Cure for Worldliness by Prof. R. E. Thompson

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1875

Cure for Worldliness.

By Prof. R. E. Thompson

ONE of the most offensive and unprotestant phrases of these days is "work for Christ." It is so because of the narrow sense that men put upon it; they mean preaching, praying, distributing tracts, and the like. At the utmost they include works of mercy and charity. But in the gospel ideal of life all work is to be work for Christ, be it at lathe or lap-stone, behind the counter or at the easel. All is to be "done in the name of the Lord Jesus"—"as unto the Lord." That does not mean mixing up Christ's name with our work, or tagging on pious phrases to it in an artificial and mechanical way. It means our hearty recognition of 'Christ as the creator of our lawful callings; of his spirit as the giver of all the gifts of mind and heart that fit us to work well and honestly.

It means the recognition of his will as being wrought out in the whole movement of the world's history, in the advancement of its civilization; in the discharge of all the individual tasks that fall to men. It means the feeling in one's heart as we do simple and common things, "I am helping on God's world in my place; I am serving God's purpose here. These things are his concern, not mine only. He cares to have them done, to have the hungry fed, and the naked clothed, and life adorned and beautified by acts fine and homely, that raise it out of its squalor and sordidness. He cares to have these mouths fed, these children trained in mind and heart and hand. He cares to have me do my work in manful, simple and honest fashion." It means that we, in faith and sincerity, refer all things to the will of God.

It means what the Strasburg monk, Johann Tauler, meant, when he said, "One can spin, another can make shoes; and these are gifts of the Holy Ghost. I tell you, if I were not a priest I would esteem it a great gift that I was able to make shoes, and would try to make them so well as to be a pattern to all."

The attempt to make men unworldly by crying down their daily work as of no spiritual importance, by contrasting it with "religious" duties and the works of the world to come, has signally failed. Luther sailed on the opposite tack; he urged men to magnify their office, to make much of their work, especially by faithfully associating it with the will of God in all their thoughts of it. Now, worldliness does not really make much, but little, of it. It shows this by judging of it by a standard of success that lies entirely outside of it—the money standard. Though a merchant may have saved cities from famine by a wise foresight, he is said to have "failed" if his bank account shows a deficit. The worldly lawyer may have won great causes; his success is in his wealth alone. Not work but money-making, is become the test of success commonly applied by all the professions.

Get men to make much of their work by seeing in it a means to nobler gains than dollars and cents, and the battle is won. They will become simpler and happier and less worldly; they will have found something worth working for. They will have discovered that their daily takes hold of the unseen and the eternal; that their common strivings lead up to the highest good, when they have their eyes open to see that the lines that they draw on counters and work-benches, if prolonged, lead on to the stars. Prof. R. E. Thompson.