Success and Failure as a Christian in the Workplace

This article will seek to defend the idea that success for the Christian in the sphere of work is faithfulness. We do have limited areas where we can push towards fruitfulness, and the eschatological urgency of these last days prompts us that one of those areas is evangelism.

School reunions can be the worst, once the reminiscing and nostalgia is covered, the conversation will eventually turn to - “so what have you been doing?” And the point? Have you been more successful than me or do I get to condescendingly encourage you while simultaneously congratulating myself that at least I’m not the least successful person here. But does success (and failure) look different for the Christian at work?

In the Old Testament, success and failure rests upon our attitude towards God and his word. This is conveyed perhaps most clearly in the first psalm of the Psalter. Here the blessed one, whose “delight is in the law of the Lord, who meditates on his law day and night”, is the one who prospers (Psalm 1:1-3). “Not so the wicked!” whose way “leads to destruction.” (Psalm 1:4-6). Prosperity is about the way one responds to the revelation of God, whereas the wicked are those who have no right response, and as a consequence their actions lead them to destruction.

Similarly, the one who listens to Wisdom’s call will live in safety , without fear of harm, whereas the simple and the fools will stray from wisdom and find death and destruction (Proverbs 1:1-33). Likewise, trusting and submitting to God is the mark of being faithful to God. So, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6).

The consequence of this posture of faithful trust in God and his word is he will make one’s paths straight, which carries the sense of prospering. Once more, the commandment to honour our father and mothers is given with the promise that it may go well with you (Deuteronomy 5:16) or that you may live long in the land (Exodus 20:12). Success and failure are presented as concrete and material concepts in the Old Testament and are linked with living and enduring in the land God had provided._¹

As we move into the New Testament the focus shifts from the promised land to our eschatological future, and so success and failure feature significantly more rarely. Indeed, there are only two occasions where the same family of Greek words (εὐοδοω) occur as used in the Septuagint. Once to speak of Paul’s hoped success in coming to the Roman church (Romans 1:10). The other (1 Corinthians 16:2) it speaks to income - which is how the NIV translates it.

Other passages speak of goals and prizes, such as Phillippians 3:16 where Paul speaks of attaining to his goal, which is the upward call of God; the resurrection from the dead. Another group of passages use the imagery of sporting or military prizes, such as crowns. These passages are again couched in eschatological categories, so Paul looks forward to his “crown of righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:8), Peter talks about the “unfading crown of glory” when the “chief Shepherd appears” (1 Peter 5:4), James - in a manner reminiscent of Psalm 1 - speaks of the blessed man who stands the test and receives the crown of life (James 1:12). In terms of imminent rewards, Paul sees the believers coming from his ministry as his “joy and crown” (Philippians 4:1, 1 Thessalonians 2:19). Though the believers are an imminent sign of success - and thus a present rather than eschatological reality - the use of crown still speaks of the church as the fruits of the spread of the gospel; a proleptic eschatological reality of the great assembly before the throne. That is, they are a present concrete incursion of a final reality that will be true when all things are fulfilled and Christ’s kingdom has fully and finally come.

So if success was a concrete reality in the promised land in the Old Testament, and an eschatological hope while we await the coming kingdom in the New Testament- what does success (and failure) look like in our current reality?

In 1975, Kent Hughes was a young church planter in southern California in a church that wasn’t going well. Other churches in the area were growing, but his was not. The optimism of launching the church had faded, the reality of church ministry had set in, and the church was shrinking. Kent felt like a failure - despite his hard work, and it deeply troubled him, making him question his calling. Kent and his wife, Barbara, poured over the Bible looking for answers about what constituted success and failure in ministry. The Hughes’ discovered that success is about being faithful by being obedient to God’s word and working hard, serving God and others, loving God, a deepening trust in God, prayer, holiness, and maintaining a positive attitude._²

The markers of success were the means by which that success was pursued. Thus the marker of success in ministry was not what the minister pursued in faithfulness - but the faithfulness itself! The consequences for that faithfulness in each particular instance is determined by God - even if the outcome is (seeming) mediocrity. In this instance, as long as the means is faithfulness, Kent and Barbara Hughes term such mediocrity, ‘blessed mediocrity’._³

