Biblical Counseling - Career Guidance - Part I
Vern Peterman · Jul 6, 2008
Biblical Counseling, No. 14
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492615445545

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right. We have a two-week section here on career guidance. Truth is, we could go for a year on this, but we'll have to suffice with a couple weeks. By the way, what we're going to be doing here is continuing through the rest of this quarter, which goes to the end of September. And at least at this point in time, as we're looking ahead, it looks like we'll extend it one more quarter, and there's plenty of things to fill in. there with the additional quarter. So, anyway, we haven't got the schedule for that worked out, but we expect that it will be.

Alright, so two weeks on here on career guidance, and the first question here is career guidance, what does this have to do with biblical counseling? There is a tendency among Christians to kind of put career guidance off as sort of a That's something, you know, you do with a school guidance section or somebody else does that. There are some areas where Christians have tended, and more so in recent decades I would think, to hand things off to the world. And career guidance is one of those.

And another area is sex ed. But we've just kind of said, well, the world will handle that. And the truth is, uh-uh. The very best places, the very best places for sex ed, the very best places for career guidance should come from home and from church. Those are the very best places. Because frankly, the world does not have either one of those in good context.

In the earlier section of our study, we talked about the will of God. Remember, we talked about the sovereign will of God, the moral will of God, and the individual will of God. And in the career guidance, and sometimes people come up with vocational guidance, occupational guidance, whatever, and we're not going to worry about nuances there in terminology, it is a matter of looking at it in the context of what did God have in mind for work? What's the biblical perspective on it?

And that's the framework that we need to start from. That a great many Christians have not been given a biblical perspective for work. It ends up kind of breaking life into a schism or unrelated parts. OK, I've got this Christian thing, and then I've got this work thing, and they don't connect up very well. Well, the reality is scripture has a lot of things to say about work. and from the very earliest chapters of Genesis. And as we'll see, it continues on through the rest of Scripture as well.

Here, let's take a look at it. We've got three bullets here on the first page. There are principles about one's work, and I use the alternate words, profession, vocation, occupation, craft, etc., that God's Word does present, and we'll want to look at those principles carefully. Can you help me find something here? Well, I got career guidance part one and it should be page 39. Okay. So we're going to be looking at those principles carefully this week and next week.

The next thing, there are many aspects about choosing one's work that are quite specific to each individual, and God's Word has limited specific guidance on that point, but believers can come alongside one another and help with this. And one of the reasons that we can do that is because work is not just something that's just secular. Yes, it's most often out there in the world, And yet there is a biblical context for work that the secular world just can't help you with. But believers need to recognize that there is a biblical context for work, that scripture does address it, and in fact, at great length. And so we'll be talking about that some more here. And then thirdly here, There are many aspects of choosing one's work that are specific to the time and culture in which we live, and God's Word has limited specific guidance on that point. Make sure you get the three-page handout and the one-page. The one-page handout is for an appendix item there.

Believers can come alongside one another and help with the process. One of the things that I'll do with people is I'll help Help them work on resumes. I've even helped people find out what career ought you to be pursuing and that kind of thing. Because the opportunity, beyond just giving some kind of, here's some sort of career guidance test or something like that, there is a lot of biblical context and understanding that goes into choice of work and occupation. Let's see here. We've got principle number one here. First one. The middle of the first page.

Work is not simply a creation of human beings, nor is it a result of the fall of man. You might have talked to people who thought that their work was a curse. Work is not a curse. Work is impacted by the curse. God invented work. I put quotes around that. Working is exactly what God had in mind for man.

Genesis 2, 7, 8 and then on to verse 15. Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden and there He placed the man whom He had formed. Verse 15. Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to do what? cultivate and keep it.

So here is work, and guess what? He calls that very good. So work is very good. It's what God had in mind from the very beginning before the fall came about. Work is impacted by the curse. Work is not the curse. But, here's one of the reasons why those two can get confused. That's the next principle. Because of the fall, work will have its problems. Count on it.

Genesis 3, 17-19a there, and then to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you, and toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread.

The work was not added because of the fall of mankind, but rather the character of it would change. Work would definitely be impacted. Make sure you go ahead and get one of the three page handout here and the appendix single page that goes along with it. The other thing that you notice all the days of your life, those days weren't numbered before. And life didn't have days as a counting or a limit before. So work takes place now in a context of life here on planet Earth for whatever time that happens. Let's look at the next page here.

