Able bodied people must work! 2 Thessalonians 3: 6-13
Go to Work
70 year old Iranian guy running the entire bar and food service
Older immigrant Uber driver “poor people in America have $1000 phones and are fat”
50-something Uber driver, PhD pharmacist, hit by a truck, driving Uber because he can’t sit still.
Where are the native-born Americans? Where are the young people?
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you; not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good. (2Th 3:6-13)
We live now. In the world. Jeremiah, too. Reality check.
My dad’s example. Worked until he got hospitalized for the last time. His workmates all came to see him at the hospital. He worked after he couldn’t stand, getting a security post sitting in his car or chair for hours on end.
Brothers and sisters, unless you have something seriously wrong with you, are retired, or are financially independent, you have to work. You have to provide for your family. That means housing, shelter, education, clothing, and transportation. If you need help, that’s fine. Yeshua told us we will always have the poor, which is also recorded in Torah. We know that some folks need to be helped, but this is more of an incentive for those who can work to do so, in order to help those in need.