First Timothy Finish Lesson 26 (Q9) Start 27

All right, I have one more question and then Mike will come up and get 27 started. So I think we got through question 8. I'll go back up to the top here and read this section again. dealing about uh... uh... widows and this whole section about kind of the body concept uh... different things uh... what we're supposed to do and what if you don't do them as we'll see about denying the faith so we'll read uh... this is twenty six lesson twenty six and we'll read uh... first timothy chapter five verses three through eight again just to get context and uh... what we've been studying kind of as a group here Honor widows who are widows indeed, but if any widow has children or grandchildren, they first must 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. 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. but she who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead even while she lives prescribe these things as well so that they may be above reproach 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 pretty harsh words and we got through a lot of those last week you know what is denying uh... and then uh... that this does not have anything to do with salvation. That it is about basically operational or how the body's supposed to function. And so the denying of this and worse than an unbeliever is, it sounds very threatening, actually, that if we don't do this, you're worse than an unbeliever, you scum. It's like, wow, this is pretty bold statements here.

So we went through in the last question in seven about, let me get to it here, seven, does the faith do away with the responsibility of man providing for his own? And we went through all that about who it's providing for. Is it providing for the homeless on the street, or is this your own household? and whether the principle is to all, but the specifics are to the household. We should be caring for those in the body first, and then especially of your own household. So it's broken down into two. It's not just your household, but it says in context, it's everybody in the body who needs help, you should help, but specifically your own household.

And then it gets to the question eight, Why does Paul use the words worse than an unbeliever to explain the consequences of not providing for one's family? Again, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. So, let's look at the word for unbeliever. What does that mean? What is an unbeliever? An unsaved person. Somebody who does not have the life of Christ in them. so and it's so this is this is uh... and and uh... greek word there is for its intended infidel or or unbelievers a pistos our word for faith is pistos and alpha prefix which negates the word the total meaning for the word meaning on believer so again this is somebody who does not know uh... the lord It's interesting here, so your comparison is he's denied the faith, and if he does that, he's worse than an unbeliever.

Denying the faith is tied back to providing to the household. So if you're not providing to the household, and you can, you're worse than an unbeliever, because an unbeliever probably will do that. And so he's giving kind of the harsh, the new word, admonishment, from the Roman study, the admonishment to take care of your family, provide for them.

If they are a widow indeed, you're to take care of them. But also it says this is the household. And so this is even a little bit expanded from the widow. It's the household. And then by the other is that if somebody is in need, you should take care of that need within the body.

And I go back to the James where James says, if you see somebody in need and you don't do anything, you're not a doer. Well, it would be the same sort of thing, denying the faith. You're not living out your Christian life in what the Lord would have you do by turning your back on somebody who has a need. So it's similar here, is that if you don't, you're worse than an unbeliever.

I'll get into some of your notes on Vincent. Mike had these from Vincent. Vincent remarks that even an unbeliever will perform these duties from natural promptings. So basically what Paul is telling Timothy is like, you don't want to be caught where, how good is it looked for representing Christ and ambassador for Christ when the unbelievers are taking care of their own and you're shirking your duty. So he's saying, you know, it's worse than an unbeliever, because they're doing it, and you're not. So he's giving that warning.

The faith spoken of here, of course, is the Christian faith. So exporters have this helpful note. The Christian faith includes the law or principle of love. And we touched on this a little bit last week, too. The moral teaching of Christianity recognized the divine origin of all natural and innocent human affections.

So the unbeliever, i.e., the born heathen, processes possesses natural family affection and though these feelings may be stunted by savagery, this is again talking about the unbeliever, the heathen, are not likely to be sophisticated by human perversions of religion such as those denounced by Jesus.

They may be doing this stuff and acting religiously, you know, help the little old lady across the street. They're doing that, but you're not doing it, and what kind of an example for Christ are you doing? Are you an ambassador for Christ when you're denying the care of your own household or within the body, when the unbelievers are taking care of it? They have philanthropic, wonderful things that they're doing, and we as a body of believers are not taking care of our own. Hence why I think the government has expanded all of everything, because the church has not been a lot of taking care of people. They shirk it upon the government. So, that's my political side.

Sorry about that. So, continuing on from what Vincent said, the Christian who falls below the best, I like this one, the Christian who falls below the best heathen standard of family affection is the more blameworthy, since he has what the heathen has not, the supreme example, i.e., his life within, of love in Christ Jesus, in Jesus Christ. So I think that's, you know, he falls below the best heathen standard. I like that, how he put that.

