Every Good Endeavor—Tim Keller & Katherine AlsdorfExemplo

Work as Service

In Luther’s Large Catechism, when he addresses the petition in the Lord’s Prayer asking God to give us our “daily bread,” Luther says that “when you pray for ‘daily bread’ you are praying for everything that contributes to your having and enjoying your daily bread…You must open up and expand your thinking, so that it reaches not only as far as the flour bin and baking oven but also out over the broad fields, the farmlands, and the entire country that produces, processes, and conveys to us our daily bread and all kinds of nourishment.”(1) So how does God “feed every living thing” (Psalm 145:16) today? Isn’t it through the farmer, the baker, the retailer, the website programmer, the truck driver, and all who contribute to bring us food? Luther writes: “God could easily give you grain and fruit without your plowing and planting, but he does not want to do so.”(2)

And so we see what Luther means by God’s vocation. Not only are the most modest jobs—like plowing a field or digging a ditch—the “masks” through which God cares for us, but so are the most basic social roles and tasks, such as voting, participating in public institutions, and being a father or mother. These are all God’s callings, all ways of doing God’s work in the world, all ways through which God distributes his gifts to us. 

Excerpt from Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller. Reprinted by arrangement with Penguin Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © 2012 by Timothy Keller

Reflection

How has God provided for you through the work of other people?

Prayer

God, thank you for the gifts you’ve given me. Help me to see how my work serves you and others.

Option for Further Exploration

Click to watch a talk, Work as a Means to Social Shalom, from Center for Faith and Work. 

(1) Luther’s Large Catechism: with Study Questions, trans. F. Samuel Janzoe (Concordia, 1978), 90.

(2) Pelikan, Luther’s Works, vol. 14, 95