Widows in the Church, Pt. 4
1 Timothy 5:11‑16
As you know, we've been studying 1 Timothy chapter 5 verses 3 through 16, and the subject of this section is the care of widows, or women who have their husband in the church. I just want to remind you of some preliminary things before we look at the passage in specific in order to try to set some things in your mind and pick up any loose ends you might have as we come to part four of this series. The underlying reality unstated in the text but really there by implication is the fact that God has designed women as the weaker vessel. God has designed women to be cared for, provided for, protected, nurtured, cherished by men. And as I said last time, the biblical community, both Old Testament and New Testament, assumed that a woman was under the care of her father until she was handed over to the care of her husband. Women were to be provided for and cared for because they were the weaker vessel. They needed someone stronger than they to care for them.
It's not a question of spiritual strength, it's not a question of intellectual strength, it's not a question of the strength of character, it's only a question of the physical dimension. Women needed to be provided for, nurtured, protected and cared for. In fact, this comes through in the Old Testament in many ways when Isaiah chapter 19 verse 16 wanted to speak of the weakness of Egypt, it said Egypt is like a woman, emphasizing the fact that Egypt is vulnerable, unprotected and somewhat weak. In Jeremiah twice, once in chapter 50 as God speaks the diatribe against Babylon, in verse 37 he condemns Babylon basically by saying they shall become like women. In other words, when I move against Babylon, they will be in weakness. In Jeremiah chapter 51 and verse 30 similarly, the mighty men of Babylon have foreborn to fight, they have remained in their strongholds. In other words, they won't come out and do battle. Their might has failed, they've became like women. And in that little prophecy of Nahum, the end of the prophecy chapter 3 verse 13 speaking in the prophecy against Nineveh, "Behold thy people in the midst of thee are women."
Now all of those most interesting statements simply point up that there was a very ubiquitous sense that women were the weaker vessel. And when wanting to designate a nation or a people as indefensible and vulnerable, it simply said they were like women. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with being provided for, protected, nourished, cherished and cared for, anymore than there's anything wrong with having to do that as a responsibility. But God has designed men to be the stronger vessel in terms of the physical supply and women to be the ones who being weaker are supplied for. And what a beautiful and wonderful partnership that is.
Now it is true, having said that, that by God's design there are some unique women for whom God has designed a single state. In other words, there are some women who will never marry. In 1 Corinthians, for example, chapter 7 starting in verse 26 and going all the way to verse 35, the Apostle Paul discusses the virtues of being single. Now in that chapter it's obvious that behind the scenes was a group of people lobbying for singleness as the means to greater spirituality and another group in Corinth lobbying for marriage as the path to greater spirituality. In the chapter Paul says neither one is the path to greater spirituality but if you can remain single because of the present distress, referring to persecution, being in a hostile environment where Christians were arrested, beaten and even killed and being ten years away from the reign of terror under Nero, Paul says if you can remain single, if you have that gift and you aren't going to burn in your desire. In other words, if you can handle being single, then that by the design of God is to your benefit. Why? Because a married person has to care for the matters of his wife. He has to care for the matters of his household, of his family and so forth.
But in that particular text both men and women are discussed and the implication there is that there are those men and those women occasionally who have been given the gift of singleness for the very purpose of concentrating on service to Jesus Christ unencumbered by the world and particularly in a time of hostility when there would be grave difficulty in being married because you would not only suffer the potential loss of your own life but you would then leave your family without resource or you might even suffer the loss of family and that has its own burden to bear. So Paul says there is virtue in singleness if indeed that is the design of God.
I might secondly add that there may be some women who are single not because of the design of God in terms of their giftedness and suitability for that, but because perhaps they because of sin have not been the right person, the right woman to meet the right man and so there is an element of chastening in their life. There are many young women who living a life of sin and disobedience to Christ have by God's own judgment and determination forfeited marriage which is the grace of life for women and yet that's withhold from them as a way of God's chastening them. There may be other women who are single not because of some sin in their life, not because of some gift, but because God is allowing that in their life for some perfecting purpose. Perhaps the right person has not come along and there is something on the agenda of God to be accomplished by their continued singleness until that time if indeed it is to come to pass.