Unbelievers usually recognize the obligation of providing for their own household. Becoming a Christian does not remove that responsibility, but rather leads to an understanding of its greatness. So again, this is kind of a harsh warning from Paul to Timothy in the body. And again, remember, this is Paul giving Timothy guidance on how to run the church at Ephesus.

So, I also looked at it, it's kind of interesting, and the verb is, in the Greek, is present tense, active voice, and indicative mood. That means if we don't take care of our family, we are actively, in fact, acting as an unbeliever. That's what we're doing. We're actively doing that. We are participating, doing the action.

And the last was kind of a translation after you go through this. But if, as in the case, a certain one does not anticipate the needs of his own and provide for them, and especially for those of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever, as a translation.

Any other questions on that? Or I'll turn it over to Mike in the next section. All right, Mike, you're up. Okay, everybody have a sheet for lesson 27? Continuing on in the same mode, we're looking at, I kind of divided it up, two sections, verses five, I'm sorry, chapter five, nine and 10.

He switches now and he starts to put, talk about what she should do with a widow. A widow is to be put on a list only if she is not less than 60 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 saint's feet, if she has assisted those in distress, and if she has devoted herself to every good work. So... Should I do my usual crass statement? She made nine out of ten, is she okay? Nine out of ten, is she naked? Or if she did all these things, but she's 59 and a half? Yeah. Missed it by that much.

So my first question was, What's the first thing to be done by those dealing with widows? What's the first thing you're supposed to do? Yeah, it's real simple. You're supposed to have a list. So we're gonna have a list on the board back there. Who's on it, yeah. I find it interesting that Paul says, gotta have a list of who they are.

So everybody knows. Well, does that go back, you know, thinking about it right now, does that go back to almost when Stephen and all the deacons were set up, that they were missing, taking care of some of them? I think so. That the Hellenistic Jews or whatever, and that they were missing some. Yeah. So maybe that's his way. He was there at the stoning of Stephen, so he kind of knows why he was doing it and all that. so they don't miss these people. Well, I just so appreciate Paul's ability to organize the church. A very practical thing.

Oh yeah, we're gonna have a list. And as we go on, we're gonna talk about how you get on the list. A couple of notes. First thing is, she's placed on the list. We know little about this list. Tertullian and Origen inform us an order of widows had developed in some of the churches from the second to the fourth century. Maybe that's how nuns got, I don't know. The words to be taken into the number or put on the list are translations of catargeo, catalego, to pick out, and cata, down. So to select or write down in a register or a list. So that's the very first thing you do.

So while you were talking, Courtney, I was sitting there thinking, how about Tom Mallinson? How about John Mallinson? He didn't take care of his own. He tried to, but then he didn't. So the first thing is you make a list. Now my next question was, What are the items on the list and explain each? So the answer to this question covers, let's see, four things plus under the last one, five more, so about nine things. So let's go through them.

First of all, she has to be over 60 years old. I'd still love that. So Donna, you're on the list. But what's interesting is that if we had a list today, 60 wouldn't be the wouldn't be the mark. It'd be more like 70, 75, something like that. Right? That's what I was wondering. Do we take this, you know, like, you know, the dollar was worth X in 1990 and now it's worth, you know, it's just like, We push this up to 70 or, you know, what is the criteria? Well, for sure, you can't get Social Security until you're 62 and a half or 65 or Medicare until you're 65. So obviously the number would be, but there, I suppose there are widows that really at 60 years old probably need some help. Okay.

And then, That's the first thing. The second thing is having been the wife of one man. So does that mean that she was only married once? What do you think? That's exactly what it means. And why would that be a restriction? Think about it. If at 60 years old, only married to one man, in other words, you're a woman of one man, she could be enrolled provided that she had not married more than once. What if her husband died? She's free from the marriage. That's right. She's free to marry again. That's right. Does that preclude her because she has two families to rely upon now? I mean, how else do you describe it? There aren't any unlesses. How about someone who was divorced before they became a Christian and then were married to somebody else? Does that disqualify them?

You know, again, I think going, if you look at the overall, my joking of nine out of ten and you win, is that, you know, I think this whole section, just like elders, just like we've talked about the other criteria that they have about the three, you know, in the previous passages, they had to be, you know, in treaties, night and day, and all the different three criteria. Sure.

But I think it's, on a whole, the idea is, is she a godly woman? That's the key. If you make eight out of 10, or nine out of 10, or seven out of 10, it's really, you're looking as she'd been a godly woman. And, because I mean, if we use this criteria today, which of the widows around here washed the feet of people? Which we'll get to, I'm sorry, I jumped ahead a little bit, but you know, it's, This is really similar language to chapter three. It is. The requirements for an elder, deacon, the husband of one wife. We've talked about that, and we take that as being a one, often here as a one woman kind of man, this is a one man kind of woman here.

