Today’s passage: 1 Timothy 5:9-16
Helpful thoughts:
- In today’s reading, further details are given concerning the care of widows in the church.
- Just like the qualifications for pastors and deacons earlier in the epistle, these qualifications should not be considered a specific list, but as a description of the kind of people who fit into these categories.
- Widows who are eligible for the support of the church need to be ladies who have spent up their youthful energies on doing good in their own homes and in the church. Even in their later years, and even if they are able to do nothing else, they still seek to do good for others through prayer (Verse 5).
- Younger widows who have those energies to use up ought to do so.
- The overall principle that can be beneficial to all of us is that if we have the ability to serve others, that ought to be on the forefront of our minds, not what others ought to be doing for us.
- We are all going to be doing something with the hours of our days…let’s make sure that something is positive (And not just for our own entertainment, but for the spiritual and physical benefit of others).
Questions to consider:
- If we think we are going to do “Nothing” all day, what might we end up doing? Why is it good for all Christians to proactively seek to do good?
- How might the application of this passage have looked different in the 1st century Roman Empire as opposed to our culture in the 21st Century? How can we apply it in respectful and helpful ways today?
- One of the aspects to these verses is that the ladies have (Or could still have) children. How could the church minister to and love ladies in our ministry who have not been married and/or never had children? Paul calls singleness a good thing in 1 Corinthians 7:8. In what ways can these ladies also carry on the spirit of this passage, and the church also minister to them in the same ways?