Gary North

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch (Gen. 6:13-14).

The story of Noah and the ark is one of the most famous passages in the Bible. It tells of the wrath of God against all humanity, with the exception of one family. It also tells the story of God's judgment on all the land-based animals of the earth, with the exception of those that were brought into the ark. We see here once again the biblical principle that those who are under the jurisdiction of people who come under the negative sections of God suffer along with those people who had displeased God. There was no escape for the animals that did not make it into the ark.

This is the story of a man who had a crucial calling: to save the planet. He had to do this in his spare time. He had to make a living. This task paid nothing up front. If "full-time Christian service" means "working for the church," Noah was not in full-time Christian service.

We are not told what Noah and his sons did for a living. The usual assumption is that they were involved in agriculture. Whether or not Noah and his family were involved in agriculture, they did have to make a living, day by day, year by year, during the time of the construction of the ark. There was no market for the ark. Noah was not instructed by God to sell tickets.

Consider their occupations. Here was a family that was involved in the construction of a gigantic ship. They were building it on dry land. There was no way for them to transport this ship to a ocean. They must have been the laughing stock of the community. The ark was a laughing stock of the community for years and then decades. Here was a family that had clearly lost touch with reality. These people were building a boat the likes of which no one had ever seen. They were doing this on dry ground.

God did not tell Noah to warn the people that a great flood was coming. God did not say anything about a flood. Noah must have drawn conclusions about the nature of the negative sanctions to come, but he was not specifically informed about the details, as far as the biblical text indicates.

The family had no assignment regarding evangelism. God did not tell Noah and his family to hand out tracts telling people to repent. He told Noah to build an ark, and He gave Noah a set of plans for the ark. Other than that, God had no instructions for Noah at all.

Noah was the central figure of humanity in between Adam and Jesus Christ. The other biblical figures were important in the lines of covenantally faithful people, but Noah and his sons were crucial. All humanity traces its genetic inheritance back to Noah. All of the animal kingdom had its genetic origins in the animals inside the ark. The entire history of man up until that time led to death and destruction, with the exception of Noah and his family. Noah was the turning point in all of human history, and also in the history of the animals.

We are not told what Noah did for a living. We are told what Noah did to live. He is not important historically for what he did for a living. He is important historically for what he did to live. So unimportant was what Noah did for a living that the Bible does not tell us what his occupation was. The Bible does tell us what he did to save his family and the animal kingdom from destruction. Until the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, Noah did more than any other human history to save humanity. No other figure in history comes close to the importance of Noah, with the exception of Adam. Noah is the central character from Adam to Christ.

This being the case, it is clear that the most important thing that Noah did was to build the ark. It was the most important thing that anyone did from Adam to Jesus Christ. In contrast, we are told nothing about what he did for a living.

In discussing the work of Noah and his family, I distinguish between their jobs and their calling. Their jobs were whatever tasks they did to support themselves while building the ark. In modern terminology, their jobs put food on the table. Their most important work appeared to be ludicrous for a long time. They must have suffered considerable ridicule. Yet this was the most important work that anyone had ever done, and it was the most important work that a family has ever done. Nothing that you do will ever match what Noah did. We can say this of everyone in history, with the exception of Jesus Christ.

Noah's calling was to build the ark. It was the most important thing that he could do in which he would have been most difficult to replace. He was irreplaceable, because he was the only righteous patriarch in the world. God picked him especially for his righteousness. There was no one else on the face of the earth whom God could have picked. It was the most important task that anyone had on earth, and he was the only person who could fulfill this task.

WHAT IS A CALLING?

The construction of the ark was Noah's calling. I define calling as follows: the most important thing that you can do in which you would be most difficult to replace. Noah's calling was not his occupation. We are told nothing of his occupation. Unless he was supported full-time by his sons, who in turn had occupations, Noah had a job, but we are told nothing about it. His job was irrelevant for the story of Noah. His job was relevant for putting food on the table, but it was not relevant for the salvation of the world.

