WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.240 --> 00:00:05.560 Please turn with me once again to the book of 1st Timothy. 2 00:00:05.560 --> 00:00:14.080 I think you’ve probably spent a couple weeks back in Jeremiah, but today we’re returning to our study in Timothy. 3 00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:23.080 We left off a few weeks ago having looked at the first two verses of chapter 5. 4 00:00:23.080 --> 00:00:35.880 And so this morning I’m going to begin reading in verse 3 and we’re going to continue through verse 16. 5 00:00:35.880 --> 00:00:52.740 So we’re going to look at the church’s treatment of widows who are widows indeed, how the church ministers to them, and also think something about the ministry of these widows to the church. 6 00:00:52.740 --> 00:00:57.460 Both ideas are found in this passage as we read them. 7 00:00:57.460 --> 00:01:08.760 This is God’s holy, inerrant word: Honor widows who are widows indeed. 8 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:23.280 But if any widow has children or grandchildren, they must first learn to practice piety in regard to their own family and to make some return to their parents; for this is acceptable in the sight of God. 9 00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:35.100 Now she who is a widow indeed and who has been left alone, has fixed her hope on God and continues in entreaties and prayers night and day. 10 00:01:35.100 --> 00:01:41.080 But she who gives herself in wanton pleasure is dead even while she lives. 11 00:01:41.080 --> 00:01:45.800 Prescribe these things as well, so that they may be above reproach. 12 00:01:45.800 --> 00:01:55.900 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 13 00:01:55.900 --> 00:02:21.300 A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than sixty years old, having been the wife of one man, having a reputation for good works; and if she has brought up children, if she has shown hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has assisted those in distress, and if she has devoted herself to every good work. 14 00:02:21.300 --> 00:02:36.720 But refuse to put younger widows on the list, for when they feel sensual desires in disregard of Christ, they want to get married, thus incurring condemnation, because they have set aside their previous pledge. 15 00:02:36.720 --> 00:02:48.360 At the same time they also learn to be idle, as they go around from house to house; and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention. 16 00:02:48.360 --> 00:02:59.220 Therefore, I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach; for some have already turned aside to follow Satan. 17 00:02:59.220 --> 00:03:12.940 If any woman who is a believer has dependent widows, she must assist them and the church must not be burdened, so that it may assist those who are widows indeed. 18 00:03:12.940 --> 00:03:16.600 Let’s ask God to bless his holy word. 19 00:03:16.600 --> 00:03:20.540 Father, we thank you for being such a great and wonderful God. 20 00:03:20.540 --> 00:03:27.040 And we thank you for your care for those who are without and have great need. 21 00:03:27.040 --> 00:03:39.360 We thank you, Father, that you are the God who cares and the one whom every believer can look to to bring support when they have need. 22 00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:42.500 And so we ask, Father, for your blessing this morning. 23 00:03:42.500 --> 00:03:51.560 Help us to understand this passage, to understand the responsibility of the church to people in need, and particularly to widows, to orphans. 24 00:03:51.560 --> 00:03:56.180 We ask, Father, that you show us grace and bless us this morning. 25 00:03:56.180 --> 00:03:58.860 Help us, we pray, in Christ’s name. 26 00:03:58.860 --> 00:04:00.760 Amen. 27 00:04:00.760 --> 00:04:08.800 One of the things that has always interested me is the rapid growth of the church in the first three centuries. 28 00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:30.080 It is amazing what took place when Jesus commissioned his twelve disciples, the disciples who followed him after his death, his ascension to heaven, the commissioning of the church to them. 29 00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:39.260 It grows from that small group of disciples and it expands across all of Europe to all the known world. 30 00:04:39.260 --> 00:04:47.070 And so by the third century, the Roman government has even conceded to become Christian. 31 00:04:47.070 --> 00:04:53.030 They left their pagan gods behind and were in name at least Christian. 32 00:04:53.030 --> 00:05:00.800 It is an extraordinary thing how something like that could grow so incredibly, especially in the first decades. 33 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:02.300 It’s incredible. 34 00:05:02.300 --> 00:05:06.740 And so thinking about that, what brought that about? 35 00:05:06.740 --> 00:05:24.600 Well, that growth, the true growth of the church, people coming to faith, the rapid expanse of the church, people becoming true disciples, that came about because of the power of God’s Holy Spirit to change hearts, to change people. 