First Timothy lesson 26

All right, we are in First Timothy, and we are just getting into chapter five. JD covered first verse of chapter five, and now we are, first two verses, sorry, now we are covering three through five. So just three verses this morning that we're gonna cover. So let me read, Let me read those verses unless someone has it wants to read there. Someone you want to jump in and read, read. Why don't we read a little bit further? Just get a little bit more of the context. Let's read three through 10. Let's go all the way down to the bottom of 10.

Honor of widows. who are really widows, but if any widow have children or descendants, let them learn first to be pious as regards their own house, and to render a return on their side to their parents, for this is acceptable in the sight of God. Now she who is a widow, indeed, and is left alone, has put her hope in God, and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. But she that liveth in habits of self-indulgence is dead while she living. And these things enjoin that they may be irreproachable. But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his house. He has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Let a widow be put upon the list by being not less than 60 years, having been wife of one man, born witness to in good works. If she have brought up children, if she have exercised hospitality, if she has washed saint's feet, if she have imparted relief to the distressed, if she has have diligently followed every good work. And that's Darby. Great, thanks Mike. That was Darby, was it? Yeah. Okay, awesome. Yeah, I was just wondering what translation that was. That was good. Thank you.

So we've got this This little section here, it's kind of interesting. In this short little book, First Timothy, he devotes this entire chapter, basically, to how to deal with widows and how to care for widows. So it's a significant issue that he wanted to deal with here. But I just kind of have some opening thoughts before we get right to the questions. This is obviously a very practical issue. You know, we've got things like widow's lists, whatever that is. We'll get to that, right? We have rules about who's a widow and who's not a widow, who qualifies, who doesn't qualify, what has to be done, what their family must do, and so forth.

So it kind of raises a question, is this legal? Is Paul getting legal here all of a sudden in Chapter 5? Or does this instruction fit inside the grace paradigm? touch on that before we get going. Does it fit into grace, and if so, how? I think, yeah, it does.

And I think it does because there's principles under which the body of Christ is to function, as opposed to statutes and and laws, but there are principles in the family, there are principles in the body, in the church, how it's to function. And I think really what Paul is talking about here is the principles of Christian life, and which would put, actually put an obligation on widows to function in a certain way, not to take advantage of the system, and the same thing with those that are probably, I would say, the deacons of the local church, how they would make their decisions about who should receive assistance and who shouldn't.

Yeah, you kind of mentioned it there, it's the principles of the Christian life, or we could say what Paul is describing is he is describing the life of Christ, describing what the life of Christ looks like. And that's kind of the interesting thing about this passage is we get to see here one way in which the life of Christ is extremely practical. You know, sometimes people look at, you know, those of us who are teaching that the Christian life is Christ living his life through me, and they look at that and they say, well, that is so, you know, heavenly minded, it is no earthly good. The reality is that when our minds are set on heavenly things, right, Jesus Christ, his life lived out through us is very, very practical. And it addresses things like this here in this chapter, right? So, yeah, any other thoughts on that?

Does grace, does grace, go ahead, I'll ask this question and you can answer it. mean that we don't have any rules or any imperative commands. And then, I think, someone was starting to talk there. Yeah, you know, I guess, I'm trying to, maybe I'm too black and white, I know. This just seems like more of an organizational, on how the body's supposed to run. You know, when I say grace, I keep thinking, grace is, If we use our Macaulay definition, does that fit in here? I think this is just God is a God of order, and how is the local body supposed to function?

And if you go back to Acts 6 and 1, this is when they started to... The Hellenistic Jews were complaining about the native Jews, that the widows weren't being taken care of. So then it was set up that they had the deacons. Yeah, 6-1, yeah. Now, at this time, while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hildimnistic Jews against the native Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food. So I think this is just kind of operationally, this happened early in Acts, and then now he's giving Timothy the same command. that in order for the body to function, you need to take care of widows. And the first question, widows indeed, who are they?

Maybe it's a bit more black and white for me. It's just, this is how the body is supposed to function. Yeah, yeah. You know, I agree. It is very, this is just very practical instruction. It is an interesting, you brought up Acts 6 and that's exactly where this goes back to, right?

When the church began and all of a sudden there was this issue. Widows are very vulnerable in general, right? I mean, they don't have anyone else to stand up for their, for them or their needs. And there was, it says they were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. But what's interesting is that I think that daily distribution of food was more in common, actually, to the whole body of Christ, not just to widows.

