House Rule #14 Teach the Care of Widows (1 Timothy 5:3-8) | Adult Sunday School

I don't know, I was going to try to be in the back there, but I don't care if it's too long. If this is your stand...

I might look right over it. I've vanished from among the children of men.

Everyone utters lies to its neighbor with flatter lips and a double heartless speech.

May the Lord cut off our flattery lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, those who say with our tongue we will prevail.

Our lips are witness, who is master over us?

Because the poor are plundered, because the needy grown,

I will now rise, says the Lord, I will place him in the safety fold which he longs.

The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver if mined in a furnace on the ground, pure if I stand in the

Lord's arms. Saviour of the world,

I will keep them, you will guide us from this generation.

For every sight the wicked prowl, this vileness is exalted among the children of men.

I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn and have not let my foes rejoice over me.

O Lord my God, I cry to you, and you have healed me,

O Lord, you have brought up my soul from she -oil.

You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pier.

Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name, for his anger is but for a moment and his favours for a lifetime.

Weeping we tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

As for me, I stand in my prosperity, I shall never be healed.

By your favour, O Lord, you made my mountains stand strong.

You healed my face, I was dismayed.

To you, O Lord, I cry, and to the

Lord I plead for mercy. What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pier?

Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?

Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me.

O Lord, be my helper. Amen.

I shall go off and put me in the fire. I'll sing your praise, and I'll be silent.

O Lord, my Lord, give thanks.

Give thanks. Blessed is the one whose sins

I overcome, whom God has sheltered deep within his grace.

Good morning, everyone. Let me try that again.

Good morning. How are we doing there? It's good to see each one of you here this morning. And, of course, congratulations are in order for each one of you, because each one of you has, in 2022, successfully sprung forward.

Just think of it. You're sitting here all over this country this morning. People are waking up and looking at their watch or their clock and going, oh, no, and having to then spring out of bed or spring out the door.

But it is good to see each one this morning. And we are going to return to our study in 1

Timothy to 1 Timothy chapter 5 this morning. There are some outlines, as usual, either back on the back countertop there or right back here.

If you raise your hand, maybe someone could even hand one to you. But they are there for you to follow along as we study chapter 5, verses 3 through 8 this morning.

House rule number 14, teach the care of widows. Very important part of our study through 1

Timothy. Let's commit our time to our Lord and ask His blessing this morning on our study.

Our Father, it is by Your grace that we are able to gather here this morning. We know that.

We acknowledge that, and we praise You for it. We pray now that by Your Spirit You would guide us through Your word, that You would show us what

You would have us learn this morning, that You would apply it to our lives, change us, help us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And we will always praise You for that. In Christ's mighty name, amen.

If you were to conduct your own man on the street interview and ask random people their opinion about the

Old Testament of the Bible, now certainly you would get a range of opinions, but you would probably have a fair amount of people who would have a rather negative opinion of the

Old Testament of the Bible, and especially the part called the law. Even if they have some sort of a belief system or some kind of a connection to historic biblical

Christianity, oftentimes, even in those circles, you hear people speak about the

Bible as if there's almost two different gods, one for the Old Testament, one for the

New Testament. Now, for that group of people, the God of the Old Testament is often considered harsh, unloving, judgmental, advocating even slaughter and genocide at times.

You know, He gave that law, that oppressive set of commandments that are unkind and intolerant.

But the New Testament God to some of those people is the loving, gentle, tolerant

God, the God who stretched His arms wide in love to encompass all of humanity, to bring all people together in peace and harmony because after all, we all are

God's children. Now, we would recognize that kind of opinion is based probably on ignorance, even unbelief, and more than likely a combination of those two things.

Now, if the people making those comments were to actually study the Bible, including the

Old Testament, they would quickly realize that there is only one God, and He is unchanging in His nature, unchanging in His being, and the same

God of the New Testament is the God of the Old Testament. They may be also surprised that the law of God, which does contain strict moral, ceremonial, and social laws and regulations for the nation of Israel, also has woven through it laws that reveal

God's heart of compassion for people, and especially for people who are in need and cannot help themselves, people like the sojourners or the

Levites, orphans, and widows. Sojourners, people who are simply passing through a land.

They are travelers with no property rights, so they have very little with them. The Levites, of course, the priestly tribe with no inheritance in the land who also needed support.

And then, of course, orphans, those with no parents, and the next category, widows, women who are, the old word, bereft of support.

And we also see in Scripture, going clear back to the Old Testament, that those categories of people have a special place in God's heart and in the ministry of his people, at least they are supposed to.

