p. 13 | A Christian’s Business by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 4, 1911

A Christian’s Business

By C. M. S.

If we are doing nothing to make conditions better in this world, nothing to bring creature into harmony with Creator, we are but waste material, and the very force that keeps us going is misspent energy.

Too many are content with “making a living.” It is better to do that than to become an encumbrance upon the community, an additional weight to the burdens of others in making their living. The Word declares that the church-member who lays upon others the burden of maintaining his household is worse than an unbeliever. He has a disintegrating influence, in that he lowers the organization to which he belongs in the estimation of those who are still outside the church. This, of course, does not apply to the worthy poor, rendered poor by misfortune or accident. Such are not a hindrance to the church; for they help to stimulate the grace of liberality.

So, while Christianity is the antithesis of avarice, it is also the antithesis of idleness. But in this last place its application is not restricted to physical idleness alone. He who gives his attention wholly to a busy-ness about the affairs of this life is not being “diligent” in a truly Christian sense. With him one side of duty is slowly becoming paralyzed while the other is exercised far beyond the Creator’s intent, and the result is deformity. It is not in God’s purpose that men’s lives should be deformed by a misconception of duty along material lines, or that the duty of providing for one’s house should be neglected because great light is shining before us.

The example of Paul is to the point in this matter. He did not consider it beneath him to maintain himself, though bearing a direct commission from the Lord to witness for him in regions afar. So he labored with his hands while he bore witness to the truth by his life and words. That is an example of the well-balanced Christian, neglecting neither duty. But material increase was not his aim. Preaching the gospel was his business, and he worked to pay expenses. His own support occasioned a considerable part of those expenses.

This is not teaching, either, that preachers and teachers of the gospel should not receive support from mission funds, or that they must pay their own fares to the fields to which they go. Many consecrated workers could not do the latter, and so those who have means are given a chance to help in that work by contributions of money. Some earnest workers may be sent to fields where the competition for existence is so great that it would require all their time and energy to make a living. The point is, the making of a living is not the Christian’s business in this world. He makes a living in order that he may live to do a greater and more important work—the proclamation of the gospel in the earth. Making a living is merely a means to that greater end. It is incidental only, but one of the incidentals which indicates the character of the individual and his right conception of duty.

We can make a living, and in the end die, without leaving any impress for good on the hearts of men; without bearing before them any testimony for God and righteousness; and without any possibility of a living beyond the closed door of this short life. But in the place of a living it is possible to make a life,— a life that shall be a living witness for God, and the thread of which God will pick up again when the story of sin has been told. Be not content with making a living. Make a life, and be a witness to the life of God, a worker in the great field of God, and, finally, a precious stone in the eternal temple of God, bearing the Father’s name, and going “no more out forever.”

C. M. S.