Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds announces that Westminster Theological Seminary is selling Gustav Wingren’s “Luther on Vocation.” He asked me how that book influenced me. So I’ll quote him quoting me:
Some years ago, a friend gave me a copy of Gustav Wingren’s Luther on Vocation, saying, “You’ve got to read this.” I put it on my stack of books to read, as others piled up on top of it. I thought I knew what the doctrine of vocation was. You do your work to the glory of God. What else is there to say? But when I finally opened Wingren’s book, I found that Luther’s doctrine of vocation is completely different than what I thought it was.
Vocation isn’t so much about what I do, but about what God does through me. Vocation is nothing less than the theology of the Christian life. God calls us to live out our faith in the world, in the ordinary-seeming realms of the family, the workplace, and the culture. The purpose of every vocation is to love and serve our neighbors, whom God brings to us in our everyday callings. Wingren shows that vocation is also about God’s presence in the world–which He providentially cares for through ordinary people, believers and non-believers alike–and about Christ’s presence in our neighbor. Luther’s exposition of vocation is imminently practical, offering a framework for how Christians can work out their problems in their various callings. It is the key to successful marriages and effective parenting. It also solves that much-vexed question for evangelicals today of how they are to interact with the culture.
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