In the story of Noah, we have probably the best example in history of the difference between an occupation and a calling. Whatever it was that Noah did for a living, he probably was easily replaceable. He certainly was more easily replaceable in his job than he was in his calling. So replaceable was he in his job that the Bible does not bother to tell us what his job was. It was just a way to earn a living, which in turn enabled him to pursue his calling. Nobody paid him anything to pursue his calling. His calling was a negative as far as the general public was concerned: a joke. Yet it was the most important work that he could do in which he would have been most difficult to replace.

This distinction between occupation and calling is at the heart of civilization. Most people are forgotten within 50 or 60 years of their death. Their children remember them, and the older grandchildren remember them, but the great grandchildren do not. When two generations die off, the memory of their ancestor dies with them. What the ancestor did for a living is forgotten. Men's occupations leave no trace in almost all cases. The men are easily replaceable, and therefore the work that they do is not memorable.

There are a few people who achieve something memorable through their callings. For most of these famous people, their callings are their occupations. We think of famous political leaders, or famous generals, or famous inventors. All of these people were paid to perform their callings.

Even in the case of philosophers, they are usually paid. Socrates had a job, but almost no one remembers what that job was. He was a stonemason. He left that occupation to pursue his calling. His self-assigned calling was to challenge men in their fundamental beliefs. It was also to training younger generation of men to do the same. It cost him his life.

Jesus had a calling. His calling was to redeem the world. The initial means of His calling was the discipling of a small handful of people. For three years, He trained these men. He had been a carpenter, but He abandoned that job for the sake of His calling. Peter and his brother abandoned their callings as fishermen to become disciples. All of the disciples abandoned their lifetime occupations. Jesus called them to serve Him in a special way, but they were not known as men who made a living being disciples.

The best example of someone who supported his calling by means of his job was the apostle Paul. We are told that he made tents for a living (Acts 18:3). We are told nothing about the size of the tents, the price of the tents, or whether he sold the tents to a wholesaler or to the general public. We are only told that he did make tents for a living.

His calling was to serve as an apostle. He did the most important work he could do in which he would have been most difficult to replace. No one thinks of the apostle Paul as one of the world's great tent makers. No one thinks of him as a businessman. He became a tent maker because he could no longer get paid by the Jews as a persecutor. His calling before his conversion was to be a persecutor. His tent making was an afterthought.

TWO KINDS OF WORK

A man who finds his calling is blessed of God. A man who has an occupation that he enjoys is also blessed by God. But rare is the man who achieves his calling as an employee. Ministers of the gospel do this. Missionaries achieve this. Some teachers achieve this. But most men never achieve enough in their occupations that they could legitimately call their occupations their callings. They may do something important in their jobs, but in most cases they are easily replaceable. Even in those cases where they are not replaceable, such as professional athletes of the highest caliber, they know that their callings will soon be over, and they will have to find a job. They will no longer be able to compete successfully as professional athletes. Their callings are short-lived. They last for a few years, and then fade from almost everyone's memory.

In American history, the most famous amateur athlete who could have become a professional but did not was Bobby Jones, the golfer. He refused to turn professional, although he would have been able to make a fortune if he had. He is famous for his golfing. He is not famous for his real estate salesmanship. His calling was his golfing, not his real estate sales. He knew what his calling was: to be the best amateur golfer in the world. He achieved his goal and more. He was the best golfer in the world.

For most men and women, no one will pay them a salary for their callings. They are paid for their occupations. One of the reasons why so few men have callings is because they are unwilling or unable to do their callings in their spare time. They do not finance their callings by means of their occupations. They spend the bulk of their time on their occupations, and they allocate whatever remains among such activities as watching sports on television, spending time in taverns, and spending ten minutes a day with their children. Rare is the man who self-consciously accepts a lower paying job because this job provide sufficient free time that he can work on his calling. Very few men even understand what a calling is. They have not identified the most important thing they can do with their lives in which they would be most difficult to replace.