36 00:05:24.600 --> 00:05:30.980 And in changing their hearts, he gave them a love for other people. 37 00:05:30.980 --> 00:05:34.920 They had something that the rest of the world lacked. 38 00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:41.500 They understood the value of a person, that men and women are created in the image of God. 39 00:05:41.500 --> 00:05:47.200 That there is intrinsic value to everyone, no matter who they are. 40 00:05:47.200 --> 00:05:55.260 And people that society cast away as worthless was particularly valued by the people in the church. 41 00:05:55.260 --> 00:05:56.560 They loved them. 42 00:05:56.560 --> 00:05:58.000 They cared for them. 43 00:05:58.000 --> 00:05:59.620 They met their needs. 44 00:05:59.620 --> 00:06:04.120 And among those are widows. 45 00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:09.240 Among those are people who are left destitute. 46 00:06:09.240 --> 00:06:25.300 As we think about this, to just underscore that a little bit from history, in the fourth century… The third century was the time of Constantine, and that’s when he Christianized all of Rome. 47 00:06:25.300 --> 00:06:33.020 He made Christianity the official religion of Rome and he put aside the paganism. 48 00:06:33.020 --> 00:06:36.160 Well, he was followed by Emperor Julian the Apostate. 49 00:06:36.160 --> 00:06:53.280 And although Julian was raised theoretically as a Christian in Christianity, he attempted to dismantle all of Christianity and restore the traditional Roman gods. 50 00:06:53.280 --> 00:06:55.180 But he had a problem. 51 00:06:55.180 --> 00:07:06.060 And the problem was that Christianity so impacted the culture. 52 00:07:06.060 --> 00:07:15.340 In a famous letter to a pagan high priest, Julian expressed his frustration. 53 00:07:15.340 --> 00:07:26.340 He said, “For it’s disgraceful when no Jew has to beg and the impious Galileans support not only their own poor but ours as well. 54 00:07:26.340 --> 00:07:31.040 All men see our people lack aid from us.” 55 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:38.320 And so he ordered his priests to imitate Christian institutions, but it failed. 56 00:07:38.320 --> 00:07:47.820 It failed because they didn’t see other people as made in the image of God. 57 00:07:47.820 --> 00:08:03.760 So that was Satan’s first attempt to undermine the ministry of the church, to have the government come in in such a way that it substitutes that work. 58 00:08:03.760 --> 00:08:08.700 That’s kind of the world that we live in today. 59 00:08:08.700 --> 00:08:18.240 So what makes the church’s care for people something that is unstoppable? 60 00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:26.200 It is that conviction that God loves to care for people in need. 61 00:08:26.200 --> 00:08:31.120 People in need are close to the heart of God. 62 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:42.160 Psalm 68:5, God is explicitly declared to be the father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows. 63 00:08:42.160 --> 00:08:53.080 When Israel fell into decline, one of the things that is mentioned so often by the prophets is that the nation is chastened. 64 00:08:53.080 --> 00:09:05.380 As it says in Isaiah 1:17: Learn to do good, seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow. 65 00:09:05.380 --> 00:09:12.280 That’s the heart of God for people in need and with difficulties. 66 00:09:12.280 --> 00:09:17.260 And that’s true not just in the Old Testament, it’s certainly true in the New Testament as well. 67 00:09:17.260 --> 00:09:30.440 James 1:27 says: Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. 68 00:09:30.440 --> 00:09:46.920 This morning as we look at 1st Timothy 5, Paul is instructing Timothy how the local church should reflect the love of God practically for widows who are truly widows. 69 00:09:46.920 --> 00:09:52.880 And so there’s four areas of responsibility we want to look at, and the first is this. 70 00:09:52.880 --> 00:10:00.260 The basic principle: The church is to honor widows who are widows indeed. 71 00:10:00.260 --> 00:10:11.880 The church is commanded to honor, to respect, and to support the widows who are truly destitute. 72 00:10:11.880 --> 00:10:26.420 I should point out that when we read this word “widow,” the Greek word that underlies that is an adjective that’s used as a noun. 73 00:10:26.420 --> 00:10:36.320 And when I learned that, it gives some meaning and some depth to what Paul is saying. 74 00:10:36.320 --> 00:10:45.240 Because it is an adjective that basically means bereft, or robbed, or left alone. 75 00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:53.880 And so it means obviously a widow is a woman whose husband has died, bereft. 76 00:10:53.880 --> 00:10:55.660 But it means more than that. 77 00:10:55.660 --> 00:10:58.120 It covered a little more than that. 78 00:10:58.120 --> 00:11:19.240 Because in the first century that word is broad enough to take in a woman whose husband deserted them, or divorced them, or had been imprisoned and taken away from the home. 79 00:11:19.240 --> 00:11:27.560 Or sometimes men sent away their older wives in order to marry younger ones. 80 00:11:27.560 --> 00:11:42.300 There were all sorts of things that took place, not in the Christian world but in the world, that resulted in a woman being in a situation like that where she had no means of support. 