1st Timothy 5:1-16

Alright, we are in 1 Timothy 5, verses 1-16. It starts off like this in the first two verses. Now, I ask you to contrast this with a similar passage Titus 2, 2-6, and it goes like this, Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith and love and perseverance. Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious, gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love, that's phileo, which is an affectionate attachment to their husbands, to love similarly phileo with their children. to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. Likewise, urge the young men to be sensible." Okay, what do you notice that's similar between Paul's instruction to Timothy and Titus, these two passages? What do you see that's similar? Well, yeah, in what way do they say the same thing? What do you see there that's... Respect for older men. Okay. Okay. In other words, you see older men and older women, right? And you see younger women or young women and young men. So you see those four categories.

Now, in 1 Timothy 5, 1 and 2, what relationship is Paul addressing? What seems to be Paul's primary concern in 1 Timothy 5, 1 and 2? Well, yeah, there's one of the things you see is he makes a comparison with, you know, family members. And so he deals with it that way.

One of the things that you see there is the passage in 1 Timothy 5, 1 and 2 seems to be addressing Timothy's behavior towards each of these age and gender groups. Isn't that what you see? Don't rebuke an older man, rather appeal to him as a father. And then, yeah, it stands right. In each case there's a comparison to a family member. But it appears largely he's concerned there with how will Timothy treat these people?

See that? Whereas in Titus, and we'll look at this in further detail when we get there, in Titus, what is he doing? He's talking about the same group, same four groups, older and younger, men and women. But what is he doing? He's talking about the character of those people in each of those groups.

Yes, that's right. Notice the first Timothy passage says, here's how Timothy needs to act towards these people. Titus He's looking more towards here are these people in these groups. How should those people act? So there's a different concern with each one.

Why didn't Paul just write the same thing to both of them? Just say, hey, look, you know, get out the, I mean, after all, with windows, you know, cut and paste and all that, you know, why not? Why didn't he just write the same thing to each guy? When he just talked about the four groups, you know, older, younger, men, women, he's got the same groups, why didn't he just write the same thing?

Yeah? He had a different relationship with Timothy and Titus. Okay, yeah, one is that he has a different relationship with them. That's good. What else might be? They're different in age, too. Yeah, the two of them are different. What are the differences between Titus and Timothy? Yeah, Titus might be older, yeah. And what else? What else do we know about Titus and Timothy? Was Titus married?

No indication of it that I'm aware of. Remember, Timothy, his father was Greek, but his mother was Jewish, right? So he's half Jewish. And that's not something you do, you know, I'm going to dress on the right side Jewish and the left side Gentile. That's just hard to mix. So one of the things is Timothy and Titus are different people. And so then the other part is they're ministering to different people, aren't they? So really when you look at these, Paul's seeing in the differences Timothy needs to hear, you know, get some guidance.

Here's how you deal with this kind or that kind, you know. And here's how you need to behave. He needed some guidance in that respect. Titus, on the other hand, didn't seem to need that kind of guidance, but what did Titus need? Titus needed guidance to deal with the character of the people that were in the island of Crete that we'll find out about before we get too far along here. So anyway, there are those kind of differences.

All right, 1 Timothy 5, 3-8. It says, now this is a passage from here to the end about, it says, honor widows. It says, honor widows who are widows indeed, 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. 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 pleasures 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, especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."

Oh my! Now you have a page that looks like this. It's page 3. And you'll need to either turn your head 90 degrees or turn it sideways. You decide. So this biblical guidance on life stages here has some honoring of parents, pointed out that you notice at the top there are different stages, birth, marriage and leaving home, children, born and raised, children marry and leave home, assistance from children, and death, where it's in the whole stages of life issue.

Honoring parents means different things at different stages and ages, right? The first thing that the children owe their parents is obedience. And then at the next stage, after having left home, it's respect and then responsibility at the later stages.

Why isn't it just obedience all the way through? they have to become individuals? Yeah, they have to become adults, they have to take responsibility for themselves, right? They're no longer under the household. Part of their growing up and being an adult is that they're not being directed by their parents in every degree as they get older. They're married to their husbands. Yes, in other words, that's a headship. transfer, which we also have right below that. That's right. So there is a transfer of headship in the marriage relationship, which is one of the things that changes.

So you don't have, at least biblically, you don't have parents continuing to dictate and direct in their adult children's lives. So now regarding this passage, what's Paul trying to tell them about those who are children and grandchildren and whatnot? What's Paul trying to tell them about these widows? What's his message? Take care of them. Take care of them, yeah. That there is a family responsibility. to step in and take care of those who have a need for care.