Now I say all of that because in the last three weeks in discussing the subject of widows, I have had a large number of single women come to me and say, "Look, I'm single and I don't know where I fit in to 1 Timothy 5." And my stock answer is you don't fit into 1 Timothy 5, you're not discussed there. However, you are discussed in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 and there we find that God has designed singleness for some by giftedness. We can also conclude that disobedience to the Lord could forfeit the blessing of marriage to others and we could conclude just in general that God may restrain a person from marriage for His own purposeful spiritual design which you may or may not know until it's long accomplished. But the point of this text is to deal with the general truth that God has designed women to be under the care of a man. It is the unusual woman who can live her life long in singleness or who by judgment of God or chastening of God must do so or for some divine purpose God chooses that. The main stream of women, the majority, the general design of God is that women marry and sustain the relationship to a man in which relationship they are cared for, provided for, supported and protected. That is God's general design.
And in general then I would like also to say that apart from that provision and apart from that protection and apart from that fulfillment, women are vulnerable. They are vulnerable and they are unfulfilled and you take those two and put them together and you have a potential disaster. A vulnerable and unfulfilled woman is fair game for many evil intended men.
A woman under the design of God to be fully complemented and made completely whole in a sense by a marriage with a man then finds herself in a difficult and unfilling situation if she has not found that man. It's interesting to me today that the modern cry for women to be free, in fact there's even a Christian book called, "Woman Be Free," for women to be single and pursue their own independence and pursue their own career, really goes against the God‑created grain of womanhood. And try as they will to parade this kind of mentality, it doesn't seem to fly with the women who are trying to live it out. That's becoming more and more obvious all the time.
For example, modern psychologists are busy right now picking up the pieces of women who are trying desperately to live life without a man. What happens is they are not only a woman but they have to become a man, too. And so they are the one to be provided for, protected and they're having to do the provision and the protection themselves. Secularists are faced then with a disastrous fall out of the supposed liberated woman. Last week in the L.A. Times there was an interesting article on this. Quoting a few of the psychologists and psychoanalysts out of that article really tells you where the problem lies. Annette Barron(?) who is a psychologist here in Los Angeles wrote, "It is a phenomenon of this era that the great majority of psychologists' practice may be two thirds of anybody's practice is single women who have relationship problems." I can understand that. They will have relationship problems because of the high level of vulnerability and their unfulfilled state when God designed them to be under the care of a man.
Kenneth Druck(?), another psychologist in the same article, says, "The average 30‑year‑old woman is coming in for psychoanalysis and counseling because she thinks something is wrong. She has an underlying sense of failure, a nagging suspicion that perhaps she has missed the boat somewhere. The fact is she doesn't have a relationship, she's not part of a family," end quote. And I might add, she has no husband. Janice Liberman(?), a New York psychoanalyst wrote, "These women bring to treatment a hidden agenda to find a husband."
Now the point is all that is being said about liberation just doesn't fly in the heart of a woman. Therapist Pierre Morinell(?) of the University of California at San Francisco, the clinic, said, "That single women in therapy, psychotherapy, often express the need for family and for children. Whether that is due to the reality that you've been out in the trenches and you're bloodied and battered or not, there's something rather profound...listen to this...in their genes that wants to nurture and raise children and have a quieter and simpler life." That sounds pretty biblical to me. He says, "Particularly among his patients are a series of symptoms such as poor concentration, eating and drinking too much, sleep disruption, a general blue view of the world. Taken together the symptomatology points to depression and when you start taking a history, men or the lack of men are one aspect of that history." Isn't that interesting? Secular humanistic psychology is finding out exactly what God says.
Now even when the modern liberated woman finds a man, she can't make a marriage work. Annette Barron says, "You have women who have learned to take care of themselves who have in effect become men. The pieces aren't fitting, it's become skewed. Once she has become a man, then marrying a man just doesn't seem to work." So she wants to marry an equal, not someone she has to serve, so marriage simply becomes a convenience of two people legalizing sex and going on with independent living until the passion dies and when the passion dies without real commitment divorce ensues and they're off for the same cycle again.
And whether or not women want to admit it on the surface, God has designed them for a strong need to have provision and protection given to them by a man in exchange for loving service rendered to that man. That's God's design. And because God is so committed to the care of women, He is concerned greatly about those women who having had a husband lose that husband. And that's the essence of this text. This is the heart of God ministered to these women through the church in the time of their need. He is very concerned about widows, women bereft of a husband. We see that in the Old Testament, we see it through the New Testament as well.
