Foreword
The gospel — the good news of what God has done for us in Christ — reshapes everything about how we approach our work. That reshaping operates on several levels at once.
The gospel assures you that God cares about everything you do and will listen to your prayers. He may not answer them the way you want, but if he doesn’t, it is because he knows things you do not. Your degree of success or failure is part of his good plan for you. God is your source of strength and perseverance.
The gospel also reminds you that God cares about the products you make, the companies you work for, and the customers you serve. He not only loves you, but loves the world and wants you to serve it well. Your work is a critical way in which God is caring for human beings and renewing his world.
And the gospel is good news in the deepest sense. In the words of pastor and counselor Jack Miller, “Cheer up: You’re a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine, and you’re more loved than you ever dared hope.” You will continually err and sin, and yet God will prevail in your life through his goodness and grace.
The gospel gives meaning to your work as a leader. You are called to treat all people and their work with dignity, to create environments in which people can flourish and use their God-given gifts to contribute to society, and to embody grace, truth, hope, and love in the organizations you create — not as a perfect exemplar but as a pointer to Christ.
This book captures foundational ways of thinking about God, about who we are in relation to the Trinity, and about how all of this affects the work we were created to do. How we work — in the context of our particular culture, time in history, vocation, and organization — is something we all need to be thinking through in our own communities. But the answers will all hang on this essential theology: the knowledge of who God is, his relation to humanity, his plan for the world, and how the good news of Christ turns our lives and our work upside down.
Introduction — The Importance of Recovering Vocation
To make a real difference in the world, there would have to be a reappropriation of the idea of vocation or calling — a return, in a new way, to the understanding of work as a contribution to the good of all and not merely a means to one’s own advancement.
A job is a vocation only if someone else calls you to do it and you do it for them rather than for yourself. Work can be a calling only if it is reimagined as a mission of service to something beyond merely your own interests. Thinking of work mainly as a means of self-fulfillment and self-realization slowly crushes a person.
When we work, we are, as those in the Lutheran tradition often put it, the “fingers of God” — the agents of his providential love for others. This understanding elevates the purpose of work from making a living to loving your neighbor, and at the same time releases us from the crushing burden of working primarily to prove ourselves. Work not only cares for creation but also directs and structures it. In this Reformed view, the purpose of work is to create a culture that honors God and enables people to thrive.
There are many ways to serve God at work: to further social justice in the world; to be personally honest and share your faith with your colleagues; to do skillful, excellent work; to create beauty; to work from a Christian motivation to glorify God, seeking to engage and influence culture to that end; to work with a grateful, joyful, gospel-changed heart through all the ups and downs; to do whatever gives you the greatest joy and passion; and to make as much money as you can so that you can be as generous as you can. Each of these is valid. But if you add the word “main” before any one of them — as in, “the main way to serve God at work is” — the views begin to contradict one another. The Bible’s vision of work is rich precisely because it holds all of them together.
God gives us talents and gifts so we can do for one another what he wants to do for us and through us. A writer, for example, can fill people’s lives with meaning through the telling of stories that convey the nature of reality. The Bible teems with wisdom, resources, and hope for anyone who is learning to work, looking for work, trying to work, or going to work. And when we say the Scriptures give us hope for work, we at once acknowledge both how deeply frustrating and difficult work can be and how profound the spiritual hope must be if we are going to face the challenge of pursuing vocation in this world.
Everyone wants to be successful rather than forgotten, and everyone wants to make a difference in life. But that is beyond the control of any of us. If this life is all there is, then everything will eventually burn up in the death of the sun and no one will even be around to remember anything that has ever happened. Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavors, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever. That is what the Christian faith promises. As Paul writes, “In the Lord, your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
To work in this way — to receive the consolation and freedom that J. R. R. Tolkien received from his Christian faith for his creative work — you need to know the Bible’s answers to three questions: Why do you want to work? Why is it so hard to work? And how can we overcome the difficulties and find satisfaction in our work through the gospel? The rest of this book will seek to answer those three questions in its three sections.
Chapter 1 — The Design of Work
The Bible begins talking about work as soon as it begins talking about anything — that is how important and basic it is. The author of Genesis describes God’s creation of the world as work, depicting the magnificent project of cosmos invention within a regular workweek of seven days. God worked for the sheer joy of it. He stood back, took in all that he had made, and said, in effect, “That’s good!” Work could not have a more exalted inauguration.
The rest of the Bible tells us that God continues this work as Provider, caring for the world by watering and cultivating the ground, giving food to all he has made, giving help to all who suffer, and caring for the needs of every living thing. And God not only works — he commissions workers to carry on his work. In Genesis 1:28, he tells human beings to “fill the earth and subdue it.” The word “subdue” indicates that, though all God had made was good, it was still to a great degree undeveloped. God left creation with deep untapped potential for cultivation that people were to unlock through their labor. As one biblical scholar put it, “It is perfectly clear that God’s good plan always included human beings working, or, more specifically, living in the constant cycle of work and rest.”
Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sexuality. It is not simply medicine but food for our soul. Without meaningful work we sense significant inner loss and emptiness. People who are cut off from work because of physical or other reasons quickly discover how much they need work to thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Work is also one of the ways we discover who we are, because it is through work that we come to understand our distinct abilities and gifts — a major component of our identities.
The commandments of God are, therefore, a means of liberation. Cars work well when you follow the owner’s manual and honor the design of the car. If you fail to change the oil, no one will fine you or take you to jail; your car will simply break down because you violated its nature. In the same way, human life works properly only when conducted in line with the “owner’s manual,” the commandments of God. “I am the Lord your God,” says the Lord through Isaiah, “who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea” (Isaiah 48:17–18). And so it is with work, enshrined in the Ten Commandments: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work” (Exodus 20:9). This is not a burdensome command; it is an invitation to freedom.
Yet there must be balance. The philosopher Josef Pieper argued that leisure is not the mere absence of work but an attitude of mind or soul in which you are able to contemplate and enjoy things as they are in themselves, without regard to their value or immediate utility. The work-obsessed mind — as in our Western culture — tends to look at everything in terms of efficiency, value, and speed. But there must also be an ability to enjoy the most simple and ordinary aspects of life, even ones that are not strictly useful, but just delightful. In a fallen world, work is frustrating and exhausting; one can easily conclude that it should be avoided or simply endured. And because our disordered hearts crave affirmation and validation, it is just as tempting to thrust in the opposite direction — making life all about career accomplishment and very little else. Overwork is often a grim attempt to get a lifetime’s worth of work out of the way early, so we can put work behind us. These attitudes will only make work more stultifying and unsatisfying in the end.
Chapter 2 — The Dignity of Work
We learn from Scripture not only that work has dignity in itself, but also that all kinds of work have dignity. God’s own work in Genesis 1 and 2 is “manual” labor — he shapes humanity out of the dust of the earth, deliberately placing a spirit in a physical body, and he plants a garden. There is no hierarchy here that elevates the intellectual over the physical, the white-collar over the blue-collar.
The point is reinforced by the incarnation. If God came into the world, what would he be like? For the ancient Greeks, he might have been a philosopher-king. The ancient Romans might have looked for a just and noble statesman. But how does the God of the Hebrews enter the world? As a carpenter. We were built for work and the dignity it gives us as human beings, regardless of its status or pay.
Chapter 3 — Work as Cultivation
When Genesis speaks of human beings “filling the earth,” it means something far more than plants and animals filling the earth. It means civilization, not just procreation. God does not want merely more individuals of the human species; he also wants the world to be filled with a human society. He could have just spoken the word and created millions of people in thousands of human settlements, but he didn’t. He made it our job to develop and build this society.
And that is the pattern for all work. Work is creative and assertive. It is rearranging the raw material of God’s creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people in particular, thrive and flourish. This pattern shows up in every kind of work. Farming takes the physical material of soil and seed and produces food. Music takes the physics of sound and rearranges it into something beautiful and thrilling that brings meaning to life. When we take fabric and make a piece of clothing, when we push a broom and clean up a room, when we use technology to harness the forces of electricity, when we take an unformed and naïve human mind and teach it a subject, when we teach a couple how to resolve their relational disputes, when we take simple materials and turn them into a poignant work of art — we are continuing God’s work of forming, filling, and subduing. Whenever we bring order out of chaos, whenever we draw out creative potential, whenever we elaborate and “unfold” creation beyond where it was when we found it, we are following God’s pattern of creative cultural development.
Consider the naming of the animals in Genesis 2. Why didn’t God simply name them himself? He was clearly capable — in Genesis 1, he names the light “Day” and the darkness “Night.” Yet he invites humanity to continue his work of developing creation, to develop all the capacities of human and physical nature to build a civilization that glorifies him. Through our work we bring order out of chaos, create new entities, exploit the patterns of creation, and interweave the human community. So whether splicing a gene or performing brain surgery or collecting rubbish or painting a picture, our work further develops, maintains, or repairs the fabric of the world. In this way, we connect our work to God’s work.
Chapter 4 — Work as Service
In the New Testament letters, the Greek word for “to call” (kaleo) usually describes God’s summons to men and women into saving faith and union with his Son. It is also a call to serve him by reaching the world with his message. But the apostle Paul extends this language to common social and economic tasks — what we might call “secular jobs” — naming them God’s callings and assignments. Our daily work can be a calling only if it is reconceived as God’s assignment to serve others. And that is exactly how the Bible teaches us to view work.