We can go clear back to the giving of the law in Exodus 22, verses 21 through 24, where God said to the nation of Israel, You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me,

I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows, and your children fatherless.

The giving of the law, the care and concern for these groups of people, is clearly very important to God, and the penalty is also severe.

Later on, in the second giving of the law, Deuteronomy 10, 17 through 22,

God says, For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome

God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.

Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the

Lord your God, you shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear.

He is your praise, he is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.

Your fathers went down to Egypt, 70 persons, and now the Lord your

God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven. In other words, you and the entire nation were sojourners, the person who has come out of their native land and is traveling.

You were traveling in Egypt, and God took care of you while you were in Egypt, and he brought you out of Egypt, and he has supplied your needs ever since.

So this is the model for which you are to take care of the traveler. And then even again in Deuteronomy, later on,

Deuteronomy 24, 17 through 22, which is commonly called the law of gleaning, when they are in the land and they are able to plant crops and harvest them, he says this, you shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless or take a widow's garment in pledge, but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the

Lord your God redeemed you from there. Therefore, I command you to do this. When you reap the harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it.

It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow that the

Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again.

When the olives were ripe, they would whack the trees and shake them. They still do this, by the way, to get the olives to fall out of the trees.

And when you do that, it says, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow.

Verse 21, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow.

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. Therefore, I command you to do this.

So in the history of the nation of Israel was this concept that these groups of people who could not provide for themselves were to be cared for, even to the point that when you harvest the crops, you leave some.

Even there's other areas where they talk about don't harvest clear to the corners so that the gleaners can come through and benefit from what

God has provided for you. Even David, the psalmist, as part of Israel's worship liturgy, incorporated this concept into the psalm.

Psalm 68 says, to the choir master, a psalm of David, a song. Part of the worship of the nation.

Verses one through five says, God shall arise. His enemies shall be scattered and those who hate him shall flee before him.

As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away. As wax melts before fire, so the wicked shall perish before God.

But the righteous shall be glad. They shall exult before God. They shall be jubilant with joy.

Sing to God. Sing praises to his name. Lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts.

His name is the Lord. Exult before him. And here's the verse five. Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is

God in his holy habitation. So their understanding of God's care and concern for the fatherless, for the widows, was so deeply ingrained in their thinking that David even incorporates it in the worship of that nation.

It's almost stated as an attribute of God that he is the fatherless and father of the fatherless and protector of the widows is

God in his holy habitation. So there is a powerful history to this passage that we're going to be looking at this morning.

And sadly and tragically, there's also a history of disobedience in the nation, as you know, to all of the law.

The law was given not to guarantee their right to that land. That was guaranteed centuries before in the

Abrahamic covenant. But their enjoyment in the land, their blessing in the land, was dependent on their obedience to the

Mosaic law, which they had just shattered over a period of time. Centuries after David wrote

Psalm 68, Isaiah the prophet is called by God to indict the nation in their sin, their idolatry, their perversion of his truth, and also, as we're going to see, their ministry to those who were helpless.

In Isaiah 1, starting in verses 16 and 17, God, through the prophet

Isaiah, says this to the nation, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead that the widows cause.

And then in verse 23 of that same chapter, your princes are rebels and companions of thieves.

Now these describing the leadership of the nation, okay? Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves.

Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless and the widows cause does not come to them.

Clearly a perversion of God's law and commandments to care for those in their midst who could not care for themselves.

Later on in Isaiah 10, verses one through three, the prophet says this, woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees and the writers who keep writing oppression to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right that widows may be their spoil and that they may make the fatherless their prey.

What will you do on the day of punishment in the ruin that will come from afar?

To whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your wealth? And so we have a history here that demonstrates

God's concern for the poor, for the widows and the orphans and even the sojourner who is out of his homeland just traveling through,

God is concerned about that. A history of commandment, but also a history of failure of that commandment.

And as we move into the New Testament, that priority doesn't change. Jesus himself in Mark chapter 12 indicts the people there for not caring.

Listen to it. You don't have to turn there, but just listen to Mark chapter 12, verses 38 through 40.

In his teaching, he said, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers.

They will receive the greater condemnation. The abuse of orphans, the abuse of widows was even going on at that late stage in Israel's history because of their sin.

So, the same spirit who was at work in the Old Testament and in the

Gospels and in the early days of the church set this principle as a priority in the church and through the life of the church, even down through the centuries.

