By Leland Ryken, excerpted from J. I. Packer: An Evangelical Life.
The idea of calling or vocation is important to [J. I.] Packer.
It could hardly be otherwise for a latter-day Puritan, inasmuch as no subject occupied the Puritans more than the idea of vocation. Having written extensively on Puritan attitudes toward work myself, I will take the prerogative of summarizing what they said so voluminously about vocation: (1) God calls people to their tasks in the world; (2) the goals toward which work must be directed are the glory of God and service to humanity; (3) all honest work is a calling as pleasing to God as the work of a minister preaching in the pulpit; and (4) all work offered to God is a form of worship. (more…)
