THE "NEW NORMAL" RELATIVE TO GOVERNMENT PAY OUTS, ENTITLEMENT AND WELFARE ISN'T NORMAL

Man was created to live a life that centered on God, his family and meaningful work (read Genesis, chapters one and two). Any lifestyle that militates against this is unnatural, and physically, mentally and spiritually debilitating. Physical slothfulness, inactivity and a welfare mentality on the part of those who are physically able to work and can find some kind of work is incompatible with any definition of morality and virtue, and is dangerous to everyone concerned.

One reason people should be ashamed of the laziness and readiness that provokes them to take a handout is that they could and should be productive to the degree that they can provide help to those who genuinely are too incapacitated to earn a living for themselves. This is something we should all want to do, whether it involves being able to help someone monetarily or by performing some service for them.

“Let him that stole, steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with

his own hands the thing that is good, that he may have to give to him

that needeth.”

—Eph. 4:28

In spite of Hollywood depictions to the contrary, there’s nothing noble whatsoever about people who choose the life of a hobo, a bum or a street person. And, a welfare scammer is as despicable as any pickpocket, burglar, or any other kind of robber. Ephesians 4:28 teaches that a person should do honest work that allows him to “have” income that he manages well enough that he can not only meet the needs of his own family, but also have at least something that he can “give to him that needeth.” People do well who adjust their lifestyle to their income so as to stay in line with this biblical formula for good financial planning.

There is something sick and shameful in play when people prefer an unemployment or welfare check to working a job. Until recently, Americans almost universally found such concepts as interfamily and intercommunity charity right and normal and such concepts as entitlement, the welfare state and socialism offensive and abnormal. That something terribly sinister has been, and is, in play is obvious now, when great numbers of Americans accept the polar opposite of all this as the “new normal.” It isn’t normal or right, it never has been and it never will be.

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

—John 8:32