Because if you go back to chapter 4, Acts chapter 4, it talks about the fact that they all were holding everything in common. We have Barnabas selling his property, and everything was just shared amongst the body of Christ at that time. And in verse 34, it says, for there was not a needy person among them. For all who were owners of land and houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles' feet, and so forth.

So we know that background. the land and i since the fire event and everything but if you look on just before verse thirty four at the end of uh... there it was thirty three and it says it was great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the lord jesus and abundant grace was upon them all or there was not any person among them uh... and uh... so you see right there grace grace is involved in this whole uh... this whole practical of sharing things with one another and caring for those who were needy by, you know, selling your own property and giving to others.

So, so grace, you know, I think if we, if we understand grace, not as a lack of, a lack of you know, principled instructions for how to, you know, for how to operate, you know, these black and white operating procedures, so to speak. But we think of grace, we understand grace as being the provision of the life of God's Son, Jesus Christ, to his body. then we understand exactly how grace is operative in these kinds of things. Because these kinds of things, you know, can be carried out in the flesh. They can. I mean, you could make, you can make, take chapter five here and you could turn it into a list of rules about how we must function.

Sorry, am I getting cut off here? My computer is telling me my internet connection is unstable. Can you guys still hear me? Yeah, I just didn't see you. Okay. Good. Good. So we can turn any kind of an imperative into legality, but that would be missing the point, right? We have to understand that because we have, by grace, Christ as our life, we can carry out these things here under grace, Christ living through us. So, okay, that's enough introduction. I mean, we just want to have that in the back of our mind as we go into a passage like this. So let's look at question number one.

What does Paul mean by widows indeed or various other translations? I think Darby there said really widows at one point. So what does that mean? All right, if you've had one husband die, now you're a widow. If you've had two husbands die, now you're really a widow. Or what does it mean if you're really a widow? That works. I think it refers specifically to the women. Does it refer specifically to women? Good point. Is that wrong? Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good point. The words there, ontos. Ontos is the Greek word for really or indeed or truly.

Paul uses it in this book in chapter six, verse 19. If you want to see another use of the same word, just flip over there one page. First Timothy six, verse 19. Storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed okay, so Real life genuine life we could say Over in mark 1132 We see that The religious leaders were afraid because the people believed that John the Baptist was a real prophet or an ontos prophet, same word.

In other words, the genuine article, the real deal. All right, so what does it mean to be a real widow or a genuine widow? Well, Paul opens that up in a passage here. What things does he say about it? That's kind of what he goes on to list. I think the widow has to have, the primary thing is there's no other form of support for her.

From family, obviously the Jewish government didn't have social security or Medicare or Medicaid or whatever, what it is. So they had to be a genuine widow, which I think points up the fact that he's preventing people from gaming the system. We've gone through this thing in the last six months in our country where they've investigated all kinds of departments and people are taking advantage of them that shouldn't be. fraud and that and so he's setting down immediately that this The instructions I'm given are for Women who are definitely widows without support and Yeah, that's good, Mike.

Another thing, and it goes back to what you said before, and I'm trying to figure that, is this only for widows who are believers, or is this all widows? It seemed to imply that it was like everybody, all widows. But is this for all widows? Yeah. So this is all widows regardless of their belief? We're going to hold that one off for question four. But it's a really good point. Yeah. Yeah.

The word for widow, so we have ontos, which is indeed, and kairos, which is widows. And that word kairos is related to the words barren or bereft. And it's used in some cases of a city that is emptied of its inhabitants and its riches. So back to Mike's point, there's nothing left. There's no other form of support. someone who is truly left alone, which is interesting, right?

Because by modifying the word widows as widows indeed, it does raise the question, well, what is a widow who's not a widow indeed? And we don't really use this category of speech in our common, you know, modern vernacular. I mean, if you're a widow, you're a widow, but obviously, in Paul's mind, you could be a widow. In other words, your husband had died, but you still had family. You still had support. Or you could be a widow who had lost not only your husband, but maybe she never had children. Maybe her children had died. Whatever the case, no one, no family to care for her. Um, so this, you know, that, I think that's what the widow, widow indeed means. And that's important because like Mike said, it's to keep people from saying, well, Hey, I technically qualify.

