Every Waking Hour

An Introduction to Work and Vocation for Christians

Benjamin T. Quinn, Walter R. Strickland, II

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781577996798
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Pastors and chaplains aren't the only ones in ministry--every Christian is called to be a minister through his or her work in the world. But in order to fully understand what this entails, we must look to the Bible and develop a fuller understanding of work as any way we interact with God's creation. Doing so may transform our view of how Sunday morning impacts our work-a-day lives--and vice versa.In Every Waking Hour, Benjamin Quinn and Walter R. Strickland develop a biblically and theologically rich view of work, vocation, and how we may glorify God through everything we do.

CHAPTER 1

Theology of Work

We spend the vast majority of our waking hours on the job, yet glorifying God in our work is rarely a topic of conversation in the church. Faithful Christians who desire to honor God with their vocational lives often do so by working ethically, starting lunchtime Bible studies, facilitating a prayer time, or sharing their faith regularly. While each of these activities are honoring to God, he also cares about the tasks of our job as well.

Christ-followers who seek to integrate their faith into their work often stop just short of tapping into the essence of their vocation and, as a result, function like a chaplain on the job site, primarily meeting spiritual needs.

What Is Work?

What do we mean when we say “work” and “vocation”? Although these terms are often used interchangeably, in this book we will use them as defined below.

Work is what creatures do with God’s creation.1

Is that broad? Yes, but think about it: When I walked into my office this morning, did “work” happen when I flipped on the light switch, pulled out my laptop, answered the first email, or sat down to start writing? We might say work began when I started doing something that pertained to my paycheck. But I’ve never received a paycheck for cutting my grass, and we can all agree that’s work.

So where does work take place? Wherever people interact with God’s world—whether planting bulbs or planting churches, raising children at home or driving to the office, writing a song or writing an amicus brief—it is all work.

Further, we understand work as inherently good. In Genesis 1–2, God gave work to Adam and Eve as part of their image-bearing opportunity and responsibility before sin entered into the picture. After the fall in Genesis 3, however, work neither stopped nor was rendered bad. Work remained good as God designed it, though it became difficult and painful and leaned away from God’s intended ends; via misdirection, it tends away from God’s original ends. Work now works against God’s creatures in many ways. In addition to our labor, then, we must attend to the toilsome task of redirecting all things back to God through our work—yes, all things!

Does it feel a bit overwhelming? Indeed it does, but in Christ and by the Spirit, we join God in restoring all things to him, things both seen and unseen, which injects meaning and purpose into everything we do, from coaching to dog-walking.

Vocation is the way or ways in which we make ourselves useful to others.2

First, notice the term “others” in this definition. People were not created to live for self. We were created to live for others. The first “other” is God himself. This is why the Great Commandment (Matt 22:36–40) begins with “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” To begin any other way would be idolatry. But, as Jesus taught, the second is like the first; we are to “love your neighbor as yourself.” “Self” simply serves as the pivot point from which we direct our love and energy upward, then outward.

Second, consider the words “way or ways” from our definition. The first thing to notice is the plural, “ways.” Despite the grammar, “vocation” is not singular. Often when we hear the word “vocation” we immediately think of our place of employment, and indeed this is a vocation. But it isn’t the only one. “Vocation” simply means “calling,” and each of us inhabits multiple callings. For a Christian, the first and most important calling is to trust and obey Jesus. Through our union with him, we live out other callings in the arenas of family, church community, neighborhood, and occupation or place of employment. There may be more vocations for some, but likely not fewer.

Each of these arenas, then, is a vocation wherein we are called to love God and love others, though only one (for most people) provides a paycheck.

Work is the hand that animates the glove of vocation. Picture a leather glove lying on your kitchen table. For it to be useful, you must slip your hand inside. But you can’t simply shove your hand into the glove however you choose; you must place each finger in the proper sleeve for the glove to be useful at all.

We should understand work and vocation as relating in a similar fashion. We are called to multiple arenas in life and, thus, to occupy multiple vocations. The proper way to work out our vocations is by always striving for the double love of God and neighbor. But these vocations do not exercise love for God and his world until we put on our vocational gloves and get to work.

To be sure, all work is vocational, but the doing of the work looks different in each vocation. Changing diapers at home is as much an exercise in double love of God and neighbor as is delivering meals on wheels, printing the bulletins at church, or spending extra time editing tomorrow’s sports column. Each is important and demands our faithfulness.

Work and Creation

If work is what we do with God’s creation, then we must understand creation to understand work. Scripture is the highest authority for our understanding of creation—and therefore serves as our source for understanding work and its connection with creation.

