Draft of Chapter 1: Retirement basics

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I’m not happy with this chapter. (If you don’t understand that colloquialism, then you shouldn’t be thinking about retirement anyway!) One good thing about forcing myself to blog by noon every Monday is that I am forced to move forward. I will continue to improve this chapter, as I have the others, over the coming weeks and months. Worth noting, I have made numerous changes based on the feedback folks have given me so far. Thank you, again!

One issue I faced in writing this chapter is the overlap with the Introduction. I was trying hard to steer clear of that but finally decided that I was better off writing this chapter and then going back and changing the Introduction to have less of an overlap. I think some overlap is fine, but I’m not quite sure where the line is. It seems like with each chapter I write I must update one or two of the chapters I wrote previously. Hopefully, that will slow down as the chapters begin to fall better into place.

As always, let me know your thoughts and suggestions. If for this chapter or any of the previous ones you have an experience from a friend or yourself that helps illustrate things better, please share it with me. Most of my examples are from my life and it would be good to have other people’s experiences as well.

My fall semester at seminary has started back up. I’m taking Intro to Hermeneutics, Systematic Theology 3, and Old Testament 1. There will be a lot of writing for them, so I do not expect to have a chapter every other week. I’m hoping I can write one every fourth week, but we shall see. I am still planning a blog entry of some sort about the book each Monday morning, but some of them will necessarily be brief. 

 

Chapter 1: Retirement basics

Most of us think we know what retirement is but probably aren’t as sure about what ours will be like. The Internet has more videos and articles about what to do or not do in retirement and preparing for it than any of us have the time to consume. At its simplest, retirement is what we do once we stop working, normally around 65 years of age. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines retirement as “withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from active working life.” Simple, right?

No, not so much. Will I be able to afford to stop working? What about early retirement? What if we only “semi-retire” and work part-time or in an easier job? What about if we become too sick to work and must retire? What about if our job “goes away” and we can no longer find work? If I am what I do, what am I when I no longer work? What do people do once they stop working? Does God care what we do? Do we have a plan for our retirement beyond our finances? The list of questions grows the more we think about retirement.

The number of people living out those questions as retirees is growing rapidly in the US. More than 10,000 people are expected to retire every day for at least the next few years. Over 50 million people are considered retired with an average age of starting retirement of 61 and a median age of 62.[i] The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System reports that 27% of adults consider themselves to be retired. The reasons for retiring vary widely, but health was a factor for 30% of retirees and caring for family members for 17%.[ii] Whatever retirement is, many of us will retire before we are ready.

A brief history of retirement

Before looking at retirement in 21^st-Century America, it is helpful to understand its history. In ancient times the concept of retirement would have been incomprehensible. Basically, you worked until you died. Your children and community (hopefully) helped support you when you got old, injured, or sick. If you no longer could tend the sheep, you spun the wool. If you couldn’t plow the field, you shelled the peas. In agrarian societies, this way of living continued until fairly recently. Think about the 70s TV series, The Waltons, and the role of the grandparents. It took place during the 1930s when Grandpa and Grandma still had work on the farm doing things like repairing tools, canning fruit, and watching their grandchildren. They most certainly were not traveling the world or living a life of leisure in a retirement community. That was not necessarily a decision on their part, it was just the way things were.

For some people like soldiers, the concept of pensions did exist, as early as in the Roman Empire. This idea is alluded to in the 2000 movie, The Gladiator. The protagonist, Maximus, is a Roman general who dreams of being able to enjoy his pension on a farm with his wife and son. The Roman government awarded pensions to soldiers after 20 years of service. The pension could be either land or a sum of money. In either case, the pension was significant but would probably have necessitated working the land or augmenting the money. Maximus, of course, was a high-ranking soldier and would have been able to live quite comfortably. His dream was to work on his farm, though admittedly, it was a very nice farm. Other countries have had pensions for their military over the years. The United States started pensions for its soldiers during the Civil War.

Something like modern-day retirement began to develop in the mid- to late-1800s. In the 1880s, the German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, implemented retirement for folks at 70 years of age which was lowered to 65 in 1916. In that day, life expectancy was not much different than the retirement age. As an aside, his reason for implementing retirement was probably to slow the rise of socialism. Around that time in the US, some people in especially strenuous and risky jobs such as the military, police, and fire fighters had also begun to receive pensions. By the early 1900s, the idea of retirement became more generally accepted with 65 as the most common age.[iii]

Social Security solidified the concept and age with general retirement benefits beginning near the end of the Great Depression. Unemployment was still at over 20% when the law was enacted. At least part of the reason for the implementation of Social Security payments for people 65 and older was to make jobs available for younger folks. Life expectancy at the time was only 58.

