In a Christian community everything depends upon whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain. Only when even the smallest link is securely interlocked is the chain unbreakable. A community which allows unemployed members to exist within it will perish because of them. It will be well, therefore, if every member receives a definite task to perform for the community, that he may know in hours of doubt that he, too, is not useless and unusable. Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship. (from Life Together p. 94)
In the current economic/political context I need to point out that “employment” is about one’s role in the body, not about earning a wage.
What do you say we do with the unemployed, or the one’s who are unable to survive because of lack of income? Many of the strong don’t help the weak…..even in the Christian “community.” Yet, being honest would say, if I were strong and wealthy, don’t know how much I’d want to help either.