House Rule #15 Teach the Widows to Take Care (1 Timothy 5:9-16)

Kootenai Church

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Well, last week we looked at the first part of this passage from verse 3 through 16 and we saw that God has a very powerful care and concern for those who cannot help themselves and in particular widows from this list right here.

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And we saw from a brief survey of the Old Testament that God is very much concerned with those called the travelers or the sojourners or the

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Levites or orphans and widows. These are people that cannot help themselves.

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They either do not own land and are not able then to provide for their own food and care or in the case of obviously orphans and widows people who have no one to support them.

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We also saw that the same standard extends right into the New Testament and Jesus delivered severe public rebuke to the religious leaders of His day for among other things their abuse of widows.

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And we saw that widows were and are a vulnerable segment of Jewish society.

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With the death of their husbands they would be in a very precarious financial position.

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If they did have a piece of land in order to be able to grow crops to eat, often times they were swindled out of their property and they were done that often times by lawyers they were called and these were often the scribes who were transcribing the

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Word of God who became lawyers and experts in the law. They were experts in the law because they were working with the

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Word of God. They were transcribing it. And so they knew how to swindle people out of things and particularly widows.

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And you remember Jesus' words of indictment, you devour widows' houses He said to these people.

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And I think we only need to look at one more passage perhaps to illustrate God's great compassion for the widow.

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So turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 7. Luke 7 and we'll just very quickly look at verses 11 -17.

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Luke 7 verses 11 -17.

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In the ministry of Jesus He encounters a woman whose son had died.

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And so verse 11 says, Soon afterward He went to a town called Nain and His disciples and a great crowd went with Him.

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As He drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother.

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And she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the

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Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, Do not weep. Then He came up and touched the bier, and the bearer stood still.

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And He said, Young man, I say to you, Arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

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Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, A great prophet has arisen among us. God has visited

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His people. And this report about Him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

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So Jesus not only manifested in His ministry His great compassion to all people, and His demonstration that He is truly

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God in human flesh, being able to exercise His lordship over life and death here, but it was a display of compassion for this woman to give her back her son.

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He did a great miracle in this case, and it was sort of like creation when

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He spoke life into existence. And His compassion for widows is on display there.

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Well, back to 1 Timothy chapter 5, and our study this morning.

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And remember that this passage is sort of a unit from verse 3 all the way down to verse 16. And in the first section we saw last time, verses 3 to 8, that Paul wants

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Timothy to correct some things that are wrong in Ephesus, and one of them is that he wants him to honor widows who are truly widows.

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And we saw then that this definition of widows is built by the

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Apostle Paul, and it continues all the way down through this entire passage. It is a little bit difficult to outline because it doesn't follow just a pure linear outline like we might like to see that makes it a lot easier to outline, right?

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A, B, C, D, or like some of my outlines, A, B, 3, D, but whatever.

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It sort of operates in sort of a cyclic way as you walk down through here. And so why don't

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I just read down through from 3 to 16, and we'll get the picture here again. Paul says, 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.

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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And of course, one of the first observations we make here is Paul's use of that phrase, truly widows.

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He starts with it in verse 3, honor widows who are truly widows. He ends with it in verse 16, who are truly widows.

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And he uses it one more time in verse 5, she who is truly a widow. So clearly

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Paul is distinguishing widows in general from widows that he considers to be truly widows.

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So this morning from verses 9 -10 on your outline there, number one, widows to enroll on the list.

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And there again, there's another interpretive issue here, what is this list? Well, let's look at this morning and we'll just walk through and talk about these issues.

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Widows to enroll on the list. The idea of being enrolled on a list of widows clearly has to do with widows who are truly widows.

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They're the ones that get on this list. And as we have seen, being placed on a list of widows has to do with the widows that are being supported by the church.

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Now there's various interpretations from this. Some have thought this was a group of widows who were placed on the list of the church to be supported and then were expected to provide ministry to the church, almost like a class of deaconesses.

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Except that a better way to understand it is simply widows who are being supported by the church for a variety of reasons.

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They can't really demonstrate that there was a group of widows who were supported by the church to do ministry until a couple of hundred years later from the literature.

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Also, as we're going to see, these requirements that we see here are not really requirements that look ahead to her qualifications to serve with that group of widows, as they are a look back at her life and her qualifications to be considered truly a widow.

