No work no eat accdg to the Bible

No Work, No Eat

I heard some men talking recently about an individual that was struggling and how one man wasn’t going to help this person because of a verse from 2 Thessalonians…
“For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” – 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (ESV)

It was true this person wasn’t working and it was because he had recently lost his spouse in an accident. They were completely devastated and had lost their direction in life because so much of their life was wrapped in her spouse. (They were focused on God first but they put themselves the most important to each other after God.) It had only been a few weeks since the spouse’s death so the healing process had hardly even begun when the declaration was made by this man that because they wouldn’t go out and find a job that not only would they not help but the church shouldn’t either.
I really was waiting for God’s Mighty Anvil to come down from Heaven and squash this guy.
Look, the verse is talking about people who are happy, healthy and living off the sustenance of others while being perfectly capable of working to support themselves and their families. Those who are lazy or are “milking the system” to get out of the personal responsibility of life. It is NOT talking about the people who are wounded, hurting, broken, handicapped or otherwise hampered by situations that prohibit them from clearly working to support themselves.

Sure, the person who just lost their spouse could go back to work. That doesn’t mean they were in any mental state to go do so. Compassion and grace is the key in these kinds of situations. There is a big difference between a man or woman whose spouse just died and is so depressed they say they cannot work and (for example) a man who keeps his family living in the apartment of someone else while he spends all day on the couch surfing the internet and occasionally posts some videos that make it appear they’re doing God’s work who won’t go out and get a job. The first should be shown compassion and love. The second should be shown the compassion to say get off your butt and get a job.There is a time for healing in life and sometimes that requires you to not work and focus on becoming as whole again as possible. Don’t be too quick to jump to the conclusion someone should be over something in a week or two. Let God lead you.