Since then, people have come to see retirement as a basic right, something that should be enjoyed at as young an age as possible even as life expectancy increases. The average age of retirement is falling and as of 2024 was down to 61. If someone in the US lives to be 65, then the average life expectancy is another twenty years. One in four 65-year-olds will live to be 90. Twenty to thirty years of retirement is a reasonable expectation and the percentage of years many people spend in retirement is approaching 50% of their adult lives.

Beginning in our fifties and increasing as we age, we can feel social pressure to retire. Our grandchildren often ask my wife when she is going to retire. She still enjoys seeing patients in her medical practice, but the patients also regularly ask when she is going to retire. It has become a societal expectation that we will retire in our sixties, at the latest. People still working into their seventies are often thought of as either workaholics or people who cannot afford to retire.

Early retirement

Other people retire much earlier, in their fifties or even earlier. Sometimes people are blessed with through inheriting money, shrewd investing, or receiving a financial windfall like those earned in technology startups that go public. The FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement has gained real traction in recent years as a way to retire early, even as early as your 30s or 40s. The basic tenants of the movement are to maximize savings, reduce expenses, and invest to create passive income streams. Proponents contend that once you have done enough of those things, you can afford to retire.

Other people may be forced to retire early, possibly before they are ready, because of health problems or changes in employment. Health problems that result in the inability to work can happen at any age but increase as we age. My brother has had vision problems since he was in grade school that have made it difficult for him to work. I also have friends in the technology industry who were “retired” by their companies either through layoffs or early retirement “packages” that were not exactly optional. Their advancing ages made it difficult to find work and they ended up retiring.

As we shall see, the removal of work from people’s lives can be difficult, especially when it happens suddenly or before they had planned. In many cases the issues are financial, but for others the unexpected change in their lives was the biggest challenge. Financial wherewithal is good, but it does not in and of itself provide meaning or purpose for someone’s life.

Hopes and dreams

Regardless of how old we expect to be when we retire, we have a wide range of expectations, hopes, and dreams for what our retirement will be like. Many people ascribe to the prevalent view that you save up as much money as you can and then you kick back and enjoy the fruits of your labors by playing golf, traveling, gardening, reading, or whatever you like to do until you are no longer capable of so doing. Depending upon your perspective, that sounds either ideal or hollow.

A July 2024 study by Wakefield Research asked which things people most looked forward to doing in retirement. The majority of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers listed relaxing as much as possible, spending more time with family, and traveling. Other things many of them looked forward to doing included picking up new hobbies, volunteering, relocating, and working a part-time “passion job.” [iv] The Internet is full of lists of top activities in retirement. Some of the lists are based on surveys and some are just opinions. There are some very common ones across these lists including reading, exploring genealogies, playing games, volunteering, exercising, gardening, writing, learning languages, playing sports, birding, and doing creative hobbies like modeling, woodworking, painting, and sewing.

People I’ve spoken with have expressed similar hopes for retirement. They’ve described taking up a hobby they had long ago put aside. I looked forward to building scenery for an N-scale model train layout in my retirement. Others aspire to go back to school or finally have time to travel in Europe. Some want to have time to read without interruption. Many spoke about looking forward to spending more time with family and friends. Others want the freedom to move to where they’ve always wanted to live or to where their grandchildren live rather than where their job has been. The prevailing attitude many people share is that they’ve worked hard and now they’ve earned the right to do these things.

Not all of retirement is watching sunsets

In the back of our minds, however, we do have doubts. We’ve all heard stories of someone who retired and died of a heart attack not long afterwards. While this certainly happens, it is not as prevalent as such stories indicate. It is difficult to tease out from all of the statistics about mortality and retirement whether people who are sick choose to retire or people who retire get sick. The best answer is probably that we shouldn’t worry about these kinds of anecdotal stories we hear. That said, there are plenty of concerns we need to understand.

Numerous studies have chronicled negative aspects of retirement, such as a meta-analysis of eleven studies that showed a mean depression rate of 28% among retirees.[v] A 2013 study by Britain’s Institute of Economic Affairs and the Age Endeavour Fellowship on economics, health, age, and government policy included disturbing findings for retired people in Great Britain. They include retirement

• decreases the likelihood of being in ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ self-assessed health by 39%, 
• increases the probability of suffering from clinical depression by 41%, and
• increases the probability of having at least one diagnosed physical condition by 63%.[vi]

The latest data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics show Americans of retirement age (65 and older) spend about seven hours per day on leisure and sports activities. The only category taking more time in their days was sleeping. The activities in this category of the survey include watching TV, playing games, socializing, reading, and exercising. My first thought was that socializing and exercise seem like good activities. Unfortunately, between them, they take less than an hour of that time. Watching TV takes the biggest chunk at over four hours a day.[vii] Other screens such as phones and tablets were not broken out in this data, but my feeling (and personal experience) is that they are increasing the amount of time spent on such activities.