So, since our study through 1 Timothy, we're calling it House Rules for God's Church, we come to 1

Timothy chapter 5, verses 3 through 8. We're going to call it Teach the Care of Widows.

Now, this is a very interesting passage for a variety of reasons. One of it, one, is it's a little difficult to outline it because what

Paul does here is he sort of cycles through these various issues here.

And so, we need to sort through this a little bit and talk about what is a true widow, which he talks about, and also how is the church to relate to the widows in its midst.

And we saw as we opened up chapter 5, these first two verses about how the church is to confront sin within the church.

And he says, and I'll just read it since it's so short, Do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity.

Now, we talked about that last time and certainly we didn't cover all the bases that are there, but I wanted to just stop for a second, see, did you have any questions or thoughts about what we saw last time in these first two verses?

Okay. Well, again, this is a section about the internal workings of the church. Paul is really concerned about that and we need to kind of keep it in its context, at least to start with, of what's going on there in the city of Ephesus.

Clearly, there were some serious issues going on, some false teachers, even apostates in that fellowship as we saw.

Going clear back to Paul's meeting with the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20, he prophesied that that church was going to have some people inside that church that would be teaching unsound doctrine and so on.

And so part of the ministry within that church is the confrontation of those people, but also part of the ministry inside that church and every church is going to be how does that congregation minister to the widows inside that church?

And from verses 3 all the way down through 16, Paul's going to deal with widows in the church.

It is actually the longest section in this letter dealing with a particular group of people.

It gives you a little bit of an idea of the priority here. You can't always tell by how much space or writing is dedicated to a certain issue, but oftentimes it's an indicator, and I think it is here in this letter.

From verse 3 all the way down to 16, Paul's dealing with widows in the church, and he does it in sort of two separate sections.

So we're going to take 3 through 8 this morning and then next time 9 through 16. This morning we're going to talk about how the church is to minister to the widows.

In other words, teach the care of widows. Next time we're going to talk about the widow's responsibility to the church.

Next time it's going to be called teach the widows to take care. Because as is typical in Scripture, and you've seen it in the way

Paul writes, there's exhortation and issues that he talks about, but then there's also oftentimes a very pointed practical application for Timothy or whoever is dealing with the issue to watch your own spiritual life.

He says that back up in verse 16 of chapter 4 to Timothy. After talking about commanding these things to the people in the church, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

And he just cycles through this over and over again. So even though widows are to be taken care of by the church, widows also have a responsibility to the church, as we all do to the church.

He's going to do the very same thing when he gets to the issue of elders. The churches care for elders, but then elders have to also meet the spiritual standards that God gives for them as well.

So this morning what we're going to see, and talking about how he argues this and what the outline is, the outline is really secondary to understanding what's really going on here.

We don't want to get the ball lost in the weeds, but it is a little difficult to outline because what Paul does is he sort of cycles through these various topics, and he sort of signals the turning point when he uses the word but.

You see it there in verse 4, but. And then in verse 6, but. And then again in verse 8, but.

The but there is sort of like a little hinge in between these two things he's talking about.

But what I want to do this morning, I want to read 3 through 16 because it's all one section, and we can kind of get a sense of what he's talking about here.

Starting in verse 3, Honor widows who are truly widows. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.

She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.

But she who is self -indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach.

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband and having a reputation for good works.

If she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.

But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry, and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith.

Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies saying what they should not.

So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.

For some have already strayed after Satan. If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them.

Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows.

One of the things we see here, of course, is Paul's repetitive statement of true widows.

He does it three times. He does it in three. Honor widows who are truly widows.

He does it again in verse 5. She who is truly a widow. And then all the way down at the end, those who are truly widows.

So part of the interpretive challenge here is to find out what Paul considers to be a true widow.

Now, we would commonly think of a widow as a woman whose husband has died. She's bereft of her husband.

And that is a basic starting point. But for Paul, there's going to be some other issues going on here.

But one of the things we need to see first and foremost is, and this is Roman Number 1 on your outline, true widows must be honored by the church.

Honor widows who are truly widows. They are to be honored. And this just flows right out of chapter 5, verses 1 and 2, right?

Because the word honor there, it has in a sense a dual meaning in the sense of she is to be honored because of who she is.

But she is also not just to be honored with respect. She is to be honored with support as well.

Everything in this context, even all the way down into including the issue of the elders, speaks about honoring people with respect.

We're going to see that when we get down into verse 17. And elders who preach and teach the word of God are to be honored with double honor.

