THE BIBLICAL RATIONALE FOR PROVIDING FOR RELATIVES.
(I Tim. 5:3-16)
Overview of I Tim. 4:1-5:16
4:1-2 How False Teaching Enters the Church
4:3-5 Common Grace
4:6 Word of God in Life of the Believer
4:7a Godliness – Divine / Human Role
4:7b Train Yourself to be Godly
4:7c Spiritual Disciplines (The Word of God)
4:7d Spiritual Disciplines (Devotions, Worship)
4.7e Spiritual Disciplines (Church Attendance, Journaling, Practicing Presence of God)
4:8-9 Why Godliness Has Great Value
4:10 Putting Our Hope in the Living God
4:12 Setting an Example for Believers
4:13 What a Christian Worship Service Looked Like in the First Century
4:14 Neglecting the Spiritual Gift God has Given Us
4:15-16 Getting Home Before Dark
5:1-2 So, How Should We Describe the Church?
5:3-16 God’s Tilt Towards the Disenfranchised
5:3-16 Sorting Out those Worthy of Relief – A Biblical Approach to Social Welfare
5:3-16 The Biblical Rationale for Providing for Relatives
THE BIBLICAL RATIONALE FOR PROVIDING FOR RELATIVES
(I Tim. 5:3-16)
3Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. 4But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. 5The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. 6But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. 7Give the people these instructions, too, so that no one may be open to blame. 8If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
9No widow may be put on the list of widows unless she is over sixty, has been faithful to her husband, 10and is well known for her good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the saints, helping those in trouble and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds.
11 As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. 12Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. 13Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to. 14So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. 15Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan.
16If any woman who is a believer has widows in her family, she should help them and not let the church be burdened with them, so that the church can help those widows who are really in need.
INTRODUCTION:
A. Topics for Discussion in I Tim. 5:3-16
1. God Tilts Towards the Disenfranchised
2. Sorting Out Those Worthy of Relief – A Biblical
Approach to Social Welfare
3. The Biblical Rationale for Providing for Our Relatives
4. Ministry to Widows in the Early Church
5. The “Good Works” of a New Testament Woman
6. Gossips, Busybodies and False Teachers
7. What about “Younger Widows”?
B. The Breakdown of the Passage
1. Different classes of widows in I Tim. 5:3-16
The widow who is really in need
The widow who has children and grandchildren
The widow who lives for pleasure
The widow who qualifies for official service
The widow who should remarry
2. Two main sections are:
a. Widows served by the church – Destitute (3-8, 16)
b. Widows who serve the church – Deserving (9-15)
C. Definition of the word “widow”
“The English word widow describes a woman whose husband is dead. The Greek word chera includes that meaning, but is not limited to it. It is an adjective used as a noun, and means “bereft,” “robbed,” “having suffered loss,” or “left alone.” The word does not speak of how a woman was left alone, it merely describes the situation. It is broad enough to encompass those who lost their husbands through death, desertion, divorce, or imprisonment. It could even encompass those cases where a polygamist came to Christ and sent away his extra wives (William Barclay, The Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975], 105.
In our society the single mother or any single woman deserted by her husband or divorced or left alone because her husband is imprisoned would be in the same category as a widow.
D. QUESTION: Who is to bear responsibility? Who is this written
to?
1. Children and grandchildren (4)
2. Anyone who has relatives (8)
3. Any woman who has widows in her family (16)
E. TABLE ACTIVITY: Study I Tim. 5:3-16 and list as many
reasons as possible why a Christian should provide for his
relatives. List the reasons in order of priority.
I. TO REPAY OUR PARENTS & GRANDPARENTS
QUESTION: What is the first commandment with promise?
“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you” (Ex. 20:12). “Honor your father and mother” – which is the first commandment with a promise – that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth” (Eph. 6:2).
QUESTION: Can you think of an OT personalities that cared for
their relatives?
Joseph brought his father/brothers to Egypt and cared for them.
11 So Joseph settled his father and his brothers in Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the district of Rameses, as Pharaoh directed. 12 Joseph also provided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their children (Gen. 47:11-12).
Ruth gleaned for her mother-in-law and took care of her.
2 And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.” ….Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” 18 She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough (Ruth 2:2, 18).
The Pharisees of Jesus’ day found a way to avoid providing for their parents.
10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother … 11But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother (Mark 7:10-12).
10Moses said, “Respect your father and mother … 11But you weasel out of that by saying that it’s perfectly acceptable to say to father or mother, “Gift! What I owed you I’ve given as a gift to God,’ 12thus relieving yourselves of obligation to father or mother (Mark. 7:10-12 – The Message).
If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? (I John 3:17).
VIDEO CLIP: Show the video clip from the video “Dad.”
ILLUSTRATION: No family action more fully reveals the glory of Christian grace than to see children lovingly supplying the needs of their older parents — visiting them, making them feel comfortable, loved and wanted if they have to be supported outside the home, or opening their homes and allowing them to be a central part of their life. I am grateful that my wife’s mother lived with us for twenty-seven years in our home, and was loved and enjoyed as part of our family during all that time. Now, because of her failing health, it is necessary for her to be in a nursing home, but we visit her very often, we never let her feel lonely and unwanted.