Right? Yes? But I think he's also saying initially to make sure you make a proper judgment and that they truly are in need. Because if you go back and read about the church when it first started off, there were some money problems, obviously, as there always is. be discerning to be able to make these appropriate judgments. I think that's where you start. Shouldn't the churches go and help everybody? A lot of people standing on the corner. A lot of people standing on the corner and say they need help, right? We'll work for food unless you ask them to work, right?

My children dropped everything and just took care of me. So they were so physical, but their love was just outstanding. And I had son-in-laws that approved. One of the reasons we bring this up, Nancy and I use this often as we're doing both pre-marriage and marriage counseling. Because when people are, when a couple in particular is preparing for marriage, we want them to get the idea, look, life has these stages, and at some point, you're very likely to have to help one another and support one another in this role of helping and supporting and taking responsibility for those who need help of whatever kind. And family members should and ought to do that.

To the extent that that's neglected, it's one of those things where people shove more things onto the government as if that's somehow going to fix it. And somehow a bureaucrat just can't offer the same personal care. So it does not work as well. And so Paul's point here is that there is a responsibility and the family ought to be brought into that responsibility first and foremost. It isn't that the church ought to just step away from everything, but it certainly encourages the family to take their place as primary in support, assuming that the family is there. Okay, back to the question.

What does Paul mean by the word honor? What does Paul mean by the word honor? Hold them in a special place. Okay, hold them in a special place. That corner will do. We've got seat belts in the back pew back there. Those locks on them. So they're going straight. Yeah, that's right. Okay, that's certainly one case.

Let's ask the question, how would you go about honoring widows? How would you go about doing that? As a matter of fact, since we Since we have some widows in this elective, you had brought up Bev, if you don't mind my asking you, what were some of the things that your family did that was really helpful to you?

Well, my son just took over the financial part of everything. He lived in California. He called me every single day. He still calls me every other day. She stayed with me for a good, maybe two months. My youngest daughter's husband worked for farmer's insurance and he just put in for a transfer from Denver down to Corral Springs and that's where I met them. Just stepped right up. Yeah. So they just got a better, you know, I got over, you know, a lot of the grief and stuff and I would come back to her home. Always calling me, always thinking of her. In any way. So you felt very cared for and loved through death? Yes. Yeah. And then almost, you know, people would almost forget that they were pregnant as well. Yeah. Yeah. Before their death. Yeah. You know.

And then I really forgot about my son-in-law. Finally, somebody at their church said to Jeff, how are you doing? I was the first person that was almost six months out of prison. And so, you know, that's it. It's just, I really felt loved and cared for. Yeah, yeah. It's okay if I ask you, Doris? It's been very well taken care of. That's great. Emily, my own daughters and our sons, parent and family. These grandchildren we will always touch. That's great, yeah. So those kind of testimonies, those are good to hear because that's the way it ought to be. Sheriff? And her mother, when she was stabbed in, she had her stroke, and then her mom's daughter retired and she came back and took care of her.

And so this is just kind of some instances of what it means to honor. Then why isn't Paul eager to have the church honor all these widows? Why the hesitation? Shouldn't he be out and just, oh sure, we're just ready to honor as many as we can. Yeah? Well, it kind of takes the opportunity away from those who it is their responsibility. Okay, yeah. Somebody has to go out. You don't need two people doing that. Right. So it kind of takes the opportunity, not only to serve, but to be with that family extended family portion. Both peoples. Both generations. This caring for extended family is a it's one of those things that's it's an important one. Let's ask this question. Can it be overdone? Yeah, it can. It could be.

Okay, you know, I've seen some liberalists or whatever end up wanting their kids to live with them or they end up living with their children. And the fact of the matter is, as I told my children from the beginning, you know, I've got my life and you have yours. There's no way in the world I'm going to disrupt you, your life. to live with you, even though they all said, come live with us, we don't want you to be alone. That's from the very beginning, I let them know that I was going to be with you. There is very much a need there for family members to step in. There's also a need to consider what's helpful and what might even be overbearing, overmuch.

Yeah, Pauline? I've seen some families that, you know, with people living longer and with Alzheimer's and with some really significant needs that I think some people may not be able to ask for more help and then they can really get stressed out kind of in their own life by trying to do maybe too much Yeah, it can sometimes just be, you know, to the breaking point.

