Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Vocation versus job

Very nice little blurb (it's not really a blog, so is it a post?) today at Stone's Fence about how the word vocation has changed its meaning over the years. I'll let Lawson tell it in his own words:

Time was, all Christians regarded their work as a divine calling. Maybe not a calling to the ministry of word, order, and sacrament, but a calling all the same. It’s why we called is a “vocation.” The word means “calling.” We quit a “job” once we don’t need the money it provides. But do we ever “quit” a calling?

I doubt it.

I wonder how many Christians in so-called “secular jobs” seriously subscribe to the old protestant notion that any and all honest work done for God’s glory is, in fact, a sacred calling? Done not only to support ourselves and to have enough to share with others in need, but also done out of a sense that in some very vital way, God has given us this thing to do. However trivial it might seem, however non-religious, however tedious…it is both his burden on us and his gift to us.

<idle musing>
Yes. No matter what you are doing, it is a sacred calling—if you are a Christian, that is. Nothing is a "higher calling." Nothing is a "lower calling." They are simply different callings.
</idle musing>

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