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One New Testament scholar defines it this way. He describes it this way.

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The function of the list is to provide a way of measuring the reputation of the widow on the basis of visible acts understood to be the outworking of faith.

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Assuming that these things were characteristic of her past life, what distinguishes her from godly women in general as a real widow and qualifies her for enrollment are her age, the death of her spouse, and her situation of destitution.

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So, Paul says only enroll widows on the list who are truly widows.

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And from the previous section, we know that Paul considers a widow to be a true widow if she is truly alone and if she is truly godly.

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We saw that in verse 5. She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God, and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.

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But now Paul adds these other requirements. He says there in verse 9, let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband.

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So, 60 was considered in that day to be the age of retirement. We might even say an elderly person.

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And here again we have one of the challenges of looking at this, and often times the big challenges is in the area of interpretation.

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We have observation where we look at the text and we try to determine what it says, and then we move to interpretation, and then we move from interpretation, what it means, to application.

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How do we apply it? And so on. And with this particular passage, and I think we saw that in our discussion last week, one of the main challenges is in the area of application, right?

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Because we're so far removed in time, we're far removed in culture, and so on.

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And so it's really important to start out by trying to, the best we can, place ourselves back in this situation that Paul is writing to and addressing, so that we can build the real biblical principle, and then we can make application.

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Even afterwards, last time, several of you came up to me and were discussing situations that you had been involved in, or that you knew about, where you were trying to, the church, or you individually were trying to minister to widows, and some of these same issues kept coming up.

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Who is a true widow? And that really is the big issue here. Most of your discussion was trying to figure out if this is a true widow from the biblical perspective.

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And so I think if you get the biblical principle correct, it's so much easier then to apply that to a particular situation that you find yourself in.

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But Paul says she has to be at least 60 years old. Most commentators feel like he's not, it's not so much that he's setting a particular age, but this was the well -known age where a woman would be retired and she would not be able to support herself.

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And then he says, after that, having been the wife of one husband.

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This is very literally a one -man woman. She is to have been faithful to her husband.

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And just like the requirement that we saw for elders and deacons, it is not about so much the number of husbands or that type of thing, it is have they been faithful in their marriage.

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And then he says, having a reputation for good works. This is also something that's going to be an objectively verifiable characteristic of the true widow.

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And that's in the next verse here. 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.

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That little phrase, good work there is repeated there in that verse.

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It starts it and it ends it. So clearly this is a characteristic of the true widow. And on your outline there, the five characteristics of being known for good works are listed.

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Has brought up children, hospitality to strangers, washed the saints' feet, cared for the afflicted, and then he just collects it all together.

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Has devoted herself to every good work. This is basically a way to look at her life and her godliness.

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Now you notice what is not there that was there up in verse 5. She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.

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When we get down to verse 10, there's nothing there about her prayer life. There's nothing there really about her relationship to God.

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He's already dealt with that up in verse 5, right? And you remember what we saw about how the

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Bible describes somebody's spiritual life? Remember what we saw when we talked about from Genesis chapter 6 and we saw that statement about Noah?

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Noah was a righteous man. And then it gives you an objective, verifiable criteria for validating that statement about his inner spiritual life that you can't see, right?

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Well, this is exactly what Paul is following after that same model here. Up in verse 5, he talks about her spiritual life, set her hope on God, continues in supplications and prayers night and day.

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And then in verses 9 and 10, he tells you what that looks like. He tells you how that works out in a woman's life.

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She's been the wife of one husband and so on. So he's simply following along in the same tradition of Hebraic thought and how to describe somebody.

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And the Bible does this New Testament and Old Testament as well. It never does just do to say, that person knows the

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Lord. How do you know? Now, in our culture and in the big evangelical tent, that might be considered a little bit intrusive, right?

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But that's what the Bible does. It describes a person's inner spiritual condition before God, and then it gives you a verifiable, objective way to validate that.

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So, widows to enroll on the list. They're truly widows. They're at least 60.

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In other words, they are elderly women who cannot provide for themselves. They are known for their good works.

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Do you have any thoughts or questions before we move on to Roman numeral 2? Yeah, Rick?

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We did talk about it last time, yeah.

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And I think the question was, did we cover the issue of whether or not she has children or grandchildren that would be available to support her up in verse 4.

