In View of Vocation

By Matthew Steven Bracey

We rightly associate the term stewardship with economics and the term vocation with work. However, a stewardship of vocation concerns more than money and the proverbial office. Accordingly, this article will avoid those otherwise worthy topics. More generally speaking, stewardship refers to anything under the steward’s care. Consequently, all Christians are stewards because the sovereign God has entrusted them with all kinds of things.

From the dawn of creation, God entrusted man with many responsibilities: Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and cultivate the ground (Genesis 1:28; 2:15). Commentators often refer to these instructions as the creation mandate. Some alternatively use cultural mandate or even the political mandate because cultures and communities arise invariably from man’s obedient stewardship of God’s instructions.

Man’s obedience to God’s commands describes man’s vocation, fundamentally, anything to which God calls him. Thus we might speak more precisely about man’s vocations (plural) rather than simply his vocation (singular). This article will review four of these vocations: God, family, church, and society, with special focus on the last one. At its basis, though, vocational thinking recognizes the call of God in all of life.

1. God. The first vocation to which God calls all people is a personal relationship with Him. “For God so loved the world,” says John 3:16 (cf. 2 Peter 3:9). The Christian’s relationship with God is the foundational vocation he or she stewards, giving shape to all other vocations. Jesus explains the greatest commandment is to love God with our whole being (Matthew 22:37-38; cf. Deuteronomy 6:5).

The Christian builds all other vocations upon this solid foundation so when the rain and wind and storms blow, these structures will stand (Matthew 7:24-27). The brick and mortar of the Christian who stewards this vocation includes daily spiritual disciplines such as Bible intake and prayer. In addition, he or she incorporates consistent church attendance, singing, and observing the ordinances.

2. Family. A second vocation God calls man to steward is family, which emerges from man obeying the creation mandate. Within the vocation of family, the sovereign God calls us to steward callings we have not necessarily chosen. While we may choose our spouses (according to God’s will), we don’t choose our parents, siblings, or children—not to mention our extended families. Yet God calls us to honor our fathers and mothers, to keep our brothers and sisters, and to care for our sons and daughters, whether biological, adoptive, or spiritual (Exodus 20:12; Genesis 4:9; Deuteronomy 6:7).

A central ethic for properly stewarding this vocation (as well as the subsequent two) comes from Jesus Himself: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). Love of God is the spring from which flows love of neighbor. In the family, the neighbor is not some abstract “other” but rather your concrete relationships: mom and dad, brother and sister, son and daughter, and so forth. Thus, the vocation of family has a local—even preferential—quality.

Precisely how neighbor-love manifests itself in this context depends upon the nature of the relationship itself. For example, loving a parent differs from loving your child. Passages such as Ephesians 5-6, Colossians 3-4, and Titus 2 explore the implications of these differences. But the underlying point is that God calls on us to view our families as vocations. They are not inconsequential in His order of priority, and we should never disregard them or take them for granted.

Instead, we must think seriously about what loving parents, children, or siblings entails. Admittedly, unique family situations result in special circumstances and, accordingly, we must pursue this vocation carefully. But generally, the family is key in the development of our sanctification. In addition, family gives opportunity for witness, since it requires we love people with whom we might not otherwise associate.

3. Church. Third, God calls Christians to steward the vocation of church. Specifically, He calls people into a local branch of the universal body that stretches across space and time. Again, proper stewardship of this vocation is downstream from that first vocation: love of God propels us toward love of neighbor.

Just as family brings us into contact with people and circumstances that test our sanctification, the same is true of the church. However frustrating these relationships, we are not excused from forsaking the assembling of the brethren (Hebrews 10:25). Instead, God calls people into the vocation of the church, and He calls its members—pastors, teachers, deacons, music ministers, and laypersons—to love one another. Passages like Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 6, as well as the pastoral epistles more generally, detail what stewardship of this vocation looks like.

4. Society. A fourth (and often overlooked) vocation is society. As with the vocation of family, society results from man’s stewardship of the creation mandate: Man propagates and lives together in community and in society. The societies in which we find ourselves are not accidental. Within them we see families, churches, workplaces, civic institutions, and governing structures (local, state, and federal).

Some Christians resist certain aspects of this vocation on their lives, particularly those related to governing and political bodies, because they associate them with historic and contemporary sins. But the same holds true for family and church. Indeed, evil men will abuse anything in a world captive to total depravity. The problems we relate to society are incidental and not inherent because, fundamentally, society results from the stewardship of the creation mandate—or, as Jonathan Leeman has described it in Political Church, the political mandate.

Every community is different. And, our communities may change at different stages of our lives, depending on life circumstances, schooling, and our work/ministry. Yet God calls us to stewardship in each community. Just as God calls us to the vocation of family by placing us within them, He does the same with respect to community. The Christian recognizes that society, and all it contains, is a vocation from God, not to ignore or avoid, but rather to steward.

Once again, this stewardship begins with neighbor-love. “Neighbors” in society are those with whom we practice community at home, church, work, the marketplace, and even the voting booth. Numerous implications of these principles follow. Seemingly ordinary acts, properly understood, are not insignificant but acts of neighbor-love. Something as simple as obeying your society’s road rules is an act of love. In this case, obedience to relevant laws is not simply a matter of obeying the state but also of maintaining order rather than creating chaos. Simple obedience decreases the prospect of accident, harm, and even fatality to your neighbors.

A second example is more political: voting for a preferred candidate or party is not partisanship per se. Instead, it’s the prudent stewardship of the vocation of society. Elections have consequences because office holders work to enact policies that affect the entire society. At times, these policies evidence neighbor-love; at other times they don’t.

Christians must recognize the election of this candidate or that party has real-world implications. An example is the right of Christian adoption agencies, churches, schools, and other ecclesial organizations to exercise their God-given religious liberty in how they conduct their business—to say nothing about issues of life, marriage, and so forth. From the perspective of vocation, God calls Christians to steward their votes in a manner most likely to promote neighbor-love.

Controversial political realities undoubtedly make decisions about voting difficult. But these principles of vocation demonstrate the need for Christians to give sober consideration to the consequences that follow their decisions and their indecisions. Faithful witness to families and churches also present challenges, owing to the reality of sin, but we don’t forsake them simply because engagement presents difficulties. Neither should we abandon the state. The doctrine of vocation reminds us we occupy these spaces, seeking the welfare of the city (Jeremiah 29:7) because God has called us to them.

In this article, I’ve resisted the temptation to review vocation narrowly in terms of career and work. That is not because vocation does not concern that sphere (it does!), but because it has been my goal to demonstrate vocation is broader than we often realize. The doctrine of vocation is a wonderfully helpful tool for seeing the sovereign oversight and providence of a purposeful God in the ordinary—and often taken for granted—spheres of life. This includes God’s call of people into personal relationship with Him, which overflows into our families, churches, and societies. God desires we steward these vocations in a way pleasing to Him and according to the love of God and love of neighbor.

About the Writer: Matthew Bracey and his wife Sarah live in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. They attend Sylvan Park FWB Church. Matthew works at Welch College, where he serves as vice provost and as a faculty member, teaching courses in history, law, theology, and interdisciplinary studies. Matthew holds degrees from Cumberland School of Law (J.D.), Beeson Divinity School (M.T.S.), and Welch College (B.A., History, Biblical Studies). He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Christian Ethics Public Policy at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is co-founder and regular contributor to the Helwys Society Forum.