Luther’s Writings on Vocation Kept CEO Hans Hess in The Restaurant Business (Video)

Luther’s writings on vocation freed restaurant owner Hans Hess from the guilt of not becoming a missionary.

Transcript:

I had a lot of guilt about not being a missionary. I was really confused at the time - I thought that in order to be of service to God I needed to do ministerial activities - those were the kinds of things that were going to please God. So I had this tension I had to recognize and reconcile. God wants you to do things for his kingdom, but God doesn’t want Hans to actually be a missionary. So what does that mean?

It was at that point that I got in touch with some of Luther’s writings on vocation, and that made a huge difference in my thinking. You’ve heard his formulation of it: the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, all these things are acceptable to God. In fact, they’re masks of God – there ways that God actually hides himself to do something in the world. That really resonated with me, and it was liberating. From that day forward, when I read that, I was completely free.

Watch the full film Elevation from the Faith & Co. film series from Seattle Pacific University.

This video serves as an illustration to the TOW Key Topic article Changing Jobs.