The Commandment to Work

Clifford F. Thies

Clifford F. Thies is a professor of economics and finance at Shenandoah University. He can be reached at: cthies@su.edu.

Most people know the story of the grasshopper and the ants as told by the ancient Greek storyteller Aesop.

The grasshopper spent the summer singing instead of gathering food for the winter. Then, when the winter came, the grasshopper begged the hard-working ants for some of their food. The ants replied, “If you spent the summer singing, you will have to spend the winter dancing.”

Nowadays, the idea that those who while away their time should suffer is considered “harsh.” Thus, in one retelling of this story I found at the library, the grasshopper is not turned away by the ants. “Insects look after one another, you see.”

Imagine, then, how modern society must view the Apostle Paul who, time and time again, admonished those in the early church against idleness.

In his first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 4, verse 11, Paul tells them “. . . to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you.”

Paul is reminding them, in this letter, what he had already preached to them.

In his second letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 3, verses 10-12, Paul writes,

For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort, by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own food.

And this is my favorite verse from Paul concerning work. It’s from Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 28.

Let him that stole steal no more but, rather, let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

What is Paul talking about, here, “let him that stole steal no more”? I believe Paul is talking about those who can work, yet who do not work, and, feigning need, “steal” from the charity of the church.

Paul says that instead of being part of the problem, they should be part of the solution.

Paul, you see, was a Jew, and his writing reflects Jewish thinking. In Jewish thinking, there is nothing worse than a “schnorr,” a Jew who could work but chooses instead to live by begging off his fellow Jews knowing that, because of their sense of duty, they almost have to give to him.

They exploit our kindness.

Why is Paul so adamant about work? Is it merely that those who work begrudge sharing the product of their labor with those who don’t work? Or, is it because Paul is concerned for those who don’t work?

To answer this question, we need to go back to the beginning, to the Book of Genesis.

In chapter 3, verses 17-19, we find,

And unto Adam he [God] said, Because thou hast harkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

“Cursed is the ground for thy sake” appears to have a double meaning. First, that the ground was cursed because of man’s sin. Second, that the ground was cursed for the benefit of man.

In completing his work, God commanded man to “fill the earth, and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:28) This means that our work, in subduing the earth, can rightly be described as a continuation of God’s work.

Whenever I fly over this country, and see the pattern of farms and cities, and the ribbons of steel and concrete that are our railroads and highways crisscrossing, I think about this verse, that we are to “fill the earth, and subdue it.”

In the Garden, man worked. But after the fall, work became burdensome. Thereafter, work involved overcoming the burdensomeness of work, and choosing to work became a moral choice.

Work is so important, that it is part of the Ten Commandments.

In Exodus, chapter 20, verses 8-11, we read:

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work; thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy manservant, nor thy cattle, not thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day, wherefore, the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Everybody remembers that we are to rest on the sabbath day, but not everybody remembers that we are to work on the first six days of the week.

In Ecclesiastics, chapter 10, verse 15, Solomon wrote, “The labor of the foolish wearieth every one of them.” And, in verse 18, he wrote “By much slothfulness the building decayeth, and through idleness of the hands, the house dropped through.”

The first verse, “The labor of the foolish wearieth every one of them,” describes a person who continually complains about work. Someone who is continually complaining is hardly worth employing. Such a person makes all of his fellow workers weary.

The second verse, “By much slothfulness the building decayeth, and through idleness of the hands, the house dropped through,” describes a person who neglects the work that is not immediately necessary, as by neglect a building slowly decays. Then, suddenly, the house falls apart.

The Book of Proverbs has many warnings against laziness. In chapter 6, verses 9-11, we read:

How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall thy poverty come like one that traveleth, and thy want like an armed man.

The picture is that a little laziness proceeds, one small step at a time, to dissipate one’s wealth, and that want, when it does come, comes all of a sudden.

In chapter 10, verses 4 and 5, we read:

He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand, but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. He that gathereth in summer is a wise son, but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.

In chapter 13, verse 4, we read, “The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.” In the story of the Prodigal Son, Jesus said, in Luke, chapter 15, verses 11-13:

A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.” And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after that, the younger son gathereth all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

The expression “riotous living” describes a lifestyle not of diligence, but of irresponsibility. The prodigal son dissipated his wealth and wound up impoverished.

In the Parable of the Talents, Jesus quotes a good master speaking to a servant who did not invest the money entrusted to him, “Thou wicked and slothful servant.” (Matthew 25:26)

I see in the ramps we have in public places, and parking spaces we have reserved for the handicapped, something like modern-day miracles. Today, when jobs involve special skills, many people who might have been considered disabled in the past can find a place in society where they can be productive.

I began with Aesop’s Fable of the grasshopper and the ants. Before I conclude, I should mention what the Bible teaches about the Ant.