I'll, you know, I'll, uh, I'll dip in here. Um, finding the, uh, you know, the loopholes and the. in things which again goes back to why this is a legal standard you know uh... is is always good when the flesh is active it's always going to be a game of how can i uh... i find a loophole when the life of christ is active completely for the conversation right where is this about how to here for one another so uh... well and there's there's a difference yahoo uh... discussions in God's Word about women that did certain things. Like, I don't remember her name, but a woman that worked in the temple, and she prayed night and day, and she took, so they took care of her. Or if you were, you know, an indentured slave, or as a woman, you worked for a family. I mean, we're talking about, I think, people who are widows from a death standpoint but also don't have the capacity to meet their own needs.

That's good. Yeah. And that, and that comes up a little later on when he deals with that age, putting an age limit on it. Right. I mean, we, today we don't think of sixties being that old. Um, but, uh, in their, in their day to day lifespans and so forth, I mean, that was getting up there. Right. So, um, yeah. Which is, which is why that's a factor. If you're younger than 60, I mean, not only can you probably still work, but you might even be able to get remarried. He deals with that later on. Right. But yeah. Um, you know, when you're at an age where you can't physically work or, you know, then again, you need some help.

So, speaking of that help, question number two, what does the word honor mean in this context? What does it mean? I mean, the word, even in the Greek, you know, just simply means to revere, to respect, so forth, right? A lot of synonyms. But when we think about that, that should be towards everyone, not just widows. So it's not that we only honor widows and nobody else. So what does it mean here? Because he clearly has something specific in mind. What is it that he has in mind with the word honor? It looks like financial support. I was just thinking of the worker is worthy of double honor. that sort of tied in financial support?

Yeah. Were some of the widows looked down upon? Could be. Yeah, I mean, obviously, yeah, to honor them includes that respect, you know. But yeah, Ingrid, you're right. That's right in the last part of the chapter where Paul switches to talking about elders.

He uses that phrase, those who rule well are considered worthy of double honor. especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. What does that mean, right? If you continue down into, where are we here? Verse 18 for the scripture says, you shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing, and the laborer is worthy of his wages. And so, clearly, there, in the same chapter, very close context, Paul is using the word honor to refer to wages of some sort.

Which, by the way, think about that, does it have to be monetary? It could be, certainly. In this day and age, that's the simplest way to help someone probably is to give them cash. But their economy was much more of a barter and trade economy. You could just as easily give someone the food they need and the clothing they need as giving them money to go get it themselves, which is not a major point here. I think the point is that This is provision for their material needs, food, clothing, shelter, and so forth.

So that's, I think within the context, that's what it means to say that we honor them. Any other thoughts on that? Well, Miles, I was thinking that honor, it's maybe pay a little more attention to them because they don't have anybody else. So not only financially, but physically and companionship. Yeah. Yeah. Paying a little closer attention. Yeah. That's a really good point. Yeah.

And I think that's probably part of the reason why Paula chose to use the word honor and not just some word for money or financials or something like that, because it involves so much more. than just taking care of the tangible needs, caring for them as a person, taking care of them. Because it's a lonely thing to be a widow indeed, right? You're really quite alone in the world. In the body of Christ is your family, which is true for all of us. But for the person in this situation, that is all you've got. So be there.

That's a good point. So question three, how does the church identify an eligible widow? Now, this is kind of where we get into the, you know, point by point stuff here that Paul lists. So, what are those requirements to be an eligible widow indeed? You kind of just go down verse by verse.

Yeah, go ahead. Obviously, the husband has died. Yeah. That's the first, yeah, that's the first point and I guess it's implied because Paul doesn't mentioned that but yeah if your means your husband's died good yeah um can i add a thought to that this is not this is not in my notes it's not a question or anything um what about someone whose husband has abandoned them he might still be alive, but because we had circumstances like that where Paul had to deal with, he said, you know, if your husband's still willing to live with you now that you're a Christian lady, stick with him. But if he sends you away, you can't, you can't stay. I mean, you can't force him to keep you.

Right. Um, so that was a situation that existed in the church then, you know, unbelieving husbands who divorced their wives. And, uh, so just a thought. In the Jewish system, a divorce didn't take very long. You would have a couple of guys go, and as a witness you just pronounce a divorce and that's it.