Thus, success is more about the manner in which we live, particularly faithfulness, than any particular fruit we may see as a result. We see this in perhaps the clearest parable of Jesus that addresses success, the parable of the Talents (or significant weights of resources) (Matthew 25:14-30). Where two servants put the resources to use and produce profit. The third servant, in fear of his master’s severity and ability to produce value seemingly without effort, buries his Talent. The first two servants are commended in exactly the same way - irrespective of their different outcomes. Both are lauded for their faithfulness in small things and are entrusted with more and are invited in a share of their master’s joy. Note that the relative success of their use of the resources does not impact how the master responds to them (albeit the one with ten talents is given the buried one later). By contrast, the third servant is rebuked for his lack of trust in what he affirms to believe. He refuses to even do the bare minimum of putting the Talent on deposit to earn interest. Thus, the successful are lauded for their faithfulness, and the servant who failed is condemned for his fear. Thus, success is about seeking to act in faithfulness, rather than a particular outcome.

So in our circumstances today, success and failure needs to be worked out from this first principle of faithfulness. Therefore, what success (and failure) looks like may vary depending on context, however we need to be wary lest we let our cultural assumptions inform what we consider to be success and failure in our culture. In his book, Evangelism in a Skeptical World, Sam Chan highlights our tendency as Christians to imbibe our cultural wisdom into what we assume is godly wisdom when it comes to considering success in our careers. He shares a story of an Asian-American young woman, Jane, who is driven to study and work hard so she can go to Harvard and become a doctor, and of a California surfer dude, Jack, who wants to drop out of school to become a day-labourer so he can spend more time surfing. Sam helps us to consider how a youth pastor might speak to Jane and Jack and give completely different advice. To Jane she says that work and study has become her idol and that she should instead follow Jesus by becoming a missionary (or better yet a youth pastor). And then to Jack she says that surfing has become an idol and that instead of dropping out of school, he should instead get serious about studying, go to college and get a decent job (maybe as a youth pastor). Why the radically different - even opposing - advice given to Jane and Jack? There is truth in the advice, work and study can become an idol, as can the pursuit of pleasure. But everyone becoming a youth pastor isn’t the gospel answer. There are two different cultural imperatives at play here - three if you count the youth pastor’s perspective. You can be a high-achieving student, a surfing-loving labourer, and even a youth pastor, and be faithful - and hence a successful Christian. But how can we apply the need to be faithful and therefore pursue success in our workplace?_⁴

Depending upon the cultural milieu we find ourselves in, we may have a different understanding of how success - or being fruitful - springs from being faithful. In their book The Gospel at Work: How the Gospel Gives New Purpose and Meaning to our Jobs, Sebastian Traeger and Greg Gilbert highlight a very useful tool for exploring how we can be successful in the various aspects of our lives - including in our workplaces. Faithfulness is the minimum standard for every aspect of our lives. When we concentrate our efforts, we can push towards fruitfulness - that is greater levels of achievement or excellence. When we fail to achieve the minimum standard the Bible sets for us, we become idle. The problem with being idle is not that rest is wrong, but that we replace being busy at work with being busybodies - and become disruptive (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15). When we pursue fruitfulness to excess, we push beyond fruitfulness and fall into idolatry._⁵ Timothy Keller has said that an idol is a good thing that we make into an ultimate thing - thus, sinful humans can make any good thing an idol._⁶

Traeger and Gilbert make the point that we have a responsibilities in a number of aspects of our life - family, church, work etc, and being faithful remains the minimum standard. However, we are limited by the circumstances of life (and I would add different individual capacities) to pursue fruitfulness. No one can be fruitful in all areas, we need to be wise about where to invest our time and energy.

