Sacred Priorities: Rethinking Christian Influence in Career and Calling

In this thought-provoking episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse explore the complex relationship between Christian vocation and professional ambition. Moving beyond the obvious prohibition of inherently sinful professions, they examine whether certain legitimate careers might still be inappropriate for Christians if they compromise our responsibilities to family and church. The hosts challenge the common assumption that Christians should seek maximum worldly influence, suggesting instead that faithfulness in our threefold calling—to work, family, and church—should guide our vocational choices. Drawing on Reformed theology's rich understanding of vocation, they offer practical wisdom for believers navigating career decisions and workplace responsibilities while maintaining spiritual priorities in a culture that often glorifies professional success at any cost.

Key Takeaways

• Vocation is threefold: A proper understanding of Christian vocation includes responsibilities to our work, our families, and our church—not just our careers.
• Lord's Day conflicts: Professions that regularly prevent church attendance and Lord's Day observance may be inappropriate for Christians, regardless of their potential for influence or impact.
• Family obligations: Scripture teaches that Christians who neglect family responsibilities are "worse than unbelievers" (1 Tim. 5:8), suggesting that careers demanding excessive time away from family may be problematic.
• Christian influence vs. gospel proclamation: We must distinguish between transforming culture through worldly influence versus the actual proclamation of the gospel, which can happen at any level of employment.
• Sacrifice is expected: Following Christ often requires sacrificing career advancement, prestige, or financial gain to fulfill our primary callings.
• Priority check: When considering job opportunities, Christians should evaluate church options in a new location with the same care they give to schools, housing, and other community factors.
• God calls us to faithfulness: Our primary calling is to faithfulness in our responsibilities, not necessarily to positions of maximum influence or cultural power.

Balancing the Threefold Calling

The hosts challenge the idea that Christians should prioritize career advancement and influence above all else. They argue that vocation in the Reformed tradition encompasses more than just our paid work—it includes our responsibilities to family and church as well. This means that even if a career opportunity seems beneficial for "kingdom influence," we must evaluate whether it allows us to fulfill our other God-given duties. Tony points out that while some professions clearly contradict Christian ethics, others may subtly undermine our ability to be faithful in all areas of life. A high-powered executive role might provide platforms for influence but could require such time commitments that family relationships suffer or regular Lord's Day worship becomes impossible. As Jesse observes, "vocation is fundamentally God's doing," not simply about finding personal fulfillment or maximizing impact. This framework helps believers evaluate career choices more holistically.

The Question of Christian Influence

A central question emerges throughout the episode: Should Christians pursue positions of maximum influence to advance kingdom values? While this idea sounds appealing, the hosts suggest it often masks a "theology of glory" rather than embracing the "theology of the cross." Jesse notes that "God doesn't call us to necessarily have outside impact. What he's calling us to is faithfulness." They distinguish between the transformative power of the gospel—which can be proclaimed regardless of position—and other ways of transforming culture through worldly influence. Tony explains that "whether you're the janitor of the hospital or whether you're the CEO of the hospital, the gospel is the same and your role in proclaiming the gospel is the same." This perspective challenges Christians to reconsider whether pursuing leadership positions always aligns with God's calling, especially when such roles might compromise other spiritual obligations. The hosts argue that faithfulness in ordinary circumstances, not exceptional influence, should be our primary aim.

Quotes

"Would it be great if the CEO of a major Fortune 500 company could be a Christian? Yeah. That would be kind of cool. But if the trade-off is that person has to sacrifice their genuine Christian convictions, that's not worth it." - Tony Arsenal

"I do think we have to sit back and ask, is that the calling? So that we're pursuing what is our vocation, not just our potential... I think there is a real temptation to somehow say like, what we need to do is to infiltrate in all the places. And I think what we mean by that is that things here will be better." - Jesse Schwamb

"I think the Bible is clearer about a person who is taken away from their home more than is reasonable and more than is healthy for their family, or a Christian who never is able to worship on the Lord's day... than it is on something like identity politics and some of the tangential ways that might cause a person to need to compromise a little bit at a high level." - Tony Arsenal

Practical Applications

The hosts suggest several practical considerations for Christians evaluating career opportunities:

1. Will this job regularly prevent Lord's Day worship?
2. Does it require sacrificing time with family beyond what's reasonable?
3. Could you negotiate Sabbath observance with potential employers?
4. When relocating, evaluate church options with the same care given to schools and housing
5. Consider whether a lower-paying job that allows faithfulness in all areas might be better than a higher-paying one that doesn't

Full Transcript [00:00:00] Introduction and Episode Overview

[00:00:08] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 458 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.

[00:00:16] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast where even your work is unto the glory of God. Hey brother. Hey

[00:00:24] Jesse Schwamb: brother. You know that's right. It

[00:00:26] Tony Arsenal: is. That's why I said it.

[00:00:28] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it was. That's a great way to open. We, I think from time to time come back to the topic of work and we've got a great, I think, conversation in the queue for this particular episode.

