Barry's Blog

George Bernard Shaw once observed that "Every professional is a conspiracy against the laity." It seems that in any professional discipline, those on the inside perceive those on the outside somewhat differently. Never is this any greater than in the Christian life, where oftentimes ministers and teachers are given a superior status. I am reminded of the minister who once said to his congregation, "I am paid for being good, and you are good for nothing!"

We may laugh at such a remark, but the reality of the situation is that the New Testament informs us that we are all in fact "serving God," irrespective of the seemingly mundane, "unspiritual" post one may think we hold in this transitory age. Paul tells us that we are to do our work "with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men (or corporations, or private enterprises, I might add), since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. it is the Lord Christ you are serving." (Colossians 3: 23-24) That's an amazing statement, radically revolutionary when you think about it, of being rewarded for seemingly "secular" work, not just the work we may be involved with in churches and ministry contexts.

I recently came across this May 30 entry that addresses this point in a book that compiles some of the best quotes of C. S. Lewis, A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. He writes: 

"I reject at once an idea which lingers in the mind of some modern people that cultural activities are in their own right spiritual and meritorious - as though scholars and poets were intrinsically more pleasing to God than scavengers and bootblacks. I think it was Matthew Arnold who first used the English word spiritual in the sense of the German geistlich, and so inaugurated this most dangerous and most anti-Christian error. Let us clear it forever from our minds. The work of a Beethoven and the work of a charwoman become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly 'as to the Lord.' This does not, of course, mean that it is for anyone a mere toss-up whether he should sweep rooms or compose symphonies. A mole must dig to the glory of God and a cock must crow. We are members of one body, but differentiated members, each with his own vocation."

-From "Learning in War-Time," in the book, The Weight of Glory and Other Essays.