81 00:11:42.300 --> 00:11:57.020 Particularly difficult in the Christian church because in the Jewish community, the Jewish people were supposed to take care of women in needs like that. 82 00:11:57.020 --> 00:11:59.700 But they excluded Christians. 83 00:11:59.700 --> 00:12:09.300 If you came to Christ, if you became a Christian, then you were put out of the synagogue and so it would be impossible to receive help like that. 84 00:12:09.300 --> 00:12:13.150 But the early church picked up that need. 85 00:12:13.150 --> 00:12:24.180 The command to honor widows, it means to show respect and to value them and to care. 86 00:12:24.180 --> 00:12:26.340 But it means a little more than that. 87 00:12:26.340 --> 00:12:29.320 It means to financially support them. 88 00:12:29.320 --> 00:12:33.740 You can see that use of the word in the way Jesus uses the word. 89 00:12:33.740 --> 00:12:45.420 Back in Matthew 15, you might remember the Pharisees came to Jesus to complain about his disciples and their practice of the law. 90 00:12:45.420 --> 00:13:11.110 And the Pharisees break the law, and Jesus explains particularly the fifth commandment in Exodus 20, that the Pharisees had created a religious loophole called the “corban” gift. 91 00:13:11.110 --> 00:13:15.970 They dedicated their wealth to the temple. 92 00:13:15.970 --> 00:13:27.530 And so he is condemning the Pharisees because the fifth commandment says to honor your father and your mother. 93 00:13:27.530 --> 00:13:37.640 And that means, according to Jesus, that they are responsible to meet the needs of their father and mother if they are in need. 94 00:13:37.640 --> 00:13:51.900 But what the Pharisees had done is they said, “Well, if you say that this money that I have is corban, I’ve dedicated it to the Lord, so when I’m gone and die this goes to the temple.” 95 00:13:51.900 --> 00:13:59.680 Then they have the use of that money for the rest of their life and they don’t have to use it to pay for their parent’s support. 96 00:13:59.680 --> 00:14:02.560 Jesus condemned the Pharisees because of that. 97 00:14:02.560 --> 00:14:13.090 But you notice the way that honoring—he equates honoring your father and mother with providing for their actual material and financial needs. 98 00:14:13.090 --> 00:14:24.280 And so to withhold financial support from an aging parent, Jesus considers that as breaking the fifth commandment. 99 00:14:24.280 --> 00:14:32.040 So he’s saying that families are responsible first of all to care for their aging parents. 100 00:14:32.040 --> 00:14:50.500 That’s a lesson in itself we need to consider today because I don’t know how many times you’ve been in nursing homes, I’ve been in a few, and you see people left there in the care of the state. 101 00:14:50.500 --> 00:14:55.780 They have family, family who rarely if ever comes to see them. 102 00:14:55.780 --> 00:14:59.700 And they’re just left there, and it’s a terrible situation. 103 00:14:59.700 --> 00:15:12.060 And it’s not because the children don’t have resources to care better for them, it’s because they don’t see that it’s a responsibility that they have at all. 104 00:15:12.060 --> 00:15:16.880 So it is a need when you recognize that that we have today. 105 00:15:16.880 --> 00:15:23.200 We are worse off in some ways than the pagans were in the first century. 106 00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:35.680 The first line of care is that children and grandchildren should practice godliness by caring for their own parents and grandparents, supporting elderly relatives. 107 00:15:35.680 --> 00:15:44.280 It’s a moral debt owed for the years of shelter and food and nurture that they received. 108 00:15:44.280 --> 00:15:55.360 Verse 8 says: If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 109 00:15:55.360 --> 00:15:58.180 He’s worse than an unbeliever. 110 00:15:58.180 --> 00:16:09.460 It was normal in the first century for a family to see the need of family members and to care for them. 111 00:16:09.460 --> 00:16:19.460 That was in the times of the Greeks and the Greco-Roman system, that was part of the law. 112 00:16:19.460 --> 00:16:26.020 They were legally bound, not just morally bound, to support their parents. 113 00:16:26.020 --> 00:16:34.380 And anyone who refused the duty in that period of time lost their civil rights. 114 00:16:34.380 --> 00:16:48.280 And so to quote a couple pagans, William Barclay in his commentary lists a couple of quotes from Aristotle and from Plato. 115 00:16:48.280 --> 00:17:05.140 Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics lays it down. 116 00:17:05.140 --> 00:17:23.020 He says: It would be thought in a matter of food, we should help our parents before all others, since we owe our nourishment to them, and it is more honorable to help in this respect the authors of our being even before ourselves. 