The next principle that comes up, and it comes up quickly after Adam and Eve begin having offspring, Genesis 4, in a couple of different places, verse 2 and then 20 through 22, Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And then in verse 20, Ada gave birth to Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. And his brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Can you imagine the confusion of that household? Jabal! No, no, no, Jubal! Anyway, can you imagine that? Just a bit much.

22. As for Zilla, she also gave birth to Tubal Cain, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron.

What you see here is very quickly the development of different, even in agriculture, you've got livestock, you've got flocks, you've got crops and things of that sort. Developing of arts and then metallurgy, which is in the realm of science. Arts and science are developing quickly here and early on. That's one thing. This idea of new occupations, new technologies, new developments in the arts. All those things are things that started early and continue at a rocket pace in our own culture and time.

The next one, principle, work is for provision, not for the accumulation of wealth for its own sake. Proverbs 23.4. Do not wear yourself to gain wealth. Cease from your consideration of it. This, of course, is not the idea of discouraging appropriate savings. Again, savings were provision. And it's not to flatly call wealth evil, but it gets to the motivation and where one sets mind and hope. Where do we set our mind and hope? By the way, where do we set our mind and hope as believers? in the Lord. Set our minds where?

On things above. The next principle that comes out here, believers should work so as to provide for themselves and their own and to give to the needs of others out of grace and to avoid burdening the church. See, so one thing is, what are some of the attitudes out in the world about work? Can you think of some of the things that you've run across? Evans, you might even have them your own at times. What are some attitudes and mindsets about work that different people have that you might have run across? Hopefully not run over, but run across, you know.

Pardon? We're not paid enough. Yeah, I want, I always want more. Okay, one. Good, and what else? What? Yeah, you mean you want me to do that? Yeah, okay. Any other thoughts about work from out there in the world? Complain about it. Yes, it's very popular to complain about work. Take the bosses an idiot. Okay, it makes for a lot of sitcoms. Yeah, Nancy? Big deal.

My job defines who I am. How valuable I am depends on my job. Frequently in normal kind of chit-chat conversation, especially as we're introducing ourselves to people, what do you do? which typically is a question of, you know, not which weeds you pull, but, you know, what's your occupation, right? And there can tend to be, and I think it's probably less so in our culture than in some others, but there can tend to be sort of a ranking and a caste system based on what job you've got, okay? Yeah, and so there, and some people are kind of more fixed in that mindset than others. Some cultures are more in that mindset than others. Good, what? Yeah. Yeah.

The caste system is actually more prominent in more places around the world and less so here in the U.S., less so in the West than in the East. So actually the cast system and you know what you do is your value and all those things. It's a big one. Yeah. me in this class and you in the other. Yeah, well, you think he's asking the question, who places people in different categories?

It's something that it's very fixed in society. It's interesting, Nancy and I, this is going to be a couple decades back now. were over in Germany and there was a museum there of various odd and strange things. But one of them they talked about over on the main continent there in Europe.

There was a set of dimensional standards for collars. You ever see some of these paintings from back several centuries back and somebody with these monstrously huge collars? You ever see that? They had seven standards of collar dimension. And depending on what your particular economic status was, you were allowed to wear a certain size collar. If you wore a size of collar outside of your occupation, the police were authorized to come up to you and tear the collar off of you right then and there if they caught you with the wrong size collar. What Nancy and I were rather almost shocked with, and I found it from the very first business trip I had over in Germany, is the cash system is very much in place.

At least it certainly was back then. Yeah. When we were in Dubai, we saw a prison where men ran around in these flowing white robes. Yeah. And the color and nature of these, does mean two things. They're level in society. Yeah. And a family. Ah, okay. Yes?

Just recently, you were telling me that in martial arts, maybe it's in all Eastern cultures, you can only proceed so far, you can only gain a belt so high, and after that, oh, it's West. You can only take a level of belt up to your caste. And only the royalty is allowed to go beyond that.

Yeah, and we've kind of broken down that system. That was the way it was originally set up. Yeah, this whole idea that our occupation defines our value, defines our status, defines our worth. is something that is maybe less entrenched in our culture. It's still there. Many other cultures have it well entrenched and in some cases even still legally defined.

