The Lord Jesus taught that when it comes to work, there are only two basic options. You must either gather, or you are scattering (Matt. 12:30). You are either digging a hole, or you are leaning on the shovel (2 Thess. 3:11).
A man who excels in his work is going to stand before kings (Prov. 22:29), which seems fitting. But there is a kind of person who wants the “standing before kings” part, but who doesn’t want the “excelling in the work” part. The fact that someone is averse to work doesn’t keep him from craving the rewards of work (Prov. 13:4). As Iowahawk put it recently in a short parable, “What? Only one pig gets a blue ribbon? More like Iowa State UNFAIR.”
What this should cash out to is a realization that there really are only two kinds of people — makers and fakers. We were created in the image of God, and this creational impulse is therefore duplicated in us. As Tolkien described it, we are sub-creators. God is the Creator, and therefore we are creators. God is the Maker, and so we therefore want to make things.
But God creates ex nihilo, while we fashion things out of pre-existing material. For us to attempt ex nihilo creation is — besides silly — an attempt to supplant God, which was the primal temptation (Gen. 3:5). To create ex materia is to be like God, which was the primal gift (Gen. 1:26).
Everything is complicated by the fact of sin. God cursed the ground because it would not do for grasping sinners to have everything handed to them. Work is now difficult, and we gather our food by the sweat of our brow. The creational impulse is to make; the impulse of the sinner is to be in possession of that which has been made, as though we had made it.
When we accept our charge from God, and set ourselves to true making, to God-honoring work, He promises to bless it. When we set ourselves to shirk, we are asking for poverty to come after us (Prov. 10:4-5). The Bible does not teach that laziness is the only cause of poverty, but it does teach that it is one of the causes of poverty. But being poor (for this reason) does not turn off the desire to posses the fruit of work. This is where the faking comes from.
But in order to fake this, because we cannot create ex nihilo, we have to get the results from somewhere else. This means that the fakery involved with this kind of laziness is right next door to theft. Paul tells the Ephesians who used to steal things to be content and grateful, to get the kind of job that causes calluses, and to share with others (Eph. 4:28). In short, he tells them to stop faking it, and to start making it.
It is no coincidence that our generation suffers under a burden of plagiarizing journalists, confiscatory government, cooked scientific research, and so on. We have lost our understanding of the difference between meum and tuum, and this is because we are listening to the serpent instead of to God. The serpent is the father of liars, which also makes him the father of thieves.
There are only two basic paths — making in Christ, or faking outside of Him. Makers or fakers.