A big area that many retired and soon to be retired people worry about is their finances. Money is something that most of us worry about long before we even think about retirement. Once we retire, however, the ability to make more money to assuage our worries is definitionally gone. My wife and I have been blessed in our careers and planned reasonably well for our retirement, but my wife continuing to work has reduced, but not eliminated, our remaining financial worries. Not everyone is so fortunate. So many things largely outside our control will determine our big worry that we may outlive our money. We worry if Social Security will still be around when we need it, if the stock market will crash and hurt our 401Ks, if we will face large medical bills, and if we will live longer than our financial plan expects.

As we retire, we face new concerns. One of those, particularly for those who were forced to retire unexpectedly, is the loss of identity. Many of us in our careers formed our identities around our work. Whether that is taken away suddenly or with plenty of time to prepare, it is a major life change right up there with graduating from school, starting our first jobs, getting married, and having children. There are lots of academic reports chronicling this issue with titles like The Effects of Retirement on Sense of Purpose in Life, Identity Distress Surrounding Retirement, and How Retirement Changes Your Identity. Anecdotally, my father often said that retiring was the worst thing he ever did. I watched him dwindle away without meaningful work. We all worry, or at least wonder, who we are when we are no longer working.

One worry I had was that I would turn into a couch potato. Without deadlines and things that must be done, I tend to “fiddle” around. Reading fiction is one place this happens for me. I suffer from just-one-more-chapter syndrome. My fiction reading became a bad enough problem while I was working and raising a family that I allowed myself to only read non-fiction for well over ten years. Technology has only made things worse because I always have a book with me on my phone or tablet. Videos are another incredible time sink. I shudder to think how many hours of videos I’ve watched on how to create model railroad scenery, the current state of the war in Ukraine, and snippets of old favorite movies. It sure would be easy to watch YouTube videos all day! Part of my motivation for writing this book was my conviction that my natural inclinations to idleness was not how God wanted me to spend decades of life, especially while I have my health.  

There are also plenty of good statistics about retirement. One of the most important is the famous U-shaped happiness curve. Simply, data shows that people start out in early adulthood happy, their happiness decreases during middle age while pursuing their careers and raising children, and then increases later in life to even higher levels as we age. Many academic papers have been published about this phenomenon examining the reasons for it, whether it is true around the world, and whether it is changing over time. Are our midlives just a rough period? Do we understand ourselves better in old age? Do we finally figure out how to have balance in our lives? The speculation is likely to continue for a long time, but for our purposes, the key is that we can expect our happiness to increase as we age.

What is a Christian to do?

Among all these hopes, dreams, and fears, we wonder what God wants us to do. You don’t see folks in the Bible saving up for their retirement homes on the golf course or near the Roman theater. The big questions driving this book are how Christians should understand retirement and, as a result, live out their retirements. Unfortunately, the traditional places we turn to do not have much to say on the topic of retirement. The most obvious place for us to look for answers is from the Bible itself. As we shall see in Chapter 3, the Bible only directly addresses retirement once, but does have a considerable amount to say about the issues that retirees face.

The natural place for retirees to expect guidance is from our churches, but they don’t talk about retirement very often. I have asked most folks I speak with on the topic of retirement whether they have heard a sermon on retirement and only a couple have. Some folks felt that pastors did not preach on the topic because the audience was too narrow. That seems like a weak excuse given that over one in four adults consider themselves retired and most unretired folks in their fifties and sixties are thinking about retirement. We hear sermons about fathers most years on Father’s Day when less than half of the congregation is men. Churches often have groups that target seniors, but they tend to be largely social. That is understandable but doesn’t help attendees to know what the Bible thinks about retirement. It is also not very likely that people preparing for retirement will attend.

Another place we may turn is to books written by theologians, pastors, or other Christians. In my own experience, I found few Christians books on the topic. The ones I found either try to show that retirement is not Biblical, how to prepare financially for retirement, or look people’s retirement experiences. Those types of books have their roles, but none of them address the situations most of us face—we are already retired, are trying to figure out what retirement should look like, or must retire for health or job reasons.