As we look through these passages here, we look at here's some guidance. What's the biblical perspective on these things? Here's Ephesians 4.28.

He who steals must steal no longer. And by the way, why would he say that? It was because Ephesus had an exclusion for anybody who could get within a bow shot of the Temple of Artemis. You're basically free from any enforcement for theft. And so it was a magnet for thieves. And so here are a number of believers who had been drawn to Ephesus because of that kind of free zone for thievery. And he's saying it doesn't matter what's legal, you're done stealing, okay?

But instead, labor performing his own hands what is good so that he will have something to share rather than something to take, okay? No longer having a mindset of what can I take. but a mindset of what can I give. So that's one of the key motivations in working, is to be able to give.

Here's the next one in 2 Thessalonians 7-13. Remember the church at Thessalonica was a very young church, but one in which they had problems with their perspective on the Lord coming again. And some people have gotten to the point where they say, oh, there's no need for me to work. The Lord's coming, or the Lord's already come.

And so, you know, I can just kind of ride on everybody else's work and just coast on what everybody else is doing. And he's telling them no. You yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we do not act in an undisciplined manner among you, or did not act.

Nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you. Not because we did not have a right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you so that you would follow our example. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order.

If anyone is not willing to work, than he is not to eat either. For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good."

So it's a context here for, you know, what do we think about work? What's our mindset? Which really needs to come before choosing our work so that we choose with the right mindset. What are we trying to do in the job selection? What's the work for? And so that's something where Christians really have something to bring alongside with other Christians, don't we? We have the opportunity to bring work into perspective and not just borrow from the world's attitudes and mindsets about work. Some of those same mindsets that we kind of share here amongst ourselves. Let's take a look at page 41 here. Here's another one you may have come across. There's this principle at the top of page 41.

Work is not, quote, good if it's full-time Christian ministry and questionable if it's not full-time Christian ministry. Ever run across that? I know I'm in the will of God if it's full-time Christian work. If it's not, I'm not sure. Ever run into that? No. Work is something that God intends. And notice, here's Adam, and what did the Lord put him in the garden to do? Adam, go evangelize the giraffes.

Right? Not so much. Okay? Work is valid in and of itself. Christian work or not. There is a validity in and of itself. That's a very good question. I don't think there's a good answer. Yeah, you hear that? The world should not be paying for a Christian ministry. That's why I'm somewhat suspect of these Christian ministries that go on the TV, even on secular channels, and start asking for money. Yeah, good point.

Let's look at Mark 6.3 there. Is this the carpenter, the Son of Mary? Who is that talking about? Jesus, right? And before he started his ministry at approximately 30 years of age, what was he doing? He was getting cuts and getting splinters, right? And by the way, carpenters in those days, there was no Nazareth lumber yard, okay?

So a carpenter was also a logger. So something else to keep in mind. A carpenter was frequently commissioned for certain pieces of work and then had to go and get the wood and then do the carpentry. And it may either be a separate item or something put into a building. But he was a logger and a carpenter, both.

Okay, here's Acts 18, 2 and 3, but he, that is Paul, I found a Jew named Achilla, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He, that is Paul, came to them, and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they were working, for they were, by trade, they were tent makers. This is the one indication, by the way, that we have that Paul was a tent maker, the one passage.

But what was he doing? He was doing this alongside a brother and a sister who were also tent makers. And yes, they were working, making products that were to be sold out there in the marketplace to believers and unbelievers alike. Most likely, the majority were unbelievers. So here you have the Lord and one of the apostles. who have an occupation outside of what we see as ministry.

Okay, now we've got several principles wrapped up here in this last section. And this has to do with work and family relationships. Work that is for financial provision is presented in Scripture primarily as fitting married men and single men and women. And I put the one for women in there in an axe reference, that's to Lydia. That provision is not just for themselves alone and their immediate family, but for extended family as well. So it is help for not just themselves, not just their immediate family, but also extended family. The encouragement, and notice I use that word, the encouragement of Scripture for married women, and most especially those with children, is to place their focus on relationships centered on the home, and the work related to those relationships.

