Honor in the Household

Introduction

Good Morning...It has been a crazy summer hasn’t it? And it seems just about as crazy that we are looking at the last couple weeks and that means only a couple weeks left of our summer series in the book of 1 Timothy. Remember this book is a letter that Apostle Paul wrote to young Timothy for a very specific purpose. He wanted Him to remain in Ephesus and teach the Churches their how to rightly Behave in the household of God.

And from the start we admitted that we don’t really like to look at our behavior do we? None of us like to be told what to do...but that is exactly what being a Christian is all about. To be a follower of Jesus Christ is to…well to follow Jesus Christ. It’s crazy how good we are at complicating this. Being a Christ-ian is about submitting our behavior to the purpose and will of Jesus Christ.

And this is just as true when we gather together as the Church. That our behavior as a Christian Church would be submitted to God’s design for His Church. And so that is what we have been looking at this summer, and it has not led to the most comfortable of conversations, has it? We have tackled some instructions that God has given us as His Church that run in the opposite direction of our culture. They are counter-cultural and as such they are not easy to grapple with.

Things like:

Calling out False Teachers and ‘handing them over to Satan”

Pray for all people, even if we don’t like them or agree with them

Submitting to God given gender roles in our homes and in the Church

Appointing leaders according to their character, not just their ability or more often their availability.

And last week, the needed effort of toiling and striving after godliness even in areas of Christian Liberty

Expectations for “Behavior in the household of God” is not an easy subject to handle in the church today…but it wasn’t any easier in Timothy’s day. Remember that 1 Timothy is a letter that was written by the Apostle Paul to young Timothy as he was overseeing Churches in the city of Ephesus. Ephesus was a very well known and diverse city as it was originally established as a Greek city but now sat in the middle of the Roman Empire and was home to the Temple to the false goddess Artemis. Remember when we talked about this place? It was known as one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world and as such there were thousands of people who journeyed from all directions to Ephesus every year.

So in this very diverse culture, Paul’s charge to Timothy was just as “counter-cultural” then as it is today, and that is exactly why Paul wrote this letter of instructions to Timothy. In contrast to the many iconic pillars that held up the roof of Artemis’ False Temple, the Apostle Paul wrote:

1 Timothy 3:14–15 ESV

14 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, 15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

So this is, and has been, our goal this summer. To discover the truth as God has given it in His Word and to operate as a Church in all that is true…even when if that truth runs “counter-cultural”.

Tension

And I wish that I could tell you that it is all just smooth sailing from here on out...so just kick back and relax…and we will talk about our comfy chairs, potlucks and church softball from here on out...but that would not be true, and it would not be very helpful.

In these last two chapters, Paul continues to give Timothy instructions on how the local Church should operate in it’s relationships with one another. The word that will continue to play a prominent role is the word “honor”. Both who we are to honor and what we should do to truly honor them.

So keeping that in mind, let’s open up our Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 5, p. 992 in the Bibles in the chairs. I’ll pray and we can dive into the Word of God together.

Truth

At the end of Chapter 4 Paul had been giving Timothy some very personal instructions which continue on into the first couple of verses of Chapter 5.

So our first behavior to speak of is that...

In the Household of God, we treat each other like family (1 Tim 5:1-2)

This fits so well with the overall theme of this letter that the Church of the living God is the “household of God”.

Unfortunately for many of us, that illustration may loose something in translation. Not long ago, if you said we should treat each other like family there would be a universal understanding that this meant to be respectful, kind and loving to one another, but that has not always been our experience when it comes to family has it? So much so that a large part of our culture would have us abandon God’s idea of family and replace it with various groups of people who have bonded together in any number of ways.

But just because we have not always done “family” in a good way, does not mean that it was not created as a good thing. It is just one more good thing that our sin and self ishness can work to ruin, but Paul is speaking of God’s good design for family as he instructs Timothy to use discernment when he interacts with various individuals in the “Household of God”.

So event though he is to “Command and teach these things” corporately to the congregation as it says back in 4:11, when it comes to personal interaction he is to use discretion and engage in an appropriate way according to God’s designed roles of the family.

So even if you just met this older gentleman Timothy, don’t be condescending, but respectfully encourage him toward right behavior as your would your own father.

And those young men that are your age, approach them as brothers, convincing them with reason and influence, doing you very best to avoid quarrelling. To which everyone of us with brothers says “Good Luck with that”…but Paul assumes that it can be done.

And when you instruct older women, they may not be your mom, but you better show her the respect you would your own mamma when you talk with her.

And Timothy, you better have fierce sense of brotherly protection and purity in mind when you address your sisters in Christ.

This is good stuff for Timothy, but it is also good for us to see how we are to relate to one another in our Church family. When the Church gathers together it is not like a theatre or a show. We do not gather as fellow patrons of the arts, we gather together as family. We need to be treating one another in this way, caring for one another in this way. Being discerning in our interactions and considering who it is that we are speaking with and tailor our interactions accordingly.

Is that the sense that you get when we gather? Is that the sense that you give when we are together? It should be. What can we do to make this true about us? Because this is a behavior that God expects of his household, that...