How does God give a city security? Through lawmakers, police officers, and those working in government and politics. How does God “feed every living thing” today? Through the farmer, the baker, the retailer, the website programmer, the truck driver, and all who contribute to bringing food to people. In Martin Luther’s Large Catechism, when he addresses the Lord’s Prayer’s petition for “daily bread,” Luther expands the request to encompass the entire agricultural and commercial chain that delivers bread to a table — “not only as far as the flour bin and baking oven but also out over the broad fields, the farmlands, and the entire country.” God’s providential care reaches us through the labor of others — which is to say, through work.
There is also a parental analogy worth sitting with. Parents want to give their children everything they need, but they also want them to become diligent, conscientious, and responsible. So they give their children chores. They could obviously do the chores better themselves, but that would not help their children grow in maturity. So parents give their children what they truly need — character — through the diligence the chores require. God does something similar with all of us.
The key question to hold before yourself is this: “How, with my existing abilities and opportunities, can I be of greatest service to other people, knowing what I do of God’s will and of human need?” Since we already have in Christ the things other people work for — salvation, self-worth, a good conscience, and peace — we may now work simply to love God and our neighbors. This revolutionary perspective gives all work a common and exalted purpose: to honor God by loving your neighbors and serving them through your work.
The very first way to be sure you are serving God in your work is to be competent. Doing excellent work is an act of love, because it means you are taking your neighbor’s needs seriously. The jazz musician John Coltrane expressed this beautifully in the liner notes to his masterpiece A Love Supreme: “This album is a humble offering to Him. An attempt to say ‘THANK YOU GOD’ through our work, even as we do in our hearts and with our tongues.”
Chapter 5 — Work Becomes Fruitless
God had warned Adam and Eve that if they ate of the tree, they would die. Most readers expect immediate physical death, so it is surprising when Adam and Eve eat and do not slump lifeless to the ground. But that would happen in due course, for eventual physical shutdown is one aspect of the comprehensive death and decay that now comes to every area of human life. Nothing works as it should. Sin leads to the disintegration of every dimension of existence: spiritual, physical, social, cultural, psychological, temporal, eternal.
Work is not itself a curse, but it now lies — with all other aspects of human life — under the curse of sin. “Thorns and thistles” will come up as we seek to grow food. When we remember that gardening is representative of all kinds of human labor and culture building, this is a statement that all work and human effort will be marked by frustration and a lack of fulfillment. As one commentator puts it, “Part of the curse of work in a fallen world is its frequent fruitlessness.”
This fruitlessness takes many forms. Projects fail. Organizations decline. Careers stall. Skills atrophy. Best efforts don’t produce hoped-for results. In a world where people have on average three to four different careers in their work lives, it is perfectly natural that changing careers may be necessary to maximize fruitfulness. God can — and often does — change what he calls us to do.
Yet even amid fruitlessness, there is a remarkable hope. J. R. R. Tolkien’s dream and the resulting story “Leaf by Niggle” offer a vivid picture of that hope. Niggle imagined a beautiful tree that he was never able to fully produce in paint during his life. He died weeping that his picture — the great work of his life — was not completed and that no one would ever see it. And yet, when he arrived in the heavenly country, there was the tree, in all its glory. This was Tolkien’s way of saying, to himself as much as to us, that our deepest aspirations in work will come to complete fruition in God’s future. The fruitlessness is real, but it is not the last word.
Chapter 6 — Work Becomes Pointless
The book of Ecclesiastes presents a character called the Philosopher — the wisest, richest, most gifted person imaginable — who nonetheless cannot find lasting fulfillment in this life. The author uses this character to push readers toward an understanding of the transcendent uniqueness and necessity of God. Nothing within this world alone is a sufficient basis for a meaningful life here.
The Philosopher makes his case in stages. The book begins with three “life projects,” each an effort to discover a meaningful life under the sun. The first is a quest to make sense of life through learning and wisdom. The second is an effort to make life fulfilling through the pursuit of pleasure. The third project — the one that cuts closest to ordinary working people — is the pursuit of achievement through hard work: the accomplishment of concrete goals and the accrual of wealth and influence. His conclusion is devastating. Even if you are one of the few people who breaks through and accomplishes all you hope for, it’s all for nothing — for in the end there are no lasting achievements. “I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish?” (Ecclesiastes 2:18–19). The grief this produces is total: “What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest” (Ecclesiastes 2:22–23). In short, even if your work is not fruitless, it is ultimately pointless if life “under the sun” is all there is.
Work can even isolate. Ecclesiastes describes a man who is alone — without son or brother, without friends or family — as a result of his labor. Work can convince you that you are working hard for your family and friends while ambition actually seduces you into neglecting them. “For whom am I toiling,” this man finally asks, “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?” In the end, he finds that working for his own sake is unrewarding. The person whose soul rests wholly on the circumstances of their work will know grief and restlessness so profound that even at night their mind cannot rest.