Professor and theologian Ben Witherington, III in his book on work thinks that Chistians have “…little or no understanding of what the Bible actually says about work, and it hardly informs their views on questions of work versus play, or career versus retirement, or other related subjects. And in one sense, they can hardly be blamed — Christian theologians have seldom addressed the topic of work...”[viii] His point is an excellent one. We cannot answer questions about what biblical retirement should look like until understand what the Bible has to say about work. The next chapter attempts to do exactly that.

---

[i] Vance Cariaga, “How Many People Are Retiring Every Year for the Next 4 Years?” GOBankingRates, April 2024, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/many-people-retiring-every-next-113857061.html.

[ii] “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2022 - May 2023,” Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, August 2023, https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2023-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2022-retirement-investments.htm.

[iii] Sarah Laskow, “How Retirement Was Invented,” The Atlantic, October 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/how-retirement-was-invented/381802/.

[iv] Kate Maier, “Retirement Survey: Are Americans Ready For Retirement,” Wealth Enhancement, January 2025, https://www.wealthenhancement.com/blog/retirement-survey-are-americans-ready-for-retirement-see-how-you-compare.

[v] M. Pabón-Carrasco, L. Ramirez-Baena, R. López Sánchez, I. Rodríguez-Gallego, N. Suleiman-Martos, J.L. Gómez-Urquiza. Prevalence of Depression in Retirees: A Meta-Analysis, September 2020,  

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7551681/.

[vi] Gabriel H. Sahlgren, “Work longer, live healthier: The relationship between economic activity, health, and government policy,” Age Endeavor Foundation and Institute of Economic Affairs, February 2013,  https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Work%20Longer,%20Live_Healthier.pdf.

[vii] “Time Spent in Leisure and Sports in 2024,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, September 2025, https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2025/time-spent-in-leisure-and-sports-in-2024.htm. 

[viii] Ben Witherington, III, Work: A Kingdom Perspective on Labor. (Chicago: Eerdmans, 2011). Kindle edition, loc. 36.

Publishing

Though I have not been writing sequentially, by next week I hope to have written (and shared with you all) drafts of the introduction and the first four chapters of the book. I figure that should be about a quarter of the total pages. Once I do an update of the introduction to reflect the current outline, smooth out the chapter transitions, and move some of the material around I should have enough pages in reasonable shape to see if a publisher might have an interest in the book.

The big question is whether to use a publisher at all or to self-publish. I’ve gone both paths over the years using a publisher in 1998 for Windows Performance Secrets and self-publishing Limit Your Greed in 2017. In those days the question was simple—you tried to get a publisher and if you could not or did not like their requirements, you published it yourself. You spent money and hoped people beyond your family and friends read the book. There was a reason it was often called vanity publishing. Now, self-publishing can be as successful as using a publisher and offers a much greater degree of control. One of the biggest problems with using a publisher is that it generally takes one to two years after a book is completed before it arrives in bookstores. The publisher provides some services such as editing, cover design, and marketing, but also has its own requirements and may require extensive changes to the book.

I spoke a couple weeks ago with a long-time (I refuse to say old) friend of mine who recently self-published a book on being a father to sons. After looking at options for publishing, he decided that self-publishing was the way to go. He did things the way I most likely would such as paying professionals to edit the words, design the cover, and layout of the book. He is planning to spend time promoting his book over the coming weeks. He kindly shared with me the people that he worked with. 

I also talked earlier this summer with someone who has worked with a local Christian book publisher. He was able to give me some good input. I plan to contact him again in September to give him an update on my progress and get additional advice. Whether I self-publish or use a publisher, networking is an important part of making the book successful. Those of you who know me well understand that is not something I’m a fan of doing! Like with any work, doing the often unpleasant tasks is crucial to success. Writing a book is only part of what is necessary to have a book that people read. 

I expect to be meeting with every pastor, blogger, and podcaster that will give me a chance to talk about the book. A couple people have recommended that I contact Pat Gelsinger (former CEO of Intel who is currently investing in and working at the faith-based Gloo). I just need to figure out his email address and what to say. I’m working on my 30-second pitch as well as some longer explanations. You never know who you will run into that may be able to help. If any of you know of someone you think I should be talking with, let me know.

Also, if any of you have any experience or advice on publishing a book, I’d love to hear it. For now, I need to get back to working on Chapter 1.  