Now why do I use the word encouragement? Yeah, this is not a law, this is not a, you know, You're a married woman with children going out to work. Cut your head off. It's not that kind of a thing. It is simply saying this is the encouragement of scripture and something to be carefully considered.

Why might there be reasons to do something other than what this describes? Might be a financial need, yeah. One of the things we see right above here is both, we don't have reference to if they're children in the mix, but Akilah and Priscilla both appear to be making attempts, right? So financial need might be one of them. Good.

What are some other things you might think of? Pardon? The husband can't work. Yeah, husband can't work or some way limited in his ability to work could be another good reason, okay? We can possibly think of others, but I think the key point is that it's an encouragement, it's not a rigid law, and it's something that husband and wife have to think about. And we'll give some points to consider in a bit here.

Okay, 2 Corinthians 12, 14, E and F, for children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children, okay? I think some of the reasons for saving up may be different. now or it might have shifted. One thing is, and we'll talk about this next week, if education is involved frequently, that can be a significant thing. The expense for which was not there to the same degree in centuries and generations past. Okay, here we have 1 Timothy 5, 3 and 4.

Honor widows who are widows indeed, but if any widow has children or grandchildren, they must first learn to practice piety in regard to their own family and make some return to their parents. For this is acceptable in the sight of God. What's this verse talking about? Or what are these verses talking about?

Younger people supporting older people, right. In our marriage and family series that we've actually done twice here, we talk about life stages. And that's actually something that Nancy and I do with premarital counseling as well. We talk about life stages and the need to look forward to times of supporting parents and grandparents and things like that and to be involved in support, okay?

First Timothy 5a, if anyone does not provide for his own and especially those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Wow. What does that mean? Nancy? How does this relate to people in your family who are irresponsible? Okay. Nancy's asking the question, how does this relate to people in the family who are irresponsible?

That is, maybe they've gotten in a position of need because they've been irresponsible, not because of circumstance. That can be a tough one, can't it? There may be a place of trying to head off the irresponsibility when you see it, or making a statement, I'm not going to support irresponsibility. There may be a place for that. And it can sometimes involve some difficult issues. I'll grant you that. But I don't think what he's asking for is, you know, let them be irresponsible and you'll take up the slack. I don't think that's what he's looking for. But what he is saying is that there is a place to help the family.

And what's one of the reasons, why would he speak so severely? Denied the faith and it's worse than an unbeliever? I mean, is that like the one thing you can lose your salvation about? What's he talking about? Why such severe language? Yeah. Testimony to unbelievers. They're saying, look, there's parents in need and kids, they claim to be Christians and they're not doing anything to help these people. Let's ask this.

If the kids, who are probably no longer kids at this point in time, but if the children are basically disregarding the obligation to the parents, who picks up the slack? What happens? Think of what happens is one, sometimes the condition of the parents declines. Maybe even there's a shortening of life.

Another thing is it can burden the church or it dumps it all onto some government program, right? So you end up with some things. None of those other options are good ones, okay? And of course, one of the things, you know, Paul writes about repeatedly is not wanting to burden the church. So yeah, that's a significant issue, okay?

Here's another one, and this has to do with the encouragement that we talked about regarding wives at home. Titus 2, 3-5. Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious, gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good. And by the way, let me make a brief cultural quote on that.

Titus 2.3, the culture was such that women who were married, once their kids were gone, it was the classic cultural joke that those women, once the kids left home, just turned into drunken gossips. So much so that that was one of the classical punchlines in the theater of the time. It was kind of like the amphitheater sitcom was to have this drunken, gossipy old woman running around. And she was just a living punchline.

And what does he do? He warns against that. Don't let your life as a Christian woman with the kids grown up and out of the house, don't let your life be a punchline. but instead let it be a punchline for something else, and that is to encourage the younger women.

And notice the direction of encouragement here. So that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands. And notice he chooses this word here that's translated encourage. It's not that they're suddenly the home police. It's an encouragement, not an enforcement. See the difference there?

Encourage the young woman to love their husbands, to love their children. By the way, those are phileo love, brotherly love or heart love. This is a love from the heart and real interesting. It is a love of sentiment. Encourage the women to love their husbands, love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

Why? So that the word of God will not be dishonored. There is a testimony issue here. Testimony issue. Not just a testimony issue for what's the home life like, but also a testimony issue in terms of what are the older women encouraging. See that? So this goes all the way down the line from the older woman all the way down to the kids. There's a testimony issue at stake. See that? Okay.