Now remind yourself of one thing. The term is "widow" here and it appears several times in the text. Keep in mind the Greek word is chera and that word means bereft, alone, having been left alone. It has nothing to do with how the woman was left alone. It doesn't necessarily tell us that the man died, such as the English word "widow" does. It simply says this is a formerly married woman who is now alone, whether through death, divorce, desertion, separation or whatever. The term itself does not necessitate a death. So the church then is obligated to take a good look at how it is to care for those women who have now lost their husband through death, divorce, desertion or whatever and are now alone unprotected, uncared for, unprovided for and vulnerable...and I might add even unfulfilled because of God's design.
Now there are several key points, let me remind you of the ones we've already discussed. Point number one in your outline, which you can follow if you want, it's in your bulletin, is the obligation of the church to support such women. Verse 3 says that we are to support those bereft women who are really alone. Real widows would be those who have no other means of support. Now we don't just blindly rush in to caring for all these women, there is a line of responsibility. So we move to the second point, the obligation of the church to evaluate the women needing that support. We don't support every woman who's lost her husband, we have to make an evaluation. The first line of support comes in verse 4 from children and grandchildren. If any of these women have children or grandchildren, then they should return to their parents a portion of what their parents gave them in their growing up. That is the first line of responsibility belongs to the children and the grandchildren to support the women who are bereft. A widowed mother, a divorced mother, a deserted mother is to be cared for by her children and her grandchildren as a means of demonstrating their loving return of all the investment of that woman in their life. That's the first line of responsibility.
The second line of responsibility we noted was in verse 8, that if any man does not provide for his own, that is his own bereft women. That's generally very vague and it means any that are networked with him, any that are relatives or friends or in the circle of family, extended family, specially those of his own family, immediate household. So the first responsibility, children and grandchildren. The second responsibility, a man who has a bereft woman who has lost her husband within the sphere of his network family, whether it's extended or immediate in the house. First the children and grandchildren, second, some other man...it might be a cousin, it might be an uncle, it might be a brother‑in‑law, could be anyone like that. It starts with an individual responsibility.
I pointed out to you also last time that the third line of responsibility will come in verse 16 where it says, "If any believing woman has widows, let her relieve them." So it's not just a man who has means, but even a woman who has lost her husband if she has means or if her husband's not a believer, she has means she can use as she will...maybe he's given her the discretion to do that. She has a responsibility also. First the children and grandchildren, secondly, men in the family, thirdly, women in the family who have means are also responsible to share those means with those women who have lost their husbands.
Then fourthly in the line of responsibility comes the church. We take care of then the widows indeed. Who are they? Those whose children, grandchildren can't or won't support them, those whose men in the family can't or won't support them, those whose women in the family can't or won't support them, they therefore having no means of support are to be cared for by the church. And we must evaluate among those women which are to be cared for, for that we go back to verse 5. A true widow, a desolate one who qualifies for support is one who trusts or has fixed her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. In other words, a godly Christian woman. What of the widows indeed, which ones of the widows indeed is the church to support? The godly ones. The ones in verse 6 who live in pleasure are spiritually dead and the implication there is we have no responsibility for them. And so in verse 7 he says, "Command these things that the church in following these things may be without blame."
So the responsibility then comes to the church when all the areas of responsibility have been exhausted and the church is responsible only to support those women who are Christians and who are godly as evidenced by a life of continual prayer. A woman who lives in dissipation, in pleasure, in sensual desire is spiritually dead. The church has no obligation to care for her. In fact, she is best left to the devices of her own sin which when reaching their climax may awaken her to her need for the Lord and drive her back to things that are right. So those are the first two things that we looked at.
Now last time we looked also at verses 9 and 10. And we said, thirdly, Paul says that the church is obligated to maintain a high standard for those women who serve. And verse 9 and 10 identify for us an order of women in the church, women who had lost their husbands, who were then officially put on a list and given the responsibility of spiritual ministry. Their primary ministry would be defined in Titus 2, teaching younger women how to be godly, love their husbands, love their children, be pure, discreet, chaste, keep the home, and so forth. They would then work with orphans and children. They would work with prisoners, the sick, the poor, the needy, those in trouble, those destitute. They were women who were qualified and you'll notice the qualifications are wonderful, they were to be at least 60 years of age so that they would not have a desire to remarry, they would not be beset by a desire for a conjugal relationship. They were to have given all their life the very clear testimony that they were a one‑man woman. In other words, they were ever and always devoted to their husband and having a pure relationship with him. Verse 10, they had a reputation for good works and here are the good works...they had brought up children, loved strangers, washed the saints' feet, assisted the afflicted and troubled and diligently pursued every good work. These kinds of women were to be put on an official list of service.