Yeah. And it could be to where it's even like unsafe, maybe where you think that you can provide the best care for somebody, when in actuality, you know, maybe somebody else could. Yeah, your point's well taken. Yeah. It's kind of like a sandwich generation. Okay.

People in the middle have kids take care of them and their parents take care of them. What are they doing with their personal life? At some point in time, if you take too much care of the older generation, you don't give them the chance to regain some of their own independence as sometimes they are in a physical or mental state As you look at what Paul writes to Timothy here, you start to see some of these concerns that we have. Yes, the family does need to step up.

Not stepping up enough is a problem. Overstepping their bounds. We're not here to help, we're here to take over. Having a lack of sensitivity to those things can be difficult. Looking at, assessing, is this something I can actually help with? Or have we got something that needs more expertise or more time and energy input than we can actually handle? So that's going to be a part of it.

What principle, as a fundamental truth, is Paul trying to get across? What's the principle that he's operating with here? Relationship, I guess. Okay, relationship, but what do you mean by that? Sort of the responsibility of maintaining a Godly family relationship. Okay, yeah. The responsibility to maintain it, observe it, be aware of it, see what the needs are. And he says, you know, just it is important that the family members step in and take their appropriate responsibility and that the church ought not to be burdened because somebody in the family isn't stepping up their responsibility. Now, how about this part?

It says, dead while she lives? What if she's a believer? How can she be dead while she lives? What's that talking about? What kind of dead does he mean? Yeah, the death is a death of separation of fellowship, not a death of loss of relationship. There's a difference there. Is it possible for Christians to go through spiritual death? Okay, Carol says no. Is this person dead in verse 6? What kind of dead? Conditional separation. Here's the point. There's a difference between position and condition. Right? Big distinction. The person who is dead in that position is not saved. Right?

So the answer to that spiritually is for the unbeliever they are indeed separated from God. For the believer it is possible to be walking out of fellowship and in those instances not to have fellowship with God is described as death. Romans 6.23 is written to believers. The wages that the sin nature pays is death to believers. But the free gift of God is eternal life. So, if you want death, you're going to have to work for it.

Right? So, I think what he's looking at here is a spiritual death that is a lack of break in fellowship. Yes? This is just a question. I don't know. In Axton's society than they were back then. It was, you know, the whole household, as I understand that passage, because the man was a believer and had a relationship with the Lord, right? Okay, well, in this instance, the widow, he's now gone. So this falls on her. Does this have anything to do with that? He and his household passage.

Think about that. I'm not sure what the answer is. I haven't thought about that one. I have to get in front of my computer to think about that. Let's look at verse 8. But if anyone does not provide for his own, especially for those of his household, He has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Does this mean a believer can lose their salvation? No? Stan says no. What is this? That sounds serious. Denied the faith and worse than an unbeliever. Can you be headed for heaven and be worse than an unbeliever? Can you be saved by faith and deny the faith? Is that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Well, that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not something that a Christian can do.

We haven't gotten there yet, but a few chapters ahead, Paul's going to write, if we deny him, he will deny us. But that's not a maybe, kind of if. That's an if and it's assumed to be true, first class condition in the Greek. If we, so Paul's putting Christians in there, So, he's writing to Timothy.

So is it possible for a Christian to deny the Lord? Yeah. As a matter of fact, it can and does happen. And how is it possible for a Christian to be worse than an unbeliever? Yeah. Does an unbeliever commonly recognize the responsibility to help older family. Unbelievers will commonly recognize that and what he's saying is now we have a believer who isn't taking on that responsibility so that person is therefore worse than the unbeliever that does recognize it.

Yes. I hate to say this but when you get out in society and you really look around And that can be. You're quite correct. That can be the case. But that's worse. Well that's even what you said in the St. Louis classes that the rate of divorce, In some instances, the statistic is worse for Christians than otherwise. Let's go to the flip side here. 1 Timothy 5, 9, and 10.

So it says, a widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than 60 years old, having been a wife of one man. That's the same for the husband of one wife. It's in reverse. a one-man kind of woman, essentially is what it's saying, 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, if she has devoted herself to every good work. Wow! Why is Paul so picky about which widows get put on this list?

First he doesn't want them to have church support if they have family to support them. Then he's got all these character and personal history and service criteria. So is that the list that means that the church would have to support them? Yeah, in other words, these are the criteria by which the church would actually step in to support. Yes? So it's just like Medicare would keep advancing at 60 years and 85 or 70?

