Years ago I met a young man, a recent graduate of a prestigious Christian college in the Reformed tradition, one that emphasized the value of all vocations to God. Having drunk deeply from that well in his undergraduate work, he moved into finance as his own vocational calling and launched into faith and work ministry. As we talked at a retreat and got to know each other, he exclaimed, “I love that we teach this doctrine of faith and work, because it means I can have a three-car garage, a vacation home, two jet skis, and it’s all holy!”
I thought then, and I think now, “Maybe.” Maybe. Biblically, prosperity is not a bad thing. God gave many Old Testament patriarchs great wealth. My New Testament colleagues tell me Barnabas was likely quite wealthy. And I know many men and women whom God has blessed with great wealth and who use that wealth quite sacrificially. One said to me not long ago, “A tithe doesn’t make any sense for our family. That’s way too low given how God has blessed us.”
And yet, the tone of this young man’s exclamation left me pastorally uneasy and still haunts me. Was he offering deep theological truth, or was he rationalizing?
Most of the biggest theological mistakes and greatest heresies of the church come from overplaying a biblical truth, extending it beyond its own biblical context until, unmoored from its broader biblical and theological context, it becomes error, falsehood.
The classic Christological heresies work this way. Our Lord has two natures and one person. If we do not live in that mystery, we become heretics in the most literal sense of the word.
- Emphasize the truth of Christ’s humanity alone, forgetting his divinity, and we become Arians.
- Emphasize Christ’s divinity alone, forgetting his humanity, and we become Docetists.
- Emphasize his two natures and forget his one person, and we become Nestorians, but emphasize his one person and forget his two natures, we become Monophysite.
Our Christological doctrine is the sum of all the Scripture’s teaching, and if we emphasize one truth without the others, we fall into grave error.
At a lesser level, we risk the faith and work movement doing the same thing. In both my seminary teaching and at the pastoral level, I fully agree with these doctrines of faith and work, the value in God’s eyes of all vocational callings. I would gladly affirm Luther’s famous statement, “[T]he works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they may be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks, but all works are measured before God by faith alone.”1
At its best, the faith and work movement gives a deep dignity to those who need to know why God cares about what they do all day, why the daily grind matters, how God uses their efforts as part of a tapestry of common good, an outworking of Jeremiah’s vision to seek the good of the city to which God has called us.
And yet, at its idolatrous worst, the faith and work movement, if unmoored from broader biblical truth, will sprinkle the American dream with a gospel-flavored pixie dust, sneaking in selfishness as if it is gospel ministry. I fear the modern faith and work movement will forget the balancing biblical truth: sacrifice. We have forgotten Bonhoeffer’s famous dictum: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”2
John writes, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3:16–18).
Similarly, in Romans 12:1, Paul calls us to lay down our very “bodies as a living sacrifice…which is your spiritual act of worship.” If that, then how much more the wealth from our work?
Brandon Cobb, a former student and now colleague writing for The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture, recently pointed out the challenge of faith and work seminars. He asked, “Where is the faith and work conference headlined by the blue-collar dishwasher, the night shift janitor, and the loading dock security guard?” The faith and work movement risks veering into, “God made me rich, and he will make you rich, too.”
The parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30 is not a faith and work parable, at least not immediately. Money is the image Jesus uses, not the only point of his teaching. Like the surrounding parables, the parable of the talents is Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question in Matthew 24:3: “When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Jesus never answers the disciples’ question. They ask “when,” and he instead talks about how to live while we wait. The five wise virgins (Matthew 25:1-13) were prepared when the bridegroom returns. Similarly, the two wise servants used their wealth well while they waited for the master to return. But the gain and the glory were all the master’s. The servants remained servants.
The point of Matthew 25 isn’t simply that we must use our money well. The parable of the talents applies to those who are poor just as much as to those with much. The point is to use all of ourselves well as we wait for Jesus to someday return: our time, our talents, our relationships, our minds, our hearts, our souls … everything.
And suddenly, the parable of the talents returns, though not exclusively, to the question of faith and work. The parable of the talents applies to far more than how we use our money, but it does apply to how we use our money. We are to use our resources, including our treasure, for the Lord’s glory until he returns.
The simple fact, though, is that I prefer to use my treasure for my own comfort, security, and pleasure. Sacrifice is learned, not natural. It comes by the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
This is no rant against wealth. Jeremiah 29:7 tells us it is not merely acceptable, but good, for us to prosper when we serve the city – even Babylon! Wealth is often God’s good gift to his servants. And yet, it is beguiling.
This is my worry about the young man from many years ago. It may well all be holy. He may use his wealth to bless others, with deep and abiding self-sacrifice. He may be the paragon of everything I believe the faith and work movement should be. But something in his tone spoke of the opposite.
We need to ask, is that three-car garage actually serving the kingdom or is it simply serving my own pleasure? We must tie our commitment to faith, work, and vocation to the biblical call to sacrifice. Then, if God blesses the work of our hands, even if he gives us great resources, we will know that we are after God’s kingdom, not simply our own comfort.
1 Martin Luther, Babylonian Captivity of the Church 1520: The annotated Luther Study Edition. trans. Erik H. Herrmann (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016), 81.
2 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship. trans. R.H. Fuller, rev. Irmgard Booth (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 99.
Rev. Dr. William Fullilove serves as the executive pastor at McLean Presbyterian Church in McLean, Virginia, where he is also the principal and senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture. He is also the professor of Old Testament and dean of students at Reformed Theological Seminary, New York City.