Let’s go to the bee, you sluggards, and learn his ways.
Aristotle, who strolled through the great outdoors and taught
about what he observed, spent several pages describing the bee.
He said the drones were a rather worthless kind of bee, which
could not sting and would not work. The drones almost never left
the hive. In sharp contrast to the drones were “the good working
bees.” These bees gathered the nectar, built the honeycomb, and
defended the hive. Aristotle had a clear preference for these
useful little fellows, describing them in four different places
as “good working.” The word Aristotle used for “good working”
was chrestos (kray STOSS). It came from a verb that meant “to be
useful and productive.” A chrestos house was orderly and well-
kept; a chrestos meal was healthy and tasty. Chrestos people
were decent, honest, and upright. In Scripture, however, the
word chrestos is usually just translated “kind.” If we think of
“kind” as no more than mild and pleasant, we have lost an
important element of the wo