Counsel Regarding Younger Widows

We're doing a verse by verse study through the book of First Timothy and as we continue in our study of this book, we come this morning to 1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 11, and my goal today is to try to cover verses 11 through 15 and the title of the message this morning is counsel regarding younger widows. Again guys, we, God gives a large chunk of this letter. The biggest chunk of this letter is devoted to the subject of widows, telling us that God cares about this. If we want to do church God's way.

And honestly survey God and say what church do you want to attend on that survey form, God would have a lot to say about widows and how the church should care for them. This is the essence of true religion. It's one of the top 3 items that God identifies as the essence of true religion. It's to visit.

The orphans and the widows and their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world, so caring for widows, giving attention to them and addressing their needs is a matter of tremendous importance to God. Now, by way of very quick review for the benefit of any of you that have not been traveling through this passage with us. We saw a few weeks ago in verses 3 through 8 that Paul's burden is regarding the proper care and provision for widows. Paul's burden is that widows be cared for.

And we saw that there are two categories of widows in the mind of the apostle Paul. There are widows with family. And widows with family, what the church does is the church goes to those family members and instructs them to care for the widows and their own family, and the church then is not burdened with that responsibility of providing aid for them. But then there's a second category of widow, and that is widows indeed Paul calls them.

And these are widows that are truly destitute. They obviously don't have a husband anymore. They don't have children. They don't have family members that can provide for them.

There's nothing left over from their husband's estate that can provide for them in an ongoing way. They're truly destitute. They need financial aid. These are Christian women, godly women.

We see that in verse 5. Paul says, regarding widows indeed, verse 3, honor them. And what that means verse 16 is to assist them to provide ongoing aid for them. So just understand that in the church amongst the Christian women in the church there are two categories of widow widows with family, and the families care for them.

And then there are widows without family and the church provides ongoing financial assistance for them. Clear enough? All right, coming into verse 9 last week, we were introduced to something called the list. All right.

sounds ominous, but it's actually a good thing. Paul says in verse 9, a widow is to be put on the list only, and then he begins to give the qualifications for inclusion on the list. Get the tape from last week if you want to know the details of how we arrived at this, but The way we ended up defining the list is, it is the list of widows who have pledged to remain unmarried in order that they might render full-time ministry on behalf of the church for the rest of their lives.

I think the text can, can end up bearing that out and we talked about that last week.

It's widows that that say I I will never marry again. I voluntarily choose. No one's making me, but I don't want to ever get married again. I want to take my remaining years and devote myself just full time to serving the church and on behalf of the church, and I will do this for the rest of my days that the Lord gives me on this earth.

Now regarding who gets on that list, verses 9 and 10, Paul gives us the qualifications. Look what he says in verse 9. A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than 60 years old, having been the wife of one man, having a reputation for good works, and if she has brought up children, if she has shown hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the saints' feet, if she has assisted those in distress. If she has devoted herself to every good work, those are the qualifications 60 years of age and older, she must have been in the past when her husband was alive, a faithful wife.

She must have a reputation for good work. She must have brought up children. We saw this means literally nourished children. And this could mean her own children or maybe even orphans that she has brought under her care in the ancient church.

There were a number of Christian families that did that and maybe even not even orphaned children, but just she's a lover of children. She enjoys ministering to children, and that's part of her reputation as a woman who is even a lover of other people's children and invest herself in blessing them and nourishing them physically, spiritually, and emotionally in any way that she can. And she has shown hospitality. She's washed the saints' feet, assisted those in distress back in the day when she had the financial means to do so, and she's a woman who has devoted and chased after, followed after every good work that she could possibly do on behalf and for the benefit of other people.

Those are the qualifications to get on that list. All right, now this list is a good list to be on. The godliest of women in the church are on that list. They're fully devoted to serving on behalf of the church.

Paul says you've got to be 60 and older as a widow to make it on that list. That raises the question that we're going to address today, and that is what about the younger widows who might want to be on that list? From the text, there's every indication that there were, for example, a 25-year-old. 25 year old widows whose husband had passed away a couple of months earlier and they were like, what, I, I want to make a vow to never get married again and maybe, out of devotion to their previous husband, and they're like, Man, I'll never be able to replace him.

I'm never going to marry again. And so they're coming to Timothy saying, I want to, I want to make a pledge to never marry again and to devote the rest of my life to service to the church. Please let me be on this list. So you got a godly woman who's willing to make this pledge.