[In the Household of God,] we treat each other like family (1 Tim 5:1-2)

Secondly...

In the Household of God, we care for those without family (1 Tim 5:3-16)

1 Timothy 5:3 ESV

3 Honor widows who are truly widows.

I feel like we need to stop right here and think critically about this for a second. “Honor widows who are truly widows”? How could there be widows that are not “truly widows”. Isn’t being a widow an “all in” kind of thing? Right?

Like “How is your husband, doing?” “He passed away” “Oh I am so sorry to hear that”....Widow.

How is your husband doing? “Fred’s doing great, he is right over there, talking to Larry...” Not a widow.

Right? It seems pretty cut and dry, doesn’t it? I mean it is kind of like being pregnant, you either are or you are not there is no “She’s pregnant, but not truly pregnant” So what is going on here? I mean how can we be certain to honor only those widows who are “truly widows”?

And understand that this is important because it is not like this is an isolated or obscure command from the Lord to care for widows. The Bible commands this over and over and all throughout, often coupled together with caring for orphans, another status of great need.

In the Old Testament Law we read:

Exodus 22:22 ESV

22 You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child.

And through the prophets we find things like it says in Isaiah:

Isaiah 1:16–17 ESV

16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17 learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.

And of course, we always look to our perfect example in Jesus who was very compassionate toward widows. He condemned the religious leaders who would pray these long prayer in public but in private they would “devour widows houses” (Mk 12:38-40). He commended the widow who quietly gave a small coin at the Temple, in contrast to the wealthy man who announced his offering to the whole world. Another time He met a funeral procession on the road and went over and raised they dead son back to life because his mother was a widow and her son was all she had. (Luke 7:11-17)

And besides 1 Timothy, the New Testament Church has the command from James which says that:

James 1:27 ESV

27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

So the care of widows is a clear command throughout Scripture, so finding out what Paul means by those who are “truly widows” should be important to us?

To help us to understand what is happening here, most theologians would break up this teaching on “widows” into two sections:

1. How to identify and truly help those who are “truly widows” (1 Tim 5:3-8)

2. How those who are identified as “truly widows” can truly be a help. (1 Tim 5:9-16)

Let’s take a look at the first one: How to identify and truly help those who are “truly widows”:

1 Timothy 5:3–8 ESV

3 Honor widows who are truly widows. 4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God. 5 She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day, 6 but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. 7 Command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach. 8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

So we can see in verse 5 how Paul tells us how to identify those widows who are “truly a widow”

She is left all alone

She has set her hope on God

She continues in prayer night and day

While we cannot put our finger directly on in, it seems clear that Paul is responding to the behavior of some of the widows in the Church who are causing some problems in the household of God. Their families are not stepping up to help them as they could and so should, and instead they are satisfied with exploiting the generosity of the Church. This has not led them to a grateful heart, but to a prideful attitude that was causing tensions in the Church. Some theologians even see correlation between these women and the commands that Paul gives regarding women back in Chapter 2.

The big idea here is that women who are “truly widows” are in a position of humble dependence on God alone. With no other way to meet their needs, they have prayed to God and God is answering that prayer through the generosity of Church family.

While it certainly has not been limited to widows, I have had many opportunities to attempt to work towards “truly helping” someone who says that they are in need of help. As a pastor, I have sat with dozens of people who have come into my office and asked for financial assistance of varying degrees and for various reasons. What I try to always do is begin with telling them that we really love to help people, but we seek to truly help them, and sometimes that means us not doing what they were hoping that we would do for them.

This stance that I take typically leads to either very long conversations or very short ones. The short ones tend to get up and leave quickly, sometimes respectfully but at times with insults and foul language even accusing me of not even being a Christian. That is not always easy, but I still think that I am doing what is good for them. I don’t believe that God wants us to “help people’ in ways that don’t really help them, but only enables them to continue to make the same destructive decisions again.

But sometimes we have a long conversation, and I am able to speak the truth of God’s Word into their life and minds and lead them toward life choices where they won’t have the same need come next month. And that is what I would say is “Truly Helping Someone”, and while it doesn’t happen very often, when it does it is really fun to be a part of.

This is in line with what I believe Paul is saying to Timothy when he says to “honor those widows who are truly widows”. That the Church would seek to help them in ways that are “truly helpful” to them, not in ways that will lead them to the “self indulgence” that brings reproach.

In contrast to a widow who is choosing to exploit her status in self-centeredness, Paul moves into...

2. How those who are identified as “truly widows” can truly be a help. (1 Tim 5:9-16)

1 Tim 5:9 - “Let a widow be enrolled if ...

Again we have to stop for just a moment and handle this world “enrolled”. Some of your translations may use the word “registered” “put on the list” or “taken into the number” and the big question here is whether or not this is a list for those who qualify for receiving help, or is a group of widows who qualify for being a help in the Church. The later seems much more likely considering the following qualifications. You will probably see some similarities to this list and the list for Overseers of Deacons like we talked about in previous chapters.