It is also clear, as William Barclay points out in his commentary on this passage, that this lays a responsibility not only on family members to take care of the older parents, but on the older parents to be the kind of people who can live at home with their younger children. There is a dual responsibility here. Sometimes older parents can be so crotchety, grouchy, complaining, and interfering that it is not possible for them to live in the home. Scripture allows for adjustment of these principles to fit the situation; each family must decide for itself. But basically it is clearly underscored that it is the privilege, indeed the responsibility of families to take care of their older parents. (Ray Steadman in a sermon on “The Care and Feeding of Widows.”)
II. TO PLEASE GOD
God is like us, He has emotions.
QUESTION: What emotions does God possess according to the
Bible?
We can wound His heart “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain” (Gen. 6:5); He experiences happiness, “The blessed [happy] God” (I Tim. 1:11); He becomes angry, “God is a judge who is perfectly fair. He is angry with the wicked every day” (Psalm 7:11); He can experience pleasure, be pleased, “caring for their family…for this is pleasing to God” (I Tim. 5:4).
Other translations: This is something that pleases God very much (The New Living Bible); “This pleases God immensely” (The Message).
Jesus gives one of the spiritual principles that guided his life: “I always do what pleases Him” (John 8:29).
Paul to the Thessalonians wrote, “Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God ….” (I Thes. 4:1).
“Equally alien to paganism was the notion that because God loves humanity, Christians cannot please God unless they love one another. Indeed, as God demonstrates his love through sacrifice, humans must demonstrate their love through sacrifice on behalf of one another” (Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, pg. 86).
If in doubt concerning what to do for your relatives ask yourself this simple question, “Will what I am doing please God?”
III. TO AVOID DENYING THE FAITH (Vs. 8)
“…. he has denied the faith …” (vs. 8)
Other translations: disowned the faith, repudiated the faith. The message translates it as follows: “Anyone who neglects to care for family members in need repudiates the faith.” That’s worse than refusing to believe in the first place. The same Greek word for “deny” here is used in Luke 12:9, “But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God.”
1 Timothy 1
6Some have wandered away from [denied] these and turned to meaningless talk.
1 Timothy 4
1…. in later times some will abandon [deny] the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
1 Timothy 6
21which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from [denied] the faith.
2 Timothy 2
18who have wandered away from [denied] the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some.
2 Timothy 3
5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
Titus 1
16They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.
IV. TO AVOID BEING WORSE THAN AN UNBELIEVER
Other translations of verse 8: worse than an infidel, heathen, one
who has not faith.
The word for “unbeliever” means just that. I Cor. 7:12 says, “If a
brother has a wife who is an unbeliever….” The same Greek word.
“Paul is not condemning unbelievers; on the contrary, he is saying that they do in fact take care of their own widows. To do less is therefore to be less than an unbeliever; it equals a denial of the faith, since it is to act worse than a person who makes no profession of faith” (Fee, pg. 118).
It was Greek law from the time of Solon that sons and daughters were, not only morally, but also legally bound to support their parents. Anyone who refused that duty lost his civil rights. Aeschines, the Athenian orator, says in one of his speeches: “And whom did our law-giver (Solon) condemn to silence in the Assembly of the people? … [he] who neglects to maintain [his father and mother] or to give them a home.” …As Aristotle saw it, a man must himself starve before he would see his parents starve. … and Plato, “Next comes the honor of loving parents, to whom, as is meet, we have to pay the first and greatest and oldest of debts, considering that all which a man has belongs to those who gave him brith and brought him up …. And which he is now able to pay back to them, when they are old and in the extremity of need” (Barclay, 106-107).
“In the contemporary pagan world [of Paul] there was a general acceptance of obligation towards parents, and it was unthinkable that Christian morality should lage behind general pagan standards” (Guthrie 113).
What ever Christian care is given to relatives it must be more and not less than the pagans: If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the taqx collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:46-48).
V. TO RELIEVE THE CHURCH OF CARE FOR WIDOWS
“If any woman has widows in her family, she should help them
and not let the church be burdened with them …” (I Tim. 5:16).
1. We saw that God tilts to the disenfranchised and thus the
early church felt a responsibility to the disenfranchised, and
especially to those who were members of the body.
Note: One of the first corporate acts of the early church was to appoint deacons who would help with the distribution of food to the Jewish Hellenistic widows.
2. The church has limited resources and therefore by taking
responsibility for their relatives, they relieved the church.
3. If families were responsible for relatives now neither the
government nor the church would be overwhelmed.
VI. TO PROTECT THE REPUTATION OF THE CHURCH
“Give the people these instructions, too, so that no one may be
open to blame” (5:7).
Jeff’s Paraphrase: “Insist that the church members really care for their biological families and relatives so that non-believers will not speak ill of the church.”
In 5:14 Paul writes, “…give the enemy no opportunity for slander.” And in 6:1 slaves are to respect their masters “…so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered.” He also says in Titus 2:5 that younger women must be of such character “…that no one will malign the word of God” and in Titus 2:8 that young men so to live that pagans “…have nothing bad to say about us.”
SO WHAT????
1. For us that still have living parents, we need to prioritize their care
and well-being.
2. We must also remember our responsibility to our relatives and give
appropriate help when able.
3. The key question when making care-taking decisions about our immediate family and relatives is, “Is what I am doing for my relatives pleasing to God?”
4. Our goal should be to surpass the pagans in the care of our families
and care for them in such a way that God’s name not be slandered
because of us.