The Christian View of Retirement

There are plenty of Christian retirement plans out there, but is retirement itself actually biblical? The answer depends on your definition of retirement and for Christians, that should be quite different from the world’s.

The world has plenty of expressions for retirement, such as the “golden years,” “hanging up the cleats,” and “getting the gold watch.”

The world’s idea of retirement is saving as much as you can so that someday you can simply stop working. The world sees work as a negative thing, toiling for years under a mean boss so that one day you have enough cash to kiss work good-bye.

But that is not a biblical view of work or retirement. God is our true boss. Colossians 3:24-25 tells us, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”

Work predated the Fall. The Lord put Adam to work in the Garden of Eden and nowhere does the Bible say we can quit our service to Him when we have enough money saved up to live a life of leisure.

Further, God Himself is a worker. In John 5:17, Jesus says, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”

Interestingly, the Bible actually does address retirement one time, but in a very narrow circumstance. Regarding the Levitical priests, Numbers 8:24-25 reads, “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 and not work anymore.”

God’s Word doesn’t tell us why they were to stop their labors, but one thing we can be pretty sure of is that that passage doesn’t apply to us. How then should Christians today think about retirement? It’s helpful to realize that the world’s view of retirement—ceasing all work—is a fairly modern concept.

Before the 20th century people generally worked as long as they could. Then came Social Security and pensions. Retiring at age 65 came to be seen as an entitlement.

For Christians, however, our service to the Lord never ends. The Apostle John was still writing and preaching in his 90s. Second-century pastor Polycarp testified that he had served the Lord “eighty and six years” as he was being martyred. Those are two excellent role models for how we should view retirement.

You may be thinking, “Why are we saving all this money then, if we’re not supposed to retire? The simple answer is, because it’s prudent and a wise use of God’s resources.

People are living longer now than in previous generations. Many of us will reach a point where we are physically unable to work or to work as many hours as we could when younger. We have to prepare for that. Proverbs 21:20 says, “Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling, but a foolish man devours it.”

Of course, that’s prudent for everyone, believer and non-believer. But as Christians, ideally we want to save for the day when we can increase our service to God. Think of it as retiring to something and not just from something.

A good example might be a business person who “retires” and enters the mission field or finds another calling to serve God. Or perhaps your lifelong investing gives you resources later in life to give more generously. The more you have saved from the resources God has entrusted to you, the more time and treasure you can give back to further His Kingdom.

Here at FaithFi, when we use the word “retirement,”we’re definitely not talking about ceasing all work. Our goal is to help people be faithful stewards of God’s money, so they can one day serve Him more fully.

The bottom line is that it’s prudent and entirely biblical to save for the day when you can no longer work as diligently as you do now, but knowing that in some capacity, you want to serve the Lord as long as you can.

You can also listen to the related podcast on this topic.