Toward A Christian Vision of Work

Once you become a Christian, it’s natural to wonder: should I spend my life telling others about the good news that Jesus has reconciled them to God and wants to be in relationship with them? In a sense, the answer to this question is the same for everyone who follows Jesus: Yes. You should spend the rest of your life sharing the gospel and showing in your life the difference that Jesus makes.

In another sense, though, not everyone is called to make the proclamation of Jesus’ message the central part of their professional lives. Only some people are called to be preachers and pastors, proclaimers of good news and shepherds of God’s flock. God calls everyone to be followers of Jesus, but not leaders of God’s people.

At this point, many people create a hierarchy: if you’re a Christian, that’s great, but if you’re a Christian minister—well, you must be more faithful than the regular old Christians in pews. You must be more committed. You must be more serious. You must pray more. You must really know God.

Not true.

Last year, I did a year-long fellows program with other Christian twenty-somethings who were preparing for careers in a variety of fields. In fact, I was the only one with any formal theological training. (Thank goodness, too: one person spouting off obscure theological truths was more than enough.)

One of the best parts of the program was simply the realization that you could be a committed Christian—a very committed Christian—and not be in professional ministry.

This understanding dawned on me not only because I respected my fellow fellows who were getting ready to work in public health, medicine, and tech; but also because of the speakers who came to teach us from many different disciplines.

One speaker in particular, Bob, had a story that began as mine did. He became a Christian as a young man at l’Abri Fellowship and then decided to go to seminary because, well, what else do you do if you become a Christian and are serious about your faith? After seminary, he got a job as a preacher at a church because, well, what else do you do if you graduate from seminary and are serious about your faith?

Pretty quickly, though, he realized that he wasn’t cut out for preaching and ended up working in the senior living industry, with a stint in politics as well. He didn’t decide to leave the pastorate and pursue a career in the marketplace because he lost faith in Christ or enthusiasm for God’s kingdom. No, he simply realized that his gifts lay elsewhere.

For preachers and pastors are not holier than Christians who work in other industries. They just have different gifts.

A Christian vision of work has to take into account the variety of gifts that we receive from the Spirit. Some have the gift of prophecy, some of service; others have the gift of exhortation or generosity; and still others of teaching (Romans 12:6-8). Yet before Paul even outlines those different gifts, he says that we are one body (Romans 12:4). Pastors and preachers are members of the one body, just as those who have the gift of generosity (which describes many men and women in business).

The vocational field is level at the foot of the cross. No one vocation in the body is holier than another.

The variety of God’s gifting lays the groundwork for thinking about a Christian vision for work, but I also want to dig up some ideas that were present in the garden, when humankind first began to till the ground.

In the beginning, God said to the first human pair, “‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” (Genesis 1:28).

Talk about a daunting job description. God wants Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. How many kids would be enough? Not sure there’s a limit on that. He wants them to fill and subdue, you know, the EARTH (not a small place). I have enough trouble filling my day with things to do. And have dominion over every animal: I had enough trouble taking care of one dog this summer that wouldn’t stop barking at 3 a.m. I’m not sure how I’d do with a thousand dogs all barking at 3 a.m. at the same time.

The main point that I get from Genesis 1 is this sense of almost unlimited possibility for Adam and Eve in terms of family and work in a pre-fall world. The world is their oyster. They are commanded to form a family and fill the world, much as God has formed the earth and filled it with good things. Their vocation, then, is to be like God in his creative enterprise of forming and filling the earth (and not like him in terms of knowing good and evil). Work was creative.

Work was also responsible, since the first humans were tasked with having “dominion” over the creatures of the earth, a word that implies stewardship and care-taking more than exploitation.

At the beginning, then, work was creative and responsible, which are concepts to guide us as we think about work in our world today.

In your job, are you reflecting the creativity of God? Are you coding programs that are new and exciting? Are you designing senior living facilities that are innovative?

In your job, are you living into the responsibility with which God tasked the first humans? Are you taking care of those who are less powerful than you? Are you serving those in need? Is the company’s mission within the bounds of the kingdom of God?

Not all jobs will be creative in the same way. (Maybe we need to be creative about how we think of creativity…) All Christians will have to wrestle with how to be responsible in their jobs, especially if the larger corporation for which they work is edging into morally dubious territory.

These concepts, though, take us back to the beginning, where work itself was good. Yes, we live in a fallen world, and that fall has affected our work, but God values work—not just “religious” work. Work that mirrors his work in creation—of forming and filling—is good in God’s sight, since it fits with who we are as human beings made in the image of God. That’s good news for everyone who is called not to professional ministry, but to careers in business, law, medicine, and many more: you can love God just as much as your pastor and use your gifts to work in the world creatively and responsibly.