By the year 2000, Shane Idleman was living the American Dream as a salesman for 24 Hour Fitness. In his late twenties, he had “set sales records, received large bonuses, and climbed the corporate ladder.” But something was amiss. He said, “I was driven, but for the wrong reasons. Although I felt a sense of purpose, it often left me feeling empty. I was passionate, but for the wrong things. I focused on everything society has to offer, but ultimately I found that it offered little of lasting value.”1 Shane quit his job and now serves as the senior leader of a church in California.
This past fall, I taught a class on personal destiny and individual calling at a Bible school. There was a student (I will call him Jim, not his real name) who had been a successful entrepreneur and had found it to be an empty life, so he sold his business and went to Bible college, intending to become a missionary or church leader. Early in the semester, he told me something interesting, he said: “I want to believe in BAM [business as mission] but . . .”2 Having heard several of my lectures regarding the calling of God, he was struggling with the idea that God could call people to the workplace. Perhaps he was troubled that his decision to sell his business might have been wrong.
Both Shane and Jim had enjoyed a level of career success but faced a conundrum. They experienced an emptiness—a deep dissatisfaction with what is commonly viewed as success. Both started their careers assuming the pedestrian view of success was defined in terms of money and ultimately had concluded that at best this definition of success was incomplete or perhaps even totally wrong. Their internal battles became so deep that they each decided to act. Both turned to a Christian worldview for the answer to the correct definition of success but both embraced a paradigm of Christianity shaped by Greek dualism.
One of the seminal assumptions of the Greeks was that the intangible world was good and the tangible world was not. (I refer to this assumption as Greek dualism or Platonic dualism.) Based on this assumption, the Greeks disdained physical work as beneath their dignity. Consequently, a common practice in the Greco-Roman culture was for slaves to perform the physical work and freemen (citizens) to engage in contemplative work.
For the past two and a half millenniums, Greek dualism has influenced the pedestrian paradigm of Christianity. One of the corollaries has been the nearly ubiquitous view that spiritual work is best and physical work is less than. By spiritual work, most professing Christians mean missions, church, and parachurch work. Physical work is then all other work.
From a holistic Christian worldview, the Greek assumption of dualism is wrong. Scripture teaches that the physical world was created good—indeed very good.3 Even though the fall of man subjected the world to futility, this did not mean that the fundamental nature of the physical world, as originally created, was evil. Rather the physical world was created good but was impacted by sin through the choices of Adam and Eve.4 Therefore, physical work is not to be disdained but rather is to be dignified by its origin and divinely proclaimed value.
The truth is that both Shane and Jim, though well-meaning professing Christians, profoundly misunderstood a holistic Christian worldview; hence, they defaulted to a pseudo Christian worldview shaped by Greek dualism. For Shane, this led him to quit his high-level job at 24 Hour Fitness and assume a role in church leadership. And for Jim, he sold his business to attend Bible school so that he could serve God. Neither Shane nor Jim recognized the truth of BAM.
To embrace BAM, one must embrace a sound Christian worldview. For example, consider the worldview on vocational calling displayed in the life of R.G. LeTourneau. Like Shane and Jim, R.G. had a life-changing revelation from God. He was a young entrepreneur who was convicted that a life defined by worldly pleasures was not success. He knew he had to give up pursuing fame, fortune, and influence. He knew he must pursue instead the will of God for his life. And like Shane and Jim, he thought this meant he had to be a pastor, evangelist, Bible teacher, or missionary. R.G.’s “come to Jesus” experience happened in a revival meeting. The morning after his divine encounter, R.G. sought counsel from his pastor. The following is R.G.’s recollection of that meeting with his pastor.
“Brother Devol, the Lord did something for me last night,” I began. “He took me out of spiritual bankruptcy, and I promised Him I would do anything He wanted me to do from that moment on. But how can I know what He wants me to do? I know a layman can’t serve Him like a preacher can, but tell me, does He want me to serve as a missionary? I need your advice.”
Reverend Devol was a man of God and a man of prayer, and he said, “Let’s pray, and find your answer there.”
We both knelt, and each one of us asked God what He wanted me to do, and as we arose from our knees, God spoke to me through the words of my pastor. “You know, Brother LeTourneau,” he said, “God needs businessmen as well as preachers and missionaries.”
Those were the words that have guided my life ever since.5
R.G. was stunned by these words but was inspired to hear that he could serve God in business because R.G. loved to move dirt—he felt called to reshape the earth. He went on to build one of the great companies of the last century.
Unlike Shane and Jim, R.G. heard the true call of God through the words of his pastor. He was refreshed by the truth that God creates people for all types of work assignments. R.G. heard the call to BAM. This shaped his life and facilitated his alignment with the call of God on his life.
R.G. joined the ranks of many biblical figures who were called, at least in part, to physical work. For example, Joseph was called to be a manager, commodity broker, and political leader. Moses was a shepherd before he was a political leader. David was a shepherd, musician, soldier, and political leader. Peter was a fisherman. Paul was a tentmaker. And Jesus was a carpenter.
The apostle Paul commands us to work as Christ’s representatives and therefore every word from our mouths and every work task should reflect him.6 This means that physical work should be performed seeking to bring honor and glory to God.
Furthermore, Paul reinforced the dignity of work by noting that physical work should be performed in the fear of the Lord, as if the Lord were our customer.7 To work in the fear of the Lord implies to worship through our work.
Scripture is rife with testimony to the dignity and value of physical work. So the challenge for all of us is to review our assumptions about the physical world. Do we believe, like the Greeks, that there is no value to physical work? Or do we embrace the testimony of Scripture that God values physical work? If we believe the latter, then work is a venue where people are called to serve the Lord.
I don’t know for sure the call of God on Shane or Jim. But it seems clear that if they view physical work based on Greek dualism, it would be difficult to see the call of God to physical work. But if we embrace the truth that being called to physical work has divine dignity and value, then we can embrace BAM. And if we embrace BAM, we might be surprised at the call of God on our lives.
___________________________________
1 “Will God Really Say, ‘Depart from Me I Don’t Know You’?” Shane Idleman, Charismanews, Dec. 17, 2015. Accessed August 1, 2017. http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/53885-will-god-really-say-depart-from-me-i-don-t-know-you.
2 Private communication.
3 Genesis 1:31.
4 Romans 8:20–22, Genesis 3.
5 R.G. LeTourneau, Mover of Men and Mountains (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1967), 109.
6 Colossians 3:17.
7 Colossians 3:22–24.
.png)