According to Martin Luther, vocation is the specific call to love one’s neighbor. His words express a valuable Christian doctrine that has been lost and recovered repeatedly in Christian history—the doctrine of vocation (work). When it is lost, it takes with it a great deal of motivation and satisfaction that God intends for us to experience from “secular work.” Labor Day, though established in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland as more of a political compromise than ideology about vocation, nevertheless, provides an opportunity to consider how the church’s view of work has changed throughout history. (Much of this summary comes from Hugh Whelchel’s book, How Then Should We Work?)
A. The Greek View of Work. During New Testament times, Roman and Greek attitudes about work were shaped largely by Aristotle, who taught that it was demeaning to work with your hands or to work for pay. He said that it was good fortune to be unemployed because it allowed a person to participate in the contemplative life, which he believed was the happiest of all lives. Greek culture was organized so that a few could enjoy the life of leisure as evidenced by the prominent place of the public baths in the center of the towns established by the Romans. Meanwhile, the work was done by those in lower economic positions, or the slaves.
B. The Hebrew View of Work. The OT Scripture begins with a Worker at work creating the universe—God himself. That universe contains enormous potential to be explored and fully developed. Adam is created to image God, which means being a creative worker. He is placed in the garden to work it and keep it (Gen 2:14). To work, therefore is to do what humans were created to do. The question was whether or not we work FOR OURSELVES or FOR GOD. Do I take advantage of widows, orphans, the helpless, the poor and perhaps through dishonesty amass my own fortune? Or do I develop the potential of the garden, making a profit by serving others, causing society to benefit, and thus PLEASE GOD? The New Testament church maintained this high view of work, which is seen in Paul’s commands about work, as well as in the example he set earning his living as a tent maker.
C. Third Century to The Reformation. In the third and fourth centuries, church leaders began to lose sight of Adam’s (mankind’s) calling to develop the potential of the garden, and shape culture to be pleasing to GOD. Tertullian, (whose influence was so strong that his views of the Trinity significantly shaped the Nicene Creed), argued that Christians could not participate in the military, in politics, or in trade with the world. (HTSWW pa 61).
Later, a church father named, Eusebius said there were two contrasting ways to live. There is the “perfect life,” the vita contemplative, consisting of sacred vocations dedicated to contemplation; this life is reserved for priests, monks, nuns, and those in similar religious orders. Then there is the “permitted life,” the vita active, which encompasses secular vocations dedicated to action, such as governing, farming, trading, soldiering, and homemaking. Thus, began the heretical sacred/secular divide concerning work.
Unfortunately, this same sacred/secular divide was continued by the formative theologian, Augustine, in the fourth century. He distinguished between the active life and the contemplative life. Both kinds of life were good in his view; he had plenty of praise for the activity of farmers, craftsmen, and merchants. But in Augustine’s view the contemplative life was of a higher order. Sometimes it would be necessary for Christians to be engaged in the active life, but whenever possible, said Augustine, one should choose the contemplative life. In his words, “the one life is to be loved, the other endured.”
D. The Reformation View of Work. Luther recovered the biblical view of work. Seeing that the whole purpose of Adam in the garden was to cultivate the potential of the garden, which includes the other humans in the garden, Luther recognized that developing this potential (i.e. going to work) was in fact living out the second greatest commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Luther’s view of the sacred-secular divide can be seen in his work, The Babylonia Captivity of the Church:
“Therefore, I advise no one to enter a religious order, or the priesthood, indeed, I advise everyone against it—unless he is forearmed with this knowledge and understands that the works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they may be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field, or the woman going about her household tasks.”
John Calvin further built upon Luther’s work, writing, “We know that people were created for the express purpose of being employed in labor of various kinds, and that no sacrifice is more pleasant to God than when every person applies diligently to his or her own calling and endeavors to live in such a manner as to contribute to the general advantage.” (Harmony of the Evangelists.) His high view of work, adopted later by the Puritans, became known as the Protestant Work Ethic. Calvin called everyday workers to be industrious, to work hard, and to be salt in the world in which they lived, introducing a Christian presence and influence throughout the culture.
Although the Reformers destroyed the sacred/secular divide in their teaching, it returned to the church in the form of Enlightenment philosophy and Christian teaching called, Fundamentalism. The philosophy of David Hume and Immanuel Kant drove a dividing wall between spiritual truth and physical (scientific) truth. The Bible could not be scientifically proven; it had to be accepted by faith. The Bible and all religion belonged in a walled off portion of cultural life called “religious experience.” All religious ideas and experiences must be accepted as equally valid since there is no way to verify truth in this world. All “religious truth” must also be kept strictly out of every other area of cultural life such as the family, the school system, the public arena, or civil law.
This philosophy OUTSIDE the church coincided with a separationist movement INSIDE the Bible-believing church, which reached full expression in a series of essays, entitled, The Fundamentals, published between 1910 and 1915. Locating sin in the physical body and the culture rather than in their own hearts, the leaders of this movement devalued the physical, material world (God’s glorious creation, a theater of God’s gory, which he wants developed), called Christians to separate themselves from godless people (instead of weeping for them), and urged withdrawal as much as possible from heathen culture (instead of being salt and light.) By seeing the world and its culture as something they should separate from instead of something Adam was commanded to develop and influence, this movement reestablished the sacred/secular divide. The only work that really matters is “spiritual work” like being a pastor, winning the lost, and reading the Bible. Such a view completely undermines the value of “secular” vocation.
My hope is that by understanding the history of the doctrine of work, we will be guardians of the biblical view, and be quick to urge each other to:
- Pray for effectiveness and success in our work, knowing God wants to prosper us
- Ask God for wisdom, whenever we encounter a problem at work, knowing our issue with our “secular job” is just as important as pastors asking for wisdom
- Sense God’s pleasure when we have put in a full day’s work. HE IS PLEASED, and remembering that fact restores our souls!
May Paul’s words take on deeper and deeper meaning as we realize God designed us to be workers and wants the earth’s potential to be developed. 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. (Col 3:23).
