Every Calling a Post

Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. 1 CORINTHIANS 7:20

Among the many ways Calvin changed the way Christians think, few have reached so deep into ordinary life as his teaching on calling. In the medieval church a vocation usually meant a call to the priesthood or the monastery. The truly religious life was lived apart from the world, and ordinary work — farming, trade, housekeeping, craft — was a lower way. The Reformers overturned that. Luther taught that the milkmaid and the cobbler serve God as truly as the monk. Calvin took up the same conviction and gave it a memorable form.

A sentry post

At the end of his chapters on the Christian life, Calvin writes that the Lord bids each one of us, in all life’s actions, to look to his calling (Institutes 3.10.6). He knows how restless the human heart is, how ambition drives us to grasp at many things at once, how easily we are carried hither and thither. So, to keep us from confusion, He has appointed duties for every person in his particular way of life. And He has named these various kinds of living callings, so that no one may thoughtlessly wander about. Each person’s way of life, Calvin says, is a sort of sentry post assigned to him by the Lord.

But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. 1 CORINTHIANS 7:17

The image is military, and it fits Calvin’s view of the Christian life as service. A sentry does not choose his post, and he does not leave it because it is dull or cold. He stays where he has been placed, because his commander placed him there, and because the whole army depends on each man holding his ground.

No task too humble

The comfort in this teaching is great. Calvin draws it out at once. From this, he says, a singular consolation follows: no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight.

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. COLOSSIANS 3:23

This transformed the dignity of work. The woman at the washtub and the man at the plough are doing holy work if they do it as God’s servants. There is no secular and sacred division in Calvin’s world. There is only faithful and unfaithful service. The whole of life is lived before God.

It also transformed its burdens. Calvin notes that the person who knows he is in his calling will bear its hardships, troubles, weariness and anxieties more easily, because he knows God has laid them on him. A magistrate will discharge his office more willingly, the father of a family will do his duty more faithfully, and each will bear the inconveniences of his lot without complaint.

Diligence and generosity

Calvin’s city was busy with trade and craft, and the refugees who poured into it brought skills with them — printing, watchmaking, silk-weaving. Calvin encouraged diligence and honest work. He had a realistic view of commerce, and he was willing to allow the lending of money at moderate interest, which the medieval church had forbidden, while he insisted that it must never oppress the poor and must be governed by the law of love.

Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men. PROVERBS 22:29

But he was equally clear that the purpose of work is not the accumulation of wealth for ourselves. It is the service of God and our neighbour. We saw in an earlier chapter that Calvin taught every gift is held in stewardship. Work is one of the chief ways we serve others; its fruits are to be shared. The prosperous are to relieve the needy.

Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. EPHESIANS 4:28

Contentment and change

Does this mean no one should ever change their work or station? Calvin did not think so. He himself had changed from law to the ministry. The point is not that we can never move, but that we must not wander about restlessly, driven by ambition or discontent. If God opens a door, we may go through it. But we are to be content where we are placed until He does, and faithful in whatever post He has given us.

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. PHILIPPIANS 4:11

An honest word

Calvin’s teaching on calling has been enormously influential, and not all its later uses would have pleased him. In the twentieth century the sociologist Max Weber famously linked what he called the Protestant ethic to the rise of capitalism. Historians still argue about how far he was right. Whatever the truth, Calvin himself cannot be made the prophet of acquisition. He warned constantly against greed, luxury and the oppression of the poor.

It is also fair to say that in Calvin’s world, a person’s calling was often closely tied to the social station into which he was born, and his counsel to stay at one’s post could be heard as a reason to accept injustice. The modern reader may take his central insight — that all honest work is holy when done for God — without concluding that every station in life is fixed by heaven.

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 1 CORINTHIANS 10:31

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Name your present post: your work, your family responsibilities, your place in the church. Thank God for placing you there.

2. Think of the dullest or lowliest task you must do this week. Do it deliberately as service to God.

3. Ask whether restlessness or ambition has been making you wander in heart from where God has placed you.

4. Consider how the fruits of your work could serve others more generously, and act on one idea.

5. If you are considering a change of work, pray for wisdom to know whether it is God’s leading or your own discontent.

A PRAYER

Lord, You have set me at my post, and You have not placed me there by accident.

Keep me from restlessness and envy, and make me faithful in the work You have given me.

Let me do even the humblest task as unto You, so that it may shine in Your sight.

Use my work to serve my neighbour and to glorify Your name, and make me generous with all it brings. Amen.