“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Growing Dominion, Part 105
“He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster” (Prov. 18:9).
This passage illustrates well the nature of sins of omission. When someone vandalizes something, we can readily see that this is a species of mindless theft. The thief takes something away, but he does not take it away for himself—he just takes it away from everyone by destroying it. In a similar way, when an employee is slothful in his work, he is destroying his employer’s time. This is a form of stealing, and the fact that many workers don’t think of it this way does not lessen the destructiveness of what is happening. This passage says that work not done, which could and should have been done, is tantamount to destroying that same work if done by somebody else. Let us say that one employee is goofing off, arriving late, and wasting time in pointless conversation. Over time, this amounts to one widget not being made that otherwise would have been made. (This illustration is occurring in a widget factory.) This text says that such laziness is comparable (“brother to”) taking a widget that an industrious employee actually made, and destroying it. Laziness is simply quiet vandalism, quiet theft.