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Vocation: The Theology of the Christian Life

Vocation: The Theology of the Christian Life

Last updated on: September 7, 2026 at 7:47 am by Gene Veith

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Vocation: The Theology of the Christian Life 2026-09-07T07:47:51-04:00 Gene Veith

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Happy Vocation Day, the holiday formerly known as Labor Day! (OK, my crusade to co-opt the secular observance into a Christian holiday has not completely taken hold yet. Even though it resolves the paradox of celebrating a day honoring work by not working, since spending the day with family and friends also fulfills Christian vocations, those of the household and the common order of Christian love).

The custom at this blog is to honor the day by posting something on vocation. This year I am going all out, but the post has a backstory. My granddaughter just started college at Concordia University Wisconsin, my vocation place of nearly two decades. She texted me that one of her classes is making her read an article that I had written. It was something published in The Journal of Markets and Morality. It was clearly by me, but I couldn’t remember so much as hearing of that journal, let alone publishing anything there. Upon investigation, I realized that the article was a paper I gave at the Evangelical Theological Society in 2010. The session, a luncheon, was sponsored by the Acton Institute, which also publishes The Journal of Markets and Morality. Their publishing my paper was doubtless part of the original arrangement. I had just forgotten about it.

But it’s a good thing my paper ended up in a peer-reviewed journal. I saw that it has been cited in a number of other scholarly publications, as my investigation discovered, which has surely contributed to in the recovery of the doctrine of vocation in the rest of Christendom.

The article just lays out Luther’s doctrine of vocation, with its Biblical and theological support, for a broad Christian audience, doing so in some detail. Since I just discovered it, I thought you in the Cranach community should have the opportunity to discover it as well.

I’ll post the first two sections–“Vocation in the Bible” and “Luther on Vocation“–here. Then you can click to the link to read the other sections:

“The Christian’s Multiple Vocations” [not just in the workplace, but in the church, the family, the community, and “the common order of Christian love”]

“The Purpose of Vocation” [to love and serve the neighbors in each vocation]

“The Priesthood and its Sacrifices” [not self-fulfillment, but self-sacrifice in the crosses of vocation]

“Vocation and Transfiguration” [how vocation brings the presence of God into everyday life].

Also, the Acton Institute generously allows readers to download the journal’s articles. At the very beginning of the online display, see “Save article as. . .,” drop down the menu and click “.pdf.”

Vocation: The Theology of the Christian Life

by Gene Edward Veith

The Reformation contributed three major teachings that would characterize Protestantism in all of its diversity: justification by faith; the authority of Scripture; and the doctrine of vocation. The first two still have currency, despite recent criticisms. But the concept of vocation has been gradually lost. First it was turned into a “work ethic”; then it turned into a pious attitude empty of specific content; then it became reduced to just another synonym for “a job.”

And yet, in the Reformation and its aftermath, vocation was nothing less than the doctrine of the Christian life. Vocation was the locus for other important teachings, such as the priesthood of all believers, good works, and sanctification. It was not merely a theoretical teaching; rather, as taught in the early Reformation catechisms and sermons, the doctrine of vocation gave practical guidance to Christians in their marriages, parenthood, economic activity, and their role as citizens.

The doctrine of vocation shows Christians how to live out their faith in the world. It has to do with God’s presence in the world and with how He works through human beings for His purposes. For Christians, vocation discloses the spirituality of everyday life.

Today Christians are greatly confused about how they should relate to the world. This is evident in the controversies about political involvement and cultural engagement. On the personal scale, champions of “family values” have a soaring divorce rate. Many Christians compartmentalize their lives, conforming to a consumerist and materialistic culture, while pursuing transcendent spiritual experiences that have little to do with their everyday lives. Christians today are variously—and sometimes simultaneously—waging culture wars, withdrawing from the world, and conforming to it.

The time is right to recover the doctrine of vocation. Doing so would revitalize contemporary Christianity and show Christians how once again they can be the world’s salt and light.

Vocation in the Bible

The word “vocation” is simply the Latinate term for “calling.” The best Biblical formulation of the concept is 1 Corinthians 7:17: “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.” Thus, God “assigns” different kinds of “life” for each Christian and then “calls” each Christian to that assignment.