117 00:17:23.020 --> 00:17:32.620 In other words, he says if you have to decide whether you’re going to go hungry or your parents go hungry, make sure your parents don’t go hungry. 118 00:17:32.620 --> 00:17:33.620 That’s what he’s saying. 119 00:17:33.620 --> 00:17:36.200 So that’s Aristotle. 120 00:17:36.200 --> 00:18:19.640 And Plato says: Next comes the honor of loving parents, to whom, as is meet, we have to pay the first and greatest and oldest of all debts, considering that all which a man has belongs to those who gave him birth and brought him up, and that he must do all that he can to minister to them, first in his property, second in his person, and thirdly in his soul, paying the debts due to them for their care and travail which they bestowed upon him of old in the days of his infancy, and which he is now able to pay back to them when they are old and in the extremity of their need. 121 00:18:19.640 --> 00:18:30.080 So that’s an interesting historical situation. 122 00:18:30.080 --> 00:18:33.780 That was what the pagans taught. 123 00:18:33.780 --> 00:19:04.380 And so Paul picks up on that thought and he says that if you, pretending to be a Christian, acting as a Christian, don’t support your own parents, then you’re worse than these unbelievers who do support their parents. 124 00:19:04.380 --> 00:19:28.960 So a Christian family or a person, a family that is in the church, professing Christians, if they turn their mother over to the care of the church and assume no responsibility for them, then they are basically not only defrauding their mother, but they’re also defrauding the church. 125 00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:36.210 They are guilty of a kind of financial fraud and moral neglect. 126 00:19:36.210 --> 00:19:38.610 We are not to do that. 127 00:19:38.610 --> 00:19:40.600 That is not the practice. 128 00:19:40.600 --> 00:19:44.580 The family should care for its own. 129 00:19:44.580 --> 00:19:58.960 God instituted the family and he instituted the church, and their roles are somewhat different and they both need to work together. 130 00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:07.260 The church shouldn’t take over the role of the family when the family should meet those needs. 131 00:20:07.260 --> 00:20:09.760 But the church does have a responsibility. 132 00:20:09.760 --> 00:20:17.080 And it was a responsibility that wasn’t being met by the pagan world in the first century. 133 00:20:17.080 --> 00:20:22.160 What about those people who don’t have family to care for them? 134 00:20:22.160 --> 00:20:27.460 The widow indeed, who was put out, or the woman who was abandoned. 135 00:20:27.460 --> 00:20:32.060 And she lives destitute without help. 136 00:20:32.060 --> 00:20:37.180 The Roman culture had just contempt for her. 137 00:20:37.180 --> 00:20:42.460 They thought it a weakness to care for someone in a situation like that. 138 00:20:42.460 --> 00:20:44.840 They did not care for those people. 139 00:20:44.840 --> 00:20:55.420 They didn’t care for the infants that were continually being put out and exposed to die because the family didn’t want them. 140 00:20:55.420 --> 00:20:59.810 That was one of the practices in the first century Roman world. 141 00:20:59.810 --> 00:21:12.840 If you have a baby and you feel like that baby might be a burden on your family, or particularly if it’s a girl, they would lay that baby out and it would be exposed to the elements. 142 00:21:12.840 --> 00:21:14.100 It would starve to death. 143 00:21:14.100 --> 00:21:18.680 It would die because of the cold or the heat. 144 00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:23.620 And so that was part of that kind of culture. 145 00:21:23.620 --> 00:21:29.080 The church was radically different. 146 00:21:29.080 --> 00:21:33.500 Cared for those people that they were not responsible for. 147 00:21:33.500 --> 00:21:40.860 People who were Christian, who was in a situation like that, the church met those needs. 148 00:21:40.860 --> 00:21:42.520 It met the need of the widow. 149 00:21:42.520 --> 00:21:47.600 It took her in and provided for her. 150 00:21:47.600 --> 00:21:49.920 That’s the pattern. 151 00:21:49.920 --> 00:21:58.930 First, the family should care for their own aged parents. 152 00:21:58.930 --> 00:22:02.640 They should look out for them and care for them. 153 00:22:02.640 --> 00:22:08.560 But if there is no family, then it’s the church’s responsibility. 154 00:22:08.560 --> 00:22:10.640 It’s an important thing. 155 00:22:10.640 --> 00:22:14.680 Family looks after the family first. 156 00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:20.800 You remember in John chapter 19. 157 00:22:20.800 --> 00:22:26.760 That account is describing Jesus as he’s suffering on the cross. 158 00:22:26.760 --> 00:22:32.820 Jesus is bearing the agony of having all of our sin placed upon him. 159 00:22:32.820 --> 00:22:36.380 And he’s suffering the very judgment that we deserve. 160 00:22:36.380 --> 00:22:52.280 And in all that agony which is beyond what we can comprehend, he looks out and he sees his mother Mary standing next to John the disciple he loved. 