And the context of the whole thing is sure, honor them as you would somebody who's doing a good work within the church, but also it has to do with their remuneration or their support.

So that's part of this. Honor widows who are truly widows. And this is a command.

This is an imperative verb. This is not an option. It is not something to be done if and when there might be some time to fit it into other activities.

This is to be something the church does as a continual ministry. It's a present tense imperative, which implies continuous or habitual action.

It's something that needs to be done all the time, Timothy. And again, we kind of have to bring this back to Timothy and his ministry inside the

Ephesian congregations there. Timothy's been given a very tough, tough job here.

Paul's not there, but Timothy has a list in the form of this letter of things that he has to do with inside these churches.

And one of them is to make sure that widows are being honored in these churches. Probably it's not being done adequately in these churches, but they are to be honored with respect.

The same attitude that all of these other categories in this chapter would have. Older men, younger brothers, older women, younger.

That's everybody in the church, right? Every age category are to be treated with respect. All relationships are built on respect, but that respect has to also include support, which the context will tell us.

And that we also have to try to consider sort of a understanding what's going on there in the

Greco Roman world of the first century. Before we try to jump and make applications to our time, we need to understand what it meant back in that day for a woman to actually be bereft of support, as it says, or to be a widow.

Historical studies have gone back from the scriptures and also from some extra biblical writings.

We get a picture of what it was like to be a widow in those times. One study, one commentator says this, and even looking at the words that are used to describe a widow and her plight words that occur in the general semantic field of the term widow in the

Bible shed light on both her personal experience and social plight. Words like weeping.

We see that in Job, Psalm 78. Mourning, 2 Samuel 14. Desolation, Lamentations 1.

Describe her personal experience after the loss of her spouse. Even terms like poverty,

Ruth chapter one and first Kings and so on. And indebtedness, second

Kings four one. They were all too often descriptive of her financial situation.

When the main source of her economic support, her husband had perished. Indeed. She was frequently placed alongside the orphan and the landless immigrant.

That would be the sojourner. Okay. And multiple references here from the old

Testament, which we have looked at. She's put in that category as representative of the poorest of the poor in the social structure of ancient

Israel, as well as in the ancient near east. With minimal, if any inheritance rights, she was often in a no man's land.

She had left her family and with her husband's death, the bond between her and his family was tenuous.

So if her husband passed away, this could be a very, very serious situation for her.

Another commentator says this, the loss of a husband in ancient Israel was normally a social and economic tragedy in a generally patriarchal culture.

The death of a husband usually met a type of cultural death as well. Although the denotation of widow referred to a woman whose husband had died because of the social context, the word quickly acquired the connotation of a person living a marginal existence in extreme poverty.

The widow reacted with grief to her plight and probably wore a distinct garb as a sign of her status.

Genesis 38, 14, Genesis 38, 19, 2 Samuel 14, 2, and some other extra biblical literature supported that as well.

Disillusionment and bitterness could easily result. You remember Naomi in Ruth chapter one, she said, call me

Mara. The word means bitter or bitterness. Her crisis was aggravated if she had no able -bodied children to help her work the land of her dead spouse, to provide for her children, to maintain the estate and to continue payments on debts accrued by her husband imposed severe burdens.

Since she was in an extremely vulnerable economic position, she became the prime target of exploitation.

The fact that she was classed with a landless stranger, the Levi indicates that she was often unable to keep her husband's land because neither the sojourner who was out of his land had property rights.

And of course the Levites, the priestly tribe, they had no land allocation. And so they were dependent on people to support them as well.

So they are to be honored with respect, but they're also to be honored with support within the church.

And Paul presents them as sort of a group within a group. In fact, this has to do with how we kind of outline this and see it.

Maybe a better outline might be concentric circles. So you have widows defined by a woman who has lost her husband.

And then within that group, we have women who have no family support, as we're going to see.

And then within that group, we have people who Paul would define as true widows. Okay, we're going to be looking at that as well.

So we get to verse four. We have the first but, but if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents for this is pleasing in the sight of God.

The families of widows are to provide for them and to help them before the church comes into play.

This is clearly what Paul is teaching here. Children or grandchildren, some of the older, I think the old

King James or nephew better word is grandchildren. That's not a good translation. It's children or grandchildren.

They are to help the, the widow before the church comes along.

And this is a sign of godliness within that family. Listen to Genesis chapter 45 verses nine through 11.

This is before God gave the law. Okay. And this is Joseph here.