The immediate context of that passage has to do with ethnicity (being a circumcised Jew or an uncircumcised Gentile), social position (being a slave or being free), and with family status (being married, unmarried, or a widow). The Apostle Paul has much to say about such callings. In Ephesians 5-6, he explores the relationships of husband and wife, parent and child, and master and servant. Here we find not just moralizing or practical instructions; rather, we are told that God Himself is manifest in these ordinary earthly relationships. Marriage is an image of Christ and the Church. Parenting has to do with God the Father, and, implicitly, God the Son. Servants (or slaves) are serving not so much their masters but Christ. Masters, in their treatment of those who serve them, must remember that they too are servants (or slaves) of a Master in Heaven. In Romans 13, we are told that all authority comes from God, who gives His authority to human beings in various offices. God works through earthly rulers as His instruments, His agents, to restrain evil and to protect those who do well. Thus, God not only calls and assigns people to different stations in life; He evidently inhabits them.

Other Biblical texts describe God calling people to His service and then giving them specific gifts that enable them to carry out that service. He does this for Prophets and for Kings—including Kings of unbelieving nations—but He also does this for seemingly more mundane kinds of work. For example, He calls the artists who are to make the art of the Tabernacle and gives them their talents:

Then Moses said to the people of Israel, “See, the LORD has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft. And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan. He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of workman or skilled designer. (Exodus 35:30-35)

And lest we think Bezalel and Oholiab had a unique charism, we are told that God called and gifted other artists, the sign of which was their own desire to create art. “And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the LORD had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work” (Exodus 36:2).

Luther on Vocation

The great theologian of vocation is Martin Luther. To understand vocation, it is important to start with Luther. Calvin and the Puritans also talked about vocation—and contemporary scholarship about the topic tends to focus upon their contributions—but they interpreted God’s calling in terms of His demands upon His followers. This is part of it, but it is essential in grasping the magnitude of this teaching is to first understand the sense in which vocation is God’s work. For Luther, vocation, like justification, is a function of God’s grace. In vocation, God providentially works through human beings to care for His creation and to distribute His gifts.

When we pray the Lord’s prayer, to use one of Luther’s illustrations, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread. And He does. The way he gives us our daily bread is through the vocations of farmers, millers, and bakers. We might add truck drivers, factory workers, bankers, warehouse attendants, and food service workers. Virtually every step of our whole economic system contributes to that bagel/piece of toast/Danish we just had for breakfast. And when we thank God for our food before we eat, we are right to do so. He provides our food, and He does so by means of vocation; that is, ordinary people just doing their jobs.

To use another example from Luther, God could have chosen to create new human beings to populate the earth out of the dust, as He did with the first man. But instead, He chose to create new life—which, however commonplace, is no less miraculous—by means of mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, the vocations of the family.

To continue the point, God protects us through the vocations of earthly government, as detailed in Romans 13. He proclaims His Word by means of human pastors. He teaches by means of teachers. He creates works of beauty and meaning by means of human artists, whom He has given particular talents.

When someone we care about is hospitalized, we pray for healing. God uses vocation—doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, and other health care workers—to deliver that healing. God’s normal way of working in the world is through means. God does not have to use means, and He is capable of working immediately. He can heal with a miracle, just as He once provided the children of Israel their daily bread—the manna of the wilderness—without farmers and bakers. But God’s normal way of operating is through human beings. This is because He desires us to serve each other.

According to Luther, vocation is a “mask of God.”[i] God is milking the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid, said Luther. God is hidden in vocation. We see the milkmaid, or the farmer, or the doctor or pastor or artist. But, looming behind this human mask, God is genuinely present and active in what they do for us.

And similarly, as we carry out our various vocations, we too are masks of God. Evangelicals often talk about what God is doing “in” their lives. Vocation encourages reflection on what God is doing “through” our lives. Just as God is working through the vocation of others to bless us, He is working through us to bless others. In our vocations, we work side-by-side with God, as it were, taking part in His ceaseless creative activity and laboring with Him as He providentially cares for His creation.

[Keep reading by clicking here]

Citation: Veith, Gene Edward. 2011. “Vocation: The Theology of the Christian Life.” Journal of Markets & Morality 14 (1).

Illustration: Labor Day by Anna Black via PublicDomainPictures.net, License: CC0 Public Domain.

Gene Veith bibliography

Luther's doctrine of vocation

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