Yeah, and I think that's the biggest distinction. what if her husband died or what if he, you know, especially at this time of the church, there were probably a lot of what we would call mixed marriages where one of the, like the woman was a believer and the husband wasn't. And there are all kinds of instructions, especially in Ephesians, what a married woman should do if she has a husband who's not married or is not a believer. So they're not exceptions, I think, to the rule because everything is built upon a grace basis. But under a grace basis, there are principles that have to be helped guide as to how you make decisions about things.

So we'll say, She's a one-man woman. How's that? That's pretty good. Now, the third thing is that has a reputation for good works. This is literally, she's a born witness to good works. In other words, her life is a testimony itself as to what a believer ought to be by herself.

Does that make sense? It isn't that you're given a bunch of rules to follow. You just have the heart for being a servant of the Lord and you have a reputation of being a servant. and your life experience around the environment that you live in, that's what your reputation is. Not because you got a merit badge and somebody stuck it on your chest, it's because that's how you are.

And I think we got a lot of those around here. And what would the good works be? Now, notice under the heading of good works, he gives five of them. If she has brought up children, is that a good work? I think so. Being a mom is one of the coolest things ever. The references to bringing up children implies that she had been an exemplary mom. She was the right kind of mom. She loved her kids. She disciplined them, educated them, trained them, and got them ready, and counseled them in the Christian faith so that when they reached maturity, they were mature. The second one is that she shown hospitality to strangers. That's an interesting one.

Does that mean anybody who knocks on your door, you invite them in? What does that mean? What's a hospitality to a stranger include? We're gonna see a little later that if you in the early church went from one church to another, you needed to have a letter so that you could be introduced to the new church, the people in the new church, signed by someone who they all knew was from the old church that you attended. So when we talk about strangers here, we're not talking about just anybody off the street, right? You know, it's someone, one that probably or a believer, but that your house is always open to Christians that you don't know, whether they need a place or not.

I mean, you guys are all like that. You offer your house. If you haven't got a place to stay, come to our house. We've got some room. Always like that. And it's an attitude that you have. And on a moment's notice you can have a stranger come and stay with you.

I was saying in the old days, or in the Jewish economy, it was like when the Passover, everybody comes to Jerusalem, and I think they were just housed in houses. that kind of principle is now being reflected in the Christian body, that if people are traveling and their brother or sister in the Lord, that you give them a place to stay or feed them or whatever.

We were in Coeur d'Alene last week with our friends, Dean and Margie Bowman, and his two sisters and husbands were there, and they're from Ohio. And they were doing road trips. And the one, I asked them, I said, are you heading right back to Ohio? They said, no, we're going to go, and maybe we'll come through Denver. Well, the first thing we did is say, well, you can stay with us kind of thing. They ended up not coming through Denver. I'm not going to tell you why. No, I'll tell you. He goes out in the afternoon. What was he going to do? I don't even know.

And he goes by a GMC dealer in Coeur d'Alene. And the dealer has the perfect truck that he's been looking at for two years, sitting on the lot. And before the day was over, he spent $85,000 and bought a brand new truck. Well, here's the problem. He's got a car. And now he's got a truck. So how's he going to get the car and the truck home? So he gets one of those dollies and puts the car on the back and he goes straight back to Ohio. You talk about impulse buying. This truck was amazing.

They would do everything but cook your lunch and fly for you. But if somebody needs a place to stay, if you have room, that's one of the great things of heaven. If God blesses you with a place where you have extra space, that's really anybody can stay there whenever they want.

But it doesn't mean a homeless guy knocks on your door But he might be a believer. You don't know what the Lord's going to send your way. Go ahead. As we can see, there's something about having someone in your home that goes so far beyond just meeting them at the church meeting.

You really become close. And we experienced that last summer, being in many of your homes. And then as we traveled through the States, we stayed in a number of other believers' homes and they become lifelong friends. I mean, we went to church services with them as well, but we also stayed in their homes, and that's where we really got close. So it's a real blessing for both you as well as the person that you host.

You know, Bob Wilford said to me a couple of weeks ago, he said he's amazed at how many, how much connection there is all over the country between like-minded churches, like how much we know people from other You know, like the camp, Camp Elam, and the camp that you went to, Miles, and Jeremy Thomas' church, Duluth, and these other places that you just know people from, and whether you were able to stay in their homes or not, but you knew you were welcome there.

The underground, yeah, the underground, right. So now we get to the really interesting one. If she has washed the saint's feet. Is that what your version says? Yeah, so. Does giving your grandkids a bath help, or does it count for that? Giving your grandkids a bath, yeah. Sure, especially when they're dirty, yeah.

