Jessa Duggar Criticized For Bragging About Freebie, Not Understanding ‘Pay It Forward’ Concept

Jessa Duggar recently revealed that she was the recipient of a random act of kindness, but the former reality show star is probably regretting her decision to let her Instagram followers know that she and Ben “didn’t pay a dime” for Ben’s morning coffee fix. Instead of commending the kind stranger in Jessa’s Instagram anecdote, many of Jessa’s fans are calling her out for seemingly failing to pay it forward.

Jessa Duggar recently purchased a cup of iced coffee for husband Ben Seewald at a drive thru, and she was pleasantly surprised when she was informed that the person in the car in front of her had paid for her purchase. According to SheKnows, instead of using Instagram to thank the stranger, Jessa Duggar decided to boast about getting the coffee for free and lecture her followers about salvation.

“Went through the drive through to grab a coffee for Ben this morning, and the man in the car in front of us–complete stranger– surprised us by paying for it!” Jessa captioned the photo above. “Sorta made me think of Salvation! It’s offered freely to all those who by faith believe, but only because it was paid for by someone else! However, in the case of Salvation, it wasn’t a small bill to be covered… It cost Jesus everything! We owed a debt we could never repay, and yet in love, He stepped in and paid our debt with His life’s blood. Forever grateful!”

According to some of Jessa Duggar’s Instagram followers, she edited her Instagram post about the coffee incident — Jessa originally bragged about how she and Ben Seewald “drove off without paying a dime.” The Cancel the Duggars Facebook page shared an image of the edited and unedited versions of Jessa’s Instagram post.

Perhaps Jessa decided to delete a portion of her post after numerous Instagram fans pointed out that the man in front of her was likely continuing or trying to start a “pay it forward” chain.

“‘Drove off without paying a dime’?? Aww I’m sad you guys broke the chain!” one of Jessa’s followers wrote. “Typically Christians think to pay it forward.”

“Were you also selfless? Did you pay it forward?” another commented “It’s funny to me how your family excepts (sic) so much from kind people and in return all we get is a lecture about the bible yet again.”

A “pay it forward” coffee chain at a Newington, Connecticut Starbucks made headlines in 2013. According to NBC Connecticut, one kind coffee consumer started a lengthy Christmas Eve chain that last four days and grew to be nearly 1,500 customers long. ABC News reports that another Starbucks patron started a similar chain of 458 customers last August in St. Petersburg, Florida, but a blogger purposely ended the chain. He complained that people were purchasing coffee for others out of guilt, not generosity.

It’s likely that Jessa Duggar simply wasn’t aware of the “pay it forward” concept, so perhaps she deleted her comment about not paying a dime for her hubby’s brew after all that Insta-shaming made her feel a bit guilty about not keeping the chain going.

This isn’t the first time Jessa has lived to regret mentioning the freebies that she gets. According to the Ashley’s Reality Roundup, the former 19 Kids and Counting star was criticized last month when she told her fans that she prefers for them to send her gift cards to Target and Walmart. A post on the Duggar Family Blog said that many Duggar fans had “asked about sending gift cards to the Seewalds,” so Jessa told the blog writer which gifts cards she and Ben would get the most use out of. After the gift card grab was criticized, it was deleted from the blog post.

Jessa Duggar also showed her love for gifts cards last year when she included them on her wedding registry. According to Yahoo! Celebrity, she and Ben Seewald asked for gift cards from a lengthy list of fast food restaurants that included Red Robin, Burger King, Subway, P.F. Changs, and Starbucks. So there’s a chance that Ben’s iced coffee was going to be free even if the stranger in front of them didn’t pay for it.

One of Jessa Duggar’s Instagram followers expressed her concern about Jessa’s love of freebies.

“Its your husband job to provide for you and the family you guys have together. Please encourage Ben to get a job and start working so that I don’t have to see you on social media asking people for things or being verbally attacked.”

However, Ben actually does have a job. According to Jessa’s edited Duggar Family Blog post, he’s still working for Jim Bob Duggar by helping out with the family’s real estate business. Ben eventually plans on becoming a preacher, but for now he and Jessa are sticking to using social media to spread the good word.

If Jessa Duggar plans on helping her husband out by occasionally lecturing his future congregation about salvation, she might want to work on the way she words her uplifting stories.

[Image credit: Jessa Duggar/Instagram]