Chapter on biblical retirement

This chapter on biblical retirement is the crux of the book. Consequently, I’ve been putting it off because if I do a poor job on it, there is no reason any of you will read any further! On the other hand, it is a chapter where I'd really like feedback. One recent conversation with a friend convinced me that I ought to go ahead and get it out in front of you all. I just hope I don’t disappoint too much as he warned me, “that chapter better not suck!”

As usual, I can see many flaws in this chapter, but I'll let you discover them for yourself. I'm sure there are more things I will add to this chapter as I write more of the book. For now, I'm resisting the temptation to rewrite any of the chapters I've done so far. I think it will be better to wait until I've written the first draft of all or most of the chapters before doing so.  

I'm also discovering that figuring out what material belongs in which chapter can be a challenge. For example, I included something in this chapter about work not necessarily meaning getting paid. That may better belong in the chapter on work with a reference back to it in this chapter.

I also decided to combine what had been chapters 1 (What exactly is retirement?) and 3 (Worldly view of retirement) as there was a decent amount of overlap and I think things flow better with this chapter on biblical retirement following directly after the one on a biblical view of work. 

The two books to the left are the ones I read when I retired. The one by John Piper really is that small and only 30 pages long and I can summarize it in one word, don't! The one by Jeff Haanen is much more useful and worth reading. He includes some good points that I will cover in later chapters of my book. 

Now, here is the chapter. Please send me your thoughts!  

 

Biblical Retirement

One of the biggest challenges to understanding biblical retirement is that the concept of retirement didn’t really exist in biblical times. In a largely agrarian society with a lower life expectancy, people did not have the opportunity or expectation to retire. Numbers 8:23-26 is the one direct reference. It specifically says that the Levites working in the tabernacle were to retire at 50. As we’ll see, it was not what we typically think of as retirement. The Bible also has plenty so say about work, service, and personal conduct which is applicable during retirement.

As we saw in Chapter 1, retirement is largely a modern invention. That makes it unlikely that there would be much to say about retirement when the Bible was written. Today, we have both a societal expectation of retirement and the financial wherewithal for many people to live their later years without needing to make money. There were rich people in biblical times, however, that did not have to work. We will look at what the Bible has to say about how they were to live their lives and how that may apply to retirement.

Christian theologians and scholars don’t have a lot to say about retirement, but what most seem to say can be simplified to a single word—don’t. John Piper is a prominent theologian and author who wrote a small book on retirement titled, Rethinking Retirement: Finishing Life for the Glory of Christ. In that book he said, “O God, don’t let me waste my final years! Don’t let me buy the American dream of retirement—month after month of leisure and play and hobbies and putzing around in the garage and rearranging the furniture and golfing and fishing and sitting and watching television. Lord, please have mercy on me. Spare me this curse.” [i] Ben Witherington, III, a professor and theologian, in a similar vein wrote, “Take, for example, the myth that our lives should involve a period of work, which, if done well, then entitles us to retirement, maybe even early retirement! Where exactly is the notion of retirement found in the Bible? Nowhere!” [ii]

I don’t disagree with either of them theologically, but I also don’t find their statements particularly useful. Most of us will retire, at least in the sense that we will stop working to make money. We live in a time when we can retire and many of us even will be forced into doing so by job requirements or changes in the job market. Retirement as a phase of life is not the theological problem. Instead, the issue is what we do during that period in our lives. As you might expect, we can find good answers by looking at what God has to say in the Bible.

AGES IN THE BIBLE

 Before diving into what the Bible says about retirement, we need to spend a little time discussing the long lifespans of people in the first eleven chapters of Genesis as well as later in the Bible. There are some things we can glean from how people lived in biblical times to retirement in our day. First, let’s look what the Bible has to tell us. Adam lived 930 years and his son Seth was born when he was 130. Adam had other sons and daughters after Seth (Genesis 5:3-5). He by no means lived the longest lifespan as Methuselah is recorded to have lived 969 years (Genesis 5:27). At 182 years, Lamech became the father of Noah and said, “This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the LORD has cursed” (Genesis 5:29). Lamech was lamenting his work and looking for rest at 182! Noah was 600 when the Flood started and it seems he built the ark in his 500s (Genesis 7:6). People in the early chapters of Genesis may have lived a lot longer than we do today, but they did not spend their old age in retirement.

Not long before the flood, Genesis 6:3 gives some indication that God would limit human lifespan to 120 years. That number was not a hard cap, however, as the patriarchs lived longer. Abraham lived to 175 (Genesis 25:7), Isaac to 180 (Genesis 35:28), and Jacob to l47 (Genesis 47:28). By the time we get to Moses, 120 years (Moses lifespan) was basically the maximum, much as it is today. The Bible records one exception as Jehoiada, a Godly priest of the Kingdom of Judah, lived to 130 (2 Chronicles 24:15).