Yeah. all is the reputation of the church. And so if you don't discern properly, this person can bring negative consequences to the church. Suppose we just said, hey, anybody wants to sign up? Just anybody, just let anybody sign up. What happens? Pardon?

Christian welfare. Part of what happens is people are giving money to the church, right? When people see funds being abused and not looked after very carefully, what do they tend to do about their giving? Stop giving. Yeah, they say, I don't want to support that. I'm glad to give, but I don't want to be supporting that. I don't want that. And so that's one thing that it does. And what else does it do? If we're just careless about who we give it to. Enable for light. Yeah, you're essentially enabling what is not good.

Something I noticed in here, and one of the reasons for putting some of these 1 Timothy 3 references in there, What's interesting is some of the qualifications for these widows are the same or similar to the qualifications for elders. Yeah. Hospitable. Instead of being a one-woman kind of man, it's a one-man kind of woman. It's amazing.

Why this intense requirement? I mean, she's got to be nearly as qualified as an elder. You can see that their philosophy is totally different than what it is today where it's come one, come all. Because we're here and this is our mission and this is what we're going to do. Back then it was let's focus our attention on those who truly desire it. Yeah, who truly have a need and desire the truth.

Yes, yes. Not just the social club. Right. Yeah. Well, if she has done all these things, she must probably be happy within the church, too. Right. I mean, she could be a teacher, but she has Right, in other words, she was contributing, she was being helpful and contributing to the support of the church body when she was able, and therefore, now that it's time for her to be helped, It's one of those things where, well, of course it makes sense. She's been helping everybody else for years. And she is like a family member of the church. Yeah. It's within the church. That's a good point.

It's like a family member. This one has helped in earlier times and now, here in these later years, is in need of help. But it goes along with this life stages kind of idea. In an earlier stage, this lady was inputting into the lives of people. And she was carrying out ministry.

By the way, when it says, has washed the saint's feet, is that literal? Or is it a figure of speech for something? Yeah, in other words, what does wash the saint's feet mean? Basically it was to be a servant, right? And so it may in fact include that. But it also includes other capacities of servanthood. Right? Okay.

I think there's a couple other qualities that come with that. What you have here is culturally at the time to someone's house, they would often be a servant if you had the financial background to do that. And then if not, then that would have been a sign and then that word expression of hospitality. Which is, you know, today in modern application, I mean, if we go to the Doyle's house for a vital study, I don't expect Donna or Mike or anyone else to wash my feet when I come over. godly widow woman if something were ever to happen to the rest of my efforts as you know.

Okay, yeah. Does the church have a responsibility to find out whether or not the children of that widow could help take care of her? Say that could help take care of her? Yeah. Neglecting their responsibility? Yeah, and I would say yes. I would say the church should because it's one of those instances where they need to step up and help.

Here at Holly Hills I haven't been in too much of a spot to go and, you know, point things out to family members. It has happened, some where family members are more distant. I'll give a call later, are you aware of this situation? And so put that together. But fortunately what I've found is family members are, once they are aware, plenty willing to step up to the responsibility. So I'm glad to be able to report that, that family members, if there's any lack, it's typically been an awareness issue, not something else.

Okay, let's look at the very last part, 11 through 16. but refuse to put younger widows on the list, for when they feel sensual desires and disregard for Christ, they want to get married, thus incurring condemnation because they have set aside their previous pledge. At the same time, they also learn to be idle as they go around from house to house, not merely idle, but also gossip some busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention. 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. 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."

Oh boy, a bunch of questions here. Okay. Does Paul have it out for younger widows? Or is he just kind of against them? Just kind of from the outset? They can't win. Is that the deal? What's his point here? He's just laying out the rule of obedience. It's interesting that widowers have never mentioned it. That's why they get married pretty soon after. I see, yeah.

Otherwise they just don't survive, right? Let's ask the question, why would the focus here on widows but nothing on widowers? And by the way, isn't this similar to some of the issues in Acts 6 where you had the widows were being cared for there in Jerusalem, and the issue came up between the Greek-speaking and the non-Greek-speaking widows. But similar kind of situation, why would that come up in this culture?

Yeah, there would be that hazard. I think the other thing is in that time, things that we wouldn't think are any big deal could be a serious problem. because they didn't have any real good answers for it. Just this last week we had Mike go in for appendectomy, right? And that was just a few days ago. What would you do, and appendectomies are performed on people of all kinds of ages, right? So what would you do if you were 30 years old and you had an appendicitis attack 2,000 years ago? you're probably dead.

