1. Definition: work is what we do; vocation is why we do it.
2. God is a worker and his vocation is his own reputation (Genesis 2:1; Ps 19:1)
3. Man as male/female are made in God's likeness and God gives the first “great commission” (Genesis 1:26-28; 2: 5, 7, 15), but man rebels and the work of the great commission becomes a sometimes cruel, toilsome master.
4. God returns himself to recreate work and vocation in Jesus Christ; the servant/worker of the Lord (John 4:34; 5:17; 9:4; 17:4). And his work is infinitely valuable. Never has work been deemed this highly.
5. All honest work of Christ's redeemed in the NT is valuable work, even the most common work of a slave (Col 3:23-4:1). There are no sharp sacred/secular; holy/profane separations between types of work, but the Church quickly looses that truth and a two-tiered, higher and lower vocational view seizes the church for over 1000 years.
6. With the light of the Reformation, a return to “every Christian man & woman has a high calling; whatever they do” returns to churches and it's based on the two greatest commandments (Mark 12:28f). A Christian's vocation, whatever their work, is to bring good works into this broken, dark world and to make themselves a blessing for God's reputation. This now includes a new great commission (Matt 28:18f) to labor for the reconciliation of unbelievers back to God through Jesus Christ, but that new great commission does not despise all our other labors, but embraces them.
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Tom Sorensen is one of the elders at Littleton Bible Chapel. He has a background in retail management in the home furnishings industry for 24 years. In the late 1990's he moved out of retail management and into semi-retirement and does product sourcing work in Asia. He has a...