Average life expectancy, however, was much lower, in part because of high infant mortality. In Jesus day, average life expectancy was in the thirties or forties. If you made it to adulthood, you could expect to live to your fifties, sixties, or even seventies. Some people, however, lived longer. For example, the prophetess Anna is described as very old at 84 years of age when she was present as Jesus was presented to the Lord as a baby (Luke 2:37). Interestingly, it says she spent her time in the “temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers.” For the purposes of this chapter, and this book, we can consider living to 100 as an accomplishment worthy of being on a jar of Smucker’s Jelly. And, living to 120 will make you the oldest person on the planet for a couple of years. Even if someone only lives to Anna’s age of 84, statistics indicate will have spent over 20 of those years in retirement.

RETIREMENT EXAMPLE OF THE LEVITES

During the forty years the Israelites spend wandering in the wilderness, Moses records the only direct reference to retirement in the Bible. It is in Numbers 8:23-26 and says,   

Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “This is what applies to the Levites: from twenty-five years old and upward they shall enter to perform service in the work of the tent of meeting. But at the age of fifty years they shall retire from service in the work and not work anymore. They may, however, assist their brothers in the tent of meeting, to fulfill an obligation, but they themselves shall do no work. In this way you shall deal with the Levites in their obligations.”

When God gave these instructions to Moses, the Levites were working in the tabernacle, as this was a considerable amount of time before the temple was built. The tabernacle was a tent surrounded by a large outer set of walls. Exodus 26 and 27 describes it in detail. The outer portion of the tabernacle was 75 by 150 feet (50 cubits by 100 cubits). The inner section was 15 by 45 feet and 15 feet tall. The furnishings housed in it were made of wood and various metals and would have been heavy. The ark of the covenant itself weighed hundreds of pounds and had to be transported via poles carried on the shoulders of some of the Levites. The tabernacle was not a camping tent with a few camping chairs inside that could be folded up and thrown into the back of a pickup truck!  

The Bible also describes the duties of the Levites in great detail. Their duties included the tearing down, transporting, and erecting of the tabernacle and its furnishings as was necessitated by the wandering of the Israelites. The fabrics, timbers, and furniture that needed to be transported and assembled were substantial. Different groups of Levites (Gershonites, Merarites, and Kohathites) had specific responsibilities in that process. The physical requirements were different for the different groups, but they all included strenuous labor. I remember watching a circus tent go up not far from my house when I was growing up. It required big ropes, strong men, and lots of work. Putting up the tabernacle in a new location would have been at least that difficult as they had to work with heavier materials without the help of motors and vehicles.

Beyond the labor required for moving the tabernacle, slaughtering large animals for sacrifice was not an easy task. Sacrificing birds and grain would have been easy. Rams and bulls, however, were a different matter. It would have taken strength and endurance during festivals when many animals where sacrificed. Given the heavy manual labor involved, it is understandable that older Levites would have taken on less physical work.

With that background on the Levites and their responsibilities in the tabernacle, let’s now unpack the passage in Numbers 7. The word in verse 25 that is translated as retire in some translations, such as the NASB, is shub. In other Bible versions it is translated as cease, stop, or withdraw. Shub is a very common verb in the Old Testament that occurs over 1,000 times. At its simplest, it means to return, restore, or go back.

In verse 25, the word translated as service is tsaba is a military term most often used regarding service in the army and indicates hard service. The Hebrew word translated as work is abodah, which means to labor or serve. This is not the same word translated as work (melakah) in the Genesis creation account. In verse 26, the word translated as assist is sharath, which means to minister or serve. The emphasis seems to be on stopping the strenuous work, not necessarily on less strenuous work of assisting or serving the Levites under 50.

Regardless of the exact translation, it is clear that Levites are no longer to do the strenuous work in the tabernacle. They are, however, to assist the younger Levites. The passage does not say exactly how they are to assist. It is not difficult to imagine what that assistance might have been, possibly things like acting as a mentor to the younger Levites, praying for them, and training them in how to carefully administer the sacrifices and care for the tabernacle.

The biggest take away to me is that God is acknowledging capability changes as the Levites aged and the resulting roles they should play. He is not, however, saying that they should no longer serve. It doesn’t mean stop working entirely but acknowledges that physically demanding jobs should not be carried out as the Levites age. The important question for us is how do we apply this to our lives and our retirement? We should expect what we can do to change as we age. This is obviously true in physically demanding jobs. Some people move into management where the demands become less physical, but not everyone is able or wants to do that.

