Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Widows & Orphans

 

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Never speak harshly to an older man, but appeal to him respectfully as you would to your own father.  Talk to younger men as you would to your own brothers.  Treat older women as you would your mother, and treat younger women with all purity as you would your own sisters.  Take care of any widow who has no one else to care for her.  But if she has children or grandchildren, their first responsibility is to show godliness at home and repay their parents by taking care of them.  This is something that pleases God.  Now a true widow, a woman who is truly alone in this world, has placed her hope in God.  She prays night and day, asking God for his help.  But the widow who lives only for pleasure is spiritually dead even while she lives.  Give these instructions to the church so that no one will be open to criticism.  But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith.  Such people are worse than unbelievers.                            1 Timothy 5:1-8

You cannot understate the importance of this passage.  Paul, the elder statesman of the fledgling Christian church, is passing along advice to a young pastor, his protégé, Timothy.  Paul is not simply handing Timothy a twelve-pound book of rules, but gives him life principles of attitudes and actions that apply at any age to the formation of Christian lives: 

·       Speaking to others with respect and care

·       Respect for women

·       Helping the helpless

·       Caring for aging family members

These life principles are so important in everyday living because they develop character and an attitude that strengthen any family towards Godliness, which leads to stronger, more Godly communities, that which is pleasing to God.

In our current culture, homelessness, divorce, domestic violence, and the abuse of children are not isolated numbers on a chart of trends; more they are the sad tell-tale spots of the spiritual illness that has rotted the strength of attitude and resolve to be Godly people.  We have managed to promote personal happiness as a cultural right so vigorously, Godliness has been disappearing in the rearview mirror. 

To illustrate that this is so, one need only point to the disarray of relationship our culture exhibits to God’s chief blessing for strength in the home – His church.  Say what you like about the demise of the importance of church in the 21st century, I lay blame at the feet of selfish desire to have personal fulfillment, rather than Godly wholeness.  Godly worship has changed from the obvious to the optional. 

Certainly, the abuses of clergy, ebb-and-flow of cultural preferences in worship styles, and other sad distractions do factor-in when it comes to the dismantling of institutions – including the church.  However, the real loser is the family.  The church has become the new widow, a directionless, homeless bride, slipping through the cracks of this culture’s quest for a supposed better life

It is time for those who truly worship God to state this message clearly and without apology, both in word and deed:

Without the church, families will become just another option,                                             not God’s primary gift of strength for all human existence.

For You Today

In another post, last year[1] I wrote:  It has been said that evangelism is one beggar telling another where he has found bread.  For the helpless, homeless, and hopeless among us, they must never become them or those people; WE must be one widow, orphan, or stranger showing another where there is kindness.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Wikimedia Commons (public domain)  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©   

[1] See post from January 31, 2020, Widows, Orphans, & Strangers


 

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