Who is Your Family?
The 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 1 Timothy 5:5
This verse is part of Paul’s instruction to Timothy about widows in the church. The whole passage is 5:3-16.
Paul mentions four principles:
(1) widows the church supports should be over sixty and have a valued family and community service testimony (5:10)
(2) those widows who can be supported by their family should make that their primary line of help (5:4)
(3) younger widows should consider getting married again (5:14)
(4) Christians should take of the care of widows in their own family rather than leaving this to the church (5:16)
We read this passage through the filter of our culture and time. Most churches have widows but I’m unaware of any Australian churches where these principles are followed.
When Paul writes ‘The 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’ (5:5), he is seeing something we hardly ever see today (if at all): a widow who has made the church her primary family. This has been her decision and not just a default position.
This might seem to many the mark of a cult but the church in Ephesus was not a cult and clearly followed the practice.
How important is your local church to your way of thinking? Have you ever thought through the implications of your church being your family, albeit your spiritual family?
How would your life be different if your local church really was your family?
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