INTERACTIVE TEACHING/LEARNING GUIDE
Until He Comes – Week 22
Session Title: Work Responsibly
Focal Passage: 2 Thessalonians 3:6-18
Central Teaching/Learning Aim: Today learners will identify ways in which they can exhibit a Christian work ethic at their places of employment.
I. Hook
A. WALL-E
Start: 40:19
Stop: 43:55
Synopsis: The earth has been abandoned because of all the garbage and rubbish, and a little robot named WALL-E is left to clean it all up. In the course of the movie WALL-E is transported to a spaceship named Axiom where all of earth’s inhabitants live. All of the people are being served – they do not have to work. They have lived this way for so long they are unable to do anything for themselves.
In this clip WALL-E first meets the passengers of Axiom.
WALL-E, Walt Disney Pictures, Produced by Jim Morris, Directed by Andrew Stanton, 2008.
Ask – What message are the writers of this movie trying to communicate about work?
State – In our Bible study today we will find that sometimes the work ethic of believers was bad even in the first century. Paul goes so far as to say, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat!”
B. Optional Method – Traditional Proverb
State – A traditional proverb states:
“God gives the birds their food, but he doesn’t throw it into their nests.”
Ask – What might be the meaning of this proverb?
State – In our Bible study today Paul tells us that it is important that we work. He goes on to say, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat!”
C. Optional Method – We Work Hard So You Don’t Have To
Ask – What is your least favorite job to do around the house?
State – Some of you may think that cleaning the toilet is a terrible job! Check out this commercial and listen for what it says about hard work.
Location: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knaAlZe_ugM
Ask – What was the message about hard work?
State – In our lesson today Paul says that he worked hard and that we should follow his example.
D. Optional Method – Career Day
Early in the week ask one or two folks from your class to wear their “work clothes” and bring some of the “tools of their trade” to class. Someone who works in the medical field might wear a lab coat and bring a stethoscope. A construction worker might bring a hard hat. A teacher could bring some textbooks. Ask these volunteers to be prepared to take two or three minutes to share about their jobs. (Special note: there may be people in your class who are out of work or who are physically unable to work. Be especially sensitive to this possibility so as not to offend any class member.)
State – In today’s lesson we will learn that our jobs are more than “necessary evils” that are required to feed ourselves and our families. They are opportunities to serve as examples for others.
E. Optional Method – “Russell Crowe Takes His Work Ethic behind the Camera”
Share the following excerpts from The Detroit News:
Russell Crowe Takes His Work Ethic behind the Camera
He may be world famous and a millionaire many times over, but Russell Crowe still feels very grounded in his approach to making movies.
"I've always had a very simple, working-class attitude towards the job," he says over the phone from San Francisco, where he's promoting "The Water Diviner," his feature directorial debut.
"I guess it's the way that I got brought up, man. My mum and dad always made it very clear to me growing up that people had to work for a living.
Tom Long, “Russell Crowe Takes His Work Ethic behind the Camera,” The Detroit News, April 23, 2015.
Ask – Do you think that Americans today have the same kind of admirable work ethic as previous generations? What causes you to think that?
State – In our Bible study today we will find that sometimes the work ethic of believers was bad even in the first century. Paul goes so far as to say, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat!”
II. Book
A. Write the following outline on the marker board:
1. The Undisciplined Life. (2 Thessalonians 3:6)
2. The Example of the Missionaries. (2 Thessalonians 3:7-9)
3. Do What Is Right. (2 Thessalonians 3:10-15)
B. Utilize the discussion guide to examine the Scripture passages.
III. Look
A. Provide copies of the “Diligence vs. Negligence” handout. Work through it with your class.
IV. Took
A. Do All for the Glory of God
State – In his book, Illustrations of Bible Truth, Harry Ironside relates the following story:
When I was a boy, I felt it was both a duty and a privilege to help my widowed mother make ends meet by finding employment in vacation time, on Saturdays, and other times when I did not have to be in school. For quite a while I worked for a Scottish shoemaker, or “cobbler,” as he preferred to be called, an Orkney man, named Dan Mackay. He was a forthright Christian and his little shop was a real testimony for Christ in the neighborhood. The walls were literally covered with Bible texts and pictures, generally taken from old-fashioned Scripture Sheet Almanacs, so that look where one would, he found the Word of God staring him in the face. There were John 3:16 and John 5:24, Romans 10:9, and many more.
On the little counter in front of the bench on which the owner of the shop sat, was a Bible, generally open, and a pile of gospel tracts. No package went out of that shop without a printed message wrapped inside. And whenever opportunity offered, the customers were spoken to kindly and tactfully about the importance of being born again and the blessedness of knowing that the soul is saved through faith in Christ. Many came back to ask for more literature or to inquire more particularly as to how they might find peace with God, with the blessed results that men and women were saved, frequently right in the shoe shop.
It was my chief responsibility to pound leather for shoe soles. A piece of cowhide would be cut to suit, then soaked in water. I had a flat piece of iron over my knees and, with a flat-headed hammer, I pounded these soles until they were hard and dry. It seemed an endless operation to me, and I wearied of it many times.
What made my task worse was the fact that, a block away, there was another shop that I passed going and coming to or from my home, and in it sat a jolly, godless cobbler who gathered the boys of the neighborhood about him and regaled them with lewd tales that made him dreaded by respectable parents as a menace to the community. Yet, somehow, he seemed to thrive and that perhaps to a greater extent than my employer, Mackay. As I looked in his window, I often noticed that he never pounded the soles at all, but took them from the water, nailed them on, damp as they were, and with the water splashing from them as he drove each nail in.
