Age: 17 years 7 months 12 days
Okay, Augustine discusses that different jobs have different levels of Christianity. That is phrased wrong, but it is close. There are some jobs that Christians can’t have like a stripper or a pimp. But then there are all the other jobs like doctor or teacher that you can be a Christian doing work but Augustine believe people involved in these jobs to be second-class Christians. The truly Christian people are the ones who denied all the things of the earth to honor God. This would be like Plato repressing it / denying all of the appetites to focus only on wisdom. It would be like the one freed from the cave living in the world of the forms. But Plato does not believe that we should do away with the appetites. He believes that they should be under control. Augustine agrees with this when it comes to the appetite of emotion. He wants it fully under his control.
What I am wondering is if it is possible to be the highest Christian while maintaining an Earth-like job? Jobs are concerned with financial status, social status, increasing one’s own position, basically all jobs are concerned with the world. Augustine’s belief that Christians should focus fully on God for everything else is meaningless. But Martin Luther helped bring about the now accepted reformed view that says one can have a job and use it fully for God. I believe in this view, but think Augustine is correct in some ways. With this view where we can have jobs we lose the sense of fully serving God. Christians can have jobs and fully serve God with them, but it’s hard to not get caught up in the worldly things of the job. Most people who have jobs and are Christians do value the position at the job, its title, and the money they make. Accepting a job we forget that things of the Earth are temporal. It’s easier to forget about doing everything for God. But it is not necessary to give up everything for a life of prayer and solitude to be a true Christian. The highest form of a Christian can be found in people who have jobs, but are using their skills solely to bring honor to God. This way they do not care about fame, money, or title. They are simply using the gifts God gave them to bring honor to God. This way I think they are doing the same if not more than people who leave their jobs to pray and study God’s word. God calls us to use our spiritual gifts and I can make a movie for him without concern for fame or wealth or position and solely on our God. Plus, if all Christians left to pray it would be beneficial but not at all helpful to the unbelieving world. Well, I can’t say not at all helpful because prayer does help everything. But forgetting prayer, which the reformed view somewhat loses the notion of the power of prayer, we do we can ourselves. But prayer is not the only thing the world needs and we do need to use our physical gifts to bring the world to God as well.
We lose the power of prayer and the need for absolute focus on God in the reformed view, but having a job does not make one less of a Christian when they can center the job on God.
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