In the Book of Proverbs, chapter 6, verses 6-8, it is written:

Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise, which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her food in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

What I like about this teaching is that the ant works “having no guide, overseer, or ruler.” With the ant, this is because of instinct. But we, who are human, do not have an instinct to work. If anything, our instinct is to avoid work. For us, having no overseer or ruler, work involves a moral choice.

It is awesome to see the ants of an ant colony busy at work. How do they know what each of them is supposed to do? We say, by instinct.

It is also awesome for me, an economist, to think of Americans, a free people, almost all of us getting up each day and going about our business. Some going here to this job. Some going there to that job. Some moving from one job to another, in a process called “unemployment,” but anybody who has been unemployed knows finding a new job is a job itself. Some who are self-employed, creating jobs for themselves and for others.

How do they know what each of them is supposed to do? We economists say “by the laws of supply and demand.”

Yes, I know, that for many people, the motivation to work is simply that having a job is necessary to pay the rent. And I respect that motivation. But, how much better it would be if people were also motivated by the knowledge that work involves service to others. For someone who understands this, work can truly be said to be love in motion.

When I was at the library to pick up a book of Aesop’s Fables, I noticed another book of stories for children, St. Jerome and the Lion.

St. Jerome is a hero of the early church, a monk most famous for translating the Bible into Latin, at a time when that was the common language of educated people in that area of the world.

According to legend, a lion entered St. Jerome’s monastery, in Bethlehem, looking for someone to pull thorns out of one of his legs. After St. Jerome did this, the lion became his pet. To earn his keep, the lion accompanied the monastery’s donkey when the donkey went out to pasture.

But, one night, the donkey wandered off, and passing merchants took the donkey. The next day, the brothers of the monastery blamed the lion for the donkey’s disappearance. Indeed, they thought the lion had eaten the donkey.

At this point, St. Jerome intervened. The lion, he said, is sorry enough. Let him stay. And, since he must work, and we have no donkey, the lion can take the donkey’s place. Make a harness for him, so he can pull our cart.

And, so, the king of beasts became a beast of burden. He bowed his head, and let the brothers of the monastery strap the harness onto him. Each day, he trotted obediently to the forest, pulling the cart, onto which was piled wood for the monastery’s kitchen fire.

Then, one day, the merchants returned from their trip. When they heard that they had taken the monastery’s donkey, they volunteered not only to return the donkey, but also to donate to the monastery the additional profits they had earned because they had the animal.

At this, St. Jerome said “Thus is our trusted friend, the lion, is proven innocent by a miracle.” And he blessed the merchants and their camels, and they went on their way.

We would like to thank the following people for their generous contributions toward the publication of this journal: H. W. Agnew, The Andersen Foundation, H. G. Bailey, Raymond P. Baldyga, Dirk A. Ballendorf, John G. Barrett, Gordon D. Batcheller, Charles Benscheidt, David A. Brask, Walter I. C. Brent, Thomas Brown, Thomas M. Burt, James R. Cavanaugh, Cliff Chambers, Leo Corazza, John D’Aloia, Robert M. DeLisser, John W. Driscoll, John B. Edge, Richard A. Edstrom, John Gardner, John B. Gardner, Robert Gates, Adrian J. Gerken, Walker D. Goad, Charles V. Greffet, Alene D. Haines, Violet H. Hall, Bernhard Heersink, Norman G. P. Helgeson, William J. Hempel, Jaren E. Hiller, Ronald E. Hoffman, Don Johnson, Michael Kaye, Martin Kellogg, Frank G. Kenski, Robert E. Kersey, Edward B. Kiolbasa, Gerald C. Kline, Thomas F. Kordonowy, Robert M. Kubow, Robert E. Lane, Allyn M. Lay, Robert Lilienfeld, Calvin T. Lucy, Virginia MacLeith, Cary M. Maguire, Lloyd W. Martinson, Curtis Dean Mason, W. K. McLain, Delbert H. Meyer, Dwight D. Murphey, Larry A. Olsen, Daniel D. Payne, Arthur J. Perry, Donald J. Povejsil, Mrs. Frances S. Richardson, W. E. Saunders, George M. Tony Sayre, Irene Schultz, Richard Sega, Richard R. Shank, Joseph M. Simonet, David L. Smith, Douglas W. Smith, Norman Stewart, Ramsey Stivers, Clifford W. Stone, Frank T. Street, Dennis J. Sullivan, George D. Swanlund, Paul B. Thompson, Doug Tice, Dale E. Tripp, Jack E. Turner, Johanna Visser, Eugene & Diane Watson, Robert C. Whitten, Eric Wilson, Lowell M. Winthrop, Rene and Elena Zahnd.