God at Work - Chapter 1: Part II

 

Veith has this to say about the influence of the Reformation on the doctrine of calling:

The Reformation notion of "the priesthood of all believers" by no means denigrated the pastoral office, as is often assumed...Rather, it taught that the  pastoral office is a vocation, a calling from God with its own responsibilities, authority, and blessings. But it also taught that laypeople as well have vocations, callings of their own that entail holy responsibilities, authorities, and blessings of their own." (18-19).

The upshot of this is that "the priesthood of all believers' did not make everyone into church workers; rather it turned every kind of work into a sacred calling" (19).

Contrast this line of reasoning with the following from When Life Throws You a Curve, by Billy Joe Daugherty, that we recently read in our church home group (emphasis mine):

When you want to do something and you cannot just sit there, then you have the call of God on your life. It could be any number of areas, and it does not mean you cannot work a regular, secular job somewhere. For us, we worked to pay for school and our living expenses, but we also wanted to be doing something for the Kingdom of God. And here is the reason: Whatever you do for the Kingdom of God will last into eternity.

We saw that working at our jobs would help us eat and get through school, but it was not going to count for anything in eternity.

...When you go after that call of God, you will do whatever it takes to seek it out and search it out and find your place in the Body of Christ. (p. 138-9)

Now, clearly Billy Joe has a very different view of calling than Veith and Luther. But Billy Joe seems to be in the majority. My experience is that this is certainly how I was taught to think about work and calling.

Has this been your experience too?