The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective

by R. Paul Stevens

Throughout history the church has been composed of two types of people—those who “do” ministry and those to whom it is “done.” In this provocative book R. Paul Stevens shows that the clergy-laity division has no basis in the New Testament and challenges all Christians to rediscover what it means to live daily as God’s people. Exploring the theological, structural, and cultural reasons for treating laypeople as the objects of ministry, Stevens argues against the idea of clericalism. All Christians are called to live in faith, hope, and love, and to do God’s work in the church and world. This biblical perspective has serious implications for the existing attitudes and practices of many churches as well as for our understanding of ministry. Stevens shows that the task of churches today is to equip people for ministry in their homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods.Written by a scholar and pastor well known as an active advocate for the whole people of God, this thought-provoking book—made even more useful with the inclusion of case studies and study questions at the end of each chapter—offers inspiring reading for anyone interested in what the Christian life holds for the other six days of the week.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Christianity, Nonfiction, Christian Living, Spirituality, Faith

296 pages, Paperback

First published July 5, 2000

About the author

R. Paul Stevens is professor emeritus of marketplace theology and leadership at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia, and a marketplace ministry mentor. He has worked as a carpenter and businessman, and served as the pastor of an inner-city church in Montreal. He has written many books and Bible studies, including Doing God's Business, Work Matters, Marriage Spirituality, The Other Six Days and Spiritual Gifts. He is coauthor (with Pete Hammond and Todd Svanoe) of The Marketplace Annotated Bibliography.

Reviews

[André Freitas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had in my hands the original English book and its Brazilian Portuguese version at the same time. The translation is awful. Published by Editora Ultimato, the PT-BR version of the book omits all notes originally made by the author with his text and put them in the end of the book, it has a ugly cover and a very bad translation. Sometimes the word choice is wrong. The book itself is good and very useful. If you are a Portuguese speaker, able to read in English, you shall prefer the original book.

[Child960801 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally finished reading this book. It took forever to read. I have lots of thoughts about this book, so here goes:

In lots of ways I feel like I wasn't the target audience for this book. The church tradition I grew up in doesn't have a clergy. The preaching is usually done by a paid preacher, but there isn't a set of credentials that the preachers all have to meet. The preacher is picked by the congregation he will be working at and as long as they are satisfied can be just about anyone. Communion is usually presided over by any of the baptized males of the congregation. All of that means that the whole first part of the book, which talked in length about the clergy/laity split and why it's wrong, really didn't speak to me.

Part of who I am and what I believe means that it's really important to me that the Bible is used properly. How that played out here is that I felt the need to look up all the Scripture references to make sure that they were being used correctly and in context. And this guy quotes a lot of Scripture. It made reading this book take forever. When a three sentence paragraph has nine Scripture references in it, it takes a lot longer to read. I'm not a theology student who can sit around and read a book for 8 hours. There are also extensive footnotes which can also be full of Scripture references and asides to the main argument.

This guy also writes like a Bible professor and makes assumptions about what the audience of the book knows, which I didn't always.

All that said, it was a good book. It's central message, that every Christian is a minister and priest in their life giving glory to God and living to bring him glory, is super important. Ministry isn't just preaching or missionary work. Every kind of work is ministry and we need to to be living our lives in the truth that everything we do serves God and should be done for his glory. There are questions at the end of each chapter as well as of couple of case studies. I think that reading this book with a group and then discussing it would increase the experience.

[Russell Gehrlein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and heartily recommend it to others, although I think I enjoyed his other book 'Work Matters' more. Stevens did a thorough job explaining how the word 'call' is used Scripture, and how it has been seen throughout church history. He, like many others, acknowledged that there is a 'heart' call where the Holy Spirit 'creates a desire for a particular service . . . it is entirely ordinary for God to create a desire in our hearts to do the very thing needed, whether in the church or in the world.' Stevens also asks us to consider the unity between the creation mandate and the great commission, which echoed what I had read elsewhere. He espouses a view of one unified covenant from Genesis to Revelation that encompasses communion (the call to belong to God), community (the call to be God’s people), and co-creativity (the call to do God’s work). Stevens provides a good survey of how work itself is seen in Scripture, covering many of the same solid Lutheran-based teaching on the intrinsic value of everyday work I have seen in many other places. Work, he says, is good for the world, good for our neighbor, and good for us. He placed special emphasis on the terms for slave and master (doulos and kyrios), and reminded us how they are tied together in Phil. 2:7-11. Jesus, who left His throne to become for us a doulos, was exalted to his rightful place, which will lead to a worldwide confession of Jesus as Kyrios at the consummation. I appreciated Stevens’ view on how each member of the Trinity gives us a different perspective on work and his eschatological focus throughout the book. Consistently, this book is scripturally-based and he constantly finds ways to express his balanced Trinitarian view, which I find refreshing. I also very much appreciated his comparison of the church to 'the gathering and dispersion of blood in the body', that it is a 'rhythm of gathering (ekklesia) and dispersion (diaspora) . . . Gathered, the blood is cleansed and oxygenated. Sent out, it fights diseases and energizes.' Overall, a pretty good book.

[Daniel Supimpa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A biblical-theological foundation for the ministry of all Christian believers, over against a long-standing tradition of diving clergy and laity in matters of actual service to God. Stevens has the Western (mostly North American) Christianity in mind, and does a fair response to the question, particularly in recovering the value of a missional reading of vocation. Here, the focal point is to find where God is already at work, in order to become a co-worker with him.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended as a resource for a subject of the health of ministers / clergy ... interesting as it is presenting the fact that the distinction between clergy and laity isn't helpful not biblical.

[Mark Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made a huge difference in my theology of work and ministry

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stevens draws some excellent conclusions about the laity/clergy division and how a Biblical model of these two 'factions' should look. He goes on to add insight into ministry and how each one of us fits into the bigger picture. This is a very encouraging book and gave me opportunity to reflect on my place in the body of Christ and how my 'other six days' should look/feel.

The reason I dropped a star from my rating is this: Stevens sometimes strays from the point he is making (whole chapters, some of the time) and led me to scratch my head at how that related to the work/ministry topic.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing book on the spiritual value of everyday work in fields NOT associated with the ministry. Quite academic and high concept, and when it attempts to explain some of its ideas, it comes off feeling a little circular in its logic. Nonetheless, an essential read on this topic.

[Kyle P · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the last 2-3 chapters very interesting but as a whole I thought the book was just OK.