[00:00:39] Jesse Schwamb: Now it's gonna sound maybe on the face. Right off the top here. Familiar. So of course, like we've talked before, how scripture makes it clear that Christians are to be salt and light in the world. And we've talked, I think, at length about, well, how exactly do we carry out that? And though we know that we're not saved by our good works.

[00:00:57] Jesse Schwamb: Again, the Bible teaches very clearly that God expects good works from Christians, that that is in fact what he saves us to do. Again, we're not saved by those good works, but the question I think still remains, and we're gonna come to it in this conversation about what exactly does he want us to do and where does he want us to do it.

[00:01:13] Jesse Schwamb: So in other words, we know that according to scripture, God providentially, governs and cares for his entire creation. So how does that play out in human society given the reality of sin? So we're gonna get to topics like. Well, should Christians be in every line of work? Is that the ideal? Are there jobs or positions or responsibilities that seemingly may not be obvious that Christians really shouldn't be a part of?

[00:01:37] Jesse Schwamb: Because it takes them too far afield, maybe from the responsibilities that God gives us holistically to think of our calling is and our families and our churches in our work. So it's a bit more nuanced play of a conversation we had before, but hopefully something that's gonna have all kinds of practicality wrapped around it.

[00:01:55] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. So that's what's coming.

[00:01:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I'm stoked. I think this is gonna be a good conversation and I think I, I think this is one of those topics where like there's a lot of different angles to come at it from, right? We talk about vocation and work, and we've had those conversations before, and I think other shows and other venues have had that conversation before.

[00:02:15] Tony Arsenal: I don't think that I've encountered a conversation really to this like angle of it. So I'm looking forward to this.

[00:02:23] Jesse Schwamb: Me too. It's gonna be great. And of course, before we get to all that goodness, all that greatness, which I'm sure is about to transpire shortly and will be of course the definitive conversation, the one to end all to, I guess both to your point, bring it into the world.

[00:02:36] Jesse Schwamb: Then to shut it down because we'll have accomplished both ends in just a single hour.

[00:02:41] Affirmations and Denials

[00:02:41] Jesse Schwamb: Before we get to that, let's do some affirming or denying. This is the part of our conversation where you and I always pick one thing either that we're affirming with and kind of the tradition of the reformed faith, where we take something that's undervalued or something that excites us, we think has great merit or worth, and we put out into the world and say, we're standing behind this thing, or conversely, we deny against it in that same kind of tradition by saying, this thing is overvalued, not worth it.

[00:03:05] Jesse Schwamb: Not our jam. So in our tradition, I ask you are you affirming with something or are you not against something?

[00:03:11] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming with something specific that will lead to something general. So, okay.

[00:03:16] Exploring AI in Learning

[00:03:16] Tony Arsenal: I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I've been playing around with Google Gemini, which is Google's AI platform.

[00:03:22] Tony Arsenal: And uh, I've been using it in a sort of interesting way. So Google has, uh, Gemini has these things called gems, which are basically like predefined personalities or predefined. I dunno, like instructions. So they have one gem that is a learning guide where basically you can give it a topic and it will, it will deliver mini lectures, give you quizzes, you can prompt it.

[00:03:46] Tony Arsenal: So like I can paste in, um, you know, I can take in Lagos, I can paste a copy of the Bible, like a chapter of the Bible into the learning guide. It'll summarize it, it'll ask me questions. It'll basically gimme many lectures on it. Um, that's the specific thing. This is such a cool technology. And in my mind, this is really where AI is strong, is that you can take large sections of text and it will summarize it and synthesize it into a very usable format.

[00:04:14] Tony Arsenal: Um, so what I've been doing, like I said, is I'll read, I'll read a, a chunk of text from whatever it is I'm reading, and then I'll copy and paste that entire chunk of text if it's an electronic text into the learning. Learning guide module and ask it to act as like a seminary lecturer and quiz me on the content.

[00:04:33] Tony Arsenal: Um, which really helps to solidify the content I'm reading rather than just passing my eyes over it. I'm actually, um, processing it and retaining it more. I think you could probably do something similar with just about any AI platform if you had the right kind of prompt, which is where the general one comes in.

[00:04:50] Tony Arsenal: And I would encourage you, listener to think a little bit about how you might utilize this, because I think we all read lots and lots of things. Our, our, um, particular audience tends to be a little bookish, and so I'm sure we're all reading things as we go, but I'm not sure we're always processing things in the most effective way.

[00:05:07] Tony Arsenal: So think a little bit about like how you might use something like chat, GPT, which is available for free, or Claude, which is available for free to do this kind of like. Almost like simulated classroom lecture. Um, and I know there are some questions about ai. Like I, I heard an argument that ai, when you're generating content is, is a sort of form of sophisticated, uh, plagiarism, which I'm not sure I buy it, but I understand the argument.

[00:05:33] Tony Arsenal: This is something very different where you're really just using the, using the AI to synthesize and summarize text and sort of spit it back to you in a new format. Um, you're not trying to generate anything new. You're not trying to create anything. That you're gonna publish or anything like that. It's really just a, a form of synthesis.

