclaimed the biblical teaching about vocation by focusing on the blessing of individual vocations. The Reformation church historian, ´Emile Doumergue, explained how the principle of legitimate vocation of believers was central to the Reformation when he wrote, 

“Luther came, and then Calvin, proclaiming the great idea of `vocation,’ an idea and a word which are found in the languages of all the Protestant peoples. . .’Vocation’—it is the call of God, addressed to every man––whoever he may be––to lay upon him a particular work, no matter what. . . The physician is God’s physician; the merchant is God’s merchant; the laborer is God’s laborer. Every vocation, liberal, as we call it, or manual, the humblest and the vilest in appearance as truly as the noblest and the most glorious, is of divine right. . .Only laziness is ignoble. . .the Reformation banishes the idle from its towns.”

In his artle, “The Reformation of Vocation,” D.G. Hart notes, 

“Nothing could be more Protestant than the way the Reformers came to understand the ordinary life of the average believer. That Protestant outlook fueled the engines of political democracy and market capitalism. But it was far more important for recovering biblical teaching about the goodness of creation and the manifold ways in which God cares for his creatures. Recognizing the value of human work was one of the Reformation’s greatest achievements.”

Luther everywhere referenced the goodness and legitimacy of believers vocational labor. For instance, in his Lectures on Galatians, he insisted, 

“Someone who is a magistrate, a householder, a servant, a teacher, a pupil, etc., should remain in his calling and do his duty there, properly and faithfully, without concerning himself about what lies outside his own vocation. If he does this, he will have his boast within himself, so that he can say: “With my utmost faithfulness and diligence I have carried out the work of my calling as God has commanded me to; and therefore I know that this work, performed in faith and obedience to God, is pleasing to Him.”1

Calvin also explicitly defended the legitimacy of all vocations. In his comment on Luke 10:38, he wrote,  

“We know that men were created for the express purpose of being employed in labor of various kinds, and that no sacrifice is more pleasing to God, than when every man applies diligently to his own calling, and endeavors to live in such a manner as to contribute to the general advantage.”2

John Murray, in Principles of Conduct, summarized the Reformed understanding of the scriptural doctrine of vocation, when he wrote, 

“Each person’s labor is a kind of divine vocation. . .It is the consciousness of divine vocation in the particular task assigned to us that will imbue us with the proper sense of responsibility in the discharge of it.”

Conclusion

When we consider the clear teaching of Scripture and the Reformations reclamation of the doctrine of vocation, we can better understand the need there is to distinguish vocations without delegitimating them. Do we need missionaries to give their lives in the spread of the everlasting gospel to the nations? Absolutely. Does the church need faithful men to serve as heralds and stewards of the mystery of Christ? Desperately so! Do we need godly carpenters, lawyers, teachers, construction workers, musicians, business owners, mechanical engineers, financial investors, etc.? Without a doubt! 

We should cherish the high calling of pastoral ministry, foreign missions, college ministry, and recognize that God does call certain individuals to full time Christian ministry. However, we should never do so while downplaying the significant value of believers laboring diligently in the vocations into which God has called them to serve. After all, “the physician is God’s physician; the merchant is God’s merchant; the laborer is God’s laborer. Every vocation. . .is of divine right.” This was the consistent teaching in the Protestant Reformation, and may God make it the consistent teaching in our churches today. 

1. Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 27: Lectures on Galatians, 1535, Chapters 5-6; 1519, Chapters 1-6, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 119–120.

2. John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 2 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 143.