In my case, my job was not strenuous other than possibly traveling. I spent my time typing on a computer, answering emails, and going to meetings. I did find that my work became harder as I aged. For example, my ability to multitask and jump from one task to another was not as good as when I was younger. Albert C. Brooks looks at that issue in his secular book, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. The essence of is book is that as we age, our strengths change from quick thinking to wisdom. He makes the case that rather than lamenting the change we should lean into it. That may well mean changing our jobs or at least our roles in our jobs. The book is well worth reading to help understand what is happening to us in our careers as we age.

Whether we face physical or mental changes in our careers, we will need to adapt to them. That may mean changing jobs. Or, it may mean what we consider retirement. As we shall see, that is not the same as no longer working.

OLD AND GRAY OR YOUNG AND NOT SO GRAY

Much of what we looked at so far about retirement has been as a function of aging and it may be easy to get discouraged. It may almost feel like we are being “put out to pasture” as we age. Psalm 71 is sometimes thought of as the lament of an old person, possibly David. The last few verses, however, show hope and praise. The writer says in verses 17-18, “O God, You have taught me from my youth and I still declare Your wonderous deeds. And even when I am old and gray, God, do not abandon me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, your power to all who are to come.” The writer is not looking to kick back when old and gray, but to continue telling the world about the God he worships. It sounds rather like he plans to teach and mentor the next generation. We were created to serve God through our work and that does not go away because we age. However, as with the Levites, we probably won’t do the same work as when we were younger.

Retirement is often thought of as synonymous with old, or at least somewhat old, age. That is, however, changing. Many people retire before they are old, by any definition of old. The average age of retirement in the US is 61 and many people are retiring well before then. The FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement has gained real traction. The basic tenants of the movement are to maximize savings, reduce expenses, and invest to create passive income streams. Once you have done enough of those things, you can afford to retire.

The challenges that someone retiring in their thirties or forties are not unlike those of people retiring at a more “normal” age. They are likely, however, to be even more pronounced when someone retires before their physical or mental capabilities begin to change. Financial wherewithal is good, but it does not in and of itself provide meaning or purpose to someone’s life.

Other people face early retirement not by choice, but because of health problems or being laid off. Being forced to retire is often even more difficult than retiring early by choice, even if the financial aspects are not the big issue. The fact that God created us to work is true regardless of someone’s age, health, or job status.  

A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

In discussing this book, a friend asked me the following question, “If someone received a substantial, unexpected inheritance, what should their work look like?” It was a challenging question that I had not considered. It is, however, central to understanding retirement. Keller sees work as an inherent need for all of us, beyond that of simply making money. If the hypothetical person receiving the inheritance no longer needed to work for the money, that person would still need to work in some way to fulfill their purpose as God’s image bearer.

The newly rich person could choose to kick back and do what they feel like doing. They could sleep late, play pickleball, read, or whatever struck their fancy. Many lottery winners do just that and find out that instant money doesn’t buy them the happiness they expected. The lives of the “idle rich” also show that having plenty of money is not the panacea we might imagine.

The Bible addresses the pitfalls of being rich. One such passage is in Paul’s letter to his younger protégé, Timothy. In 1 Timothy 6:18-19, Paul tells him to instruct the rich “to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” There is nothing in there about taking it easy and enjoying life. (We’ll look more at leisure in Chapter 4.) Instead, they are to do what we are all called to do.

It may not seem like it to us, but if we are able to retire, we are rich. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to be careful about how we spend our money, but not having to work is one reasonable definition of being rich. Paul’s words seem like good instructions for retirement. For that matter, they are good instructions for life.

NO MAGICAL LINE

The key is that there is no magical line between working and retirement, no change in God’s expectations for our lives. The main difference is our greater financial wherewithal and available. If we retire at an older age, our changing physical and mental capabilities, as was the case with the Levites, may be another difference. Regardless, God created us to work and do good works.