161 00:22:52.280 --> 00:22:59.740 And he says to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.” 162 00:22:59.740 --> 00:23:04.000 And then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother.” 163 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:11.140 And from that hour the disciple took her into his own household. 164 00:23:11.140 --> 00:23:22.480 Jesus on the cross looked after the need of his mother and saw to it that she would get the care that she needed. 165 00:23:22.480 --> 00:23:31.320 We need to make sure in our relationships that we care for our own family in whatever situations they find themselves. 166 00:23:31.320 --> 00:23:32.400 That’s first. 167 00:23:32.400 --> 00:23:44.480 And then in situations where there is no family, the widow indeed, the church picks up that need. 168 00:23:44.480 --> 00:23:53.160 It’s genuine worship of God to meet the needs of truly needy people. 169 00:23:53.160 --> 00:24:03.580 So the next section, in verses 5 through 7 and then 9 through 10, there’s the qualifications for support of these widows. 170 00:24:03.580 --> 00:24:09.040 And you notice it’s not everybody that the church will take care of. 171 00:24:09.040 --> 00:24:22.860 You could be legitimately a widow, and even have great need, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that the church would care for you. 172 00:24:22.860 --> 00:24:39.160 First of all, the widow to be placed on this official roll of the church for permanent support had to meet these criteria: She is a widow indeed: In verse 5, she’s left entirely alone. 173 00:24:39.160 --> 00:24:46.300 The grammar there is perfect tense, and that means a permanent settled state. 174 00:24:46.300 --> 00:24:47.460 This was her condition. 175 00:24:47.460 --> 00:24:49.340 She’s not going to get out of this. 176 00:24:49.340 --> 00:24:51.500 She has no one to help her. 177 00:24:51.500 --> 00:24:55.990 There’s no family members to take up that need to provide for her. 178 00:24:55.990 --> 00:25:10.860 Her hope is fixed on God: It’s not just that she has this great need, but she has her hope fixed on God. 179 00:25:10.860 --> 00:25:25.940 I think about the widow that Jesus points out to his disciples who just gave that little mite, the widow’s mite, put that into the offering to care for the needy. 180 00:25:25.940 --> 00:25:32.900 The last bit of money that she had in the world, she’s trusting the Lord to meet her needs. 181 00:25:32.900 --> 00:25:37.960 This is the kind of thing that this is describing. 182 00:25:37.960 --> 00:25:40.930 She’s trusting God to meet her needs. 183 00:25:40.930 --> 00:25:55.100 She persists in prayer: She persists in prayer to the Lord, not just for her own survival, but also to meet the needs of other people. 184 00:25:55.100 --> 00:25:58.480 And she prays night and day. 185 00:25:58.480 --> 00:26:07.080 It’s like the prophetess Anna in the birth story of Jesus. 186 00:26:07.080 --> 00:26:24.260 She has a ministry there in the temple and she prays night and day. 187 00:26:24.260 --> 00:26:35.380 Now in contrast to a woman who’s devoted to the Lord is a woman who is living a self-indulgent life. 188 00:26:35.380 --> 00:26:46.200 In the very next verse, in verse 6: But she who gives herself to wanton pleasures is dead even while she lives. 189 00:26:46.200 --> 00:26:52.600 Now the point of this is that’s not a person that the church supports. 190 00:26:52.600 --> 00:26:59.600 Here’s a woman who may have great need, but she’s living a very sinful life. 191 00:26:59.600 --> 00:27:10.000 And you don’t spend God’s money on supporting sinful habits and sinful behavior. 192 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:12.760 That is not right. 193 00:27:12.760 --> 00:27:14.940 You might meet practical needs. 194 00:27:14.940 --> 00:27:24.100 When we were downtown, lots of people who were needy people would come to seek help from the church. 195 00:27:24.100 --> 00:27:25.860 We had a couple of policies. 196 00:27:25.860 --> 00:27:28.260 We would help a person if they were hungry. 197 00:27:28.260 --> 00:27:32.980 We would take them out to a restaurant and see that they had something to eat. 198 00:27:32.980 --> 00:27:37.740 But we wouldn’t give them money, not generally speaking. 199 00:27:37.740 --> 00:27:40.740 Because they’re going to use it for wickedness. 200 00:27:40.740 --> 00:27:42.960 They’re not going to use it to get a good meal. 201 00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:50.320 They’re going to use it to satisfy habits which they were addicted to. 202 00:27:50.320 --> 00:28:00.400 And to use the resources of God to support sinful habits is not wise at all. 203 00:28:00.400 --> 00:28:15.540 It’s a misuse of God’s funds. 204 00:28:15.540 --> 00:28:27.450 She had to be, in verse 9 and 10, at least 60 years of age, the wife of one man, and known for good works. 205 00:28:27.450 --> 00:28:31.900 At least 60 years of age: Why is that? 206 00:28:31.900 --> 00:28:39.880 Well, she needed to be older, not younger. 207 00:28:39.880 --> 00:29:04.760 I’ll explain that in just a moment from the instructions for younger widows. 