She's lost her husband. She wants to be single the rest of her life. She's willing to enter into that vow, and she wants to be on this list of full-time servants who labor on behalf of the church. What do you do with younger women?

who desire that basically the way we're going to break down the passage is there's 5 desires of Paul the apostle, the apostle that he expresses in these verses regarding what to do regarding younger widows and the list. All right, desire number 1, and we're starting on a negative note here, is they should not be put on the list. They should not be put on the list. Paul uses very strong language here, verse 11, but refuse to put younger widows on the list.

Literally reject younger widows. Now there's nothing wrong with these widows. He's not saying reject them personally. What he's saying is any 25, 35, 45 year old widow who's still of childbearing, child rearing age, who's coming to you wanting to pledge herself to a life of singleness for the rest of her life to serve the church, and she wants to get on that ministry list of full-time servants in the church, don't let her, not because there's something wrong with her.

But as an act of grace and mercy for her, you're doing the right thing by her to not let her make that vow at that young age. Look what he says in verse 11, but refuse to put younger widows on the list. Anyone 59 and under, but even though it's technically 59 and under, when Paul uses that word younger, just the visual you need to have is not of some 59.5 year old. I'm 59 years old and 11 months, and I want to get on that list.

That's, technically they would be included, but when he says younger, you need to think of 20-somethings and 30-somethings and maybe 40-somethings. That's what the visual you need to have, even though technically it would go all the way up to 59 years and 364 days of age. So he says regarding the younger, he says refuse to put the younger widows on this particular list, and then Paul begins to identify the reasons why. He says, for when they feel sensual desires and disregard of Christ.

Now the way I read this, the sensual desires, and many would agree with this, are sexual desires, desires for physical intimacy, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with those desires, OK. But look at the problem when they feel the sensual desires and disregard of Christ. In other words, in disregard of the vow that they made to Christ. They've made this vow to never marry again as they're dealing with the grief of the loss of their husband.

Like, Man, I don't ever want to marry again, and I want to devote my life to the church. But now a few years have gone by and their feelings have changed, and they're feeling, even in their body, this desire for the companionship of a husband and all that goes along. with that, now that they're past the seasons of grief and all the stages of grief, so they begin to feel those desires and disregard of Christ. Not that Christ is against those desires, but they made a vow.

Look what it says. They want to get married now. Is there anything wrong with wanting to get married? No, there can't be.

In fact, underline the word want, they want to get married and then go to verse 14. Paul says, therefore, I want younger widows to get married. It can't be wrong for them to want to get married if Paul the Apostle actually wants them to get married. So what's the problem?

Verse 12, thus incurring condemnation. Because they have set aside their previous pledge, that's the problem. They have made a vow to the Lord that they will never marry again, and now they're feeling these desires for a husband, and they're wanting to get married, and now they're extremely frustrated women that are imprisoned by this vow that ultimately turns out to be a rash vow that they had made that they're now locked into for the rest of their life. The word that is translated condemnation, that's a possible translation.

Like John Calvin believes it's damnation, like you lose your soul doing this. Other commentators say no, it could be you could translate it disapproval or censure, like the disapproval of the church, the disapproval of the Lord, may be bringing his chastisement because the vow has been broken. Look what it says, because they have set aside their previous pledge. In other words, they've made a vow.

Now in our day today, honesty is not a virtue in the thinking of many. In fact, surveys that have been done, they found out like over 90% of Americans say that they will lie when it's convenient for them to do so. so we live in a society where when somebody says something to you or they put their signature on something, their signatures often mean absolutely nothing if, it's convenient for them to lie in a given circumstance to achieve their own selfish purposes, but you need to understand that according to the Bible, Honesty was absolutely important.

It was part of the law of God.

There were even sections in the Old Testament law having to do with vows and the necessity of keeping them, and there's even a provision in the Old Testament law regarding vows that widows make, believe it or not, and, Numbers chapter 30, verse 9, it says, but the vow of a widow, everything by which she has bound herself shall stand against her. So a widow who makes a vow, she has to keep that vow. That's the law of God. So it's not some small matter like, oh, what, I made this vow 5 years ago, but I feel differently now.

And that the church would just go, Oh, that's OK, that's OK. No, the church has to take that seriously. And so a woman who made that vow and 5 years later is wanting to change her mind, the church's message to her has to be, you have to keep your vow. You can't go back on your word.