Here's another one. As men get older, the percentage of men with prostate problems increases. And ultimately, if you live long enough, the statistics aim towards all men will have some kind of problem. But in those days, even a serious prostate problem could be fatal. Some kind of an infection. especially some of their sensibilities about medicine could make things bad. One of the treatments in Egyptian medicine for a severe sliver or splinter is to rub donkey dung on it. That's not going to help.

Yeah? Wouldn't you think that there probably were an awful lot of women that died in childbirth? Yes, that's right. If there was any kind of a problem at all, yep. And one of the difficulties, it was legal to marry off a young lady as early as age 12. So you had a lot of instances that could result in death that in our own culture would say, well no, that's not a death risk. Yes, and that was the big thing.

The women in the area around Philippi and in Galatia had more equal status with the men. But for the rest of the Roman Empire, A woman could not generally just go out and conduct business in the same way. So you can't just go out and do something like that. And since most of the work was agricultural, it would be difficult for her to get a good paying job by herself. And so, yeah, that's one reason as you look at this, it would be difficult in the culture for a widow to have taken care of her issues.

So that was one. Yes, Carol? A lot of men were a lot older than their wives, so there were a lot of younger widows. Yes, that was another pattern. One of the interesting things is there were a number of comparisons, when I would talk this on and go over to Uganda, between life in Uganda and life in biblical times. They had the tribes.

People tended to die earlier. I went over there the first time and they said, how old are you? And I said, I'm 56. And they were just Because most guys 56 years old, if they're still alive, they're crippled and barely walking around. Life did not go on as long for most people.

The risks are high. I think a lot of it is, except for that area around Philippi, and the area around Galatia, where women had a particularly higher opportunity in business and in political life even. Except for those areas, it would be difficult for a woman to make it.

Lydia, who was the first convert in Philippi, was a woman who was quite She sold purple goods, which were very expensive. The dye was more expensive than gold, perhaps. So she sold purple goods, which meant that she sold to a high-income clientele. But she could do that because she was in Philippi.

Notice that she was actually from another area of the Roman Empire. where she could not have done that. So she moved into a place where she could carry on that trade without a husband in the mix. So it may be an instance where she got around the social pattern.

Okay, let's take a look at the next one. Essential desires disregard of Christ, incurring condemnation, setting aside a previous pledge. You're kidding, really? What's wrong with wanting to get married anyway? I'm playing devil's advocate here. Is that allowed? Can a pastor do that? Oh boy. So what's the problem there? What's Paul getting at?

I know from experience that if they would get married right away, openly, they usually got married to him last. and the same with the men as well. So, they're not a collection system. So you're thinking one of the issues may be just a hasty marriage, just to get it done. Yeah. Okay, so that might be a hazard.

I'll throw in this additional piece of cultural background, and that's that in the Roman Empire, if a woman had not had three children yet, And if she was still a childbearing age, if she were divorced or widowed, she had to get married again inside of two years. It was legally required. Augustus Caesar made that law in 18 BC. Babies for the empire. That's right. Babies for the empire. That's right. Yeah, this has to do it with revenue and you know social stability and everything else. So yeah, you've got to get married and have kids. So one of the things that is included in this is there was a legal environment that required it.

They didn't have the marriage police going around checking everybody, so this wasn't something that was tightly watched. But, for example, if somebody wanted to get you in trouble, that was something they could turn you in for. Can you imagine? You're not married? All right, I'm going to take you and point a sword at you and say, get married and do it quick. Okay. If the church supports these younger widows, is there a hazard for the younger widows themselves? What is the hazard? It sounds like they just get dependent on a church.

Yeah, what's interesting is what he is talking about here is he doesn't want to see irresponsible dependency. He doesn't want to see irresponsible dependency. It would be nice if some of our laws and bureaucracies would understand that. But yeah, he wants to avoid a dependency that leads to irresponsibility. He wants to avoid a dependency that leads to irresponsibility. If the church supports younger widows, is there a hazard for the church? What is it?

One is you start stripping out your resources for somebody who in reality doesn't need it. We run into some of the similar problems we've talked about before where people start looking at it and say, no, I don't want to support that. I'm not going to give to this because those people are not being responsible in the way they distribute my money. I want to help, but I don't want to support irresponsibility. resolve these issues historically, but suddenly you're grafting in an entire culture that is not dealing with this problem the same way.

