Don’t Be Idle MONEY MATTERS
WITH DR. ANDREW LEE Dr. Andrew Lee is professor of English at Lee University. He also serves as a coordinator for Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. He and his wife Esmerelda have three children.
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n one of my favorite novels, As I Lay Dying (1930) by my favorite novelist William Faulkner, an old man named Anse Bundren justifies his laziness by reasoning that once he gets to Heaven, riches and wealth “will be taken from them that have and give[n] to them that have not.” But what does Jesus say in Matthew 25:29? “For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” Anse Bundren actually seems to have it backward, biblically speaking. Yet old Anse and those like him often attribute their poverty to “bad luck.” But as Benjamin Franklin famously wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanac, “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” The harder we work, the “luckier” we get! When I was a kid growing up in the 1970’s, I cannot recall seeing anyone holding a sign on a corner begging money. Rather, I remember a blind man who stood regularly outside the Post Office downtown with a cup of pencils he was selling to make money. This man was obviously and permanently disabled. Today, on countless street corners and interstate on-ramps, there are young, apparently able-bodied men and women holding cardboard signs expecting to be handed money (and this was true for many years before our current pandemic). As Christians, we are instructed to help the poor, the widow, and the orphan—no question about it. But I also believe God wants us to use sound judgment (discernment) and not simply hand over our money indiscriminately to anyone who is panhandling or holding a sign on a corner. Robert D. Lupton has an eye-opening book entitled Toxic Charity: How the Church Hurts Those They Help and How to Reverse It. Lupton has worked for many years with numerous charitable and
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missions-minded organizations, and one of the author’s observations is that “giving to those in need what they could be gaining from their own initiative may well be the kindest way to destroy people.” There is a considerable difference between giving to help people during an immediate crisis (disaster relief, for instance) and regularly giving to the same people who chronically solicit donations. This latter dynamic might actually be “enabling” destructive behaviors such as idleness or substance abuse. In 2 Thessalonians 3:6-7, Paul goes one step further: “Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you.” Surrounding ourselves with idle people may end up infecting us with the same apathy, hopelessness, and sloth. At the very least, we might normalize and legitimize idleness (notice how this sounds nicer than “laziness”). After all, one must wonder why we’ve had a proliferation of aggressive panhandling in cities and towns across America (sometimes turning violent), as well as the ubiquitous people holding cardboard signs at countless intersections. For those reading my column in this magazine, odds are you currently have a job and are working diligently in pursuit of your goals—paying bills, trying to save something for a rainy day, and investing for your retirement. On the other hand, many have become unemployed during this pandemic, and there’s a chance that more may join the jobless ranks unless the pandemic ends in the near future. Let’s encourage those less fortunate, offer godly counsel, and a “hand up” in addition to the occasional “handout.”
