Over the past two weeks, various Christian speakers have exhorted us Synod interns to explore God’s calling for our lives. There is a shared hope that some of us may obey the call to become theologically-trained lay ministers, preachers, Presbyterian pastors, chaplains, Christian counselors, and other roles in full-time ministry. Some speakers would then attempt to balance their viewpoint, saying God may have also called us to workplace ministry. I argue that today’s definition of God’s “calling” has emphasized vocation to the point of detracting from what the Bible tells us holistically about God’s “calling”.
Karen Yates, a writer on Relevant magazine, puts it well: “The problem I see with that over-used, over-emphasized, over-preached word “calling” is that many of us have limited the definition of “calling” to a profession, a career or a role. In this view, calling is about what we do, not about who we are.” To me, this sounds like a case of ontological inversion. God first created man as spiritual beings having eternal life, manifested as physical beings in a material world. This was the intended order. He first created us to be in a relationship with Him, only then to do His good works. When our contemporary discussion of “calling” becomes centred on what we should do, rather than on who God is, what He has done for us and therefore our response to Him, the ontological order has been reversed.
Karen Yate continues to explain that because we have attached certain expectations to the word “calling”, we adopt an increasingly man-centric view in exploring God’s “calling” for our lives. We expect our “calling” to be discoverable, in that if we try hard enough, one day we will stumble upon clarity and vision of what to do. We expect our “calling” to be profound, necessitating our loud declaration of living our lives for God and not found in simple and mundane tasks or jobs. We expect our “calling” to feel deliciously good, that our happiness becomes the benchmark of us fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives. What then is the difference between God’s “calling” and secular job satisfaction, when the focus is still on us and what we do or feel?
Before I continue, I would like to ascertain that some Christians really feel they have a divine assignment from God to work in certain ministry or field, and this is not illegitimate. The Bible has well-known examples of people experiencing God’s direct “calling” in their lives – Abraham called to be the father of a great nation in Genesis 12, Moses called to lead the Israelites out of Egypt in Exodus 3, Samuel called to be the Lord’s prophet in 1 Samuel 3, David called to be the king of Israel in 1 Samuel 16, the twelve apostles called to follow Christ in the Gospels, Paul called to be the Lord’s missionary in Acts 9, among others. However, besides these examples, many other people in the Bible did not receive such a direct “calling” from God. Similarly today, if we feel we have not yet received a “calling” from God, how then should we approach God’s will with regards to our lives?
Let us go back to who God is and what He has done in order to redefine or balance out the definition of “calling”.
Who is God? One aspect of understanding God is to know He is the one who initiates the call. The first half of 1 Corinthians 1:9 says, “God is faithful, who has called you”. Who then, is God calling? Who is the “you” in this verse? Romans 8:30 provides an answer, saying, “And those he predestined, he also called”. God calls those he predestines, or those he has chosen to save.
What is God calling those predestined to? The latter half of 1 Corinthians 1:9 adds on, “God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Remember the ontological inversion. Man was created to be in relationship with God, but after sinning in Genesis 3, that relationship was broken. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Sinful man was to have no relationship with a Holy God, yet God sent his Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross and pay the “wages of sin”, giving us “eternal life”, which is a restored relationship with God. This is what God has done for us – justification. Hence in Romans 8:30 it says, “those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
God also calls us to a process of sanctification, which is to live out the new life we have in Jesus Christ. Romans 8:29 says God predestined us “to be conformed to the image of his Son”. The Holy Spirit is to be our “helper” in this, as in John 14:26. The Holy Spirit will help produce fruit in our lives, namely “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”, as in Galatians 5:22-23. In Ephesians 4, Paul gently exhorts believers to speak truthfully, get rid of bitterness and anger, speak only edifying words, be kind and compassionate, because we have “put off (our) old self” and are “made new”, “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness”. This new way of living is our response to who God is and what he has done for us.
Hence we see that it is God who calls, and he calls the predestined to be justified and sanctified, eventually to be glorified when his kingdom comes. We see that “calling” is about who we are or are becoming, as well as how we live our lives, as a response to who God is and what he has done for us. The focus of “calling” is on God primarily, not on what man ought to do. Even for those privileged few who have ascertained and obeyed God’s direction for them in terms of career, I would argue that God is equally concerned about how we work as he is about our specific roles on Earth. Even the process of sanctification was not complete in David, who was called to be King of Israel and ancestor of the Messiah, yet who still succumbed to sin nonetheless.
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Ruth Lee
STEP 2015
STEP 2015
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