And you remember Joseph what his brothers did and they did it to him. They sold him into bondage and then they lied to Jacob.

So they did not have a very high regard for their father and their family situation.

But Jacob went down to Egypt, eventually became in charge of the grain supply there.

And when his brothers came down, they realized who he was rather than taking vengeance on them as he could have, he sent them back to Israel, back to the promised land to get

Jacob and their family and bring him them back. And so it says here in Genesis 45, that in verse nine, he's

Joseph says to his brothers, hurry and go up to my father and say to him, thus says your son,

Joseph, God has made me Lord of all Egypt. Come down to me. Do not tarry.

You shall dwell in the land of Goshen and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children and your flocks, your herds and all that you have there.

I will provide for you for there are yet five years of famine to come so that you and your household and all that you have do not come to poverty.

Four plus centuries before the law was actually given. And Joseph, a godly man is exercising this very care and concern for his father,

Jacob. Now, of course, God has strategically placed him down there in order to do that, to preserve this nation and to preserve in particular the line of Messiah through the tribe of Judah.

But it also was an exercise of his godliness to want to care for his father and all of his siblings and the entire family and everything.

And God of course used that to preserve them. So not only was he caring for his family, he was caring for the people, them who were going to be out of their land, traveling in a foreign land or living in a foreign land.

So he was clearly doing both. He was taking care of his family, but he was also taking care of the sojourner that later on God would talk about.

So this is one of the principles we see in this passage. The family is supposed to be involved in the care of widows prior to the church being involved in their care as well.

And then we arrive at verse five. Okay. True widows are godly women.

This is Roman numeral two. True widows are godly women. What Paul is doing here, he's wanting to define for Timothy what a true widow is because probably in Ephesus, a lot of widows, quote unquote, maybe younger ones as we're going to see were being widows in the sense of getting support, but they really didn't deserve it.

According to Paul's instructions here, verse five says, she who is truly a widow left all alone has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.

True widows are godly women. They are truly alone. They do not have the support from husband who's obviously gone or from their any family members to take care of them.

So they are truly bereft of support. They're alone, but they're also hoping in God and they have an active prayer life which demonstrates their godliness.

She who is truly a widow, she has no family members. She's hoping in God.

Her hope is in Jesus Christ. Now how do you know that because she has a spiritual life to prove it.

It's externally verifiable. She continues in supplications and prayers night and day.

That's probably a a figure of speech taken from Genesis, you know, a day and a night were defined as a day.

And so it's a way of talking about her continual prayer life. And we see this in scripture.

We see this in Luke chapter two, the birth narrative. And what we really want to focus in on is a good example of a woman like this.

And that would be Anna in Luke chapter two verses 36 and 38. Anna was this kind of a godly woman.

What Luke is doing in his gospel account here early on as he moves through and what we call the birth narrative, he's bringing forth these witnesses.

He brings forth Zechariah, Zechariah's wife. He talks about Mary and Joseph. And later on he's going to talk about Anna.

What he does before he presents these people's witness as to what they're witnessing for, he certifies them.

And he's going to certify them in two ways. He's going to certify number one, their Jewishness. He's going to validate that these are truly

Jewish people. And then he's going to certify their piety or their godliness. And we see this even at the very beginning when he starts, this is a very common way for Hebrew thought to operate.

It even goes clear back to Genesis chapter six. Listen to the description as we're introduced to Noah.

Noah, it says in Genesis six, nine, these are the generations of Noah.

Noah was a righteous man. So you have a statement of his internal spiritual condition.

He's a righteous man. But it's almost as if somebody says, hey Moses, how do you know? Prove it.

Show me what that looks like. Noah was a righteous man.

Blameless in his generation, Noah walked with God. So in the

Bible, when it talks about someone and their spiritual life, it doesn't just stop with saying they're righteous.

It actually gives you an objective way to tell that that's the way it is. It doesn't work just for somebody to say, oh yeah,

I know the Lord. Biblically legitimate for somebody to say, prove it.

Oh, you might want to say it like that. But you might want to say, tell me about your spiritual life. Okay.

The scriptures do that. And Luke does this as well. Very common. He talks about when he introduces

Zechariah. This is Luke 1 .5. Not only does he certify these two areas of the life, there's a time stamp and even a geographical stamp to validate that this is a true person in history.

In the days of Herod, king of Judah, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah.

Okay. Now he's a priest. Okay. He's a Jewish priest. His name is Zechariah. That's a

Jewish name. And he even tells you what division or what genealogy he was from. The division of Abijah.

