Is Retirement Biblical?

In our last New Commandment board meeting I was discussing whether or not I will retire when one of my board members mentioned that he doesn’t believe that Christians should retire.

Wow! That was a new thought. But after I mulled it over later I realized that the concept of retirement really is a modern invention.

The Bible doesn’t have much to say about retirement. The reason is because the vast majority of people simply didn’t live long enough to retire. The average lifespan today in America is about twice what it was in biblical times.

For example, when Paul, in 1 Timothy 5, says that widows shouldn’t be put on “the list” for support until they are 60, that was a very old age back then, probably what would be the equivalent of 85 or 90 now.

Also, in today’s America, after forty years of labor intensive work, many people simply cannot work any longer.

There is, however, one passage of Scripture that does have a direct bearing on retirement. It’s Luke 12:13-21.

Someone in the crowd said to him, ”Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.'”

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

The operative phrase here is at the very end of the parable: but is not rich toward God. Jesus isn’t saying that it’s wrong to retire, or even that it’s wrong to enjoy retirement. Rather, he is saying that it’s wrong to see retirement as an end in itself, as the only climax of a full and rewarding life.

Rather, retirement is an opportunity to grow “rich toward God” by using that time, and the resources we have to support it, to complete the good work God saved us to do. In this way, we demonstrate that “life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

Having said that, I’m still not sure if I’ll ever retire.