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Paul says, if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household.

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So, God puts a priority on the family members to take care of that widow, and we're going to see that too down in verse 16.

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So, we're going to see that down in verse 16, yeah. No, but you're right.

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In a sense, it does if the other criteria are met. So, he does put a premium on the family care for the widow, and so it's really, really, really, really critical to understand that as well.

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So, anything else before we move on? The question was, did we talk about the issue of if that widow has family members.

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Yeah, then if the family members refuse to help, number one, that's an indictment on them.

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Number two, then that widow should be helped. Exactly, and we're going to talk about that too.

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He does, he covers that in this, as we're going to see. So, yep, there essentially is not to be a widow left unsupported, as we're going to see.

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You guys are way ahead of me here. Julie? Not necessarily.

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I think it could be the household, hospitality. In that day, people would come and have to walk in sandals, hot, dusty streets and roads, and so a very common way of showing hospitality, if you had a guest come in, would be for the household slave or servant to wash their feet.

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It wasn't necessarily here, I think, listed as part of the liturgy of the church, and I don't really think it's that as well, even from the upper room.

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I think it's pictured as a way to demonstrate her hospitality.

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In fact, even a lot of scholars would comment on that and say, this almost became a figure of speech or an emblematic way of saying, this is a woman who serves people when they come to her house.

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Sure, it falls, I think, within the broader aspect of what this woman does when someone comes to her home.

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She would be willing to do that and or as a picture of her service to other people.

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Okay, anything else? Okay, verses 11 through 15 let the widows not to enroll on the list.

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So, once again, but, we talked about the but being a hinge point between two things

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Paul is trying to contrast. It's contrastive or even adversative in some senses, 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.

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And he says, 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.

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

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The idea of being enrolled on this list of widows has to do with the widows who are truly widows, as Paul says, and widows who are, notice how he doesn't give an age here, he just says younger.

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They're younger. So, I guess you ladies could say, well if you're less than 60 years old, the Bible says you're a younger woman.

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Okay? I think what he's doing here, and this is one reason why I think the 60 is simply emblematic of an older elderly woman who cannot take care of herself, because the counterpart to that is the younger woman, a woman who is not at an age where she cannot take care of herself.

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And what he says there, what it really could mean, too, is younger meaning eligible for remarriage, okay?

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And those women are not to be put on the list, the list of widows who the church is supporting.

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And basically it says there, it's kind of an interesting, but refuse younger widows, and the translators bring down the verb there from the previous verse, refuse to enroll younger widows for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry.

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And what you'll notice here, between verse 11 and verse 14, Paul says they desire to marry, and so incur condemnation because they've abandoned the faith.

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Okay? But then down in verse 14, I would have younger widows marry. Well, there's two kinds of marriage in view here, alright?

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There's a kind of marriage that Paul says don't do it, and there's another kind of marriage which he says to do, alright?

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And we get a little help from this, I think, from Paul himself, from 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 7, because in 1

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Corinthians chapter 7, the Apostle Paul is dealing with marriage, it's a very extended passage on marriage, he gets to the very end of that passage and he says this, in verse 39 of 1

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Corinthians chapter 7, a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, now she's a widow, she is free to be married to whom she wishes only in the

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Lord. So even there, he's very consistent with his own theology of marriage, that there's that kind of marriage where she marries an unbeliever is prohibited, she is free to marry as long as she marries a believer.

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And I think that's exactly what's going on in this same passage here. These women who were in the church, who were widows in the sense that their husbands had died, were not believing widows, so they weren't true widows.

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We know that from verse 6, she who is self -indulgent is dead even while she lives.

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That's not the language of a believer in Jesus Christ, that's a description of a person who is not saved.

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And even down in the passage we just looked at, their passions draw them away from Christ.

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There again, that's really telling. If her passions draw her away from Christ, that's not something that happens to a believer.

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They desire to marry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith.

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Some of your translations might say former pledge, that's why I included it there in the outline.

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Those who think that this order of widows was a formal order of like deaconesses, which probably later on turned into something like the order of nuns within Catholicism.

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If that's the case, then maybe it's thought that they took a pledge of celibacy, like the nuns would do, and then if they violate that pledge by then all of a sudden saying, hey

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I want to get married, then they incur condemnation. I think the best understanding of it is not that it was a formal pledge to never be married again, but that they abandoned their faith.