That's, that's what God wants is for you to keep your vow. Maybe you should have never made the vow in the first place, but having made it, you have to honor it. So this was a tough thing to get around, and Paul is saying that if there's this young 25-year-old widow that's wanting to make this vow to get on the list, he's telling Timothy, don't let her make the vow. Don't let her do that because the likelihood is that she's going to feel differently in a few years and You are not doing her a service and letting her make this vow and get locked into it.

Now, in verse 12, it says, thus incurring condemnation because they've set aside their previous pledge. Some of your translations say faith, right? How many of you have translations that say faith? Just raise your hands, every head bowed, every eye closed.

OK. and that's the English Standard Version, right? OK, King James? OK, excellent.

faith would work in a context like this, if you think of it the way we might use the expression, he broke faith. When someone uses that expression, they're not talking about faith in the Lord as much as they, they broke their promise, but understand that the Greek word that is translated pledge here, yes, it's translated faith throughout the New Testament, but there are occasions back in this day where this word clearly did mean pledge. For example, Josephus, the historian who was writing during the first century when the New Testament was even being written.

in his antiquities, he has a scene where he says, when they received the oath and pledge, they came out of the temple.

That word pledge is the exact same Greek word. that is translated pledge here at the end of verse 12 and 3rd Maccabees 3:10, which is not a part of Scripture, it's a part of the Old Testament apocrypha. We have this same word occurring again speaking of individuals who gave them a pledge, and that's the exact same Greek word that is translated as pledge or faith, depending on your translation here. So I think the idea is clearly that a promise or pledge that The widow makes and the concern is not that it's wrong for her to want to marry or remarry.

The concern is that she made a vow and now she's breaking that vow that she made in the presence of others and to the Lord and before the Lord at whatever point that she was included on the list, and Paul says, Don't let this happen. Don't let a young widow do this. You will serve them well by Rejecting them from the list and not letting them take that step. he has other concerns.

look what he says in verse 13. He says at the same time they also learn to be idle. That's the word work, ergon with an a in front of it, no work. They learn to do no work.

They learn idleness and imagine, guys, that you, you have a woman who makes this vow and she's all passionate about it, serving the church, but then months and years go by and suddenly she's like, man, I really want to get married and And I want to have children, and she's like longing for that lifestyle, but nonetheless she made a vow and she's got to serve the church. Well, her heart obviously is leaving her service in the church and is longing for these other things that she's having strong desires for.

And so with that energy that's now being dissipated and turned away from the church, she's going to learn. Idleness just by virtue of the position that she has on the list, this ministry list, and look at this as they go around from house to house and not merely idle, but there's another concern, but also gossips and busybodies talking about things not proper.

Their hearts have left this labor for on behalf of the church that they are pledged to do for the rest of their lives. They're longing for something else and And that the tendency could be that they become idle, they become ineffective. That's how that word idle could be translated. They also can learn gossip mongering that speaks of someone who has a loose tongue, loose talking, babbling out whatever comes to mind.

just in the path of ministry and the stuff you find out about people and trust me you find out a lot about people in the path of ministry that now that becomes fodder for conversation with others and they develop loose tongues. In verse 4 they also learn this thing called busybodyness which is also again the Greek word for work with the preposition peri in front of it, which means around. It speaks of someone who works beside another. The idea is that they're discontent with their own affairs and they weasel their way beside somebody else and they work their way into the affairs of other people.

Discontent with their own affairs and develop an insatiable appetite for the affairs of other people, and they become nosy, busybodies, OK. Now, there might be some who look at this in verse 13 and say, Paul seems kinda down on women here. but let me caution you with that because he's not at all down on women. He's actually concerned about youth.

Because 60 and over women can get on this list and he's not concerned. Younger women, he has this concern because they're now being torn and having this desire to live a different life than what they have pledged themselves to. And now, they're entertaining the idea of violating their conscience and the clear indication of the text is some of them were violating their conscience, which awakens a whole host of evils. Paul's wanting to protect these women.

Think about it, guys. In 1 Timothy 3:6, I kept thinking about this passage when I was studying this text this week. the office of elder, is that a good thing? Yeah, Paul even says anyone that desires that is desiring a good thing.

is a new convert a good thing? Yeah, we love new converts. God is rejoicing in heaven over new converts. Being an elder is a good thing.

