Following God in a Secular Workplace: Rise to the Top, Part 2 of 3

In the book of Daniel, four men are taken from homes where they have been taught to worship God and transplanted to a secular university and then a secular workplace. Near the end of the first chapter and again later in the book, we are told how God gave these young men incredible knowledge and understanding. Eventually, they rose to the top of their professional fields. In other words, God richly blessed these four young men—and not just in typically spiritual ways. He blessed what we might call their "secular" knowledge, a well as their careers in a "secular" workplace.

This story suggests that no knowledge is secular, and no workplace is secular. Indeed nothing created by God is secular, but all is intended to be sacred.

Not only that, but over the working lifetimes of these men, we read several times about how the kings of Babylon—the most powerful nation on earth at that time—end up praising and proclaiming the glory of God. (See Daniel 2:46-47; 3:28-29; 4:1-3; 4:37; 6:25-27.)

How is it that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah hold fast to their faith and have such a transforming influence in Babylon? Many of their fellow captive Israelites ended up conforming to Babylonian culture and were never heard of again. Partly, we're back to the various forces I discussed in the first article of this series. There are forces intent on breaking their faith and identities as men of God and conforming them to Babylonian ways of thinking. When Nebuchadnezzar plunders the temple of God in Jerusalem and orders the names of the men to be changed to names honoring the Babylonian gods, there is little they can do.

But then comes the issue of food. The four young men are to eat the king's choice food (1:5). That doesn't sound too bad, right? Much better than living in poverty back in the occupied territories of Israel and hoping to get a few grains of barley a day after the tax collectors take the best of it. Daniel and his friends could have lives of luxury rather than lives of slavery. A great deal. Except the food would include meat that was non-Kosher and that had been publicly sacrificed to the Babylonian gods. In other words, the food was one more attack on their faith and identity. To eat the king's food would be direct disobedience to the commands of their own God.

What do Daniel and his friends do? They request—and eventually receive—permission not to eat the supposedly good stuff. Instead, they live on vegetables. What a difficult decision that must have been! Who could blame them if they had simply taken what they were given? After all, what choice did they really have?

This is not an abstract question we ask about something that took place 2500 years ago, but a question many Christians are faced with in today’s workplaces. Too often, we are asked to do something that contradicts God’s moral teaching for the sake of the company or the university or the team or the practice. Yet in faith, and at great personal risk—though also with an attitude of respect for those in authority over them—Daniel and his friends chose obedience to God.