This phrase is used out of context when quoted from the Bible so its content gets misleading. You don’t have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer to understand, “we live in an imperfect world with a huge imbalance of wealth and power.” (quote is from United Bible Societies.)
Let me quickly add this, there’s no such thing as the Middle Class. Only the Have and the Have Not’s are the true classes. The middle class is a manufactured class because it only exists when there’s a need for labor; no need for labor– no growth in the middle class. To build up the middle class there has to be a constant demand for labor and the question is how and by whom.
In the Bible phrase, if you don’t work you don’t eat, (2nd Thessalonians 3:10), unwilling is what everybody misses. This Bible verse doesn’t pertain to you if you cannot work due to physical challenges, bodily diseases, old age, and the greed of employers, but it does imply to those who have a job and won’t do it being a busybody, (2nd Thessalonians 3:11). And in (2nd Thessalonians 3:12), scripture is telling those busybodies to get back to work, do their job, and earn their pay. Unwilling and unable are two different things.
These verses are saying, taking a paycheck for not doing your job — the job you already have, is wrong; going through the motions being busybody’s also defined as obstructionist, is wrong and you should forfeit your pay or don’t eat as describe in the Bible verse that some get a real joy of boasting ignorantly. This type of person who’s working, but unwilling, not unable, but again unwilling to do their job shouldn’t be rewarded as if they did – hello, United States Congress.
The very ones that posture themselves around (2nd Thessalonians 3:10) are the very ones that shouldn’t eat and that’s the Republican House and Senate. They’re the most dysfunctional group of elected officials not to do their job in history. They decided their job was to ruin, damage and wreck the Presidency of the nominated President of the United States, Obama without cause, to be obstructionist/busybodies and troublesome, holding secluded, confidential, and concealed meetings for their strategy of treason from day one — focusing how they were not going to work with the voters choice for the office, which is counter to their job description as elected officials of the U.S. House and Senate, but instead made it their job to try and bring the President of the United States down being in complete opposition, nor being respectful of his position at all costs before he’d even opened his mouth as leader and the most powerful man of the free world — for four, and to their surprise eight years — without one scandal in his administration, but at the cost of America, and why? You fill in the blanks for the reasons, but back to the middle class.
The Middle Class erodes as fast as technology grows. technology is extinguishing the middle class as we once knew it. The labor pools are larger but task orientated jobs are becoming extinct as technology grows, with its progress; camouflaged often as greed. Businesses are amassing huge profits with imbalanced and disproportions of wealth as a norm, while the labor pool grows into an expanded class of Have Not’s. Are they able, unable, or unwilling, either way they’re poor; not working — but should they eat is the question, and who and what has made them Have Not’s? Were they being busybodies, meddlers, hindering accomplishment by pretending but in reality doing nothing, maybe a few but not the majority of this group — but God.
God has a say in this you know. In (Deuteronomy 15:7, 8) He says if people are in need help them, and be generous about it. In (Jeremiah 22:3) He says protect the ones being used and cheated upon like foreigners, orphans, and widows. “Don’t think He forget the Have Not’s whose jobs were snatched from them to go automated or overseas for greed just because it’s not written. These people were cheated.” In (John 3:17) He says rich people who see people in need but don’t help, they’ve got nothing coming from Him. “Many rich people believe the Have Not’s are needy because of their belief and dependence on God instead of themselves.” In (James 2:15,16) He says if people need clothes and something to eat, what good is it to wish him well and you don’t help them with the necessities of life. In (1st Corinthians 10:24) He says our own interest means nothing if we are callus to the interests of others. One more, in (Romans 12:13) He says share your things with people and make them feel at home. “Ain’t America American’s home — with the wealth of America horded because of sheer wantonness by so few?”
These versus don’t sound like punishing the Have Not’s to me. The only verse I saw that had punishment was (2nd Thessalonians 3:11), busybodies accomplishing nothing. For you guys unwilling to do your job and you have one – accomplishing and achieving nothing, you’re the ones who don’t deserve to eat.
Gaidi