[00:05:49] Tony Arsenal: So I've really found this to be super beneficial. Um, I'm having a really great time at it. I'm, I'm using it for language studies, so I'm reading through mount's basics, biblical Greek. And I'll copy and paste the whole chapter in, ask it to act as a lecturer, and it will walk me through the chapter. It'll stop to do quizzes.

[00:06:08] Tony Arsenal: It'll drill me on vocab as I'm going. And then when, when I up, the instruction I get is, don't move forward until you are convinced that I've mastered the content. And so when I get something wrong, it goes back and makes me redo it. So it continues to iterate until it's, until the AI has. Synthesize that I have mastered the content, and then it asks me to provide the next chapter.

[00:06:30] Tony Arsenal: So it's a cool technology. It's a, it's a sort of novel use for the technology. Um, again, Google has built in modules that do this, but I think you could probably use chat, GPT or Claude or Orrock or whatever AI model you're using to accomplish the same goal.

[00:06:45] Jesse Schwamb: There's no doubt that AI is great for like building study notes, helping you create space, repetition, all those like little hacks that we have long talked about.

[00:06:53] Jesse Schwamb: And this provides it to you in a really bespoke course customized way, but it gets you involved. I'm with you if you wanna do this the old fashioned way. I'll go back to something I I've affirmed with before and that's this very famous book originally authored in the 1940s called How to Read a Book by Mor Mortimer, j Adler, and that is an exercise.

[00:07:13] Jesse Schwamb: Helping you do some of that stuff in real time as well. Yeah, so I think there'd be a lovely compliment to say you're reading actively and then you get to test immediately that active reading by way of using ai. So even before, like, maybe even just jumping to like, well, let me read it, but I'm, I'm gonna trust that AI's gonna really kind of supplement me or fill in the gaps and just gimme what I need to know.

[00:07:33] Jesse Schwamb: Trying to do that in real time. Pausing in your reading. Again, kind of studying as you go along, thinking out loud through what you've just read and then saying, alright, now test me is a great way to, 'cause who wants to like read stuff unless you can remember this stuff and then unless you can apply it, right?

[00:07:48] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. So it's such a joy to be able to read things and then to remember. And if you haven't had that experience yet, I like your affirmation. I think this is a great way to test it out.

[00:07:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, just to maybe flesh this out. So I, I asked it to, and I'm, I'm doing this sort of as an experiment just to see how it works, but also just 'cause it's, it's useful.

[00:08:06] Tony Arsenal: I asked it to act as a seminary lecturer and I copied and paste the entire first chapter of the Westminster Confession. And rather than split it up by section and actually combined paragraphs that were. Um, related to each other. So it combined the list of Bible, uh, books, and then the chapter on apocrypha and gave me some like lectures.

[00:08:25] Tony Arsenal: But here's what it said about, um, about chapter 10. It says, paragraph 10, declares the supreme judge can be no other than the Holy Spirit speaking scripture. This is the ultimate outworking of sola Scripture, means that every other authority is lesser authority that must submit to the judgment of the word of God.

[00:08:42] Tony Arsenal: This includes decrees of church counsels. Opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, private spirits. It goes on for a little while longer. Then it says, I will give you a brief final quiz covering the whole of chapter one, and it asks questions like A historian makes the following claim. The Bible only has authority.

[00:08:59] Tony Arsenal: It does because influential councils in the early church, like the Council of Carthage officially voted on which books would be included in the cannon. The church therefore gave the Bible its authority drawing from your knowledge of paragraphs three, uh, three, four, and five. Provide a two-part critique of the historian statement.

[00:09:16] Tony Arsenal: Which then I had to type it out. It critiqued, um, it analyzed my answer. Um, I happened to get that question right. I did at one point think maybe this is actually just like finding a way to say everything that I say is right. So I purposely put a wrong answer in and it did identify that the answer was wrong, and then it made me go back and revisit that content.

[00:09:35] Tony Arsenal: So it's very, it's a very cool use case. I'm glad that Google kind of built this in. They have all sorts of other gems. If you have, if you have a way to get access to Google Gemini, um. It's not the best AI for everything, but it's got, it's pretty versatile. It's got a lot of utility, so check it out.

[00:09:53] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that sounds great.

[00:09:53] Jesse Schwamb: Again, there's all kinds of fun things I think we could be using AI for to help us be better learners or to really enjoy our interaction with data and information more. Yeah. It is a really great way to conversationally help you to learn something, and that's what makes it so much better. It stands way far apart from, again, just leading, just reading or just creating flashcards or even just, just creating study notes, but that back and forth to test you on something, even if it's just like casual knowledge that you can really want to internalize.

[00:10:21] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I found that to be super valuable. Again, like, man, if you're a learner, if you're a reader, if you're a human being, what an amazing time to live in the world where data is so prevalent, but it's increasingly being brought into a place where we can put our arms around it in a way in which we're trying to really understand it.

[00:10:38] Jesse Schwamb: You know, I think about how we used to search for something, I mean. Used to like this that like, that wasn't like last year. You know what I mean? Like we just go on to our, your favorite search engine. Type in a topic or maybe type in even a specific question. And at best you'd have to sort through this litany, this plethora, this morass of all these links about articles that may pertain to what you asked.

