“We gave you this rule: The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

Do you know who uttered this statement? Perhaps some rich hypocrite? Or some ingrate who had a job which others would have given their right arm to have? Maybe it’s part of the platform of a major political party?

While you’re mulling that over, the Congressional Budget Office announced the other day that the new health care law was expected to cost a minimum of 2.5 million jobs in the next few years. News like that would have been met with shock and horror and outrage just a few years ago, but not in the America of today. Today, sadly, it is met with applause.

In fact, within hours of this ominous announcement, the spokesman for the President proclaimed this to be good news. The former Speaker of the House concurred, as did the largest and most influential newspaper in America.The gist of their statements was that it is great that people will no longer be forced to work in order to have good health care.

Some days I really don’t recognize the country in which I grew up. When I was a kid and wanted something, I went out and collected pop bottles and turned them in for deposit. When I was older, I delivered newspapers, washed dishes, bussed tables, cooked for a fast food restaurant, and just about anything else you could imagine to make money for the things I wanted.

You see, (cue the mournful violin music) my mom and dad - miserly, pennypinching, greedy, haters of children that they were – taught us kids that you had to put in a honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, that you appreciated and respected your boss, and that you looked at welfare as something you were privileged to contribute to, but only for people down on their luck.

Now, people cheer when they hear that able bodied people will no longer have to work for the things they want and need.

It is madness! It’s akin to the old proverb of eating your seed-corn! Itis self-destructive, it is shameful, and it is dangerous. When will we wake up… I wonder?

Oh, by the way. Were you able to identify the source of the quote? It was the Apostle Paul, and it was given – just like the rest of Scripture – by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Note that it doesn’t say if a man is unable to work, it says if a man is unwilling to work. The idea is that if people are unable, we (Christians) feed them. If they are unwilling, they go hungry. Here is the rest of the quote:

For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord to settle down and earn the food they eat. And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire in doing what is good. II Thessalonians 3:10-13, NIV