How Then Should We Work? by Hugh Whelchel. WestBowPress. 172 pages. 2012.
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The author is the Executive Director of the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics and has a passion and expertise for helping people integrate their faith and vocational calling, or work. He wrote this book as a simple Biblical primer on integrating our faith and work. His purpose is to explore the Biblical intersection of faith and work, attempting to help us understand the differences between work, calling, and vocation and how they should be biblically applied in our daily lives.
He writes that for many Christians work is often only a means to an end. They have bought into the belief that leisure is good and work is bad. They also believe that working in the church is the only “real” fulltime Christian service. However, he states that believers must learn not just to work to live, but to live to work for the glory of God. No church-related work or mission is more spiritual than any other profession such as law, business, education, journalism, or politics. He writes that the church has failed to understand and respect the secular vocation.
He looks at four areas related to the Biblical doctrine of work in the book:
- The Biblical understanding of work as outlined in the Old and New Testaments.
- The history of the doctrine of work as experienced by the church during the last 2000 years.
- Defining the Biblical principle of all work as calling and how we are to live our lives in the light of that truth.
- The future, offering some direction for rediscovering the lost Biblical doctrine of work and how our vocational calling can help us impact our communities, cities and our world by helping to restore the culture to the glory of God.
The author writes that the significance of our work is directly related to its connection with God’s work. He states that when we answer God’s call to use our gifts in our vocational calling, we are participating in God’s work.
I found this to be a very good book to help me integrate my faith and work.