[00:10:58] Jesse Schwamb: Or maybe they pertain to it generally, but not really specifically. Yeah. The specificity with which you can have a conversational interaction that engenders knowledge is wild. I mean, I really think that is like the huge play of ai. Just lean into it and enjoy it.

[00:11:12] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. Jesse, what are you affirming or denying tonight?

[00:11:16] Nasal Spray Affirmation

[00:11:16] Jesse Schwamb: I'm going a totally different direction. It's an affirmation, but I'm taking it from my ears, nose, nose, and throat doctor who affirmed this to me, so I might be totally late on this. There are very few things that I can say like somebody's recommended to me or affirm. It's been like absolute game changer, like just drop dead from the first moment I used it or employed the thing that it just changed everything.

[00:11:38] Jesse Schwamb: This is one of those things. Which maybe I've just already oversold, but the affirmation is with something called it's, it's spelled X-L-E-A-R, I think it's still pronounced clear, but it's called literally phonetically XL nasal spray, and it's a. This doesn't sound very exciting, but bear with me everybody.

[00:11:57] Jesse Schwamb: It's a natural, non-addictive saline nasal spray featuring Zi Atol as its primary active ingredient. So if you're not familiar with Zi Atol, which I wasn't until I went to my ENT by the way I've seen for many years and only just recommended this to me. So I had some words 'cause I was working, where's this been all my life.

[00:12:14] Jesse Schwamb: But Zito is a naturally occurring alcohol sugar. It's found in like many fruits and vegetables, and it can be commercially produced from like birch wine or corn fiber. It looks and tastes similar to like table sugar, but it contains fewer calories, so it can be used and is often used as like a sweetener in sugar-free foods like chewing gum, mint candies, jam, stuff like that.

[00:12:35] Jesse Schwamb: Here's one of the strange side effects. That they notice though about Zi atol, and that is it totally, uh, cleanses, moisturizes and soos nasal passages. And it gives you all kinds of relief from like common congestion stuff like colds, allergies, low humidity, humidity, science, pressure, stuff like that. What it does is it actually breaks down or lubricates your inner nasal passages, including like flushing out the mucus. like it works actually with your body. So what's amazing is it's, it's really great for, it's kinda like a soap for the nose. It clears up bacteria, pollens, dander, molds, like all kinds of irritants.

[00:13:14] Jesse Schwamb: It also studies have shown blocks, adhesion of other pathogens like bacterial, fungal, viral to the mucosal tissues, helping the body to wash them away. So

[00:13:23] Jesse Schwamb: this thing is absolutely. Wild. And I can say for certain that if you're the kind of person like me, where let's say like you're, you're hitting the Flonase hard at different seasons because you got those seasonal allergies because of the fall and because sin is real. I'm with you. That dries out your nose.

[00:13:42] Jesse Schwamb: This thing is like a, a sauna or a spa for your nose, and then it literally like clears everything out. It's almost magical. I, I'm serious. It's so fantastic. So if you've been looking for something to really help with that and it, again, it's safe. There's no drug in it. It's not addictive, so you can use it all the time.

[00:13:58] Jesse Schwamb: It's just saline and zi etol. It is phenomenal. So go get yourself, do yourself a favor. Do, do your, do your nose and your sinuses a solid and, and get the solids outta them by using. X clear. I feel like a bat just flew by your face or like a giant bird.

[00:14:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. So, uh, first of all, that sounds like a really great thing to check out.

[00:14:22] Tony Arsenal: Is this clear stuff? Um, I have had struggles with like sinus infections over the last couple years, so I'm gonna check this out when it gets to allergy season in the fall year.

[00:14:32] Hummingbird Moth Encounter

[00:14:32] Tony Arsenal: But yes, uh, one of the rare, uh, moths that I've learned lives near my house is called a, uh, what's it called? Uh. It commonly, it's called like a hummingbird moth.

[00:14:44] Tony Arsenal: Have you heard of these things? Yeah. Oh yeah. Um, I've never seen them before, but the reason they're called hummingbird moths is 'cause they look like hummingbirds, but they're actually moths and I right now. Hopefully this will change eventually, but. It will have to, 'cause it gets cold here. Um, I'm recording outside and a hummingbird moth literally just flew between my computer and my face.

[00:15:05] Tony Arsenal: Um, I wasn't talking at the time so you wouldn't be able to see it on the screen, which is too bad. Uh, but yeah, Jesse saw me freak out a little bit, which is uh, which is fine.

[00:15:16] Jesse Schwamb: It happened the

[00:15:16] Tony Arsenal: first time I saw one. I was like, is that a huge bee? No, it's just a hummingbird broth.

[00:15:21] Jesse Schwamb: Somebody, everybody should look them up though, because they're kind of wild looking.

[00:15:25] Jesse Schwamb: Like if you've seen it in real life, they have that hummingbird pose where the body, body is kind of laid back and the wings are going crazy. Like they literally do hover like that. Yeah. And they're, they're almost that big. The one that tried to attack you there was pretty large.

