God has placed us on this earth so we can work, so we can be diligent in carrying out his will. Any failure to be diligent is a serious transgression. Thomas Watson refers to idle people as “Satan’s tennis ball” whom he whacks up and down with temptation until he at last sends them far over the fence. Similarly, Charles Spurgeon compares idle people to a target and Satan to an expert rifleman who rarely misses. He warns, “Idle men tempt the devil to tempt them.”

Idleness is a grave temptation, but so too is diminishing the value in every form of lawful work. God has placed us on this earth so we can live ordinary lives filled with ordinary tasks. It is important to remember that Paul followed his own instruction, laboring with his own hands in the simple vocation of tentmaking, convinced that through such work he was “walking properly before outsiders and being dependent on no one” (4:12). It is more important still to remember that for the first three decades of his life, Jesus was a carpenter, diligently carrying out a simple job, so that when he at last stepped out into public ministry his neighbors asked, “Is not this the carpenter” (Mark 6:3)? There is value and dignity in all labor. We honor and serve God through the simple, beautiful duty of diligence.