{"id":51450,"date":"1999-05-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1999-05-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/evil-of-idleness\/"},"modified":"1999-05-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1999-05-01T00:00:00","slug":"evil-of-idleness","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/evil-of-idleness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evil of Idleness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From a sermon on the poor:<\/p>\n\n<p>&quot;Anyone who would not work should not eat&quot; (2 Thessalonians 3:10). But the laws of Saint Paul are not merely for the poor. They are for the rich as well. We accuse the poor of laziness. This laziness is often excusable. We ourselves are often guilty of worse idleness.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[409],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[4331,4349,4843,5000,5266],"tax_ctp_topics":[378,392,403],"class_list":["post-51450","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-labor","tax_ctp_tags-laziness","tax_ctp_tags-riches","tax_ctp_tags-slothfulness","tax_ctp_tags-wealth"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Evil of Idleness - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/evil-of-idleness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Evil of Idleness - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From a sermon on the poor: &quot;Anyone who would not work should not eat&quot; (2 Thessalonians 3:10). 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