[00:15:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. They don't, um, they, they.

[00:15:41] Tony Arsenal: Move a little different than hummingbirds, which is why the first time that I saw one, I thought it was a bee. Um, because when they, when they land on a flower, they crawl inside the flower the same way that a, like a bee or a bumblebee will, um, they don't hover outside the flower like a hummingbird, but they do.

[00:15:57] Tony Arsenal: They, their body is, I mean, their body is probably an, an inch and a half long like a hummingbird. Um, and it's thick like a hummingbird. They don't look like moths at all. So I'm not sure they must be part of the Moth family, I guess. Um, I'm trying to remember. It's. They have like a specific name, I wanna say Scarab, but that's not right.

[00:16:14] Tony Arsenal: But it's something like that is the, the technical name of it. They're like a scarab moth or something like that. But

[00:16:20] Jesse Schwamb: yeah, I've just come up. It's a wild name.

[00:16:22] Tony Arsenal: This is your top 50 Entomology, uh, podcast apparently. As well as the top 50 health cath. We're gonna, we're gonna uh, com combine the two tonight, so yeah, I'm gonna check that out in the, the spring or in the fall here, Jesse.

[00:16:34] Tony Arsenal: My, my allergies always go a little bit crazy when we get to September. Yeah. With all the, like leaves falling down and crumbling up and stuff, it just gets in the air, so I'll just, I'll spray some artificial sugar. It's not artificial. I'll spray some pseudo sugar in my nose and see what happens.

[00:16:48] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. It does have the added benefit that because it is a naturally occurring.

[00:16:53] Jesse Schwamb: Sugar, like it's a type of sugar alcohol that if it drips down the back of your throat, all you get is a little like, mm, sweet.

[00:17:03] Tony Arsenal: I wanna know who the first guy who was like, let me put some of this fake sugar in my nose and see what happens was it's,

[00:17:09] Jesse Schwamb: I'm telling you, it, it's better than any actual, like, prescribed nasal spray I've ever taken.

[00:17:15] Jesse Schwamb: You can get it like just at your g it. Yeah. Or you can get it on Amazon. I, I will, I forgot about it for a while. I, maybe I use it daily now it's become my go-to. But I mean, I don't wanna make this weird or gross, but it's the kind of thing like if you wake up in the morning and you're stuffy and you, it feels like somebody parked like a bus way up in your sinus cavity.

[00:17:32] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And you're like, I can't even blow my nose. There's nothing there where, where's all this stuff? There's nothing there. If you use this, when I use this within two, two, I'd say like seven minutes, I can just. Drop a huge load of mucus right outta my face and you feel like a million bucks. I don't know how to describe it.

[00:17:49] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it's like better than like a sinus rinse or a netty pot. I know this sounds wild, like I'm way too excited about this stuff, but that clear spray is wild. And what I especially love is that it's all natural, that I'm not doing any harm to my nose or my face by using it. And that it, I just feel better afterwards because it's like moisturized everything.

[00:18:08] Jesse Schwamb: So, and there's, there's, the debate is I think ongoing. There's a lot apparently, because I went down the rabbit trail and looked at all these scholarly studies and peer-reviewed journal papers, all this stuff. There's a lot, I guess, uh, still somewhat in debate about like its ability to really help prevent certain things like COVID, any kind of like nasal airborne kind of like, yeah, because it helps to flush and it prevents literally bacteria from sticking, uh, inside your nasal passages.

[00:18:34] Jesse Schwamb: So that could be a benefit. I can't say anything about that. I'm not a doctor. What,

[00:18:40] Tony Arsenal: what I would love is, uh, if you are a listener who has seasonal allergies or whatever, uh, if you would join our telegram chat at t.me/reform brotherhood. Well done. We have what's normally a tastings channel, which is like people get like new foods they wanna check out, or a beer they like or whatever, and they'll, uh, they'll do a little tasting and a review.

[00:19:04] Tony Arsenal: I would love if some people would join the channel and do some, some clear, clear. We'll go clear, uh, a tasting of this nasal spray. Yeah, please don't show us. 'cause that's disgusting. Right. But, uh, let us know. Let us know what you think of it. I think that'd be great. So that's t me slash Reform Brotherhood.

[00:19:21] Jesse Schwamb: There you go. Come hang out with us. It's a lot of fun. I see we've had some people join that group this week, so I see you out there, brother Sean. Crushing it, getting in the mix. Welcome everybody. Come again. Spend a little time in there. And there's, I love that the channel for like the conversation about our episodes is.

[00:19:37] Jesse Schwamb: Hot. It's going strong. I love that. And we gave the call last week. You should listen to last week's episode when we were really speaking about, uh, God's faithfulness and a challenge of how we seek after piety, under the care and the direction, the kind direction and the convicting influence of the Holy Spirit.

[00:19:55] Jesse Schwamb: So many good things were said there. I really loved reading all those. And it probably goes without saying, but I'm gonna mention it anyway. You and I read everything that pops in there. Yeah. For the most part. I mean, sometimes I look at it and there's 150 messages, right? And um, it got wild. But I go back through and always, always read those.

