Scriptural reflections on wages

Sadly, there are employers who, although able to pay, "keep back" the wages of their employees. Many who might even call themselves brethren "defraud" their workers by withholding or delaying their wages for perhaps their own personal convenience, perhaps poor management, or perhaps evil intentions. Nevertheless, be reminded that your workers hope for their wages at the time appointed, for they too have lives, and families, expenses, bills to pay, graduations, gifts to buy, medical expenses, offerings of good cheer to give to the Lord, and the list could go on.

Be reminded too that the Lord, in His Word, has strong words for those employers who keep back ("defraud") their employees:

Leviticus 19:13 "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning."

Jeremiah 22:13 "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work."

Malachi 3:5 "And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts."

James 5:4 "Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth."

Matthew 10:10 "... the workman is worthy of his meat."

1Timothy 5:18 "... The labourer is worthy of his reward."Clearly, from Scripture, God is against such practices. From the Scriptures, we also know that one day, those who do such things will stand before God and answer to Him for their behavior (Romans 14:12; 1Peter 4:5).

Far too often I have witnessed the withholding of wages ("defrauding") by local employers and the hardships it creates for those who labor. It is a hard thing to watch as fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, endure the grief of delayed or withheld "paydays," when it is in the power of the employer to give them (Proverbs 3:27).

An added heaviness: that often it is "brethren" who are defrauding "brethren:"

1Corinthians 6:8 "Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren."

1Thessalonians 4:6 "That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified."

There is another "wage" that all men will receive -- the wages of sin (Rom 6:23). Every one of us is guilty of disobedience to God, and one day the wages will be paid to every one who is not found in Christ. God offered His Son 2,000 years ago, and provides us His Son Jesus Christ, by faith, as our "payment" to Him for sin (2Corinthians 5:21). Be wise and turn from sin, and do good and not evil for the Lord is gracious and kind:

2Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."