208 00:29:04.760 --> 00:29:32.540 The wife of one man: We talked about that when we were talking about deacons and elders who are to be the husband of one wife. 209 00:29:32.540 --> 00:29:48.300 And we pointed out that if you were married and your wife died, and you married again, that didn’t mean that you wouldn’t be qualified to be an elder or deacon. 210 00:29:48.300 --> 00:29:56.180 The phrase is describing the kind of person. 211 00:29:56.180 --> 00:30:05.920 It means you’re the kind of person who is faithful to one spouse. 212 00:30:05.920 --> 00:30:13.560 You have sexual integrity in your marital life. 213 00:30:13.560 --> 00:30:21.680 You have purity. 214 00:30:21.680 --> 00:30:39.740 If this woman had married and then her husband died and she got married again and he died, and she was left destitute and without a family, the church wouldn’t refuse to support her because she had been married to two different men. 215 00:30:39.740 --> 00:30:44.540 It means that she is a one-man kind of woman. 216 00:30:44.540 --> 00:31:03.560 And you know that that must be the case because when he talks about younger widows, his exhortation is that they remarry. 217 00:31:03.560 --> 00:31:08.000 Why would you say that if that would disqualify you in the future? 218 00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:12.720 It’s a genitive of kind, it’s the kind of a person being described here. 219 00:31:12.720 --> 00:31:23.300 She is the kind of woman who has sexual fidelity in her marriage. 220 00:31:23.300 --> 00:31:42.160 And so, if they are this kind of person, a person who is faithful, a person known for their good works—good works in raising children, or in showing hospitality, assisting people in distress, washing the feet of the saints. 221 00:31:42.160 --> 00:31:47.780 If they’re doing these things, doing good work, then they are to be put on the list. 222 00:31:47.780 --> 00:31:52.080 Put her on the list of this official order. 223 00:31:52.080 --> 00:32:10.960 And I think this list that he’s talking about includes these older women who are committing themselves to ministry in the church in a unique way. 224 00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:15.240 And so what did they do? 225 00:32:15.240 --> 00:32:18.580 These women had a ministry in the church. 226 00:32:18.580 --> 00:32:24.460 They weren’t just being supported by the church, they had a ministry. 227 00:32:24.460 --> 00:32:30.240 And the duties included things like: Visiting the sick and prisoners. 228 00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:40.290 A prayer ministry where they’re devoting themselves to the Lord to continually pray for the needs of the church. 229 00:32:40.290 --> 00:32:46.070 Discipling younger women. 230 00:32:46.070 --> 00:32:51.800 Working with orphans that the church took in. 231 00:32:51.800 --> 00:33:10.480 (When Christians picked up those babies, slavers picked up those babies too to sell them and to exploit them. 232 00:33:10.480 --> 00:33:14.920 But Christians picked them up and they raised them. 233 00:33:14.920 --> 00:33:24.920 And part of the ministry of these older women was to care for these children and to see that they were brought into homes that could take care of them.) 234 00:33:24.920 --> 00:33:30.180 And so they had a rich, wonderful ministry. 235 00:33:30.180 --> 00:33:39.180 We were talking about the growth of the church, the picture of the church caring for people that was different from the culture around them. 236 00:33:39.180 --> 00:33:43.580 Culture didn’t care, the church cared and loved these people. 237 00:33:43.580 --> 00:34:01.180 And the growth is that every member of the church, particularly people like these widows, had a ministry. 238 00:34:01.180 --> 00:34:11.060 Can you imagine the power of the prayer of these women continually praying for the work of the churches? 239 00:34:11.060 --> 00:34:17.660 And the power of God as he answered their prayers? 240 00:34:17.660 --> 00:34:25.320 The widows, according to this Roman society, were castaways, they were worthless. 241 00:34:25.320 --> 00:34:33.700 They don’t see them as created in the image of God. 242 00:34:33.700 --> 00:34:39.140 But they are God’s people, created in his own image. 243 00:34:39.140 --> 00:34:40.650 They have value. 244 00:34:40.650 --> 00:34:43.480 And they have purpose. 245 00:34:43.480 --> 00:34:53.200 And so the church didn’t just meet their financial needs, it recognized their purpose in the church. 246 00:34:53.200 --> 00:34:56.140 They had something worthwhile to do. 247 00:34:56.140 --> 00:35:02.570 They were valuable to the church, and God blessed their work. 248 00:35:02.570 --> 00:35:09.740 This ministry of the church in this way continued. 249 00:35:09.740 --> 00:35:18.120 There was basically an order of widows in the churches for the first 300 years of the church. 250 00:35:18.120 --> 00:35:28.560 And then it began to wane, maybe because of the generalized practice of the government, I don’t know. 251 00:35:28.560 --> 00:35:32.720 But it’s not something that we see very readily today. 252 00:35:32.720 --> 00:35:38.500 The church does meet needs, but it’s sort of an informal thing. 