[00:20:10] Jesse Schwamb: But I especially love like the conversation when we invite people to say, like, now it's, we'd love to hear from you. And so I think that's gonna be a large part of what we talk about. On this episode as well.

[00:20:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. So, Jesse, why don't you lead us in here. This was the topic you brought up. I think it's a great one.

[00:20:25] Tony Arsenal: I'd love to to dive into it here.

[00:20:27] Christian Vocation and Work

[00:20:27] Jesse Schwamb: I think one of the things that Christians always have to come to terms with at some point, every generation has to, but every person as well is, so where is my role as Christ child in something we might generally call like Christian activism? By which I mean like, of course, like Christians.

[00:20:44] Jesse Schwamb: Attempt to improve or influence society through time, especially in our work. And as I was thinking about this recently, I think one of the hard things we have to measure out is well. Are there different places where we would, there's certainly jobs where we say Christians shouldn't hold that position because it contravenes God's law directly.

[00:21:05] Jesse Schwamb: But what about these kind of, as we've talked about before, this threefold responsibility that we have in our callings, which you can go back to our previous catalog, which is all in the reform brotherhood.com, by the way. Listen to where we talked about this idea of like the vocation that happens in our work, in our households, in our church, and is it possible that in the work sphere that there are jobs that like Christians just shouldn't hold because it takes them too far away from their responsibilities in the other two spheres, which there are equally parts of their vocation, or if we want to put like a really fine point in it, and I don't really mean to derail the conversation with this question, but this would be exemplifying kind of what we're after here, which was like, should Christians be involved and.

[00:21:47] Jesse Schwamb: In politics, are there other jobs like that where we'd say, listen, we, we tr we trust God in his sovereign superintendent will that he's always doing his good work. And you and I have talked at length about what it means to be living in the, under the normal principle of God using ordinary, normal means to do great and extraordinary things.

[00:22:06] Jesse Schwamb: So how does all of that fit with our work? Are there lines to be drawn or. Does it not really matter?

[00:22:15] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I mean, I think for the sake of our conversation, we can just sort of take some professions off the table. Right? Of course, there are some professions of course, and calling them professions is probably even, probably even a misnomer.

[00:22:27] Tony Arsenal: But there are some ways to earn money that are just intrinsically sinful that are outside of the scope of the conversation, right? You can't, uh, there's no argument for a Christian to become like. An assassin or like a drug dealer or a prostitute, like, there's no, there's no valid argument or discussion to be had around those.

[00:22:45] Tony Arsenal: So we can just exclude those entirely. But I think for, for the sake of this conversation, we're talking about professions that do not involve, intrinsically involve sin, um, and, and may or may not have, um. Prudential reasons why they are not the best idea. Right. So I, I'm thinking like, the one that came to mind when you asked this was like, and it's funny because I, um, I mentioned the topic to my wife and, you know, she kind of joked, I was like, well, yeah, like Christians can't be.

[00:23:15] Tony Arsenal: Can't like be porn stars, like that's not something you can do as a Christian. But then, then I, she said, well, what, what other professions would it be? I said, well, like, like a professional football player, right? And like the question is like, can a Christian be a professional football player? I think instinctively, right?

[00:23:29] Tony Arsenal: We all say yes. But, but is that actually true? Right. And, and I would, I would make the argument that no, like a Christian can't be a professional football player or really, really any kind of professional sports, um, figure because it, it necessarily takes you away from the gathered fellowship of Christians on the Lord's day on far too often a basis.

[00:23:47] Tony Arsenal: Right? I don't think you can make a good prudential argument to say like, well. It's fine for a Christian to be absent from the lord's uh, Lord's Day worship in his congregation of membership, you know, 60% of the time. Like, I just don't think you can make that argument. So I think in a lot of these cases, the immediate instinctive answer is yes.

[00:24:07] Tony Arsenal: Uh. Christians can be part of any profession, and there's a certain, there's a certain way that that's true, but when we actually start to look at the way some professions actually play out, we have to analyze that a lot deeper. And this is actually not all that different than our conversation last week.

[00:24:23] Tony Arsenal: Right. Involving like a. Pop culture and like media consumption is we have to look at what is actually, what the actual cost is. Uh, opportunity cost, I guess if we want to use like economic terms, what the actual opportunity cost is here of a particular profession in respect of. Our obligations and our commitments as a Christian and our obligation to the law of God, our obligation to our Christian brothers and sisters, all of that.

[00:24:49] Tony Arsenal: So I think this is gonna be a great conversation. I'm excited to get into it. Um, but I do think it's one that we should think through a little bit more than just sort of like our gut reaction. Like we, of course, Christians can be involved in any profession.

[00:25:00] Jesse Schwamb: Let me add to that. 'cause that's perfect. That's exactly, you're not on the same page as usual.

[00:25:04] Jesse Schwamb: That's exactly where my mind was going. And what makes like this such a rich opportunity to really explore what the scripture has to say about this particular topic? I think you're right on that we need to weigh out, which we often just kind of glance over. What are the other responsibilities by taking on a particular line of work or job.

