Emphasis Preaching Journal

There is much concern about the way our welfare system has developed. It seems to be lending itself literally to encouraging slothfulness in some instances. (We must hasten to note that this is not true in all instances since so many of the recipients are young children and the aged.) People are penalized for getting a minimum wage job because such employment will not bring in as much money as welfare does in most instances. Recipients of welfare are penalized, in fact, when they get minimum wage positions to subsidize their welfare checks. Therefore, they are better off financially not to work at all rather than to seek employment in areas like these. Even as this is written Congress is struggling with the question of how to reorganize the welfare system so that some of these wrongs are corrected and so that people are encouraged to work their way off the welfare system. For it is clear that people with jobs have more self-respect, organize their lives better, and certainly make better contributions to society by working than they would sitting in front of a TV or standing idly on a street corner.

The question of idleness and public welfare had also arisen in the congregation at Thessalonica, and Paul is addressing it in today's text. In this case the idleness had been created by people who had quit their jobs as they waited for Christ's Second Coming. They simply devoted themselves to prayer and devotion and were becoming dependent on the charity of others.

Paul's guidelines found in our text urge such people back to work and productive living, since neither did their idleness give good Christian witness nor prove "useful" to the congregation or society.