One common problem is that people do not choose work that fits their actual abilities, talents, and capacities, but rather choose work that fits their limited imagination of how they can boost their own self-image. Without an operative consensus on the dignity of all work — still less on the idea that in all work we are the hands and fingers of God serving the human community — the range of career choices feels artificially narrow. Only a few kinds of work seem worth doing: those that pay well, those that directly address society’s needs, and those that carry a certain cool factor.
What wisdom, then, would the Bible give us in choosing our work? First, if we have the luxury of options, we would want to choose work that we can do well — work that fits our gifts and capacities. To take up work we can do well is like cultivating ourselves as gardens filled with hidden potential; it is to make the greatest room for the ministry of competence. Second, because the main purpose of work is to serve the world, we would want to choose work that benefits others, asking whether our work or organization or industry makes people better or appeals to the worst aspects of their characters.
Ecclesiastes commends “one handful of quietness” — by contrast with two alternatives. One is the two handfuls of wealth that come from toil and chasing after the wind. The other is the empty handful that comes from idleness. Tranquility without toil will not bring satisfaction; neither will toil without tranquility. Qoheleth concedes that satisfaction in work in a fallen world is always a miraculous gift of God — and yet we have a responsibility to pursue it through a particular balance. First, this means recognizing and renouncing our tendency to make idols of money and power. Second, it means putting relationships in their proper place.
Chapter 7 — Work Becomes Selfish
In Genesis 11, the builders of the Tower of Babel declare: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves.” One of the reasons work is both fruitless and pointless is the powerful inclination of the human heart to make work — and its attendant benefits — the main basis of one’s meaning and identity. When this happens, work is no longer a way to create and bring out the wonders of the created order, as Calvin would say, or to be an instrument of God’s providence serving the needs of the neighbor, as Luther would say. Instead it becomes a way to distinguish yourself from your neighbor, to show the world and prove to yourself that you’re special. It becomes a way to accumulate power and security, and to exercise control over your destiny.
”To make a name” in the language of the Bible means to construct an identity for yourself. You either receive your name — your defining essence, security, worth, and uniqueness — from what God has done for you and in you, or you make a name through what you can do for yourself. This self-glorification takes two forms. The first is making an idol of individual talents and accomplishments, resulting in competitive individualism. The second is making an idol of one’s group, which leads to snobbery, imperialism, colonialism, and various forms of racism. A life of self-glorification makes genuine unity and love between people impossible. As C. S. Lewis observed in Mere Christianity: “Pride is essentially competitive — is competitive by its very nature. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.” The two things we all want so desperately — glory and relationship — can coexist only with God.
The people of Shinar wanted to build the tallest building in the world. This peculiar project of humankind has shown no signs of abating for many millennia, and every year a new building goes up somewhere that will make a name for someone new and stand as the world’s tallest for a time. It is a vivid example of the spirit of competitive pride that drives work in every field.
An extended case study on the themes of self-interest, power, and vocation can be found in the Old Testament book of Esther. The book recounts an incident when the Jews were dispersed throughout the Persian Empire. Esther, a beautiful young Jewish girl, hides her identity and is elevated to be queen in the royal palace. Almost all readers are troubled by early parts of this story. Feminist interpreters are outraged at Esther’s subservience. Others are troubled by the fact that, unlike Daniel, who identified himself as a Jew and lived as one publicly in a pagan court, Esther keeps quiet about her identity. People of traditional moral views are bothered that she sleeps with a man to whom she is not married. Through all these moral compromises, she rises to a place near the center of power. So we are posed with a question: in such morally, culturally, and spiritually ambiguous situations, does God still work with us and through us? The answer of the book is yes.
The book of Esther parallels the biblical accounts of Daniel and Joseph. All three were believers in the God of Israel. Each was an official in a pluralistic, nonbelieving government and culture. None were prophets, priests, elders, or teachers. They had reached the highest circles of power in their secular institutions. And God used them mightily. R. C. Lucas once pointed out that if you went to a church book table and saw a biography titled “The Man God Uses,” you would immediately assume it was about a missionary, teacher, or church leader. Yet what you have in the story of Joseph is a highly successful secular official. Lucas said, “In the long term I think being a preacher, missionary, or leading a Bible study group in many ways is easier. There is a certain spiritual glamour in doing it. It is often hard to get Christians to see that God is willing not just to use men and women in ministry, but in law, in medicine, in business, in the arts.”
God shows the diversity of the people he uses by giving us three different books in the Bible describing how he restores the nation of Israel to its homeland. Ezra is about a minister — a teacher of the word who reacquaints the Jews with the Bible so their lives can be shaped by what God said. Nehemiah is about an urban planner and developer who used his management skills to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and reinstate stability so that economic and civic life could flourish. And Esther is about a woman with power in civil government working against racial injustice. Male and female, lay and clergy, people working for spiritual maturity, economic flourishing, and better public policy — God uses them all.