[00:25:20] Jesse Schwamb: Does that necessarily mean that we must sacrifice and preclude these other areas? We should have direct or more intimate involvement because that is also part of vocation. Part of that, like we've talked about at length before, is responsibility in the Lord's day. So we might set that up as one particular test.

[00:25:36] Jesse Schwamb: To that end, another one might be exactly what you were saying. So here's like the opposite of like the professional footballer or American football or whatever. Pick your, pick your sports. What about like high level? High responsibility, let's say leadership positions like in all kinds of areas of industry that would require the man or the woman to, let's say, like be on call continually, or maybe to sacrifice long hours at that job as part and parcel of what's required to do it effectively.

[00:26:04] Jesse Schwamb: And that might mean that necessarily like not being very connected with family or having to be away from their family a lot of the time. I think what we often come to is this idea that, wouldn't it be great if Christians were just everywhere and were infiltrating all the things all the time at all the levels.

[00:26:21] Jesse Schwamb: I think the question here that's under the surface is, is that what God assigns in a life of vocation? And maybe it's, it's of course more nuance than that and it could be for the person. Again, I wanna be clear that, like we said before, vocation is a very specific and narrow term in that we're talking about an actual calling being called out for a particular purpose.

[00:26:42] Jesse Schwamb: And if we're using that in the right way, then it's possible that with the exception of some things like the Lord's Day, the other thing I just talked about, season of life. And your particular commitments or entanglements, they might be different from person to person. Therefore, allow for a direct call that God gives to a particular purpose at a particular time.

[00:27:01] Jesse Schwamb: I think what I'm really kind of weighing out here is if we understand how the reformers viewed all of this. We have to come to this conclusion that God assigns us a life and then God calls us to that life. And that really is what vocation is all about. And notice in that there's nothing that's said about choosing a vocation or finding your true vocation or being fulfilled even in your vocation.

[00:27:24] Jesse Schwamb: We may experience a struggle with all of that, but vocation is fundamentally God's doing. So what is. God doing in our society. And as you said, are there roles that he's, in a way not calling, let's say like the, the quintessential or the normative, I don't wanna say average 'cause that implies the weird thing, but Right.

[00:27:44] Jesse Schwamb: Kind of Christian too. And I think. We've gotta, we've gotta wrestle with that because you're right. Like we too often just run to, we need Christians in all the places now let's get them everywhere. Doing all the things. Yeah. And that might be good from our perspective, because Christians should be the best workers as we said that we should.

[00:28:01] Jesse Schwamb: The most kind. There is the salt in lights everywhere. However, it takes a Christian to do all those things. And can a Christian in certain roles have great fidelity to the threefold?

[00:28:13] Exploring the Theology of Work and the Lord's Day

[00:28:13] Jesse Schwamb: Calling and vocation of life while upholding certain jobs and responsibilities.

[00:28:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think, um, I think that may be like a little bit of progam is, is warranted here too.

[00:28:26] Tony Arsenal: Like there, you know, there's the, the, the conversation at the top of like, some, some professions are just out of bounds. Yeah. Um, but there's also, you know, a pretty robust theology. And I think a lot of this is gonna center around. Uh, maybe just for simplicity's sake and for the fact that we have 30 minutes left of a conversation that probably could be multiple hours, um, there's a pretty robust apparatus in reform theology that is designed to help Christians understand whether or not, um.

[00:28:57] Tony Arsenal: A particular activity is acceptable on the Lord's day. And we've, we've had conversations in the past about like, if, if all of your theology of the Lord's Day is about what you can and can't do, then you're missing the point entirely.

[00:29:11] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.

[00:29:11] Tony Arsenal: But there is an element of what you can and can't do in terms of understanding the Lord's day.

[00:29:16] Tony Arsenal: Right. We're, we're not supposed to engage in worldly recreation or employment on the Lord's day. So we have to talk about what that means. And so I think.

[00:29:24] Works of Necessity and Charity on the Lord's Day

[00:29:24] Tony Arsenal: I think to start with, like there's categories, like works of necessity, works of charity, um, that, or, or like works of ministry, which would, would sort of be a third category that's not necessarily, um, not necessarily enumerated in many of the sources, but it's assumed that like pastors who are working on the Lord's day are not, they're not violating the Sabbath by doing the work on the Sabbath.

[00:29:47] Tony Arsenal: Um, I think we have to have those categories. 'cause I think that helps us inform too, like. If you are the CEO of a major retailer, does that mean you have to work on Sunday, right? Well, probably it does. Like, it probably means that on a regular basis you're gonna be checking emails on your phone, you're gonna be taking phone calls.

[00:30:05] Tony Arsenal: You've got, you might have partners in markets overseas where it, it's Sunday morning for you, but it's Monday afternoon or you know, Monday morning for them or something like that. Um. I think that the industry you're in largely is going to drive whether that's an acceptable or, or an appropriate role for you.

[00:30:24] Tony Arsenal: So I could see a situation where you could make the argument that being the CEO of a of a major medical center, right. Where the work that's being done at the medical center falls easily within that sort of definition of, uh, works of necessity. A nurse who is working in the emergency room or a police officer or a firefighter or somebody who is fixing the power, like in our society, right?

