THE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT IN INDUSTRY
LESSON FOR THE JUNIOR CLASSES
STUDY SCRIPTURE:
DEUTERONOMY 24:14-21 EPHESIANS 6:5-9 1 TIMOTHY 6:17-19
Key Verse
“Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses”.
1 Timothy 6:12
INTRODUCTION.
Our lesson today looks at the best way of how to manage ourselves and live lives that are pleasing to God. When we look at history we see man has for many thousands of years tried to control himself. He thinks sometimes that he has found a better way to look after himself and to look after others but all these attempts in many different societies have failed the people living in them. The poor in society have not been treated very well and so God had to find a way and teach men the way to live and prevent abuse and violence to those who are not so privileged and talented. They might be disabled and cannot really work to support themselves and so God has to tell us how to set up a system that will help all of those people.
So we are talking about industry or work and we want to remind all young people that there is a Christian spirit that must be used when we are talking about work and helping others that are not as able to survive as we are. But remember that times change and sometimes people that can look after themselves today might not be able to look after themselves very well because the technology changes, and the kind of work that the society prizes can change. In the distant past in many countries people made a good living pushing handcarts and pulling carts with the help of horses and donkeys. They also used all kinds of hand implements to plough the soil. But times changed and different practices developed so that the skills needed to operate on farms and in factories have changed drastically.
This is important for young people because we are now living in a time when technology has changed drastically the way we work and the kind of jobs we can take. So you will hear people talking about AI technology which if you do not understand you will have a very difficult time to get a job and to get promotions.
So we recommend strongly that all young people must keep up to date with technology and learn the different skills required. Parents and relatives and those in the body of Christ, the church, must assist the young in this endeavour.
God has not left believers in God helpless in the these changing times because He points us in Proverbs for example to the ants, the little lowly creatures, and we are told that the ants are so important that we must look at them and see how they live and how they survive. People who do not look at them and follow their example are called “ sluggards”, a word which means that these people are lazy and not looking after their own interests. The Bible tells us that the ants go around in the summers looking for food, plant and protects their nests, and when times change they adapt to their circumstances and they survive everywhere on earth. The Bible tells us that we have to do the same thing. We must be active, working at all times, learning different skills. Maybe it might be good to have two skills because in the ancient Jewish community apostles like the Apostle Paul had two jobs. He was very educated and could teach but he also was a Tentmaker. He could support himself no matter where he went to preach the Gospel. So no matter where he went in the world to spread the gospel he and his associate missionaries did not have to depend on believers in the churches that were often poor and they could survive.
When you look at Deuteronomy it tells us that God laid down all kinds of laws to protect the poor. When a poor man worked the boss, his employer, had to pay him at the end of the day if he needed money. Employer should not wait until the end of the month to pay him even though that is what we practice sometimes in our modern society. When the poor needed a loan the person lending the poor man the money could not take as collateral (the security or “pledge) his millstone that he used to grind corn and wheat for the poor needed that millstone to make bread for his family to eat. Also, the lender could not take the man’s outer garment as collateral for loans because the man needed that clothes every night from the lender to warm himself when it was cold.
So when you look at Deuteronomy 24 it gives a long list of things that people in Israel had to do to protect the poor
Then we learn from the book of Ruth that Ruth had to go into the fields after the reapers had reaped the crops and take what was left on the the trees and on the grape vines. The farmer could not take everything. He had to leave some things for the poor and that was called “gleaning”. It was the form of support for the poor. In addition, when people borrowed money, the people lending them the money that they needed should not charge interest on the loans. Clearly in the Bible we know that God loved the poor and the helpless and the strangers that lived among the people and God established many rules to protect them.
At the same time the Apostle Paul taught the people in the book of Ephesians and in 1 Timothy 6 that when you worked for an employer you had to work as if you were working for Christ. That means you have to work hard, do a great job, and be sincere even if your employer was not a just person. The Apostle warned that God would reward you and God would deal with those unjust employers who wanted to exploit workers and withhold their pay. God did not like people who underpaid their workers at all and kept all the money for themselves. But we know that in many societies those that are wealthy and powerful often abuse the poor, the widows who had no husband to support them, the orphans, and the strangers. God always had the prophets warn the people who were in leadership against doing those prohibited practices. In fact, if they did those bad things God would send them into exile and destroy their nation, and that is exactly what God did to the people of Israel who were leading the country and who did not behave themselves as God wanted.
So the lesson to us is that we must present a good example to the world. We must work hard to improve our education, improve our skills, do a great job, be a good example to all those people in the world who do not believe in Christ as their Savior. When they see that God will bless us and make us survive they will come to us to ask why we can do what we are doing and then we will have the opportunity to teach them about the Lord Jesus Christ and the redemption and salvation that He brought in person So let us share the message of the Gospel. Let us always show the Christian spirit in our work and at school, in our families, and in our communities and witness to the salvation that the Lord Jesus Christ bought.