Okay. So he's certified as a true Jew. And also his wife. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, a priestly group.

And her name was Elizabeth. Okay. So you have two Jewish people. They are married. He even married a wife from the priestly line.

And he's serving in the priesthood there. And verse six. And they were both righteous before God.

Hey, Luke, how do you know? Walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the

Lord. Okay. So you see the certification that is made there of their Jewishness, of their godliness, of their piety, before he even brings them forth as a witness.

And he does this all the way through. He does it with Mary and Joseph and so on. And when we get to chapter two, verses 36, he brings forth this woman,

Anna. And for our purposes here this morning, we're going to look at her. So this is Luke 2, 36.

There was a prophetess, Anna. All right. The daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher.

So he's certifying her Jewishness. She's truly Jewish. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was.

Okay. Back in business. 2, 36.

And there was a prophetess, Anna. Again, Luke is bringing these people forth as witnesses to what's going on with the birth of Christ.

And remember, Luke is, this is a transition time. And Luke, the author of both the gospel,

Luke and Acts, wrote more of the New Testament than any other writer. And both of these are designed to demonstrate the movement of the gospel from Jew to Gentile, in fulfillment of the

Abrahamic covenant, where God said all the nations will be blessed, not just the Jews. All the nations will be blessed.

And so what he says here in verse 36 of chapter two, There was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher.

She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin.

And then as a widow until she was 84, she did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

And coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Israel.

This is a godly widow, an example of it from scripture. And so what

Paul is doing here, he's trying to give an outline of what it is to be a true widow in the church, and particularly those who are qualified to be supported by the church itself.

And then verse six, we come to another. But she who is self -indulgent is dead even while she lives.

Strong contrast here to the godly woman who meets these characteristics.

There were probably some within the Ephesian assemblies who were not godly women, even though they were bereft of their husbands.

She is not qualified to be supported by the church. And it's just so stark how he describes her.

She who is self -indulgent is dead even while she lives.

This is the one who's not qualified to be supported by the church. She's self -indulgent. Some translations historically have used the word wanton, wanton.

It's a word you don't hear too much anymore. But she is carrying on a lifestyle that is not godly.

Living, she's dead, it says. From the outside, all appearances, she's fully functional.

She's going about her life. She's mobile, just like any other person. But what

God is concerned about is internally, her spiritual state. And spiritually, which is really the only way that counts, is that she is dead.

She's spiritually blind, spiritually deaf. She is stone -cold dead as a post, spiritually speaking.

Paul says the church is not required to support that one. One commentator comments on this.

He says, the word describes the person who leads a life of pleasure with no thought of what is right or wrong.

Now, she very well could be influenced by the Gnostics, remember them, and some of these false teachers.

So when you see these examples later on in the letter, you would go back and say, this is quite possibly, maybe probably one of these people here.

Probably even influenced by the false teachers in the churches of Ephesus who have caused her to stray.

But this commentator says, the word describes the person who leads a life of pleasure with no thought of what is right or wrong.

Such a widow, Paul declares, is dead even while she lives. Although she may be alive physically, she is dead spiritually.

While she was no doubt involved in the church when her husband was around, she is clearly unregenerate, spiritually dead, like Ephesians 2, 1 says.

Far from being supported by the church, such women need to be abandoned to the consequences of their sin.

Their desperate situation may then lead them to repentance. In the meantime, kingdom resources must not be used to support a sinful lifestyle.

The truth that such widows are not to be supported is so obvious that Paul does not bother to command it.

And so, there again, true widows are godly women, but the flip side is there are probably people in that church and maybe other churches down through history, obviously, who are not qualified to be supported by the church, even though their husbands have died, because they are not what

Paul would call true widows. They are not godly women. And then third on your outline, true widows should be without reproach.

Be without reproach. Paul says to Timothy, command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach.

Command these things. Once again, he's getting a command. This is very important. This is a strong command.

It's an imperative. You have to go into these churches, Timothy, and deal with these issues. And these things, we've seen this over and over again, these things,

Paul's theme verse, I am writing these things to you so that, okay? So, these things is the things that he's talking about here in this passage, but it obviously also extends to everything

Paul has taught him and wants him to do in this letter. And everyone involved in this situation, the widows, the church, the family members, are to be above reproach.

The they reaches and encompasses everybody. They may be without reproach. This is a standard requirement in God's church.

It's required for elders and others that lead, of course, but it also does not exempt everybody within the church.