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They abandoned their faith in Jesus Christ. I think what's going on here, and I think we can sort of connect the dots, these are probably younger women whose husbands died.

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That would have placed them in a very precarious position in that culture. There was in Ephesus, as we have mentioned, the massive

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Temple of Artemis, this cult temple, and this whole thing was involved in cult prostitution.

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So it would have been very common in that city and in that culture. These women may have been tempted not just to marry outside the faith because they needed support, but to get involved in working as part of the prostitution cult that was there.

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That might have been a temptation. If they do get married to an unbeliever, they clearly are demonstrating their lack of obedience to Christ.

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They violated their faith, and they are drawn away from Christ and all that he means, and they desire to marry, they incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith.

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That is all language to describe unbelievers and how they act. I think it may be possible here, it may be probable that the

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Apostle Paul is dealing with what he dealt with back in chapter 2. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.

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I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, rather she is to remain quiet.

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We also saw when we got to chapter 4 that there were people in the Ephesian assemblies that had departed from the faith.

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Very similar language to what he uses here of these women that have abandoned their former faith.

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And it does not say that all of those that depart from the faith are men, right? Women can also depart from the faith and apostatize, as we well know, and through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

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These false teachers in these Ephesian assemblies were quite probably going after these young, single, vulnerable women, and it says part of what they did, they forbid marriage, right?

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Well we automatically think of maybe Catholicism and the priesthood and all that, but I think that it's entirely probable here that these men who are false teachers whose consciences are seared, they're liars, they're telling these younger vulnerable single women, hey, there's no need to get married.

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We can have a relationship. We can be together.

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How vanilla is that, right? And so they're being swayed from their faith in Jesus Christ by these false teachers.

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Probably what's going on here. And in verse 13, besides that they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house.

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And not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies saying what they should not.

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First of all, when we think of gossips and busybodies going from house to house, we just sort of think of a woman flitting around a neighborhood from house to house.

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But remember what Paul told the Ephesian elders, Acts 20, I did not fail to proclaim to you the whole counsel of God.

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He said, I taught publicly and from house to house. These are house churches.

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Very likely these women consider themselves some sort of a pastor, some sort of a teacher, some sort of an authority on the

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Word of God, and they're going from house to house, house church to house church, trying to be the people that Paul prohibits in chapter 2.

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And another indicator of that, notice that word, saying what they should not. Well, we would just look at that and maybe casually think, okay, he's talking about gossip.

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Well, he probably is. That would be included in that. But I want you to look at Titus chapter 2 for a minute.

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Titus chapter 2. Titus, a lot of parallels with 1

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Timothy. Why? Titus is being left on the island of Crete to do very much the same thing, to go into these churches to appoint elders and to correct a lot of things that are wrong within these churches.

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And just like in the first part of 1 Timothy, Paul talks about false teachers in chapter 1, and then when he gets to chapter 2, he says in verse 1 to Titus, but as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

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That is the exact same word that Paul uses there in 1 Timothy chapter 5, saying what they should not.

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Exact same word. And now look in Titus 2 .15 down at the bottom. Declare these things.

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Same word again. So in the ESV in verse 1, teach, down in verse 15, declare.

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New American Standard, first verse, proclaim. Verse 15, speak.

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The Christian Standard Bible, proclaim and proclaim. This is clearly a word that is also used not just as somebody running around talking, but of teaching or even preaching the

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Word of God. You could easily translate it there, teaching what they should not.

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And that would fit right in with everything Paul has said up to this point concerning false teachers, including false women teachers within the church.

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

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That's a description of a Christian young woman. Okay? So, widows not to enroll on the list, the ones that are younger, that are of marriageable age, because if you do that and you support them, they may abandon their faith, they may live idle lives, they need to remarry, then they will follow

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Christ and not Satan. So, verses 11 -15, do you have any thoughts or questions on that, what we just saw?

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Okay? Well, then finally, verse 16, and here's where Paul's going to... Yeah, Rick? Did you make that point?

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Yes. I would say absolutely right. The question is, when he mentions these people who abandon their faith, this is apostasy.

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This is the same apostasy, I believe, that we saw over in chapter 4. Depart from the faith.