Now keep this in mind. This is not the kind of widow to be supported. Any woman who is without support was to be supported. But these were women put on a list of those who serve in the church. A wonderful, wonderful ministry as these older women went around having lived lives of godliness teaching other women to live the same kind of life. They were the models of virtue. And they rendered official service in behalf of the Lord's church.
Now notice that the first qualification in verse 9 is they were to be over 60. What about all the rest? Wouldn't there be other women who would want to be on the list of servants in the church? Yes, and we come to them in verses 11 to 15. And here is the obligation of the church to instruct young widows to remarry...to instruct young widows to remarry. Now I want you to know something, I want to give you a footnote right here. If you know me you know I'm not interested in ever giving you my opinion on things in this pulpit. This is not a place for my opinion, this is a place for me to teach you what the Word of God has to say. I'm going to do that, I just want to take you through this passage as the Word of God very clearly lays it out. And if something kind of goes cross‑grain to where you might be, your debate is not with me, your debate is with the Word of God and you need to look closely to make sure that we are understanding it properly, if that will help you. But the gist of verses 11 to 15 is a very simple principle. Young women who have lost their husbands are to remarry. That you cannot miss. Verse 14, "I desire...boulomai, strong word, has the force of a command...that the younger remarry." The younger...literally it says, I desire, or I command that the younger to marry. It doesn't say younger women, we know what younger ones he's talking about. Starting back in verse 11 he mentions the younger widows.
So, he's taking about women who have lost their husband and the biblical text says that I desire them, and the word is boulomai, it is the desire of reason not the desire of emotion, it is the desire of calculated rational thinking. It is the tantamount to a command...I command younger ones to marry.
So the obligation of the church then with those younger widows is to encourage them toward marriage. The church could put widows on a list if they were over 60. Younger widows were encouraged to go toward marriage.
Now you say, "What is the issue here?" Let me give you the picture. Younger women lost their husbands. And immediately in the sorrow of losing your husband, whether he left you through death or whether there was an unbelieving husband who departed because he didn't want to live with a believing wife and that was a very common practice in the early church. Many women believed in the gospel. They were married to pagan husbands. The tension grew so strong. The pagan left. First Corinthians 7:15 says, "If an unbeliever departs, let him depart, a believer is not in bondage." So once that unbeliever said "I can't take this, I will refuse to be married to a Christian" and split, that woman became a bereft woman. She had lost her husband. If she was still young, she was in a situation where biblically she was given the privilege and the right to remarry, based on 1 Corinthians 7:15.
Also, there were those young women whose husbands engaged themselves in sexual sin. And the Lord Jesus in Matthew 5 and also in Matthew 19 says that anyone who divorces for any other grounds than sexual sin creates adultery. The very clear implication is that where you have sexual sin unrepented of and continuous, that is grounds for the dissolution of a marriage. We know that because in the Old Testament economy, that kind of behavior brought about death, didn't it? And death certainly would have been the dissolution of a marriage. If in the new covenant God is gracious and doesn't kill the guilty partner, that should not result in a life long sentence of celibacy to the innocent one. So it is true then in the words of our Lord that where you have an ongoing adultery and sexual sin, there is a grounds for the divorce in that marriage and that means freedom to remarry. Very clearly in Jewish custom and Jewish law and Jewish teaching, younger women who were in the state of having lost their husband legitimately in the sense that they left because they were believers or they left through an adulterous situation or they left through death were in that culture encouraged to remarry.
Why? Because the home was the sphere of a woman's existence. And a woman who lost her husband early in her years would be out there as vulnerable and unfulfilled as a woman who had never been married and had the same needs.
In Romans chapter 7, obviously, it tells us that when a man dies the marriage union is broken and there is a freedom to remarry. So looking at it from the desertion of an unbeliever, from the fornication of a partner or from the standpoint of death, the Scripture allows the remarriage of that woman. The innocent party in an adultery, the believer left by an unbeliever free to remarry.
So we come then to verse 11. And here's what would happen. One of these young women would lose their husband. Maybe he died, maybe he left, maybe there was a divorce because of his incessant adultery and she was not to be sentenced to that ugly relationship the rest of her days. So she's now single. And she's broken hearted. She's had it with a man. She feels burned and hurt. And so in her young years and in the emotion of the moment and maybe still feel