Yeah. And it didn't come with, um, you know, the financial support, you know, legal, uh, stuff that we have today, you know, where you've got to support your, your ex so to speak. Right. So you were, if you were divorced, I mean, you were hung on to dry. So, um, I think more, more of the criteria too. And that, I mean, you're, when you say left out, you know, to dry. The next criteria is there are no children or grandchildren to take care of them. So there's no family support system to be able to do that. And in verse 5, she has been left alone. So again, nobody to take care of her. Back to one of my questions, you know, this is for everybody, and that she 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. So is this everybody or believers?

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, basically somebody who is, you know, completely left alone, no family structure, no financial means, you know, really, really the, the definition of destitute, you know, there's just no one to support this person, this woman. Yeah, good points, Courtney.

That's exactly what Paul lays out in the text. There's something else in verse 6, which I know is beyond today's verses, but that's why we read it, because Paul continues to unfold what this means. Uh, he talks about, but, but she who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead even while she lives.

So, um, this is, this is not a, uh, uh, an elderly single lady who is, you know, uh, living high on the hog, so to speak, that had some, you know, some cash under the mattress or whatever. Right. Um, she's, she's, she's, you know, actually a need. So that's another factor because there are some single elderly ladies who are loaded, right? I mean, they're, They're well taken care of. They don't need your help. I think that's a factor too.

And then down to nine, we talked about this earlier, but the age thing, if she's, Paul lays out 60 years, I think that's more of a principle. Like I said, at 60, That age might be a little bit higher in our current day. But I think it has to be evaluated probably somewhat on a case-by-case basis because certain health issues can come up in the later years that would make work impossible. But basically, the idea there is, is she young enough to be married or working? All that has to be considered. So those are some of the things in the passage here that Paul lays out as what makes someone eligible to be on the list, as he calls it. I just find that term kind of funny.

They actually have a list, right? The list. I know that'll be in the next... Can't really deal with that, but... Well, yeah, I guess the other criteria to think about this, when you go down this list, their winner would be if they meet all of these criteria? Right. Do they have to check every box? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like, there are going to be three people who meet this criteria. It's bad. Yeah, well I was going to say, do we have anyone even in Holly Hills who checks all these boxes, right? Because most people have immediate family. So in a way, it actually narrows things down quite a lot. It makes things pretty close. Now, we do have Tom Mallinson, right? And this is interesting because we're talking about a passage.

This is question four. So why don't we just jump into question four? Do you see a principle here for the requirements for widows to receive assistance? Does that question make sense? I had to kind of think about that question a bit. I kind of reworded it a little bit. I just said, what can we learn as a church from these detailed instructions about who can and cannot receive support or aid? So now I just brought up a man. Well, he's clearly not a widow, right? but what principles do we take?

And I think we did, we got some real audio static going on here. Okay, the static's gone. Are we all there? Nope, it's back. You sound good to us. Oh, that's great. I actually heard you loud and clear, Mike, so I don't know what was going on there, but there is some static, so. Sounds like somebody's like wiggling a mic cable. Anyway.

It's kind of an off-the-cuff comment. Did I promise that in our country with all of this deportation stuff that's going on, that the wealthy suburbanites are all complaining that the people that cut their grass and take care of their kids and nannies and that are all getting deported. I thought, well, there's got to be some widows around who could fill the gap. That's an interesting comment, Mike.

I don't think I'm going to step into too much politics here. And the other point I wanted to make was I think 60 years old is really old in this culture. I think they probably have trouble getting around, really can't work. I don't know what you'd say in our society. Depends on the individual in our society. It does. It can vary a lot. Yeah.

But you know, I mean, even you go back 150 years, 200 years, um, you talk about how long most of the pioneers lived because they worked, they worked there, you know, work themselves weary every single day of their existence. They didn't live very long. Right. And when you live in that kind of, uh, um, circumstance, life is short. Yeah. I can remember as a kid that great grandparents were a novelty. But today, they're not.

That's right. And that's why I say, when he says things like 60 years, I think we have to take that as giving a principle, not necessarily a hard and fast legal age limit here. I think the other thing that maybe we should be talking about here is that fact of how, which we're talking about on the last couple of months on Sunday, about how believers are to treat one another. And he starts out by using the word honor. In any local body of believers like ours, if somebody gets incapacitated or sick, other people begin to say, well, what can we do to help them? And so that's a two-way street. There's those that can help, that want to help. Sometimes it's hard for those who need the help to accept it, because they're used to being on the other side of the coin their whole life. And so, you know, it's really interesting.