One day I ventured inside, something I had been warned never to do. Timidly, I said, “I notice you put the soles on while still wet. Are they just as good as if they were pounded?” He gave me a wicked leer as he answered, “They come back all the quicker this way, my boy!”
“Feeling I had learned something, I related the instance to my boss and suggested that I was perhaps wasting time in drying out the leather so carefully. Mr. Mackay stopped his work and opened his Bible to the passage that reads, “Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
“Harry,” he said, “I do not cobble shoes just for the four bits and six bits (50c or 75c) that I get from my customers. I am doing this for the glory of God. I expect to see every shoe I have ever repaired in a big pile at the judgment seat of Christ, and I do not want the Lord to say to me in that day, ‘Dan, this was a poor job. You did not do your best here.’ I want Him to be able to say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”
Then he went on to explain that just as some men are called to preach, so he was called to fix shoes, and that only as he did this well would his testimony count for God. It was a lesson I have never been able to forget. Often when I have been tempted to carelessness, and to slipshod effort, I have thought of dear, devoted Dan Mackay, and it has stirred me up to seek to do all as for Him who died to redeem me.
Harry Ironside, Illustrations of Bible Truth, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1945), 37-39.
Ask – What was Mr. Mackay’s attitude toward work? How does that compare with our attitude toward work? What do you need to change this week to conform our attitudes to the teaching of Paul?
Close in prayer, asking that God help us maintain a good attitude about our work.
B. Work for a Living
Ask – So, what is Paul saying about “working for a living?” What are some specific life applications that we see in today’s lesson?
State – Listen to the following ideas about work. Which ones need your attention?
1. Do your job with excellence. Look for ways to improve.
2. Look for ways that you might help your boss or the company you work for.
3. Do more than what is expected.
4. Set a limit on the amount of time that you will do personal tasks while at work.
5. Look for things that you like about your job.
6. Make a list of daily “time wasters” and eliminate them from your daily tasks.
7. Do your best work even with the circumstances are difficult.
8. Give an honest day’s work to your employer.
9. Do your best even when no one is looking.
State – This is what I would ask you to do. Choose one or two of these applications and put them to practice in your workplace this week.
Close in prayer, asking that God remind us of these commitments that we have made.
DISCUSSION GUIDE
Teacher Copy
1. According to Paul, whom should we avoid? (2 Thessalonians 3:6)
[Paul says that we should avoid believers who are idle and do not follow Paul’s teaching.]
2. In whose name does Paul make this command? (2 Thessalonians 3:6)
[Paul makes this command in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.]
3. Why do you think that Paul felt it important that we not associate with these idle, lazy people?
4. Paul described his work habits while he lived in Thessalonica. How did he describe his example? (2 Thessalonians 3:7-8)
[Paul says that he was not idle. He did not eat the food of others without paying for it. He worked night and day so that he would not be a burden on others.]
5. What does this mean for those of us who are in the work force? Out of work right now? Retired?
6. Why did Paul work so hard and pay for his own food? (2 Thessalonians 3:9)
[Paul worked so hard so that he might be a good example for the believers at Thessalonica.]
7. What was Paul’s rule? (2 Thessalonians 3:10)
[The rule Paul stated was “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”]
8. What three things had Paul heard? (2 Thessalonians 3:11)
Paul heard that some:
a. Were idle
b. Were not busy
c. Were busybodies
9. What was Paul’s command to these people? (2 Thessalonians 3:12)
[Paul commanded these people to settle down and earn the bread they eat.]
10. What encouragement did Paul give the brothers? (2 Thessalonians 3:13)
[Paul said, “Never tire of doing what is right.”]
11. How should we react to people who do not obey these instructions? (2 Thessalonians 3:14-15)
[Paul said that if someone does not obey the instructions of the letter that the other believers should take note of him and should not associate with him. They should not treat him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.]
12. How should a believer respond to another believer who does not work and support his/her family?
13. How does all of this apply to someone who has a job and is a good provider?
DISCUSSION GUIDE
Student Copy
1. According to Paul, whom should we avoid? (2 Thessalonians 3:6)
2. In whose name does Paul make this command? (2 Thessalonians 3:6)
3. Why do you think that Paul felt it important that we not associate with these idle, lazy people?
4. Paul described his work habits while he lived in Thessalonica. How did he describe his example? (2 Thessalonians 3:7-8)
5. What does this mean for those of us who are in the work force? Out of work right now? Retired?
6. Why did Paul work so hard and pay for his own food? (2 Thessalonians 3:9)
7. What was Paul’s rule? (2 Thessalonians 3:10)
8. What three things had Paul heard? (2 Thessalonians 3:11)
Paul heard that some:
a.
b.
c.
9. What was Paul’s command to these people? (2 Thessalonians 3:12)
10. What encouragement did Paul give the brothers? (2 Thessalonians 3:13)
11. How should we react to people who do not obey these instructions? (2 Thessalonians 3:14-15)
12. How should a believer respond to another believer who does not work and support his/her family?
13. How does all of this apply to someone who has a job and is a good provider?
Diligence vs. Negligence
Read each passage of scripture and list attributes of diligent persons and negligent persons.
Scripture / Diligence / NegligenceProverbs 10:4 (NIV)
4 Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.
Proverbs 12:11 (NIV)
11 He who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment.
Proverbs 12:24 (NIV)
24 Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in slave labor.
Proverbs 13:4 (NIV)
4 The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.
Proverbs 14:23 (NIV)
23 All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
Proverbs 20:13 (NIV)
13 Do not love sleep or you will grow poor; stay awake and you will have food to spare.
1. Summarize in one sentence Solomon’s teaching about work.