We are to strive to be without reproach in how we live our lives within the church.

And one more time, but if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Paul just goes right back up to verse four, and it's kind of the flip side of verse four. Verse four talks about family members supporting the widow.

That's a requirement. And if they don't, that they don't provide for their relatives and especially for members of their household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

There were probably some professing Christians in Ephesus who were doing or not doing this very thing.

And it's interesting. Almost every commentator says Paul is not actually pronouncing them unsaved. It sounds like he is, but probably not.

What he's doing, he's comparing their behavior in the church to the behavior of pagans outside the church.

And it's very interesting. And I have a couple of the articles, Greek writers, Greek historians talk about the importance of family members supporting the widows in their families.

OK, now these are unregenerate, unbelieving pagan Greeks, and they're writing about this as this is an important thing to do.

And so what Paul, who knows this obviously, is saying, listen, if you don't do that within the church, your standard of holiness as far as how you relate to the widows in the church is less than the pagan world out there.

That is unacceptable within the church of God. And it's as if you have denied the faith and you are worse than an unbeliever.

You have a lower standard than the unregenerate world out there. Christians should at least do better than the unbelieving pagans who are watching us.

So as the household of God, we are to teach the care of true widows. Next time we're going to talk about the list.

OK, and we're going to save that for next time and define that and talk about that as well.

We're the household of God. We demonstrate godliness to the church and to the world when we care for the most helpless among us.

And we show ourselves to be above reproach when we honor those who are truly widows.

And we are to honor with respect by meeting spiritual needs and so on. But we can't stop there.

If the need is there, we must also meet their material needs within the church. Now, we can obviously transfer this standard into our time.

And of course, there has to be adjustments made. We saw what it was like for a woman in ancient times to lose her husband.

It may not be like that, exactly the same in our contemporary life.

But you can just about guarantee there are some widows, Christian widows in the world someplace today who are suffering terribly.

Bereft of support, nobody to help them. And they are in a church situation, and hopefully that church is meeting the needs according to 1

Timothy 5 here. Do you have any thoughts or questions or comments? If she herself personally was resisting your knowledge of her personal financial and economic situation, or her family around her was also not willing to divulge that, especially if they don't live close to you and they're not a part of the church body, right?

That would be a big difference compared to where people now live across the country or across the world.

Sure, and there again, the scenario changes in how it is.

I think a couple of things. If she refuses help, she's outside that category, right?

But remember, Peter at first refused to let Christ wash his feet. We all need ministry.

And it's up to the leadership of the church to know her situation the best that they can without violating her privacy.

If somebody says, hey, I don't want to have anything to do with that. Okay, I don't think that's what Paul's talking about here.

He's talking about women who, when their husband dies, they may not just be without food.

They may be without shelter and that type of thing. That's part of the challenge. When we look at this, we see in the

Bible, it talks about the church meeting needs, you know, and it is different now.

I read an article just a couple of years ago. It was a refugee camp. And I believe it was like one of the refugee camps because of the civil war in Syria.

All right. So that showed this, the article showed this camp, all these tents and everything. And these people were refugees from this civil war.

And you know what? One of the major needs they listed, they said, was in that camp. They had a real need for.

And I thought, well, maybe it's fresh, clean water or pharmaceuticals or something. No, it was

Wi -Fi. Okay. Things are different now.

You know, even go back World War II refugees, they needed Wi -Fi. Why? Because they probably all had some sort of a device that needed to be connected to the

Internet or something, you know. So you do have to make those adjustments. But certainly within that same camp or that group of people were probably some widows, bereft of support.

People may be starving to death and that kind of thing. So we do have to sort through those issues as we look at these things.

Yes. I think it's important.

With all the entitlements that we have available and social services and things like that, what is the responsibility of the church?

And again, it has to be sorted through. I believe the church's first responsibility is to be willing to obey what

Scripture says. How they obey it, if they can obey it, you know, if there's a need to obey it.

And I think one of the real important studies is to, again, go back through and look at what it says by need.

They meant the needs of that person. Now, are our needs the same as their needs? You go back to their needs and like that little historic article, these are people who are probably pretty close to being starving to death in some way, shape or form.

Even the idea you see periodically, visit the prisoners, revisit the prisoners. Well, back then, you're not going to go sit on a stainless steel stool and talk to a guy through a plexiglass deal, right?

That's not a prison. He's not going to have a tray in the cafeteria, you know, filling up three hots and a cot.