Here's what I would suggest based on biblical considerations for a wife working ought to include these, okay? Number one, is there a need for financial provision? This goes to the point that Brad made about in order to make ends meet, what does this look like here? Number two, would her work be in subjection to her husband, and could that work be alongside of or in support of him? One is, if she is to be working in some financially returning way, if she is to be working in a way that has a financial return to it, is that in subjection to her husband? Or is she just going out and saying, I'm going to do what I'm going to do?

What was that song from a few decades back? You know, I am woman. I am strong. I am invincible. I am telling my husband to go take a hike. Right? No. And the question, because if you look at way back in the garden, here's Adam. He's, remember, going to cultivate and keep it.

I will make a helper. suitable for him. And that word helper does not mean just sort of a, oh, incidental, I guess it's useful, but a major help, a significant help, even a necessary help. Her place is not looked as incidental and perhaps supplemental, but significant. And so there may be a place and maybe a question to be thought of. It may or may not work, but I would say look at it. Is there a place for her to work with or alongside Him and in support of Him in some way? That if possible, that that best fits the original scenario that the Lord painted for us in the garden. So anyway, that's another consideration. Is that a law? No. Okay? Not a law, but a consideration. Okay? Is there a payoff such that the costs of her working do not consume most of the income, energy, and time?

Some of the situations that I've seen, Nancy and I knew one couple back in Carson City. The wife had a job quite a ways away driving a gas guzzler car. in a child care situation with barely getting anything above minimum wage and basically she was burning up all the money that she made at the job to fill the tank and keep the car going. No payoff. So this is just a big waste of time. So the question is payoff. Yeah.

Yeah, extra two hours away from family and all that because of the commute time for this, you know, rather minimum wage kind of job some distance away. There are some other factors too. Oftentimes work situations require keeping up certain dress and that kind of thing. Aside from the commuting, there may be child care costs.

I realize in some situations you just, you have to do what you have to do. So I'm not completely setting that aside. But people need to give consideration to these things. Is there really a payoff for this? It may be pretty minimal or marginal. And in which case, it may not be a real good choice. It may also have to do with the job you choose and where it is. Okay. Let's look at the next one.

Can it be done in such a way that her ministering of the children is minimally impacted, if at all possible? If children are in the mix, can that be minimally impacted? And the fifth one is her personal value based upon who she is in Christ ahead of career attainment.

Nancy and I knew a couple where the husband basically laid out, you're going to go to work and that's the only way I'm going to value you. It's sad. The marriage didn't last. Okay? And I think that's a key thing is the world tends to underscore that a woman is not worth much unless she gets out there in the workaday world. Scripture does not make that value statement at all, does it? So it is a matter of taking what's the biblical value. What does God say, not what does the world say.

Yeah, Art? Our educational system creates in women a desire for a profession rather than a home. I mean, Art, when are you going to be a beggar? Yeah, yeah. And see, here's the thing. It can easily be looked at as this isn't a matter of completely discounting that the woman might indeed have some place out there in the world. But the truth is, what does this do?

It comes back to the question, what is the value? When Peter writes to believers, he writes in 1 Peter 3, verse 7, about relationships between husbands and wives. Verse 7 says, Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, recognizing that they're women, but also understanding that they are joint heirs of the grace of life. Honor them as joint heirs. Their value is in their position, who they are in Christ. That comes way ahead of the job. And the world has no concept of how to value that. So that's one place where, as believers, we're going to look at things completely differently. The world is blind to the value of who you are in Christ.

In the future, I've been doing a lot of thinking and studying on what is education for? In America, it seems to be the primary focus is on either economic utility, you have to be making money in a lot of it, which due to consumerism, you can buy all this stuff, and that becomes the end. When we look at jobs, we think of it in terms of how much money can I make, and usually it's, I need to make enough money to afford all these different things, Looking at it from, like you're saying, provision. Make sure that we're provided so what's important can be important. It's just, the world is so far off.

And see, these kinds of things are a necessary preface to career guidance. for believers to get an understanding of, you know, before I go out picking occupations and all that, what's of value? What matters? What's my perspective on my work? Yeah, Norm?