253 00:35:38.500 --> 00:35:42.320 And so we miss out on things, it seems to me. 254 00:35:42.320 --> 00:35:53.300 Not just to meet the physical needs of people, but where is their purpose? 255 00:35:53.300 --> 00:35:55.220 How are they serving God? 256 00:35:55.220 --> 00:36:05.840 There is something rich in having these people work in the church and have purpose and significance. 257 00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:15.080 They are to recognize that they are servants of God and be used of God. 258 00:36:15.080 --> 00:36:32.000 Now Paul didn’t put younger women on this list, probably because there was a covenant that they entered into to devote themselves completely to this work. 259 00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:42.880 And he recognized that younger women were likely tempted to marry. 260 00:36:42.880 --> 00:36:45.520 Not all of them would, but some would. 261 00:36:45.520 --> 00:36:47.360 And so he wanted to avoid that. 262 00:36:47.360 --> 00:37:05.220 He wanted to encourage the younger women to marry, to have children, to be able to be housekeepers, to take care of their own families. 263 00:37:05.220 --> 00:37:11.400 And not to make a commitment that they wouldn’t be able to keep. 264 00:37:11.400 --> 00:37:22.280 In the church at Ephesus, apparently there were those who had younger widows who had aligned themselves with the heretics in the church. 265 00:37:22.280 --> 00:37:26.920 As Paul says, “for some have already turned aside to follow Satan.” 266 00:37:26.920 --> 00:37:32.180 And so he wanted to avoid that. 267 00:37:32.180 --> 00:38:06.460 Because of that, he encourages younger women to keep house, to give the enemy no occasion for reproach, to marry, bear children, and to have that type of life which is preferable and wiser. 268 00:38:06.460 --> 00:38:10.360 God calls the church to meet needs. 269 00:38:10.360 --> 00:38:15.040 We need to recognize the church’s responsibility to meet needs. 270 00:38:15.040 --> 00:38:19.000 We tend to delegate things like this to our government. 271 00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:32.660 The government seeks to meet needs in this way, but it fails in the same way that it failed with Julian the Apostate. 272 00:38:32.660 --> 00:38:38.360 Because our government doesn’t recognize the holiness of a person. 273 00:38:38.360 --> 00:38:42.660 It doesn’t recognize the sanctity of a person. 274 00:38:42.660 --> 00:39:00.710 While they practically meet needs with social programs, our society encourages all sorts of things that certainly fall short of giving a person human worth. 275 00:39:00.710 --> 00:39:03.460 They encourage abortion. 276 00:39:03.460 --> 00:39:06.560 They encourage euthanasia. 277 00:39:06.560 --> 00:39:22.580 They don’t really value life. 278 00:39:22.580 --> 00:39:23.820 We delegate it. 279 00:39:23.820 --> 00:39:24.720 We give it away. 280 00:39:24.720 --> 00:39:32.600 The government takes so much of our money, we feel like they should take the responsibility. 281 00:39:32.600 --> 00:39:36.960 But really, we should ask ourselves, are we doing the job? 282 00:39:36.960 --> 00:39:46.860 And even if the government meets needs of, say, widows, do we consider them as worthless too? 283 00:39:46.860 --> 00:39:49.990 Do we consider them as having no purpose? 284 00:39:49.990 --> 00:39:58.180 In a lot of churches, seniors are delegated to the back corner of the church where they are to keep to themselves. 285 00:39:58.180 --> 00:40:03.380 And they don’t mix with the rest of the church. 286 00:40:03.380 --> 00:40:04.300 That’s not right. 287 00:40:04.300 --> 00:40:14.040 Every person who is saved by God’s grace, who is filled with the Spirit of God, is a minister of God, a servant of God. 288 00:40:14.040 --> 00:40:15.660 And you have a ministry. 289 00:40:15.660 --> 00:40:30.360 And your spiritual, eternal worth is evidenced by your ministry. 290 00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:36.260 And these women had worth, they had value, they were certainly valuable to the church. 291 00:40:36.260 --> 00:40:47.500 They prayed for needs to be met, they ministered to the older women, taught younger women how to care for and love their families. 292 00:40:47.500 --> 00:40:50.960 They ministered in ways that were substantial and worthwhile. 293 00:40:50.960 --> 00:40:54.120 They discipled, they encouraged, they blessed. 294 00:40:54.120 --> 00:41:00.640 And God used their ministry, and blessed the church through them. 295 00:41:00.640 --> 00:41:10.040 Family members need to recognize that we are responsible for our older parents. 296 00:41:10.040 --> 00:41:16.360 Children, grandchildren are responsible for their aging parents. 297 00:41:16.360 --> 00:41:23.760 They shouldn’t consider them as a burden, but they should recognize that they have a sacred debt. 298 00:41:23.760 --> 00:41:29.220 And as an act of worship to God, they should see that their needs are met. 299 00:41:29.220 --> 00:41:44.460 And that means not just that they’re provided for and they get something to eat, but that they are loved, that they spend time with them, that they meet their needs as a family. 