The story of Esther makes a further point about the seductions of power. A friend who worked in private equity at a major financial services firm faced a recent dilemma: his team had identified an excellent investment opportunity that would provide a good return, but the business in his mind not only didn’t make a positive contribution to society — it damaged it. It wasn’t illegal, and the firm itself had no issue with it. He was torn between his obligation to create value for his company and staff, and his faith-based commitment to human flourishing. He could veto the deal, but that would only put it in the hands of a competing bank. So he announced that he would not veto the deal, but he would personally choose to not participate in any bonus that might result from the investment. That gave him the opportunity to explain his rationale and present a picture of God’s intentions for human flourishing. The deal closed. He took a real cost upon himself to take a stand and point his colleagues toward an alternate vision of life in the palace. Unless you use your clout, your credentials, and your money in service to the people outside the palace, the palace is a prison.
When Mordecai tells Esther that she was “brought to her royal position for such a time as this,” he uses a passive verb — she did not get to the palace by her own power. She did not develop or earn her beauty, nor did she produce the opportunity. They were given to her. The same is true of you. You worked with talents you did not earn. You went through doors of opportunity you did not produce. Therefore, everything you have is a matter of grace, and so you have the freedom to serve the world through your influence, just as you can through your competence.
Consider what it means that Esther saved her people through identification and mediation. Her people were condemned, but she identified with them, came under that condemnation, and risked her life — “If I perish, I perish.” Because she identified, she could mediate before the throne of power as no one else could, and because she received favor there, that favor was transferred to her people. Saving people through identification and mediation: does that remind you of anyone? Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived in the ultimate palace with ultimate beauty and glory, and he voluntarily left them behind. Philippians 2 says that he had equality with the Father but did not hold on to it; instead, he emptied himself, identified with us, and took on our condemnation.
Meditate on these things, and the truth will change your identity. It will convince you of your real, inestimable value. And ironically, when you see how much you are loved, your work will become far less selfish. The résumé, the influence, the benefits — they become just things. You can risk them, spend them, and even lose them. Esther is called Queen Esther fourteen times; thirteen of those occur after she says, “If I perish, I perish.” She becomes great not by trying to make a name for herself — and you will become a person of greatness not by trying to make yourself into one, but by serving the One who said to his Father, “For your sake, thy will be done.”
Chapter 8 — Work Reveals Our Idols
Idolatry is not merely a physical process of carving statues; it is a spiritual and psychological one. It means imagining and trusting anything to deliver the control, security, significance, satisfaction, and beauty that only the real God can give. It means turning a good thing into an ultimate thing. Even nonreligious people serve “gods” — ideologies or abilities they believe can justify their lives. The French philosopher Luc Ferry, himself a nonbeliever in God, argues that everyone seeks “some way to face life with confidence, and death without fear and regret.” All of us look to something to assure ourselves we have spent our lives well. This is why Luther argued that the Ten Commandments begin with a prohibition of idolatry: because we never break the other commandments without first breaking the first.
People develop “fatal attractions” for status and power, for approval and achievement, for romance and sexual pleasure, or for affluence and comfort. Personal idols profoundly drive and shape our work behavior. Idols of comfort and pleasure can make it impossible to work as hard as a faithful and fruitful career requires. Idols of power and approval, on the other hand, can lead to overwork or to ruthless, unbalanced work practices. Idols of control take forms including intense worry, lack of trust, and micromanagement. While we are usually blind to our own idols, it is not hard to see them in others — and to see how they fill people with anxiety, anger, and discouragement.
With the rise of modern science and the philosophical movement called the Enlightenment, modern society dethroned the idols of religion, tribe, and tradition — replacing them with reason, empiricism, and individual freedom as the ultimate values. Ultimately, there was no moral authority or cause higher than the happiness of the self. As many have observed, this made “choice” and feelings into something sacred. In the modern world, “the individual was the center of the universe, and the creature beyond all else entitled to absolute respect.” In other words, the human self had replaced God.
In the modern worldview, work became the defining activity of humanity — “an arena for self-realization, a means not only of educating oneself but also of fulfillment. Work becomes the defining activity of man. His aim is to create himself by remaking the world.” But long before the horrors of the world wars, Nietzsche declared that the idea that science leads inevitably to human progress was itself an idol — a new quasi-religious faith with no grounding in reality. Science can tell us only what is, never how things ought to be. Human beings are capable of both kindness and cruelty, and science will simply serve whoever is in power. And even in the most successful capitalist societies, many recognize the cultural contradiction that consumerism tends to undermine the very virtues of self-control and responsibility on which capitalism is founded.