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They've abandoned their faith, and all that language is not language that would be used of a believer.

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It would be someone who never was saved in the first place, okay? And we saw that last week up in verse 6.

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

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You look at her and she's functioning, she's doing all kinds of things, but spiritually, internally, she's dead in her sins.

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That would be someone who was never saved in the first place. They gave the appearance of it, as we see so many times in Scripture, but there comes a point in time when they abandon their faith.

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Okay? Anything else? Yeah. I think that's what he's saying, yeah.

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I think he's allowing for, and the question has come up several times here, what if a woman never gets married?

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What if she does get married, and then in the providential working of God, never has children? Which happens.

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I think Scripture and Paul allows for all of those situations, and I think that's a good example of it right there.

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Okay? Anything else? Well, verse 16, Paul really does wrap this up in a tremendous way,

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I think. He says in a very simple, concise statement, 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.

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There's two options here. It's very, very interesting to me to see how he puts this. He essentially, as you can see, comes right back up to verse 4, but if a widow has children or grandchildren, and this is hopefully going to answer your question,

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Rick, 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.

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This would be the first step, the first priority. Does she have family members who can and will take care of her?

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God says they should if they can. But here there's a little bit of a shift.

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Notice how he says, if any believing woman, doesn't say a believing widow, says a believing woman, and so I think he's picking out these children or grandchildren up there, focusing in on them, and saying, if that believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them.

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

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And notice who are widows there. The first category of women is, he just says widows.

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It doesn't say believing widows. It doesn't say, you know, there's no condition there.

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Just a widow. The believing woman is to care for her relatives who are widows so that the church may care for those who are truly widows.

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These believing women who have a history of godly lives, who can't take care of themselves, the church is to take care of them.

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You see what he's doing here? If this doesn't take place, if you don't do what

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God says in here, neither one of these groups of widows are going to be properly taken care of. Why? Because the widows, the believing women are going to take care of the widows and their families, and the church is going to be overburdened to take care of the widows that it's supposed to take care of.

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But if you do God's work God's way, both sets of widows are provided for here. That's why the word care happens two times.

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Absolute genius, right? I mean, that's putting it mildly, of course. God knows what he's talking about, and he cares for these people.

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And so if you do this, then both sets of widows are provided for.

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And I believe even the unbelieving widows who are the family members of the believing women are provided for as well, if that answers your question.

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Okay? So do you see the sort of the magnificent practicality of this passage and how

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God has provided for those who can't provide for themselves through this teaching?

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Do you have any questions from what we've seen so far in this passage? Okay? Yeah, Rick?

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The believing woman? Well, then she may very well place herself in the category in her disobedience of not being a true believer.

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Again, we're coming back to what's the evidence of conversion? What's the evidence of justification before God?

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There's only one thing in Scripture. Obedience. There's nothing else. People can say all kinds of things.

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But the Bible clearly distinguishes between people who say and people who do. If we say we have no sin, we lie and we deceive ourselves.

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If we confess our sins, right? Then the church would take care of her.

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Sure. And that's what he's allowing for here. That would put her in the category of being a true widow in Paul's definition.

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And so she then would come under the care of the church. Okay? Yeah, Cornell? Sure, yeah.

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I mean, I think God provides for this. And even the issue of the family, that is not something that happened after God called people to serve him.

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That's part of creation. That's God's created order. I mean, right after the fall when

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Cain killed Abel and God encountered him about that, what did he ask him? Am I my brother's keeper?

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Answer? Yes. Yes. Okay? Now, that was way early on.

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You're his brother's keeper because of God's created order. God created the family for that purpose.

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Okay? So there's an example. And of course we can think of all kinds of scenarios, but I think scripture covers all of those.

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Does it not? And it just requires the church to obey and people to obey.

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And again, this is pretty much often here, it's dealing with what the church does.

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This does not preclude individuals from ministering to other people, to people or to widows or to those.

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If you see a need, do what you can to meet that need. Right? Okay? Anything else? All right.

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Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your word this morning.

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We know that it is sure, it is true, and we may have to work through the application of it in all these different situations, but we know that if we rely on you and your spirit to lead us, we can take your word and apply it and then do what you would have us do.

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So we just thank you for your scriptures and what it teaches us and pray that you would continue to give us strength to obey and help us to be doers of your word and not merely hearers.