Where Christians can go awry is to mistakenly assume that there are some areas we can ignore our need for faithfulness in order to pursue fruitfulness elsewhere. Jesus critiques his contemporaries for failing to honour their father and mother by declaring money they would otherwise use as “Corban (that is, devoted to God)” and therefore not available to be used to help. “You nullify the word of God by your tradition” (Mark 7:9-13). Christians are encouraged to remain faithful in meeting together as some have made a habit of not doing so (Hebrews 10:25) indicating that Christians had stopped being faithful in this area. However, one area that we particularly see this trend of neglecting to be faithful is in evangelism. Many would readily echo the words of Ken Costa (former chair of Alpha International) who said “our prime task at work is not to be evangelists. That is not what we are employed to do.”_⁷ Or perhaps most famously, the apocryphal quotation (wrongly) attributed to St. Francis of Assisi “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”_⁸

This aversion to evangelism is contrary to the command of Jesus. Jesus calls upon his disciples to make disciples of all nations, by going, baptising in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything he had commanded them (Matthew 28:19-20). It would be odd if the “everything” didn’t include the command he was currently delivering - to make disciples. Indeed it would be a strange detail for Matthew to include in his Gospel if it wasn’t Jesus’ intention that all his disciples needed to be faithful in this regard. Christians have been commanded to make disciples, and so our baseline is to be faithful. Evangelism is not an optional extra in the Christian life.

Indeed, the eschatological urgency of these last days creates a need for Christians to give themselves fully to the work of the Lord, knowing the labour in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). The contemporary Faith and Work movement has tended to suggest that no labour done for God is in vain - whatever that labour may be._⁹

In contrast, Peter Orr suggests that this is not a general call for Christians to live their work lives in light of the resurrection, but rather a specific call to the work of evangelism and edification as a priority in the Christian life._¹⁰ Consider also William Taylor who encourages us to see that there is no place where the New Testament encourages us to plough our efforts into this world to bring about the kingdom of God, aside from the greater and eternal work of the proclaiming of the good news of Jesus._¹¹ Further, contra Costa, the workplace is a time and a place where people may reach out and find God (Acts 17:26-27). Thus, evangelism, and as a consequence, evangelism in the workplace, is a priority for every Christian.

Therefore, I argue that evangelism is one area where it is appropriate or even essential for all Christians to push towards fruitfulness, rather than basic faithfulness. Loving those God brings across our path enough to help them see Jesus and the danger of divine judgement requires us to push into fruitfulness - and for many Christians the location where we interact most often with people who don’t trust Jesus is the workplace.

The good news is that there are communities of Christians who are seeking to see this happen, and growing numbers of Christians are taking the opportunity to pray for one another and encouraging one another in sharing Jesus in their workplace. Importantly there are growing numbers of medical workers who are joining a community of other medical workers in order to share Jesus with their colleagues. You can go to citybibleforum.org/networks to find a network that works for you. Do not go out alone, join a team of like-minded Christians in this amazing venture with God. Discover how God may bring fruit through your faithfulness in your workplace.

^{1 Cole, A. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Exodus. 1973. 159.}

^{2 Hughes, K & B. Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome. 1987, new edition (2008) 106-107.}

^{3 Hughes, K & B. 111.}

^{4 Chan, S. Evangelism in a Skeptical World: How to make the Unbelievable News about Jesus More Believable. 2018. 129-155.}

^{5 Traeger, S and Gilbert, G. The Gospel at Work:How the Gospel Gives New Purpose and Meaning to Our Jobs. 2018. 83-97.}

^{6 Keller, T. Counterfeit Gods: When the Empty Promises of Love, Money and Power Let You Down. 2009. 13.}

^{7 Costa, K. God at work : live each day with purpose. 2007. 34.}

^{8 See Stanton, G. Fact Checker: Misquoting Francis of Assisi. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/factchecker-misquoting-francis-of-assisi/ 2012.}

^{9 See Tim Keller’s use of Tolkien’s Leaf by Niggle in Keller, T and Alsdorf,K. Every Good Endeavor: connecting your work to God’s work. 2012. 26-30. Or NT Wright who says preaching, sewing, building hospitals or digging wells are equivalent works in building God’s kingdom. Wright, N.T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. 2008. 205,219.}

^{10 Orr, P. Abounding in the Work of the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58): Everything We Do as Christians or Specific Gospel Work? Themelios. 2013. 38/2. 205-214.}

^{11 Taylor, W. Revolutionary Work: What’s the Point of the 9 to 5? 2016. 59, 80-81.}