Pastor Tim Keller challenged a crowd of New York City professionals Sunday to rethink how they view work and to debunk the notion that spiritual vocations matter more to God than secular work.

Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, explained why all work matters to God and why God matters to work in a lecture held at the Hunter College auditorium for members of the church’s vocation groups. The lecture is the fourth entry in an eight-part lecture series organized by the church’s Center for Faith and Work, which represents professionals from at least 15 industry sectors, including the arts, business and healthcare.

In making his case that all Christians are “priests” in their respective fields, Keller contrasted the approach to work by the medieval church and the radical reformation with that of the 16th century protestant reformer Martin Luther.

The Medieval Church took a “triumphalism” approach to society that attempted to dominate and make all things Christian where as those in the Radical Reformation encouraged “withdrawal” from society, which they believed to be “Satan’s world.”

Both approaches, according to Keller, had a tendency to look down on the work out in the world and only consider work in the church as God’s work.

He explained that Luther’s theology offered a “middle way” and a biblical approach to work, in which there was no dividing Christian work between “spiritual estate” and the “temporal estate.”

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