If the body of Christ functions the way the Lord intended for it to function, to love one another, that Christ is the example, then this would not have been an issue. I find it interesting that this became an issue because the out-of-town Jews criticized the in-town Jews for not taking care of their widows. That's really how it started, you know. You know, I think as Christ lives in and through each one of us, a lot of this care, a lot of this honor can happen without being even brought to public attention. I mean, a lot of things happen between one believer and another.

You know, oh, I see you've got a need and you just, you know, help take care of it. But clearly in this case, they kept a list, you know, so this was fairly official. Um, with the, uh, with the church leadership, they knew who these people were and they had a, they obligated themselves to, um, to make sure that these people were cared for. So, um. But I think if we were to draw maybe one or two basic principles out of this passage in terms of who gets aid and who doesn't, I think the key principle is that we have to be discerning about it. And this goes back to Courtney's point earlier.

Is this just for everybody? Is everybody in the world? The church is not a welfare society, contrary to what a lot of people have tried to make it. I don't know how far it goes back. The one, not to pick on anyone in particular, but the one that always comes to mind, of course, is the Salvation Army. I don't know how old I was before I realized the Salvation Army is actually a church, not just a soup kitchen. They're more focused on social welfare, it seems, at least from the outside, that's what it appears, right? Um, and, uh, and, and, you know, the whole idea is that that we're, you know, we're here to help everybody. Now, it's not to say, I mean, I actually personally know someone's dad who was saved eating at the Salvation Army soup kitchen every day.

And he always said, he actually wasn't poor. He just said, if they're dumb enough to give out free food, I'm just going to take it. But funny story, in most of his life, he was very hostile toward God. But they discovered right towards the end of his life that he actually was saved.

And so it's not to say that what a group like the Salvation Army is doing doesn't reach some with the gospel. I mean, their goal in that is more evangelistic. And so I don't want to tear them to shreds over it. But the church can get awfully sidetracked trying to be focused on the social welfare of the entire entire community. But we do have an obligation in a church to take care of those within the body of Christ.

That's a principle that we see here. And we have to be discerning about who gets help like this and who is doing just fine, right? Another principle that shows up here is that we don't help every needy person on the basis of emotion. Because we do care about one another and want to help each other out, but it's not an emotional decision. There are actually really concrete factors in terms of, well, this person actually needs help, this person doesn't. They might be going through a hard time and we can sympathize and stuff like that. stuff like that, but they don't necessarily need financial help and so forth.

So there has to be wisdom applied in these situations. And of course, that wisdom isn't sourced in ourselves, is it? It has to be done in independence of the Lord seeking him. And he's more than able to direct these kinds of things in the local body. That's what he's all about, right? working out the life of his son in church.

So, any other thoughts on principles? Question four before we close. I was just thinking, you know, what came to mind was, you know, the Lord speaking in 1 Mark 12, you know, What commandment is the foremost of all? Jesus answered, the foremost is, here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. And I think, this is the Lord speaking, that love your neighbor as yourself.

So I think that's the right. That was a command given to a Jew for a Jew. Yeah. But I mean it's the principle is yeah, there's another one that you know the greatest of these faith open faith open love But now faith hope and love abiding these three, but the greatest of these is love That's the price and that's and that's the principle. Yeah, exactly And so I mean there were there were commands for Israel.

We are something distinct. We're in the church principles carry over though love is the principle and And there are specific instructions around it. Yeah, the law was for the Jews, but the principle was love. And Christ is pointing out an overriding principle, not only for the Jews, but for us too. He said, faith, hope, and love.

That's right. And so, yeah, and so never should, you know, first Timothy five turn into, you know, a cold calculated, uh, you know, um, strategy here. This is, it really ultimately is love the love of Christ expressed in his body. So not, not a rule, but it's a principle, which is how things operate, how the body operates, not a law. Yeah. Awesome. All right, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the things that you have taught us even this morning. And Lord, we just thank you for the life of Christ that is so personal, so real. And thank you for the love of Christ that you have placed in our hearts. towards one another and we just pray that you would be the one who expresses that amongst us. All to your glory, in Jesus' name, Amen.