So Paul is being really explicit just to make sure there's not any ambiguity. They need that. Yeah. And let's ask another question. Even among the Jews, did the Jews always follow, especially when they got out into the Gentile cultures, did they always follow the law down to the slightest? I'll do this point. Not so well. And proof of that is here's Timothy, who's half Greek and half Jewish, and that's an illegal marriage. Right?

So that would be an instance where they wouldn't follow it. So frequently the Jews, when they get out into the Greek cultures, they kind of water down how much they held to the law. And so it all would have to be explicit because the Jews who would have had things to deal with this within the law, the Jews themselves were being more lackadaisical and slashy about looking at some of these provisions in the law. So Paul had to give Timothy this direction here because of the Gentiles and the Gentile influence on the Jews.

Is putting a widow on the list more of an elder matter or that of a deacon? It's more of a deacon matter, and why would that be the case? How do we know it's more of a deacon matter? That's where the deacons started. Yes, that's where the deacons started in the first place, Acts 6, right? Here are the apostles there in Jerusalem, and they're finding that handling the widows there became overwhelming and got them distracted from their primary assignment. And so that's why deacons were brought in in the first place. And so you're right, this is a deacon responsibility rather than the elder's responsibility, simply so that the elders don't get distracted. And boy, I get easily distracted, right? Okay. Let's look at the very last bullet there.

In all this, is there any room for the church supporting someone who meets all of the other qualifications in every respect, but has been single lifelong? Isn't that lady not likely to have direct descendants to help out when she gets older and therefore be in great need of church support? Hmm. Do we have a problem here? What about the widow who's been single lifelong? It's not really a widow, right?

Yeah. You would think they would qualify? Yeah. What if that lady got to a place of needing some assistance and She had been serving the church body all the way along but then got to this place of needing help and assistance. Would it not make sense that she could also be helped and should be helped? So what he's looking at here is he's not wanting to push away people who have genuine needs and people who actually do qualify. No one would look at that and say, well that's a waste of money. So, but what he's looking at here is just a particular instance of widows who are in a position where usually the husband is the one who's primarily responsible for taking care of things and then he's all of a sudden out of the picture. Right? So, okay. Other thoughts? Contemplations? Exasperations? Inspirations? There's a fundamental issue of stewardship that comes up in this. It's a stewardship.

As a husband when I read this passage I think of, well I hope I don't leave Jessica a widow but someday that may happen. Maybe sooner maybe later but either way that's an issue. But there's a stewardship that she's not left in the situation of needing these things. So that hopefully these are exceptional cases, just broadly. Across the church, this is exceptional. And so that instead of seeing this as, oh no, this is a long list of rules we've got to keep track, because a lot of people were dealing with this.

Maybe that was the case when we were trying this, at least in a modern situation. the Lord given me to be responsible for. And then also contributing into the church that I'm seeing that these stewardship issues may come up as part of the deacon's work and I need to make sure I'm feeding into that with the resources that I have.

I think one of the other things you see, what's the character of these widows? What's the character of these widows? They are ones who during their time of opportunity did serve the church. They are ones who did have good and helpful and serving input to the church body when they had the opportunity.

And so you are encouraging that kind of service and that kind of godly living in the church body by only supporting those when they're in a place of needing help. Yeah, Wayne? Is he referring to the local assembly, or is he bringing in the entire body of Christ as a church body? Are you referring to the local assembly, or the entire church body? Thoughts on that? Yeah.

Here's Paul, and he's writing to Timothy. Timothy has been sent to where? He's been sent to Ephesus specifically for this. Is this guidance here only applicable to Ephesus? No, I don't think so. We don't get that impression. So it would be something that Timothy would institute here. It would be something that the local church would work with.

But what if the situation got really severe? Wasn't there an instance where other churches were helping the church in Judea, right? And then for the church in Judea, would it not be best for the people of the church in Judea to carry out these kind of criteria in their offering of help, instead of just saying, hey, look, here's help from the church in Corinth. Everybody, right?

So still, even looking at something from afar, some money coming from afar, that that support would be distributed even according to the same or similar principles. That there would be care in how the money is distributed and used, even if from some distant place.

We almost have noses pressing against the window, so we better call it quits. Lord, we do thank you. As we look at this passage, we thank you for the guidance and insight. We thank you for not just the points and details, but also the heart that Paul is going to convey to Timothy. We pray for that understanding among ourselves here. We thank you for the guidance you've given us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.