Lutheran Education: Getting Down to the Basics (Part 7 of 8)
By now, a practical parent might be thinking: “This is all very spiritual, but my child has to live in the real world. He needs to read well, do math, hold a job, raise a family, be a good neighbor, and be a good citizen. Does a Lutheran education prepare him for that, or only for church?”
It is a fair concern, and the Lutheran answer to it is one of the most freeing ideas in all of Christianity. It is called the doctrine of vocation, and it says that ordinary life is where you serve God.
Every calling is holy
Many people quietly assume there are two tiers of Christians: the pastors and missionaries who do “real” work for God, and everyone else, who just has a job. Luther blew that up. He taught that the farmer in his field, the mother at her sink, the carpenter at his bench, and the official at his desk are all serving God exactly where they are. There is no higher and lower calling. The plumber pleases God in good plumbing as truly as the pastor pleases Him in good preaching.
Luther’s famous line teaches the whole paradox: a Christian is “a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none,” and at the very same time “a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all” (On Christian Liberty, 1520). Free before God through faith, and bound to the neighbor through love. Both at once.
Scripture says it plainly. “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men” (Colossians 3:23). “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). And “through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13). Not just in church. In everything.
God hidden in ordinary work
Here is the part that changes how a child sees his whole future. The Lutheran scholar Gustaf Wingren boiled Luther’s teaching on vocation down to one sentence: “God does not need our good works, but our neighbor does.” Your good works do not earn anything from God; He has already given you everything in Christ. But your neighbor genuinely needs what you do. So love flows out, not upward to God, who needs nothing, but outward to the people God puts in front of you.
A more recent teacher, Gene Veith, says it similarly: God is hidden in our vocations. When the farmer grows grain, and the baker bakes bread, it is really God feeding the world through them. When the nurse heals, and the teacher teaches, and the parent provides, God is at work behind those ordinary hands. Every honest job is a mask God wears to care for His creation.
What this does for a child
Now consider a child within that teaching. He is not being trained to feel important, or to escape ordinary life for something more “spiritual.” He is being prepared to take up whatever calling God gives him, a trade, a profession, a family, a town, and to serve his neighbor there with skill and love, knowing God Himself is working through him.
That is why a Lutheran school takes academics seriously rather than treating them as a distraction from religion. Luther himself wanted children to study languages, history, mathematics, and music, not only Scripture, because a well-formed mind serves the neighbor better. The Small Catechism even includes a Table of Duties, a list of Bible passages for every station in life: parents and children, workers and bosses, citizens and rulers. The faith is meant to be lived out in exactly those ordinary places.
So the honest answer to the practical parent is yes. A Lutheran education is education for real life, because it teaches a child that real life, all of it, is the very place God has called him to love and serve. Few graduates carry a more useful thing into adulthood than that.
Next week, the last in our series: why the Lutheran church sings, and a personal invitation to bring your child to St. John.
Come and see. St. John Lutheran School prepares your child for every calling God will give him, not just church work, but a whole life of serving his neighbor. We are enrolling now, and we would be glad to show you what that looks like. To visit, ask questions, or learn about registration, contact the school office or speak with Pastor Gillespie.
Next in the series: The Singing Church, and an Invitation
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.