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Scott M. Trout
Professor Weaver
BUS493-OL01-SP22
17 March 2022
Readings Report
In this internship’s readings, the concept of work from a Christian’s perspective was
evaluated. The three articles were: Calling in the Theology of Work; Vocation: The Theology of
the Christian Life; and How Then Should We Work. All three of these were extremely helpful in
understanding the way that God intended work to be viewed and how he desires us to work in the
present. In the first article, Calling in the Theology of Work written by the Theology of Work
Project, Inc. evaluated the concept of calling in the workplace. The idea of being called by God
into a specific field or occupation may not be as clearly seen as the blanket call of God for all to
work. We are all called to work even if we do not feel a specific call to an industry (Theology of
Work Project, 2011, p. 174). With this in mind, they make the observation that our possible
wrong choice of a career does not ruin God’s plan for us. God is sovereign and we have “the
freedom to take risks, to fail, and to make mistakes” when it comes to finding where our giftings
lay (Theology of Work Project, 2011, p. 181). While God may not necessarily call people to
specific jobs in the same sense that he called people to specific rolls in Scripture, we can still
pursue our dreams and desires as long as they do not contradict the Bible. Work is part of the
purpose that God created us for so we should not avoid it but instead pursue it. Another
important point made in the article was that even though God has called us to work he has also
called people to other things in life such as family, worship, and rest. We cannot let work
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overwhelm these other areas of our lives and distort the calling of God (Theology of Work
Project, 2011, p. 175).
The second article entitled Vocation: The Theology of the Christian Life written by Gene
Edward Veith talks about the idea of vocation and how God uses us for his work in the world.
Veith says that the word vocation is simply the Latin term for calling so in many ways this article
builds on the previous one. The article also discusses the protestant view of vocation and how
different it was from the Catholic tradition. The whole idea of vocation is summed up by Veith
when he paraphrases Martin Luther: “God does not need our good works, Luther said, but our
neighbor does” (Veith, 2011, p. 126). God’s calling on our lives to work and vocation is so that
we may serve one another and in so doing we serve God. God uses the millions of different
vocations of people to accomplish his purposes in the world. God can and does move in
miraculous ways, but God’s primary way of working is through people in their different
vocations (Veith, 2011, p. 122).
Finally, the third article entitled How Then Should We Work written by Hugh Whelchel
talks about the distortion that many people have regarding our God-given calling to work.
Whelchel talks about two ways we distort work. One way is to view work as something bad and
the other is to view work as fulfillment (Whelchel, 2011, p. 6). Avoiding both of these pitfalls,
Whelchel says, “requires a successful integration of faith and work” (Whelchel, 2011, p. 6). The
medieval view of God’s call to work limited meaningful work to only that which served the
Church. Work was, in many ways, something to be avoided. Today, work is often times idolized
to the point that we see work as our identity. Both views are biblically wrong. God sends
ministers, doctors, teachers, and any other type of vocation into the world to accomplish his will
(Whelchel, 2011, p. 8). Work was never meant to fulfill us. God has called us to work so that we
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can serve others and glorify him in the world. This work needs to be balanced with the other
callings that God has placed on our lives. Only then will work be in its proper place in our lives.
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References
Theology of Work Project (2011). Calling in the Theology of Work, Journal of Markets &
Morality, Volume 14, Number 1 (Spring 2011): 171–187.
Veith, Gene Edward (2011). Vocation: The Theology of the Christian Life, Journal of Markets &
Morality, Volume 14, Number 1 (Spring 2011): 119–131.
Whelchel, Hugh (2011). How Then Should We Work? Rediscovering the Biblical Doctrine of
