God Cares About Your Work (Part 1): Martin Luther On Shoemaking

Hot, sweaty and exhausted, I stumbled out of the car. When I had left for work that morning the sun had been rising. Now, the sun had long since set. My body smelt like grim and chemicals. Every part of my body hurt from the long day of physical labor. I limped into my house to find that most of my family was already in bed. Thus, I took a shower, ate some supper and went to bed only to get up repeat the grueling routine.

At the time I was working for a carpet cleaning company. It was very hard work and it forced me to deal with some issues I hadn’t had to confront before. My parents had tried to instill a work ethic in me, but daily chores just didn’t compare to 60 hour work weeks. So I began to wonder, does this even matter? What’s the bigger picture here? Does God really care about dirty carpets?

Our culture says no, God doesn’t care about your daily work. While no one might be bold enough to make that statement, the sentiment is surely there. On the one hand, we in the Church have a false sense of spirituality that states that only pastors and missionaries are really “serving God full time”. This attitude in the church is then amplified by the general sentiment in the world which sees work as a necessary evil that should be done away with in the ideal society.

Laziness is ramped in our society partially because we don’t see work itself as anything important. Work is just something we do to pay the bills and so we’ll only work as hard as we have to in order to live comfortably. And if the government wants to help me pay the bills so I can do even less work than all the better. But this wasn’t always the attitude.

Once the great Reformer Martin Luther was approached by a man who enthusiastically announced that he’d recently received Christ. Wanting desperately to serve the Lord, he asked Luther, “What should I do now?” The implication was that he man was wondering if he should become a minister or a traveling evangelist or maybe even a monk.

Luther asked him, “What is your work now?”

“I’m a shoe maker.” The man responded.

Much to the cobbler’s surprise, Luther replied, “Then make a good shoe and sell it at a fair price.”

Luther and the other Reformers would introduce a startling dogma called the doctrine of vocation. Alongside justification by faith and the sufficiency of the Scriptures, this would become one of the central pillars of Protestantism. Sadly, somewhere along the line we forgot about it.

Theologian J.I. Packer describes the doctrine of vocation this way: “The word vocation means calling and right at the heart of vocation is, I believe, in every case, the sense that God has called one to do what one is doing. The sense of being called comes out of thinking and praying about what one has been gifted and fitted to do and which of the options for life activity is the best one. (Never let the good be the enemy of the best.) Then as one thinks about these things and prays about these things comes the sense that, yes, this is what God’s called me do. And all honest work is worth doing for the glory of God and we may find ourselves called to do any form of honest work that we are fitted for.”

That may not sound like such a big deal, but this little doctrinal point changed the world. If this idea is true than that means that the farmer in the field is just as much called of God as the pastor in the parish and the king in the palace. If that’s the case, people began to reason, then maybe we should start treating the famer with a little more respect. Thus the “Protestant work ethic” would become the basis of free society.

However, this isn’t just a matter of going back to our historic Protestant roots. I firmly believe that the Scriptures would cause us to value work. There is perhaps any number of reasons from the Bible, but in the next few weeks (or maybe months :-P) I’d like to draw your attention to three of them.

In Praise of Dead Englishmen Who Wrote Fairy Tales

or A Brief Hagiography of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien

G.K. Chesterton said, “Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." It's because of this that I have become immeasurably grateful to a couple of dead Englishmen who wrote such fairy tales.

These men, of course, are C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm extremely grateful to these two men because they did what few theologians or preachers have been able to accomplish. Through speculative fiction they used the imagination to unite the heart and the mind. C.S. Lewis spoke of the "disarming" effect that such literature has on people. He should know. Though he wrote many works on theology and reality, he never really came into his own until he wrote a children's book for his goddaughter Lucy.

But for me, Tolkien was really my introduction into such literature. Now, I must confess that I watched Peter Jackson's movies before I read the books. However, I quickly fell in love with Tolkien's style and content. But, for me, The Lord of the Rings is more than just classic literature. It's theology in 3D. An author's work is always an expression of his soul. And Professor Tolkien's worldview comes through bright and clear in his works. I never really understood total depravity until I read about the damning effects of the Ring. Philio love didn't "click" until I was taken by the friendship of Frodo and Sam. Courage and self-sacrifice came to life for me when I first read The Return of the King.

Some Christians will complain about how dark Tolkien's works are. But, it's important to understand what he was getting at. Through the darkness there are always maintained a slim glimmer of hope and those who grabbed onto that hope made it to the other side. Like all good fairy tales, Tolkien showed us that the dragons of a fallen world could be beaten. In The Silmarillion, he says, "Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid the weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures."

But perhaps the reason I love Tolkien the most is because of the impact he had on Lewis. When Lewis and Tolkien met at Oxford, Lewis was a devote atheist. His mother had died at a young age and he had seen many horrors while fighting in World War I (something Tolkien could relate to). Lewis taught medieval literature and wanted to believe that the Bible was just another myth. But, because of his intellect, he simply couldn't. He knew that there was something about Christianity that didn't match the stuff he lectured students about.

One day, Lewis and Tolkien spent all evening walking around a pond, arguing about the truthfulness of Christ's claims. During the course of the exchange, Tolkien commented that Christianity was the "true myth". For some reason, that phrase spoke to Lewis and by the next day we was, in his own words, a reluctant convert.

I cannot even begin to tell you of the impact Lewis has had on my life. To this day, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the only book I've finished in a single day (though I love to read, I'm rather slow at it). Again, the ability to put biblical truths in "3D" had a profound impact on me when I was younger.

Lately, I've become fasinated with his other writings. Screwtape Letters, The Four Loves and Mere Christainity are books that, in my not-so-humble opinion, every human being should read. His logical manner of examining truth and wittily then applying it to practical living is phenomenal. Through Lewis, I learned many practical things, such as the nature of humility and chastity.

But perhaps the thing I'm most grateful for is that he taught me that I need never be afraid of truth. Because, to the Christian, Truth is a Person and a Person whose not ashamed to call us brethren (Hebrews 2:10-12). Therefore, we can always go deeper and deeper into Truth and find fulfillment and satisfaction. He brought into profound light that God is the chief end of all things.

And that's why I wrote this piece. Not just to come out of the closet as a fantasy nerd, but to express thankfulness to two dead guys who helped draw me into a deeper relationship with the God of universe in a way that no lecture could.

St. Patrick's Day Roundup

Yesterday, like a good Irish redhead, I wore green and paid my respects to Saint Patrick. He was a great missionary with a passion for reaching the barbaric peoples of Ireland (my ancestors). I have a lot of respect for this man. So, I've compiled some of the best of the blogosphere's tributes to St. Patty.

The Baptist Bulletin makes the argument that St. Patrick was actually less of a Catholic than many people think and may have been one of those pre-Protestantism Protestants. Saint Patrick the "Baptist"?

Pastor Mark Driscoll wrote an interesting post on the Resurgence website, in which he argues that Saint Patrick's Day is really all about missions and that we should use it as an opportunity to spread the Gospel. St. Patrick: One of the Greatest Missionaries Who Ever Lived

Last but not least, Shane Vander Heart of Caffeinated Theology wrote an inspiring post recounting a prayer that is generally attributed to Saint Patrick. The Shield of St. Patrick

I hope you all enjoy the articles. I certainly enjoyed getting to know more about this inspiring man.