1 Timothy 5:9–10 ESV

9 Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, 10 and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.

Did you catch some similarities? Clearly these women needed to be women who also “get it”. They need to be women who are pursuing godliness and are ready to help serve others to do the same. We don’t have any specific record in Scripture of an official Church position of “widow”, but at one point Luke refers to “all the widows in Joppa” as if they were a group and that coupled with the idea of a list here makes it seem like the beginnings of an official role of some sort.

If we lined these qualifications up next to the ones for Overseers and Deacons it would look something like this. [Comparison Slide] That is a lot of qualifications for someone to just make it to a list to get some financial assistance.

Historically, from about the second to the fourth century we do have records from the early Church fathers like Ignatius, Polycarp and Tertullian that affirm the presence of an “order of the widows” who among other things “gave themselves to prayer, nursed the sick, cared for the orphans, visited Christians in prison, evangelized pagan women and instructed female converts in preparation for their baptism.”

So whether Paul meant for it to develop into an official role in the Church or not, these women who were on the “list” were to not to be self-indulgent but devoted to good works among the household of God.

It is good and right for the Church to step up to help these widows, but not to free them from their burden in order to pursue their own interests, but to be diligently serving in the household of God. And I am sure that many women had gratefully done this already, but there was one group that Paul instructed Timothy not to allow on the list.

1 Timothy 5:11–15 ESV

11 But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry 12 and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. 13 Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. 14 So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. 15 For some have already strayed after Satan.

The old saying was ringing true for these women, “Idle hands are the devil’s playground” and even though Paul in other circumstances had taken the stance that it was better for widows not to marry but to remain single in service of the Lord (1 Cor7:8) Here he sees that younger widows should remarry and seek to bear children and be about the constructive efforts of managing a household rather than the destructive efforts of being gossips and busybodies.

Yeah, Paul is not real popular with the feminist crowd. Can you imagine. I mean the audacity to say that God might desire women to pursue participation in the very thing that He designed men and women to do - be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. (Gen 1:28) That is still a good and godly calling - even though Paul says elsewhere that it also can be good to remain single in service to the Lord, if that is not something that the Holy Spirit leads you into then you should open to idea of marriage and a family. That is pretty counter-cultural in our day…just like it was in Timothy.

Remember that one of the things that the lying false teachers in Chapter 4 were forbidding was marriage, and Paul answered them with:

1 Timothy 4:4–5 ESV

4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

And then finally here at the end of this section, Paul circles us back to the beginning saying:

1 Timothy 5:16 ESV

16 If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows.

I have such great respect for Christian families that I have seen take such great care of the widows in their family, even to the point of moving them into their homes and caring for their daily needs. With all the nursing home options we have today, it takes a special family who is willing to not just manage the finances of a widowed loved one, but also give to them a part of their day to day. However God leads you to care for the widows in your extended family, know that God is pleased with your efforts to do so, especially as it serves the greater kingdom of God.

But those widows who are “truly widows” are those who are truly in need because they have no one else to help them and they have called out to God in prayer…and then in answer to that prayer God sends his Church to “truly help them” by not only discerning what would truly be helpful in their circumstances but also giving them the dignity of a role in the household of faith.

John Stott says this about these verses in 1 Timothy:

Two lasting principles of social welfare seem to emerge from these apostolic instructions. The first is the principle of discrimination. There was to be no general handout to all widows, irrespective of their circumstances. Widowhood was not in itself a qualification for support by the Church. No, the Church’s welfare provisions are to be limited to those in genuine need. If there are any alternative means of support, the should be used. In particular, the first call is on the widow’s family. All of us must accept responsibilitiy for our own relatives. The church’s sense of responsibility is not to encourage irresponsibility in others. And government welfare programmes should supplement but not replace either individual or family obligations.

Secondly there is the principle of dignity. It is very interesting to note the two distinct categories of widow Paul mentions, the one needing support and the other offering service. Although we have considered them seperately, they must have overlapped. Indeed ideally, health and strength permitting, the supported and the serving widows should be the same people. Widows (together with others in similar circumstances like single mothers, abused and divorced women) should have the opportunity both to receive according to their need and to give according to their ability, that is both to be served and to serve.

Gospel Application

I believe these two principles are beneficial for everyone in the household of God. Way too often the Christian Church has drifted into a toxic view of service that puts up walls between those who serve in the Church and those who are being served by the Church. The Church family is just like every other family in that we are to be serving each other, even as we are receiving service from one another. This is how we truly honor one another.

The Church was never designed to operate like a Welfare system where a disconnected check comes in the mail, but a Gospel Centered household that grows godliness in disciples of Jesus Christ as we serve one another and are being served by one another.

Landing

So who is it in your life that you can honor right now? Maybe they have asked you for something that you can do for them, or maybe you may need to be discerning in how you could “truly serve” them. Or maybe the best way that you can serve someone else right not is to allow them the dignity of serving you in some way? I encourage you to consider that this week and take steps toward “honoring” others in this way.

Let me invite the worship team forward and I will pray.