William Lane Craig, a contemporary theologian, attempted to answer the question whether it is wrong to retire. His response is a bit lengthy, but I’ve included most of it here as it is worth considering. He said,

Jesus said, “We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day; night comes, when no one can work” (John 9.4). He clearly intended that as his disciples we should be engaged in the Lord’s work as long as we can, until the end comes. It would be unthinkable that we should devote the final years of our lives to the pursuit of pleasure and relaxation. So if we are able to retire from earning an income because we have planned carefully for our final years, so as to carry our own expenses and not burden our children financially, nevertheless we never step back from a life of discipleship, but take up our cross daily to follow Christ. We should look for ways in which to do the Lord’s work. Of course, ill health may severely restrict what we can do; but what we must not do is substitute pleasure-seeking or a leisure lifestyle for following Jesus. It's so easy to let the world squeeze us into its mold. We often unthinkingly accept the mores of the culture around us without even realizing it. The Western ideal of retirement is precisely one such unbiblical assumption.”[iii]

Craig is right to contrast pleasure and relaxation with work. There is a place for both, and the amount of each will differ at points in our life. Work never ceases to part of being created in God’s image. The key in retirement is that we may no longer need to earn money to live, so what form that work takes on can change. Coupled with the extra time often available when we retire, we are able to work in a much wider variety of ways.

He also raises an important point about disabilities, in retirement or any age. Much of what we covered on retirement and work has not taken that into account. While the opportunities for work may well be more limited for someone with a disability, that does not mean they will not find meaning in work. Where I live there is a coffee shop named Esteamed Coffee. It provides work for people with disabilities. Its goal is not just for them to make some money, but to provide the esteem that comes from doing work. So too, Anna the prophetess in Luke was “very old,” but was able to continue to work for the Lord through fasting and prayer.

How we live in retirement is arguably no different from how we should have always lived our lives. The big changes are that making money is no longer the priority it once was and we have more time available. That means the freedom to spend our money and time on God’s work.

Retirement is an amazing opportunity to restart your life.

UNPAID WORK

It is important to understand that work is not defined by being paid. Today, we often think of work coming with a paycheck. Adam and Eve were not paid for their work in the Garden of Eden. It is not even clear that tending the garden was necessary for them to eat and survive. Lots of important work may well not be paid work. I defy anyone to claim that what a housewife or caregiver does is not working. The same is true of charity work or serving in our local churches.

Once the need to make money is not a driving concern, the kind of work we can do for God expands greatly. Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a professor and author who makes some excellent points in this regard. He says, “We have callings in different realms—the workplace, yes, but also the family, the society, and the church. Someone who is retired may no longer be in the workplace, but he may still pursue his callings as a grandfather, a concerned citizen, and perhaps as an elder in his church. Some people find their callings in spheres other than the workplace—a woman who refuses a job so she can devote herself to her children; the independently wealthy man who does not need to work, so he devotes himself as a citizen to philanthropy; the elderly shut-in who devotes her energy, as a Christian, to prayer.” [iv]

One area of work that increases in importance and possibility once we retire is that of service. Again, the example of Anna the prophetess in Luke is instructive. She was a widow, probably of limited means, but she had the time to serve the Lord through prayer and fasting.

There are many Bible verses extolling the virtues of serving the Lord through other people. Proverbs 19:17 teaches, “He who is gracious to a poor man lends to the LORD, And He will repay him for his good deed.” Jesus says in Matthew 25:40, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.” He also says in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve…” We are called to serve others. Once we retire, we have may more time to do so.

That service is not limited to serving others at church or other charities, it includes serving our families. Veith describes to range of service work those of us with time can do. He explains, “The unemployed, the idle rich, and the retired can find ways of serving their neighbors. Those who do not have jobs are still members of a family. Even those without spouses or children generally have parents or siblings, if they are still alive, or at least cousins and other members of an extended family. They have a nation and a citizenship to which they have been called. If they are Christians, they have a church.” [v]

Another thing to keep in mind is that as we age, our capabilities may change. There are no guarantees that we will have good health as we age. God understands that and what He expects us to do may change. One corollary of that fact is that our greatest ability to serve is probably early in our retirement.

NEXT STEPS

In light of all of this, the next few chapters will look at some specific areas of our lives we need to consider when we are retired. One area that we need to examine more closely is that of leisure. God intends for us to rest (and we often need more of it as we age), but is leisure the best way to get that rest? We will explore that in the next chapter. Then, in Chapter 5, we will try to understand the dangers of idleness. In Chapter 6, we’ll pull all this together to try and understand what God’s general and specific purposes are for us in retirement.

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[i] John Piper, Rethinking Retirement: Finishing Life for the Glory of Christ. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books). Kindle edition, 28.

[ii] Ben Witherington, III, Work: A Kingdom Perspective on Labor. (Chicago: Eerdmans, 2011). Kindle edition, loc. 100.

[iii] William Lane Craig, “Is It Wrong to Retire?” Talbot School of Theology Faculty Blog, February 2026, https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2026/is-it-wrong-to-retire.

[iv] Gene Edward Veith, Jr., God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books). Kindle edition, 47-48.

[v] Veith, 58.