Creation

God created everything and declared that it was good (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). This affirmation dispels the notion of a sacred-secular divide (i.e., dualism), which implies that only part of creation is good. Dualistic thought subverts a Christian understanding of the workplace and divorces our faith from everyday tasks. In essence, dualism divides our allegiance and thwarts our ability to engage our work with kingdom-oriented single-mindedness. It draws a line through the world and forces us to walk on both sides of it, ultimately relegating spiritual matters to one side and vocational and other common concerns to the other.3 In the end, a worldview divided into sacred and secular spheres undermines the teachings of Scripture (Gen 1; 1 Tim 4:4) and fails to recognize that the Christian life as a whole is dedicated to the Lord.

Humanity is the crowning jewel of creation, and God pronounced it to be “very good” (Gen 1:31). The essence of humanity’s goodness is that we are image-bearers of God himself, which means that, like God, we exist in relationship to the things and people around us. Human existence is characterized by four relationships that illuminate the scope of redemption and demonstrate how our work furthers God’s plan of redemption: relationship with God, with one another, with oneself, and with God’s creation.

The Fall

At the fall in Genesis 3, a loving God gave Adam and Eve the ability to express their love for him by choosing to follow his commands or to pursue joy and fulfillment on their own—the decision to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Adam and Eve chose to eat from the tree, and their sinful act of rebellion fractured the harmony that characterized all that God declared to be good, including humanity’s fundamental relationships. Sin created a divide between man and God, strife between people, unrest within every individual, and disorder among God’s creation.

Redemption

Every good story has a conflict and resolution, and Scripture is no exception. In the same chapter that chronicles the fall of humanity—the conflict—the biblical writer records the resolution—the beginning of God’s plan for redemption. Genesis 3:15 declares, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” In short, this is the first proclamation of Christ’s coming to restore all that God originally declared to be good.

Restoration

The Old Testament documents God faithfully keeping his promises to his people. One promise—the coming of the Son of David—was later fulfilled in Jesus (Matt 1:1). Christ’s death and resurrection initiated an era in which the restorative power of the cross can be glimpsed throughout God’s creation, including in our work. But God’s work of redemption will culminate in a restoration of his Eden-like rule and reign only during his coming kingdom. The entire biblical drama moves toward this end.4

As the story unfolds, we work.

Why Your Work Matters to God

We cannot understand the conflict and resolution of the biblical drama without understanding the law. The Great Commandment is a wonderful summary of the law that contains two complementary axes. The first is vertical and highlights love of God: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt 22:37). We usually think about the vertical dimension of the law in terms of worship or relationship with God. Unfortunately, the vertical dimension seldom overlaps with the horizontal.

The second is horizontal and underscores love of neighbor: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39). We tend to regard the horizontal dimension as relationships or social justice. And, unfortunately, we seldom connect these areas of life with the vertical dimension of the law.

An overemphasis on the vertical dimension of the law with little regard for the horizontal can be caricatured as zealous Christian fundamentalism. Overemphasis on the horizontal dimension to the detriment of the vertical can be caricatured as liberal social gospel. Both pursuits are essential to participating in God’s plan, but when one holds distinct priority over the other, it hinders our pursuit of the Great Commission. We must hold them together and in balance to be faithful to God in every area of our lives.

Throughout the history of the church, different Christian groups have favored the vertical or horizontal imperative of the Great Commandment. Generally speaking, theologically conservative Christians expend significant energy on loving God, and those who are more theologically liberal have historically focused on loving their neighbor.

The conservative Christian’s faith is characterized by spiritual formation activities that focus on personal holiness, like Scripture memorization, daily devotions, prayer, fasting, solitude, and personal worship. When spiritually oriented believers look outward to engage the culture, their efforts are often evangelistic in scope, and their chief aim is to verbally proclaim the gospel—and so it is on the jobsite. Vertically oriented Christians strive to cultivate deep personal communion with God, and they desire the same for their coworkers. Consequently, their efforts are aimed at enabling their coworkers to participate in “things above.”

In contrast, liberal Christians...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Theology of Work
• Chapter 2: Work throughout the Old Testament
• Chapter 3: Work throughout the New Testament
• Chapter 4: Christ, Wisdom, and Work
• Chapter 5: Putting It All Together: Kingdom, Mission, and Discipleship
• Conclusion: The Way Forward
• Appendix A: With Whom Should We Work? A Framework for Collaboration
• Appendix B: Vocation Questions
• Appendix C: Recommended Reading Summary
• Subject and Author Index
• Scripture Index