Does Every Person Have a Calling?

“Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Cor. 7:17). This is a foundational text for what the Bible teaches about calling, or, to use the Latin version of that word, the doctrine of vocation. God assigns each person a life and calls each person to that life. So, yes, each person has a calling.

And yet, though a Christian and a non-Christian may lead the same kind of life and perform the same kind of task, there is a difference.

We usually think of vocation and calling in terms of a job or profession, but it means much more than that. According to Luther, who recovered the doctrine of vocation after centuries of neglect, God designed three estates for human life: the family, the state, and (for Christians) the church. Human beings have vocations in all of the estates.

Notice that he doesn’t mention the workplace, as such. For Luther, that comes under family—that is, what the family does to earn a living. In his day, whether you were a peasant farmer, a middle-class craftsman, or a king, you mostly worked at home, and your whole family was involved in the work.

Vocation is an aspect of God’s providence. In His care and governance of His creation, He has chosen to work through human beings. He creates new humans by means of the vocation of mothers and fathers, whom He has brought together in the vocations of marriage. He protects us by means of the lawful magistrates of the state. He proclaims His Word by calling pastors.

Every time we thank God for our food, we acknowledge God’s providential care for us by means of farmers, food processors, warehouse workers, clerks, and whoever prepared our meal. Working through them all is the Lord God, who gives us our food at the proper time (Ps. 145:15).

Vocations are channels through which God gives us what we need. God heals by means of the medical vocations, makes our lives easier by means of engineers and factory workers, gives us shelter by means of construction workers. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Though God can give His gifts directly through miracles of His power, He usually gives them through vocation.

Was the farmer who grew the grain for my toast this morning a Christian? Or the factory workers who made my computer? Or the carpenters who built my condominium? Or the doctor who cured my latest ailment? I hope so. But even if they aren’t, God, in His providential power, worked through them anyway.

And yet, being a Christian does make a huge difference in vocation. The word call normally signifies someone speaking with language, often loudly, to another human being.

God calls us by His Word. When we hear the Word of the gospel of Christ read, preached, or told, the Holy Spirit can create faith in our hearts. Reformed theologians speak of an “effectual calling.” Christians console themselves that “all things work together for good,” but often stop before the next phrase, where we see that this promise applies to vocation. The text then connects vocation to the whole plan of salvation. Here is the entire passage:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Rom. 8:28–30, emphasis added)

This calling to faith calls us into the estate of the church. The other kinds of callings are temporal, having to do with this life that passes away. Those are important to God, to be sure. But the calling of the gospel is eternal.

For the Christian, it’s also foundational for the temporal callings. We are called by God’s Word to love God and to love our neighbor (Mark 12:30–31). We love God by faith. We love our neighbor by vocation. According to Luther, the purpose of every vocation—in the family, the workplace, the state, and the church—is to love and serve the neighbors that the vocation brings into our lives: in the family, our spouse and children; in the workplace, our customers; in the state, our fellow citizens; in the church, our fellow Christians.

Nonbelievers can get married and have children, customers, and citizenship. But Christians can fulfill these vocations in faith. They can realize that God is working through them and that as they love their neighbors, God’s love is flowing through them. God’s Word can shape how they carry out their tasks. Christians can see all of these relationships as the life God has assigned to them and to which He has called them.