You visited that guy to take him a piece of bread so he didn't starve to death. They didn't feed those people in prison like people are being fed now.

So visiting them is for the purpose of ministering to their needs, which would be to keep them from starving to death in that hole in the ground that they were in.

So, yeah, it's really important to make that shift. And every church, I think, has to decide. Clearly, if a woman is bereft of support, whatever it is, the church should try the very best to be in contact with her and understand her situation and to help out however they can.

So, Steve? If you suggest to fill the need immediately and directly or present it to the church, either through the eldership or something for understanding of the need so that the church can vet the need and meet the need.

Again, what's the need? Is she broken down alongside the highway and needs her tire changed and she physically can't do it because she's an 86 -year -old widow who just had back surgery?

Do we go to the church and say, hey, Jim, tell us what we should do here. Do you think we should help this woman out?

Or maybe you could start a new ministry to widows so that we could get this lady off the highway out here.

Right? I mean, it's situational. Obviously, if there's a real need and if it's safety or feeding someone or meeting an immediate need, yes.

But I mean, if that lady happens to be driving the latest Mercedes Benz and she just broke down on her way to a very expensive house, all of that has to be taken into consideration.

Again, I think the important thing is put ourselves back in the first century, the Greco -Roman world.

What did they mean by meeting needs? And then how we apply it after that is we have to meet those needs the best we can.

Clearly, though, Paul is making a distinction here.

A widow is not just a woman who has lost her husband. She is supposed to be somebody else because it's in the context of her support by the church.

And we're going to see that more next time as we talk about the list that he talks about.

Yes, sir. I'll try to lay out a scenario a little more specifically. Let's say it's a woman and she, for whatever reason, is not able to pay her rent.

Her rent's gone up. She's no longer able to rent in a mansion here.

It's somewhere in a reasonable scenario. Now, she could get on more government services to cover this or the church to cover this.

Could we push her? And she can be a member or not. It doesn't really matter for the situation. Do we push her to now get more government services and be more dependent on them?

Or do we support them? I think that's something the church has to work through. If the issue is if she doesn't get her rent by next

Monday, she's on the street, she's got to be helped. So she has shelter. That scenario would then have to be looked at and played out.

Well, I'm not sure you can come up with an absolute cookie -cutter remedy for that. People pay taxes.

Church members pay taxes. Part of that tax dollar would probably be going to help her in that need if she's on some kind of social remedy.

I just think every single situation has to be looked at, has to be evaluated by the elders.

And I think in this situation, what we cannot do is not deal with it or think about it at all.

I think oftentimes in Scripture, this is being ignored or this is being violated in this particular situation.

So again, this is something leadership has to work through. And the leadership also has to help inform the congregation and get them involved.

We are to do the work of the ministry. Everything just can't be, hey, pastor, we need a program for this.

Well, we might need a program for this, but maybe the person who feels a real burden for that program ought to be the one to lead that program.

And so I think each one of these has to be evaluated, and we have to make sure we're clear on what the biblical mandate is.

There's also the issue of is it a single person in the church meeting a need or is it a church program?

Now, most churches have some sort of, often it's called a deacon's fund or a mercy fund and that type of thing. It's available for people to benefit from.

But again, it has to be evaluated by according to the situation and by the leadership of the church.

You elders, feel free to comment on this. I'm sure you've dealt with this type of thing before, but the important thing,

I think, is what is the biblical principle? Honor widows who are truly widows and understand, try to get into this particular context in the

Greco -Roman world of the first century. What they're dealing with and in the Old Testament, what is a widow?

And clearly Israel had disregarded this. They couldn't care less.

And Jesus dealt with people, scribes, lawyers who were stealing from these widows.

You have ministries nowadays that are pleading for money, right? And just so they can get more and more wealthy.

And a lot of the people that hear that and they even know very well how to appeal to older people, including widows and to promise them some sort of a blessing if they plant a seed in their ministry.

That is just as despicable as the people that Jesus dealt with.

OK, so that's sort of that extreme. Any other questions you might have?

It is a complex issue, has to be worked through by churches, but it's also very important. Again, he gives more content here to widows in this passage than to any other group of people in this letter.

In John chapter 19. Sorry about that.

Let me just share this and then we'll close. Jesus is on the cross. John's account of the crucifixion says this.

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loves standing nearby, he said to his mother,

Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her into his own home.

That was John who wrote this on the cross. Almost his last earthly ministry was to care for his own mother by making sure she was cared for by John.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for our time in your word this morning. Thank you for showing us the importance of this issue.