God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life (Focal Point Series)

In evangelical Christian circles, you might often hear the encouragement to "do everything to the glory of God," an exhortation taken from 1 Cor. 10:31. But just what this means or how this is to be done more often than not goes unsaid and ends up coming across as a meaningless platitude. While Christians should indeed pursue the glory of God in everything they do, how to go about doing this can sometimes remain a mystery.

In God At Work, Gene Edward Veith seeks to help Christians in understanding what has been called the doctrine of vocation, crediting much of his writing to Gustaf Wingren who in turn wrote on Martin Luther's stance on the doctrine. It would be safe to say that this book is largely about how Christians interact with their culture and how indeed Christians find the presence of God in the ordinary, everyday activities of life.

For example, when we ask God to "give us this day our daily bread," Veith writes sensibly that in meeting this provision, God does not simply rain down bread from heaven, although this certainly isn't impossible as was shown during the Israelites' journey from Egypt. Rather, God provides our needs by the hand of the farmer who grows the wheat, the baker who put this and other ingredients together to make the bread, and the many other people involved in the process. Or when we are sick and pray for healing, while God may indeed choose to miraculously heal us without any human intervention, the more common method is using the knowledge of physicians to diagnose and treat the illness.

Vocation then, according to Veith, is seeing how we and those around us interact with one another through roles God has placed us in and how God is honored when we do so. Veith rightly and quickly points out that while our relationship to God is not based on how we live out our vocation, our relationship to our neighbors is. He quotes Gustaf Wingren in saying "God does not need our good works, but our neighbor does."

Chapters discuss how a person goes about determining what his or her vocation is, how we are to live within the vocations we have been given, and what certain vocations look like, namely in the family, in the citizenry and in the church. Veith provides an excellent discussion on how Christians interact with the culture around them in each of these areas, bringing it back to showing just how this does indeed bring glory to God.

Two areas are worth mentioning in detail, one good and one not so good. First, Veith excellently points out that the work that a Christian does most often will not look any different than the same kind of work a non-Christian does. As he puts it, "There is no distinctly Christian way of being a carpenter or an actor or a musician. Christian and non-Christian factory workers, farmers, lawyers, and bankers do pretty much the same thing." The key to recognizing the difference between the Christian's and the non-Christian's vocation is that "Spiritually the Christian's life is hidden with Christ in God" and that "just doing our jobs" is found in "ordinary men and women expressing their love and service to their neighbor."

The not-so-good detail is that in one section of the book, Veith argues that our vocations are not our choice and are out of control, yet later seems to imply just the opposite. I can understand that our backgrounds and capabilities (physical, mental, etc) control our options as well as the desires of others (in other words, I can't marry a girl who wants nothing to do with me!). The problem is that he then carries this forward to an illogical and incorrect assumption that ALL choices are outside of our control.

This last point aside, however, this is a great book for providing a framework in viewing how we as Christians interact with the world around us. Veith aptly points out that we are not called to be Christians who sit in a monastery, isolating ourselves from the world, but that it is our responsibility to reach out and serve those around us.

Many people do not connect with the church because only Gods stars seam to be used in the church. The calling of every christian to a Holy vocation and purpose seams to be lost on the average Joe. This book expands the idea of Holy calling to reach all of life. It explores ideas not often communicated. And brings significance to every part of Christs body.

God at Work is a great exposition, very accessible to the general Christian reader, simply on work, or more specifically all the various ways that Christians are called to work in their lives. This is about the doctrine of calling, which perhaps, is initially understood by many as calling by God to exclusive spiritual work, like preaching or some other direct type of church ministry.

Gene Veith is an academic dean at Patrick Henry College, and a frequent writer on the importance of Christians seeing all of life under the Lord of all. He is a Lutheran, and as a result spends much of this relatively short text (about 200 pgs) expounding on Martin Luther's writings on vocation, recontextualized for the 21st century. Part of the Reformation, which Luther helped to lead, was the near revolutionary approach to seeing the work of Christians outside of a sacred/ secular dichotomy, which is that some work was ministry, and other work was just ordinary drudgery. Not dividing work into a sacred and secular categories remains near constant struggle for many in the 21st century, and Veith aims to show how calling and purpose relate to anything that the Christian faithfully sets out to do.

Veith states that the motivation for every Christian, in everything he is called to is to reflect the common call that Christ demands in following him. Vocation is a matter of service and love, in everything here. So the Veith insists that way to spiritually determine value in work is can it express service and love to others. In a sense, he sanctifies all sorts of occupations with this general understanding, so that even mundane work, or work that does not appear particularly spiritual can be called up and drawn into the realm of Christ by expressing it with love and service.

Vocation in this book is not limited to ordinary work, but Veith shows how calling applies to family, citizenship and church relationships. In a strong sense, this book attempts to unite and integrate all of Christian theology into touch-points of a persons life, so that the recreating work of Christ can redeem a whole person, not just the outwardly spiritual side of an individual's life. In an era of individualism and outward separation from traditional connections, this book is a strong advocate for individuals demonstrating, through actions, that the Christian life is a whole life, one that integrates into all parts, not just a narrowly spiritual side.

Veith, in his effort to point to and clarify Luther's revolutionary teaching on vocation, draws a bit too much on quoting people quoting Luther. Other than that, this is a fine book that would be of value for individual or group study, for workers looking for purpose and calling in their careers and those looking to integrate their theology in all of life.

Gene Veith has provided us with another wonderfully readable, but thoroughly theological book -- this time on the doctrine of vocation. His Biblical insights into this most important topic are a joy to study and consider, and in his writing he has done the Church a great service!

I enjoyed reading this book. God is using us through his various callings and vocations -- the world of sociology just calls them "roles." According to Veith, faith gives our calling or vocation "meaning." Also, as Christians we do not do sinful work, nor do we desire to harm others while pursuing our calling (thus, we would not engage in office "back stabbing"). He stresses that the Lord God Almighty is using us where we are -- in the office, as parents, as children, etc. We are uniquely positioned by God Himself to carry out His purposes. We know what our duties are, and carry them out according to Biblical principles of personal conduct.
Part of me, however, is asking the questions: what about our Christian witness? What about interceding for our co-workers in prayer (he speaks more about praying for ourselves and bearing our cross in vocation)? What Christian qualities are essential for manifestation in the workplace? I have these question, yes, but at the same time I think that Prof. Veith has hit on the essentials: bearing one's cross, prayer, and resting in our vocation.
A Christian friend of mine who is perennially "between jobs" now is working in a place where sometimes he's on the front desk, sometimes he's laying tiles, sometimes he's witnessing to people and sharing the gospel message. He likes to talk about irons in the fire, and how in the days ahead he hopes to be doing 'more.' I told him about vocation (having just read Prof. Veith's book) -- that he was serving the Lord in the here and now by these various activities. His various duties TODAY are his vocation. He was immensely encouraged when I said that. His outlook immediately brightened. My conclusion: Prof. Veith's work provides us with essential understandings for pastoral encouragement. Amen.