//Keith Paulus
One of the ultimate goals of our Equip classes from this past fall has been to help us engage with cultural and vocational matters as disciples of Jesus. With our celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation also just recently past, I thought I’d take the opportunity to recommend a book drawing on both of those themes.
One of the most helpful books on those themes is from Gustaf Wingren, simply entitled, Luther on Vocation. Gene Veith, who has written his own helpful book on the subject of vocation, explains the impact that this book by Wingren had on him:
“Some years ago, a friend gave me a copy of Gustav Wingren’s Luther on Vocation, saying, ‘You’ve got to read this.’ I put it on my stack of books to read, as others piled up on top of it. I thought I knew what the doctrine of vocation was. You do your work to the glory of God. What else is there to say? But when I finally opened Wingren’s book, I found that Luther’s doctrine of vocation is completely different than what I thought it was.
“Vocation isn’t so much about what I do, but about what God does through me. Vocation is nothing less than the theology of the Christian life. God calls us to live out our faith in the world, in the ordinary-seeming realms of the family, the workplace, and the culture. The purpose of every vocation is to love and serve our neighbors, whom God brings to us in our everyday callings . . . Luther’s exposition of vocation is imminently practical, offering a framework for how Christians can work out their problems in their various callings. It is the key to successful marriages and effective parenting. It also solves that much-vexed question for evangelicals today of how they are to interact with the culture.
“Reading Wingren’s book was one of those paradigm-shifting moments for me. It turned my life and how I see my life—its meaning, value, and purpose—upside down. It brought spiritual significance into the realm of the ordinary, where I live most of the time. I am convinced that recovering the Reformation doctrine of vocation—specifically, Luther’s version—is a key not only in bringing Christianity back to the culture but bringing Christianity back into the everyday lives of contemporary Christians.”
If you’re looking for some practical insight into how to think through these important matters, this is a great book—one which you can find on the Christ Church bookracks on a Sunday morning.
Yours in Christ,
Keith