When a man devotes the bulk of his labor to his occupation, when that occupation is not also his calling, he risks two things. First, he risks discovering late in life that he never had a calling. Second, he risks not discovering late in life that he never had a calling. Such men do not pay attention to the need for some service that they could provide. When that service is not paid for in a competitive market, those who possess the skills to perform that service tends to ignore it.

Consider the man who is a physician. He could be a low-paid physician on the foreign mission field. Some Christian physicians do this. They make very little money, and they have enormous impact in communities in which no other physician lives within a hundred miles.

Most physicians practice their occupations throughout their whole lives, earning a decent living and knowing that they are essentially replaceable. The physician on the mission field knows that he is very close to being irreplaceable. He is irreplaceable because nobody in the community in which he serves has the money to pay a Western-trained physician. They can barely afford to pay the local witch doctor.

One solution for physicians who want to become missionaries is to save a large percentage of their income in their occupations. They budget carefully; they restrict their spending; and they save up enough money so that they can afford to go on the mission field when they are 50 or 55 years old. They understand that their callings are not their occupations. They understand that the only way that they can support their callings is to earn enough money, and learn how to invest that money successfully, so that the income from their investments will fund their years on the foreign mission field.

What is true of a physician who wants to become a foreign missionary is equally true of any man who sees that he could be of enormous service in an area of life in which the people being served cannot possibly afford to pay him as much as unemployed or will pay him. His employer sells the man's services or output to the highest bidders. The highest bidders are not those people who could be served by the worker if he was willing to quit his job and devote full-time service to the poverty-stricken beneficiaries.

With respect to filling the needs of people who have few alternatives, a man has a calling who can budget his time and his money in such a way that can he can devote time to serving those who could not otherwise afford services. Here is his calling. It is supported by his occupation.

In budgeting your money, you had better first decide what your calling is. If you do not know what your calling is, you will not allocate your money and your time in such a way that you will maximize your contribution to the kingdom of God.

Most Christian man never discover their callings. They are tempted to see their callings in terms of their jobs. They define themselves in terms of their jobs, not in terms of their callings. They confuse their callings with their jobs, and in doing so, most of them neglect the most important thing that they could do in which they would be most difficult to replace.

What if Noah had spent all of his time at the office? Imagine him on his deathbed, with the water up to the mattress, telling his family, "I should have spent less time at the office." The response would have been: "You certainly should have."

Until a man finds his calling, he will not budget his time and his money efficiently. If he does not set aside time and money to pursue his calling, he will miss out on his calling. Most men miss out on their callings. They devote their lives to the most profitable thing they can do in which they would be fairly easy to replace.

TAKING INVENTORY

I suggest that husbands and wives sit down and carefully take inventory of the talents each of them possesses. A wife understands it the most important thing she can do and what she would be most difficult to replace is as a mother. She may work outside the home, but she thinks of herself as a mother more than she thinks of herself as his secretary.

We find, in contrast, that most men do not think of themselves primarily as fathers. They think of themselves as providers of money for their families. They think of themselves in terms of their occupations; they do not think of themselves in terms of their callings. Yet, in terms of their importance, the most important thing that they can do in which they would be most difficult to replace is to serve as heads of their households.

One of the reasons why there are so many divorces in modern times is that husbands do not think of their position as heads of the household as being most important thing they could do in which they are most difficult to replace.

Budgeting is important, but it is not nearly so important as establishing lifetime goals. Budgeting makes the attainment of the goals more likely. In the same way that an occupation makes the attainment of a man's calling possible, so does budgeting make possible the attainment of the goals, meaning shared goals, of a married couple.

Budgeting should be subordinate to the calling. Until each of the members of a husband-wife team are agreed on what his or her calling is, the budgeting process will be incomplete. It will be misguided.

If you do not know what your calling is, you had better find out. If it is your occupation, you are doubly blessed. If it is not your occupation, it is going to make your budgeting of both time and money far more difficult than you might have imagined before you read this article.