These contradictions cannot be resolved by any single ideology. Nothing will be put perfectly right, as Paul says, until the “day of Christ” at the end of history. Until then, all creation “groans” and is subject to decay and weakness. So work will be put completely right only when heaven is reunited with earth. To talk about fully redeeming work now is sometimes naïveté, sometimes hubris. But the gospel does give real resources for working differently — and those resources are what the book’s third section explores.
Chapter 9 — A New Story for Work
People cannot make sense of anything without attaching it to a story line. And if you get the story of the world wrong — if, for example, you see life as mainly about self-actualization and self-fulfillment rather than the love of God — you will get your life responses wrong, including the way you go about your work.
While many stories are often no more than entertainment, narratives are actually so foundational to how we think that they determine how we understand and live life itself. The term “worldview,” from the German word Weltanschauung, means the comprehensive perspective from which we interpret all of reality. But a worldview is not merely a set of philosophical bullet points. It is essentially a master narrative — a fundamental story about what human life in the world should be like, what has knocked it off balance, and what can be done to make it right.
The gospel teaches that the meaning of life is to love God and love our neighbor, and that the operating principle is servanthood. The Christian worker or business leader who has experienced God’s grace — who knows “You are not your own; you were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20) — is free to honor God, love neighbors, and serve the common good through work. At Redeemer Church, this idea is considered so important for life in the city that they work with entrepreneurs and offer classes to help them think through how the story of the gospel shapes their vision for a new venture, whether a for-profit business, a nonprofit, or an arts project — pointing each entrepreneur toward a vision of serving a need in a way that reflects God’s plan for the world.
One doctor found that only about a third of the problems brought to a physician are strictly medical — the rest are due to or aggravated by anxiety and stress, poor life choices, and unrealistic goals and beliefs about themselves. Every profession encounters something like this: human brokenness shows up in every workplace, and the gospel speaks to it at every level.
When we say that Christians work from a gospel worldview, it does not mean they are constantly speaking about Christian teaching in their work. Some people think of the gospel as something to “look at” in their work — meaning that Christian musicians should play only Christian music, Christian writers should write only stories about conversion, and Christian businesspeople should work only for companies making Christian-themed products. But this is too narrow. Instead, think of the gospel as a set of glasses through which you “look” at everything else in the world. Christian artists, when they do this faithfully, will not be completely beholden either to profit or to naked self-expression; they will tell the widest variety of stories. Christians in business will see profit as only one of several bottom lines and work passionately for any enterprise that serves the common good. A Christian writer can constantly be showing the destructiveness of making something besides God into the central thing — even without mentioning God directly.
Are you thinking about your work through the lenses of a Christian worldview? The questions worth asking are these: What is the dominant story line of the culture in which I live and the field where I work? What are the underlying assumptions about meaning, morality, origin, and destiny? What are the idols, the hopes, the fears? What parts of the dominant worldview are basically in line with the gospel, so that I can agree with and align with them? And what parts are irresolvable without Christ — where, in other words, must I challenge my culture? What opportunities exist in my profession for serving individual people, serving society at large, serving my field, modeling excellence, and witnessing to Christ?
Chapter 10 — A New Conception of Work
God does not simply create; he also loves, cares for, and nurtures his creation. He feeds and protects all he has made. But how does his providential care reach us? As we have seen, especially in the teaching of Martin Luther, God’s loving care comes to us largely through the labor of others. Work is a major instrument of God’s providence; it is how he sustains the human world. A farmer or chef meets her neighbor’s need for food; a mechanic meets his neighbor’s need for technical help on a car. This aspect of work-as-provision is the reason that much work Christians do is not, in its visible form, any different from the work non-Christians do. It is not easy, for example, to identify the uniquely Christian way to fill a cavity.
Instead, Christians should place a high value on all human work — especially excellent work — done by all people, as a channel of God’s love for his world. James 1:17 says that “every good and perfect gift is from above … from the Father of the heavenly lights.” This means that every act of goodness, wisdom, justice, and beauty — no matter who does it — is being enabled by God. It is a gift, and therefore a form of grace. In Exodus 31, we read how Bezalel was “filled with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of crafts — to make artistic designs.” Artistic skill comes from God. In Isaiah 45, a pagan king named Cyrus is anointed with God’s Spirit and chosen for world leadership. These are indications of how God’s Spirit functions both as a non-saving ennobling force in the world and as a non-saving restraining force — giving wisdom, courage, and insight even to those who would deny God’s existence.
The composer Leonard Bernstein held second-order beliefs that were secular and naturalistic. But on a television broadcast he famously said, “Listening to Beethoven’s Fifth, you get the feeling there’s something right with the world, something that checks throughout, something that follows its own laws consistently, something we can trust, that will never let us down.” He was saying that music gave him not simply emotion, but meaning — despite the fact that his formal beliefs were that life was a cosmic accident, and therefore there could be no meaning to anything. His first-order beliefs were bubbling up despite his second-order beliefs, as they do for everyone. Music was the voice of God speaking through Bernstein even as he denied that God existed.