[00:30:47] Tony Arsenal: Electricity is, is not an option for most people. It's not a, it's not a luxury for most people. So those, those professions. It's acceptable to work on the Lord's Day when it's a work of necessity, and so the higher level leadership positions that make those possible and constrain them also, I think. Would fall under that same work of necessity.

[00:31:06] Tony Arsenal: If the CEO of my hospital, I don't know if she's a Christian or not. I, I'm, I'm not speculating on that, but if, if the CEO of my hospital was a Christian or is a Christian and she has to take an important phone call on Sunday morning and miss the Lord's day because if she doesn't take care of that, the hospital's not gonna function correctly and people may not have emergency services.

[00:31:26] Tony Arsenal: I don't think that's a violation of the south principle. If the same scenario is happening and it's the CEO of Best Buy and they need to take a phone call, otherwise people won't be able to buy widgets on Sunday afternoon, that's a different calculation. So I think like right off the bat, we have to start having those conversations about what's the nature of the work, what's the, what's the tell loss of the work or the end aim of the work.

[00:31:46] Tony Arsenal: That's really important as well.

[00:31:48] Balancing Professional Responsibilities and Christian Obligations

[00:31:48] Jesse Schwamb: So it sounds like though what we're saying, both of us in a way, is that if you run that test, so to speak, like you go through that algorithm and you come out with this idea that you know, it's, you're saying your industry is more like Best Buy and less like your local hospital, then there might be significant and maybe insurmountable roadblocks to taking that position Should be as a c.

[00:32:08] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I mean, that's kinda what we're saying.

[00:32:10] Tony Arsenal: Oh yeah, for sure. And you know, like this is a real world application I think for a lot of people. I remember when I was in college, um, I had the opportunity to take a promotion. I worked at Best Buy. I, I'm not using Best Buy as an example for any specific reason, but I worked at Best Buy.

[00:32:23] Tony Arsenal: I worked in the Geek Squad area and I had the opportunity to take a promotion. Um, and the sort of the strings that came with the promotion is that I was expected to be available to work on Sundays. I didn't have a super robust doctrine of the Lord's Day at the time. Like I wasn't super theologically versed on Sabbath theology and stuff.

[00:32:39] Tony Arsenal: Um, but it just didn't sit right with me. And so initially I didn't take the, I didn't take the, um, promotion because I didn't feel comfortable saying at the time, it was mostly about like, I'm not gonna miss the church service. I didn't feel comfortable saying I need to be available. And that might mean I Ms.

[00:32:57] Tony Arsenal: Church to, to be able to take this shift. Um, eventually the management adapted and said, well, we'll just figure out something else. We really want you to take the position, but that's the kind of question we have to ask. And then that same question, as you move up in an organization, it expands and you're more likely to need to be drawn away from Lord State worship or just general.

[00:33:19] Tony Arsenal: Obligations on the Lord's Day.

[00:33:20] Personal Experiences and Real-World Applications

[00:33:20] Tony Arsenal: And I don't wanna make this entirely about the Lord's Day 'cause there are other obligations that Christians have and it probably will be interesting to get to those. But I think, um, the, the other thing maybe that I wanna push back on a little bit too is I. I, I've never been a CEO.

[00:33:34] Tony Arsenal: I probably never will be a CEO. You're far closer to a CEO than I ever will be. But I think a lot of times we assume those positions have no flexibility. Right. But in reality, some of those people are absolutely able to say, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take Sunday, and just not. Yes, I'm not gonna do work on Sunday.

[00:33:52] Tony Arsenal: I'm gonna delegate that. You know? And then this is a whole other question. I'm gonna delegate that to someone else. Well, there's a whole different question that comes with that, but saying like, I'm just not going to do work on Sunday is actually within the options for a lot of positions. So that's the other question is when we take a position, do we have the option to set aside the Lord's Day?

[00:34:11] Tony Arsenal: Even if we might acknowledge that occasionally, that's not gonna work out. There are oftentimes in all of our lives that we're drawn away from being able to fulfill our ordinary obligation of the Lord's Day, and I don't think that that's intrinsically sinful. If on a rare occasion you're not able to attend the Lord's Day worship or something like that.

[00:34:29] Tony Arsenal: So I think those are questions we have to ask. Then what? What kind of other Christian obligations do we have? And this is hypothetical, but you're welcome to answer if you've got one in mind. Like what other kinds of Christian obligations do we have that any particular vocation or particular job might make difficult or impossible to fulfill?

[00:34:47] Tony Arsenal: I think those are questions we have to ask.

[00:34:49] Jesse Schwamb: I'm with you. And that's actually more where my mind goes because again, we've talked before and for some Christians it's easier to identify the stuff that certainly explicitly contravenes the Lord's Day. And I think it's more difficult to say like we, again, I think we talked before about that threefold responsibility and the vocation that is to like work that is like our industry, so to speak, and then to our household, then to our church.

[00:35:10] Jesse Schwamb: So the church often does. Again, in a very finely pointed way, co