Sure. That's right. and say, do you work? Well, outside the home, you know that she supports me. That's right. That's right. Besides, she has a farm that she manages, which is, when you're doing it from 200 miles away, it's quite an undertaking. Yes. But it's amazing how that's still, to most people, it's almost a letdown. Yeah.

The world does not have any way to place a value on who you are in Christ. Scripture says that is where the believer is to place the value. So when we go to look at careers, the world is not a clue. Something else, when it comes to marriage, the world has not got a clue. Marriage is something that God founded. Marriage is something that for believers is defined by the relationship between Christ and the Church. Now, has the world got any idea what either of those things mean?

No. The world does not have that in the perspective. So these are exceedingly valuable and important things for Christians to have straight in their mind before they go picking, oh, I'm going to go this route or go that route. Now, we've got more principles to take a look at. I'd like us to set aside this for a moment.

You've got a one-pager here that's Appendix Item 3, Occupation in Biblical Times and Now. Some of the key points we make there is that in biblical times, about 90% of the population of most larger areas was occupied with agriculture, and about 10% In round numbers, 10% involved in other occupations. It might be a, here's this person's a stonemason and this other person, you know, dyes fabrics and those kinds of things.

So other occupations, but agriculture was centered. Education for most people was less substantial in the way of education, although it did vary. The education tended to be higher for those in the non-agricultural occupations as a generalization. The other thing that we point out is the rate of change of occupations was slow.

Someone who five centuries before the time of Christ was basically a blacksmith forming things out of iron, the technology had not changed much five centuries later. In our day, things are changing very fast, very quickly. Things that you could do as an occupation a few decades ago are now quite extinct. When Nancy and I got married, if somebody said, you know, hey can I borrow your cell phone? You'd say, what? What's a cell phone? All of a sudden you have this major industry out there. Things are changing rapidly.

As you look at the contrast between things that are biblical in biblical times and things now, you look at it and say, well, a lot of things are different. How is it relevant? It's relevant because of this. Though the occupations have changed drastically, and the character of those occupations, though the rate of change has changed drastically, the spiritual and biblical principles remain the same. That's key. That's key. Even though there was no way that somebody in the time of Christ would understand what a cell phone is, or what a car is, or what it meant to go to the gas station, even though that's true, the biblical principles remain the same.

Why? Why do they remain the same with all the things that have changed? Because God doesn't change. Good. Are there other reasons? The principles don't change. And the principles include, as we've discussed, what's valuable. And it's something God has revealed and that doesn't change and it doesn't need to change. We don't have to compromise with the world or adjust anything to the world in terms of these perspectives and these principles we've looked at here this morning.

Next week we've got some more to take a look at. There's more to take a look at on career guidance or occupational or vocational guidance, and they're including more biblical principles than what we've had time to cover here this morning. Given that we've not covered everything, any thoughts, questions, comments, exasperations? Yeah, what's that?

Is retirement biblical? Is retirement biblical is her question. Okay. Interesting. The Bible doesn't really talk about retirement. And that's something that is just kind of standard fare, even legally enforced in some occupations, which is kind of interesting. But so it's one of those things that we can easily assume is Okay, that's just what everybody does. The reality is that scripture doesn't mandate it.

And, you know, where do I go from useful to useless? You know, by the world's definition. If the world says that, you know, you're only useful and valuable if you have some economic input, then the world has a bit of a contradiction that once you reach some certain age or stage, that you all of a sudden stop working. It doesn't really fit into the biblical picture.

So it is something that I think Christians need to think through. Yeah, what's that? Yeah, it may be paid work to non-paid. It may be doing something where we're paid less or something of that sort. But the idea of just simply, I'm just going to stop doing everything I've been doing and just play golf is a modern creation. That's not something that scripture really lays out. It's certainly not a necessity. So, okay. Well, we've run out. Okay? Let's pray.

Lord, we do thank you. As we look at this subject of work, occupations, careers, vocations, you certainly have revealed a great deal of valuable and important guidance for us. And we're thankful for that, Lord. And we're thankful for your laying these things out because you love us and care for us. And you want us to know the truth and to live by it. And we give you thanks for these things, ask that you would bring them to heart and mind and teach us the depths of them. In Jesus' name, Amen.