This really, I think, comes from the fact that this is an Oriental custom. And because everybody wore sandals and stuff like that, and there weren't any concrete sidewalks or paved streets or anything like that, your feet get dirty. What did Malloy call your feet? Poopy feet. And so every home, every home would have, you know, you take your shoes off at the door and there's water there and that's what it's for.

And she would be a person who would do that. You know? Was this also, I mean, biblical with Christ washing the apostles' feet? carried on to just basically the service aspect, servant aspect of a believer. You've demonstrated that for us all. I'm kind of amazed at the customs of people in our country.

There are some people that come and stay with us and they never wear their shoes in the house. Others, they ask or they go barefoot all the time. Or you wear shoes. I'm not all that conscious about that myself in my house, but I've noticed it with other people who stay with us or in their home that that's the way it goes, Donna. I remember when the tanks were there, you could hardly get through the entryway. Yeah, you couldn't get through the entryway because all the shoes were piled up by the front door. That's a Canadian and Asian cultural custom. And Alaskan. And Alaskan. And Hawaiian. Yeah, Alaska, Hawaii, those are, we've seen that. Yeah, Hawaii, always.

It's weird when we have the board meeting, all of them take off their shoes. I'm like, you don't have to. Well, you're fine. They all take them off. I'm like, okay, I've got my shoes on. We went into one house in Hawaii where you took your shoes off and they gave you slippers to wear. I think that's an Asian thing.

And this next one, if she has assisted those in distress, what does that mean? She's assisted those in distress. Well, maybe I'll ask it this way. If she does do that, what does it tell you about her character? She's got a servant's heart, you know? We have people like that in this church, that if you're hurting, they somehow know, and they're right next to you. Want to know how you're doing, and encourage you, and that kind of thing. And I think all believers, as they grow spiritually, that that is part of, you know, you're concerned about, like if we could help Ron and Kathy, we would do it. If we could help, you know, Mike Pola has helped a lot of people that you don't ever hear about.

But a woman, especially in the society she was in, look at the assets that they considered that a godly woman should have, and which are, in terms of service, really a big deal. In terms of notoriety, nothing. Who knows, other than the people in the house or the people in the church. They're the only ones that know, you know? Mike, this reminds me of a story. I'll try to be quick. You know L.E. Maxwell? Yeah. Mostly known for his book, Born Crucified, but he was the co-founder of a Bible school just down the road here. And this was about 100 years ago.

And they would host these annual conferences, and people would stay in the dormitories. Well, this is before the days of indoor plumbing. And so everybody would have their little chamber pot thing for the nighttime, right? And they would set them outside the door, and someone emptied all those. Nobody really knew who it was, but the story goes that someone, middle of the night, real early in the morning, kind of peeked out their door, and Ellie Maxwell was the one who emptied the chamber pots.

Oh, wow. So president of the school, but it's just an example of, in my mind, washing the feet. It's that kind of thing. It's just, well, it's a job that needs to be done. It's dirty. And that really is to be the life of Christ in us, right? Yeah. As unto the Lord. Yeah. Emptying chamber pots as unto the Lord. Yeah, a chamber pot. Yeah.

And the last one is she has devoted herself to every good work. You know, whenever I see good works, I always ask, my mind says, well, what makes them good? What makes a work good? Courtney just talked about helping an old lady across the street. Is that a good work? What makes a work good?

It depends on the source, right? Yeah, it's the source. In other words, a woman that functions this way, the works that are done through her that are called good are the things that the Lord has done through her and does through her. That's what makes them good. Also, I think, is it kind of motive, too? You're doing it as unto the Lord, not, hey, watch me, I'm going to take the little old lady across the highway. That's right. I'm going to do this. Yeah, make sure you notice. Yeah, make sure you notice.

This is more of the, as you said, Miles has said, as he, you know, in the night, nobody knew who was emptying the chamber pots. You know, if the motive was not to show off that, no, look, I'm the president, I'm you know, cleaning the chamber pots. I think the motive is good works, or every good work is doing it as unto the Lord, like I said, without fanfare or direction to you for doing that. And there isn't, you know, it's interesting, it isn't a learned behaviorism.

You understand what I mean? In other words, I've memorized all the rules. And so, this is a life within a believer, in this case, a widow, and how that person functions based on the manifestation of the life of Christ through them. And that's what makes them good.

You know, so I'm gonna stop there. I just noticed it's time. I know it's time because the other class left. They're out for their walk already. They're all going down there to sing. So we'll pick up with that next week. We still have more of this question to talk about, so let's close. Our dear Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you for your word and how careful you are to instruct us in how the life of your son operates and works in and through the heart of every believer. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.