Luther on Vocation

I preached on the calling of our work last Sunday (LISTEN HERE!) as we announced that Pastor Steve has resigned from his position as Pastor of Adult Ministries to work with his wife in their business.

This doctrine of vocation (latin "vocare" = calling) is one more biblical doctrine helpfully recovered by Martin Luther, who rediscovered the transforming truth of 1 Corinthians 7:17-24.

Martin, in an age of priestcraft, truly believed that the calling of the shoemaker was equivalent to the calling of a pastor. He believed all our work was assigned to us by God and therefore could glorify God as we do it with Him and for Him. He saw work as one of our primary means of fulfilling that second commandment to love our neighbors. He believed that our work was a means by which God hid Himself and through which God Himself worked in the world.

Here's a a couple quotes. . . .

All our work in the field, in the garden, in the city, in the home, in struggle, in government-to what does it all amount before God except child's play, by means of which God is pleased to give his gifts in the field, at home, and everywhere? These are the masks of our Lord God, behind which he wants to be hidden and to do all things.

A cobbler, a smith, a farmer, each has the work and office of his trade, and yet they are all alike consecrated priests and bishops, and every one by means of his own work or office must benefit and serve every other, that in this way many kinds of work may be done for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the community, even as all the members of the body serve one another