WB - "Called Into Work - Grasping Vocation" Journal
Try this experiment. Type the words "entered the ministry" in the Google search box. How many hits will you get? I did that recently. Those words returned 30,600,000 results. Most referred to Christians starting to work as religious professionals.
I typed the same phrase into my Bible software concordance, checking a dozen translations. The response: "No matches found for 'entered the ministry.'" Hebrews 9:6 came closest, telling how the Old Covenant priests "entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry."
But their entering brought them into a room-not into the ministry. According to the Bible, the work of ministry or serving (Greek diakonia) belongs to the saints-to all of God's people (Eph. 4:12), Paul, writing to all the Christians in the Corinthian church, told them to give themselves fully to the work of the Lord (I Cor. 15:58). So the call of God to become a Christ-follower is a call to serve God and others-to minister. If you have entered the kingdom of God through Christ, the Door, you have been called into "the ministry." (How well or poorly you are doing that ministry is another question.) So by entering Christ, the Door, you become a minister (servant).
I recently led a seminar on serving Christ in the workplace. Afterward several participants came individually to say that they had finished seminary or Bible school and were now working in this or that non-religious job. One after another they told how they had struggled with feeling they had missed God's best for their lives. What I heard confirms this statement in a current web site: "Even late into their lives, [many Christians] wonder about leaving their businesses or careers to enter the ministry . . . ."
Christ calls every member of His body to serve-minister to-Him and to others. If our Christian jargon deceives many of those members into thinking they are still outside the ministry, we effectively strait-jacket the full effectiveness of the church. The way we use the words, "enter the ministry," comes not from Scripture but from our own religious traditions and institutional thinking. Let's abandon that phrase and learn to think and speak in ways that build the church.
Again, the call of God to become a Christ-follower is a call to serve God and others-to minister. If you have entered the kingdom of God through Christ, the Door, you have been called into "the ministry." (How well or poorly you are doing that ministry is another question.)
Try this experiment. Type the words "entered the ministry" in the Google search box. How many hits will you get? I did that recently. Those words returned 30,600,000 results. Most referred to Christians starting to work as religious professionals.
I typed the same phrase into my Bible software concordance, checking a dozen translations. The response: "No matches found for 'entered the ministry.'" Hebrews 9:6 came closest, telling how the Old Covenant priests "entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry."
But their entering brought them into a room-not into the ministry. According to the Bible, the work of ministry or serving (Greek diakonia) belongs to the saints-to all of God's people (Eph. 4:12), Paul, writing to all the Christians in the Corinthian church, told them to give themselves fully to the work of the Lord (I Cor. 15:58). So the call of God to become a Christ-follower is a call to serve God and others-to minister. If you have entered the kingdom of God through Christ, the Door, you have been called into "the ministry." (How well or poorly you are doing that ministry is another question.) So by entering Christ, the Door, you become a minister (servant).
I recently led a seminar on serving Christ in the workplace. Afterward several participants came individually to say that they had finished seminary or Bible school and were now working in this or that non-religious job. One after another they told how they had struggled with feeling they had missed God's best for their lives. What I heard confirms this statement in a current web site: "Even late into their lives, [many Christians] wonder about leaving their businesses or careers to enter the ministry . . . ."
Christ calls every member of His body to serve-minister to-Him and to others. If our Christian jargon deceives many of those members into thinking they are still outside the ministry, we effectively strait-jacket the full effectiveness of the church. The way we use the words, "enter the ministry," comes not from Scripture but from our own religious traditions and institutional thinking. Let's abandon that phrase and learn to think and speak in ways that build the church.
Again, the call of God to become a Christ-follower is a call to serve God and others-to minister. If you have entered the kingdom of God through Christ, the Door, you have been called into "the ministry." (How well or poorly you are doing that ministry is another question.)
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