300 00:41:44.460 --> 00:41:56.760 And as a church, we need to look out for the vulnerable people, the orphans and the widows and other people who have a genuine need. 301 00:41:56.760 --> 00:42:11.320 We should be a congregation that seeks the lonely, the bereft, and the financially destitute, who are believers especially, and meet needs that are genuine needs. 302 00:42:11.320 --> 00:42:15.540 We should love people. 303 00:42:15.540 --> 00:42:30.060 When you think about the gospel itself, what Jesus was doing on the cross was giving us an abundant grace. 304 00:42:30.060 --> 00:42:44.280 We who were spiritually destitute, with no resources and no hope and absolutely nothing to offer, Christ in his mercy gives us abundant spiritual riches. 305 00:42:44.280 --> 00:42:52.260 He brings us into his household and he provides for us at the cost of his own life, the sacrifice he made for us. 306 00:42:52.260 --> 00:42:59.380 And when you consider that, shouldn’t we be generous to meet the needs of other people? 307 00:42:59.380 --> 00:43:08.780 Isn’t that Christ-like? 308 00:43:08.780 --> 00:43:14.140 I opened this with a historical quote, I’m going to close it with another. 309 00:43:14.140 --> 00:43:18.780 There was a church historian, his name is Aristides. 310 00:43:18.780 --> 00:43:32.220 And in the second century he wrote to the pagan emperor Hadrian. 311 00:43:32.220 --> 00:43:37.160 He wrote a letter defending Christianity. 312 00:43:37.160 --> 00:43:45.780 And he explains what made the believers so different from the rest of Rome. 313 00:43:45.780 --> 00:43:50.500 This is a time of persecution, and he’s writing a letter to the emperor. 314 00:43:50.500 --> 00:43:54.260 And he says: They love one another. 315 00:43:54.260 --> 00:43:57.020 The widow’s needs are not ignored. 316 00:43:57.020 --> 00:44:03.880 They rescue the orphan from the person who does them violence. 317 00:44:03.880 --> 00:44:14.160 He who has gives to him who has not, ungrudgingly and without boasting. 318 00:44:14.160 --> 00:44:28.580 And if they find poverty in their midst, and they do not have spare food, they fast two or three days in order that the needy might be supplied with the necessities. 319 00:44:28.580 --> 00:44:30.800 Now that is something. 320 00:44:30.800 --> 00:44:33.140 That’s the early church. 321 00:44:33.140 --> 00:44:46.620 They see somebody who has a great need and they don’t have the means to meet it, they starve themselves for two or three days to have something to give to those people. 322 00:44:46.620 --> 00:44:49.860 Now that is a passion and a love. 323 00:44:49.860 --> 00:44:58.380 And you can see how such passion and love would bring about people that devoted. 324 00:44:58.380 --> 00:45:02.200 You can see how that would make an impact. 325 00:45:02.200 --> 00:45:10.880 The love of God has transformed their hearts, and so that they love with a passionate love. 326 00:45:10.880 --> 00:45:13.220 We need that. 327 00:45:13.220 --> 00:45:29.520 May we as a church be gripped by the grace of God and the love of God, so that we are willing to sacrifice our own comforts to ensure that the vulnerable among us is honored, provided for, and loved. 328 00:45:29.520 --> 00:45:31.200 Let’s pray. 329 00:45:31.200 --> 00:45:33.340 Father, we thank you for this passage. 330 00:45:33.340 --> 00:45:36.700 We pray, Lord, that you help us. 331 00:45:36.700 --> 00:45:52.340 It’s difficult today to sort through the way we do church, the practices that we have, and to be confronted with your word, to see the difference between our church and what has gone before. 332 00:45:52.340 --> 00:45:59.640 And Father, to find practical ways to meet needs that is real and not foolish. 333 00:45:59.640 --> 00:46:13.940 It’s one thing to just give out money or to support sinful people, it’s something else to actually truly care and especially care for the people of God. 334 00:46:13.940 --> 00:46:17.460 Help us, Father, to care for the people of God. 335 00:46:17.460 --> 00:46:23.760 And Father, we live in a world and even among us there are needs that should be met. 336 00:46:23.760 --> 00:46:34.000 I don’t know, Father, I don’t know how we are to do this exactly, but I do know, Father, that you will lead us and teach us. 337 00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:38.720 Help us, Father, to have hearts that submit to you in everything. 338 00:46:38.720 --> 00:46:41.980 And give us what we need, we pray. 339 00:46:41.980 --> 00:46:45.840 Thank you for your care and kindness for us. 340 00:46:45.840 --> 00:46:53.760 Thank you for taking us in when we were destitute and bringing us into your own family. 341 00:46:53.760 --> 00:46:58.760 I pray, Father, that you help us to minister to those with great need. 342 00:46:58.760 --> 00:47:04.240 And that the love of Jesus Christ would be evident in each of us. 343 00:47:04.240 --> 00:47:10.280 Help us, Father, to minister in your name, so that you receive the glory and the honor. 344 00:47:10.280 --> 00:47:13.880 We ask this, that Christ be honored. 345 00:47:13.880 --> 00:47:15.640 And pray in his name. 346 00:47:15.640 --> 00:47:17.640 Amen.