Chapter 11 — A New Compass for Work
Christians can take a stand against unethical behavior, even if it means great sacrifice on their part. The story line of the Christian faith gives believers an ethical bedrock — a far firmer foundation for acting with integrity than the pragmatic approach of a cost-benefit analysis. We are to be honest, compassionate, and generous not because these things are rewarding (which they usually are, hence the cost-benefit approach to ethics), but because they are right in themselves — because to do so honors the will of God and his design for human life. Bible scholar Bruce Waltke points out that the very definition of righteous people is that they disadvantage themselves to advantage others, while “the wicked … are willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves.”
Christians understand that we were made by and for eternal love, which is the primary meaning of life. This has direct implications for how we navigate the marketplace. Are relationships a means to the end of accruing power, wealth, and comfort? Or is wealth creation a means to serve the end goal of loving others? The pressures and practices of the marketplace increasingly cause us to rationalize every aspect of life by analyzing efficiencies. People become contacts who can help you; customers are eyeballs and wallets; employees are resources to execute a task. From a strictly economic perspective, shareholders, management, employees, suppliers, customers, and community residents have unequal financial value, and it is difficult not to treat them unequally in some respects. But while economically speaking some people may be more valuable than others, theologically speaking all of us are made in the image of God and are therefore equal in importance.
According to the Bible, wisdom is more than obeying God’s ethical norms; it is knowing the right thing to do in the eighty percent of life’s situations where the moral rules don’t provide a clear answer. How do we become wise so that we make good decisions? The Bible teaches that wisdom accumulates from several sources. First, we must not merely believe in God but know him personally. When God’s gracious love becomes not an abstract doctrine but a living reality, our heart is less controlled by anxiety and pride — two powerful forces that constantly lead us to unwise over- or under-reactions. Second, we must know ourselves. Many bad decisions stem from an inability to know what we are and are not capable of accomplishing. The gospel keeps us from over- or underestimating our own abilities, because it shows us both our sin and God’s love for us in Christ. Third, we learn wisdom through experience. The foolish heart — blinded from reality by its idols — does not learn from experience. The proud person blames all failures on others, while the self-hater takes full blame even when others are responsible. But if we know God and self, then time deepens our understanding of human nature, of the power and use of words, of how relationships work — all of which leads to wisdom in decision-making.
In Ephesians 6, Paul addresses both workers and employers with instructions that remain urgent today. If even slaves are told it is possible to find satisfaction and meaning in their work, how much more should this be true of workers today? And if slave owners are told they must not manage workers through pride and fear, how much more should this be true of employers? Workers are told to be wholehearted in their work — not doing only the minimum to avoid penalty, not working hard only when being watched, but giving their minds, hearts, and bodies fully to doing the best job possible. They are to work with “sincerity of heart,” which is literally singleness of heart — a term that connotes both focus and integrity. Their work must be ethical, not dishonest or duplicitous in any regard. And they are to work wholeheartedly, with cheerfulness and joy. For employers, Paul reminds masters that they are slaves too — slaves of Christ. Christians should not be ruthless. They should have a reputation for being fair, caring, and committed to others, marked by sympathy and an unusual willingness to forgive and reconcile.
Christians should also be known for calm and poise in the face of difficulty or failure. Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If you get your main meaning from peer approval, or money in the bank, or your reputation for success — then these things are your treasures. But they can be whisked away or stolen. When meaning in life and identity are at stake, we panic, sometimes lying or betraying others to save ourselves, or simply plunging into despair. The gospel offers a different treasure, one that cannot be taken away.
Finally, there is the growing trend that sociologists call “commodification” — ascribing monetary value and applying cost-benefit analysis to relationships, family, and civic engagement. The values of the market inexorably intrude on all of life. Accidents and tragedies once dealt with through community support and spiritual disciplines are now processed through litigation, where “mental distress” must be assigned some objective financial value. So pain gets a number, and the number is argued over. As we have seen, the triune nature of God, and our being made in his image, means that human life is fundamentally relational. But contemporary capitalism increasingly has the power to eliminate the intimacy and accountability of human relationships. In the marketplace, as in every field, there is an urgent need for those with a powerful compass.
Chapter 12 — New Power for Work
For many people, being productive becomes an attempt at redemption. Through their work, they try to build their worth, security, and meaning — but that burns them out. For others, the motivation is simply to bring home a paycheck so they can enjoy “real life” — but that makes work a pointless grind. These hidden motivations are what we could call the “work beneath the work,” and they are what make work so physically and emotionally exhausting in the end.
