“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Growing Dominion, Part 87
“In all labour there is is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury” (Prov. 14:23).
Talking about work is all right as preparation for work, but it is no substitute for work. Work is as work does. But we have to distinguish talk that is a lazy drifting away from the point, and talk that is either an essential part of the work, or a social preamble to the work.
For an example of the latter, I have frequently seen heavy equipment operators converge on some project with their equipment, get out, and talk for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then they work like maniacs the rest of the day, and not an eight hour day either. And for an example of the former we should note that talking the right way is part of the work, is a form of work. But precisely because this is so, it is possible for someone whose behavior “tendeth only to penury” [poverty] try to hide what he is actually doing under cover of looking busy.