Share this:

6.3 Obsession with ‘Full-time Ministry’

Many Christians entertain a dualistic view of life and ministry. For them, to be a minister or a missionary is the highest calling in life, while being a good artist or computer scientist is for sure second best. We call this the unbiblical obsession with so-called ‘full-time ministry’. This means that if you are a professional minister in the church or work for a missionary agency you are serving God full-time. People who promote themselves in this manner usually do not go beyond this point. However, if we take the same logic further, it implies that if we serve in a factory or on a farm we are in fact serving the devil. Such a thought is obviously scandalous and totally unacceptable.

We have to state emphatically that there is absolutely nothing in the Bible to justify this type of super-spirituality’. If someone is a Christian, he or she is called to serve God full-time, in the house, in the factory, in the office, on the farm, and also in the church, according to each person’s vocation and calling in life. No calling (including that for full time church service) is superior (or inferior) to any other. It is simply different. For, as the apostle Paul said, we are all ‘one body’ and ‘the body does not consist of one member but of many’. For ‘God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body’ (1 Cor. 12:12–27).

The message is very clear. No vocation is superior to any other, but God distributes them according to his purposes and, whatever our calling, we have to glorify God in everything we do.

Advertisement