What Jesus did when he called his first disciples is instructive. He did not change their profession. What changed forever was their relationship to their work. He gave them the big picture; in fact, he was the big picture. He called them to a kind of fishing beyond their fishing: “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people” (Luke 5:10). He was coming to redeem and heal the world, and he invited them to be part of this project. This is how the gospel changes your work — not always by redirecting your career, but by transforming why and how you work.
Passion is widely celebrated today as the key to excellence. But there are different sources and kinds of passion. Sometimes it generates frenetic activity grounded more in fear of failure than in pursuit of purpose. That kind of passion can produce a lot of energy, but from a Christian point of view it is a counterfeit — fueled by the work beneath the work, and unsustainable, like the extreme brightness of a dying lightbulb. Without something bigger than yourself to work for, all your work energy is actually fueled by one of the other deadly sins: you may work hard because of envy to get ahead of somebody, or because of pride to prove yourself, or because of greed. In short, making the cynical self the center of your life releases all the worst vices to become the main animating energies behind your work.
A main plot device of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the corrupting effect of the Ring of Power. When you put on the Ring, it magnifies your own will to power, and in doing so it turns you evil. In a number of places where a hobbit puts on the Ring, the description captures it simply: “When the Ring goes on, you become the only real thing.” That is what self-centered work does to a person.
Romans 12:1 says, “I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifice.” The term “living sacrifice” is deliberately paradoxical — sacrifices were dead. To say to God’s people “I want you to be a living slain thing” is meant to be a jolt. It is a way of saying you have to continually be in the rhythm of dying to your own interest and living for God. That is the passion God asks of you.
Since God rested after his creation, we must also rest after ours. This rhythm of work and rest is not only for believers; it is for everyone, as part of our created nature. Overwork or underwork violates that nature and leads to breakdown. To rest is a way to enjoy and honor the goodness of God’s creation and our own. Anyone who cannot obey God’s command to observe the Sabbath is a slave — even a self-imposed one. Your own heart, or our materialistic culture, or an exploitative organization — or all of the above — will be abusing you if you don’t have the discipline to practice Sabbath. Sabbath is therefore a declaration of freedom. It means you are not a slave to your culture’s expectations, your family’s hopes, your employer’s demands, or even your own insecurities. It is important to speak this truth to yourself with a note of triumph — otherwise you will feel guilty for taking time off, or you will be unable to truly unplug. To practice Sabbath is a disciplined and faithful way to remember that you are not the one who keeps the world running, who provides for your family, or who keeps your work projects moving forward.
God also strengthens us through the fellowship of Christian community. Paul calls believers to “carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). And yet we are also told that Jesus will relieve the burdened and that we are to cast all our cares on God. So which is it — look to God, or look to other Christians? Obviously both, because it is normally through the sympathy and encouragement of Christian friends that we experience God refreshing us and supporting us in our work.
In the Christian view, the way to find your calling is to look at the way you were created. Your gifts have not emerged by accident; the Creator gave them to you. But what if you are not at the point of running in the Olympics or leading on a world stage? What if you are struggling under an unfair boss or a tedious job that does not take advantage of all your gifts? It is liberating to accept that God is fully aware of where you are at any moment, and that by serving the work you have been given, you are serving him.
Epilogue — Leading People to Integrate Faith and Work
The book closes with a summary of the shifts in thinking that the gospel invites us to make. These are not rigid rules or a checklist — the last thing we want is to reduce a gospel-filled work life to ten key ideas, which is the quickest way to become self-righteous and blunt the beauty of the gospel. But it has been helpful to have some of the ideas in this book boiled down to a few phrases that can guide more theologically sound thinking about life at work.
The shifts run in one direction: from a self-centered, individualistic understanding of work toward one shaped by the gospel. From individual salvation to the recognition that the gospel changes everything — hearts, community, and world. From being good to being saved. From cheap grace to costly grace that is genuinely aware of our sin. From “heaven is up there” to the expectation that Christ will come again to this earth. From seeing God as a value-add to understanding ourselves as participants in God’s providential work on earth. From serving the idols of this world to living for God. From disdain of this world to being engaged in it. From bowling alone to accepting community and accountability. From thinking only people matter to recognizing that institutions matter too. From Christian superiority to the recognition that God can work through whomever he wants — through common grace.
In our individualistic environment, we have significant resistance to the biblical idea of community. Of course, everyone says they want community, friendship, and love. But mention the words “accountability” or “commitment” and people run the other way. And yet genuine growth and genuine faithfulness in work are nearly impossible without a community that supports, challenges, and holds us accountable.
The prayer behind this book is not that you will adopt ten key rules — but that in wrestling with who God is and how to relate to him, you would grow in humility, love, truth, grace, and justice, and that your neighbors would flourish because you were there.