07/21/20 Ezra’s Discussion: Work hard, with integrity

Who likes when they are assigned group projects?

Why or why not?

What chores do you have to do at home?

Do you try to get your chores done right away, or do you often put off doing them?

How many opportunities do you usually get to earn money? What kind of extra work is available to you and where?

How did you get these opportunities?

(Who you know, referrals from those you have already worked for, someone noticed work you already did)

Have you heard of Kickstarter? What is cool about it, and what is not cool about it? Why is it hard to get excited about buying something that doesn’t exist and isn’t available yet? What helps people to get excited about a product idea? (Showing tangible examples)

How compelling would it be to watch a video of someone on Kickstarter describing an idea and asking you to support them with your money without them even having a drawing, a design or a sample working prototype to show you?

The Bible includes some short verses and bits of wisdom that remind us of things we need to know, and some things that are true that we haven’t fully realized. Do you ever have a hard time paying attention to things? Maybe the book of Proverbs could be a good place to check out and consider some bits of wisdom that were inspired by God. There are 31 chapters in there, so some people like to read a chapter a day, so today they would be reading chapter 21 if they were on that plan, but I want to just read a single verse from chapter 14, verse 23.

“All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”

-Proverbs 14:23 (NIV)

Do you agree with this? Does all hard work bring a profit of some sort? How can this be true? How could it seem questionable?

“Mere talk leads only to poverty”, so how would you imagine this being played out? Describe a scene for me if you were to imagine or write out a skit to illustrate this for the group.

If you were to try to argue against this, what counter examples would you give me? Can you think of an example of someone who merely talks, yet they have earned great wealth from it?

What do you think the application of this proverb could do to help you and me this week, or just in our lives generally? Do you think this proverb is generally pretty good advice?

(Prayer)

-Ezra