A new convert is a good thing. You put a new convert in the position of elder, bad combination. Look what Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:6, and not a new convert should be an elder so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. You take the office of elder and put a new convert in that position, pride could result, and then he stumbles in some significant way and falls into the condemnation of the devil.

Is that a slam on men? No, it's a concern about youthfulness in the faith. Paul says being an elder is a good thing, but what? Don't let a new convert be in that position.

The same here in 1 Timothy 5. The list, this ministry list, for godly widows, that's a great thing, but you let some 25-year-old woman make a vow to a lifetime of singleness and put her in that position. that's a bad combination. Could be a disastrous combination, Paul says.

So don't let them on the list. Instead, here's what I desire as an apostle steer them in another direction. And this gets us to the second desire of Paul, and we're going to be able to move much more quickly at this point, and that is his second desire is that they should get married. He's turning the corner here and he's going a totally different path, and that is they, these younger widows should get married.

He says in verse 14. Therefore, I, the apostle Paul, want younger widows. To take a different path, and that is to get married. And Timothy, that's how you need to direct them.

They may be saying, I want to pledge. I can never replace my husband who died 3 months ago. I don't ever want to get married again. Let me make this promise and pledge myself to full-time service in the church.

Paul says, Timothy, tell them no. Don't let them make that vow. If they want to be single, fine. Don't let them make a vow of singleness in order to be included on the list.

Instead steer them in this other direction. To consider marriage as a norm, Paul would say this is the path that a younger widow should take. There's obviously exceptions. 1 Corinthians 7, he speaks of men and women who have the gift of singleness, and those who have that gift of singleness, like Paul himself, had the gift of singleness.

They should make use of that gift and not get married, not so they can live a life of luxury and selfishness, but so they can devote themselves to the service of Christ in truly exceptional ways, but everyone else who doesn't have the gift of singleness, they should get married. And I think Paul is assuming that they don't have the gift of singleness because they were married. Right? They already had a spouse, a husband that passed away.

That's a pretty safe indication that they probably didn't have the gift of singleness. And so not having that gift, Paul would say the general path should be that they would be open to getting married, finding a husband, and if there's some guy in the church, a godly man who wants to marry you, marry him. Paul is saying, say yes to him if he's obviously the right guy. So consider that path and then look what comes next.

This is interesting to me. I want widows or younger women who are widows to get married and bear children. That's like the natural thing that comes out of his mouth. Next, they should bear children.

Marriage is not in scripture just an end in itself. It is often in the plan of God a means to a greater end of producing children, and children, in spite of what our society might say, are a gift from the Lord. We live in a culture that that kills over a million children. A year, but the teaching of the Bible is that children are a gift of the Lord.

The fruit of the womb is a reward like arrows in the hand of a warrior. So are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them, these children. And so get married and have children.

This past weekend I was in Anaheim at the raising your kids to do Hard Things conference. And Greg Harris, who was the instructor, said something that stood out to me. He says, bearing children is the ultimate act of hospitality. Because what you're doing is you're like, what, I, we want to have a child, we're open to that.

Lord, give us a child. God gives you a child and you bring that child into your home, and your household. Adoption is a tremendous act of hospitality, bringing a child into your home, not just for a weekend, but come live with us for 18+ years. Childbearing is the ultimate act of loving, gracious, hospitality.

And that's one of the qualifications to get on the list, verse 10. And he's like, what, you can practice hospitality in this marvelous way. This is not just something Paul wants women to do. Obviously a man's got to be involved in this, right?

This is something that God in Scripture expresses that he wants for men too. In Jeremiah 29 to the Jews who were being taken into Babylon. Here's God's instruction, to them while in Babylon. Thus says the Lord of hosts, Build homes and live in them and plant gardens and eat their produce.

Take wives and bear sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands that they may bear sons and daughters and multiply there and do not decrease. That's the responsibility that he gives to them. I don't want your population to decrease in Babylon. I want it to increase.

So what, times may be hard in Babylon, but men, my instruction is, build a home, plant a garden, eat from that garden, find a wife, marry her, and have sons and daughters, and then find spouses for your sons and daughters. This is God's plan as a norm for men. And as we see in this passage for women, all right? He says, therefore, I want widows to get married and to bear children.

Now, there's something really interesting, and I don't know that I can fully express this, but I'm gonna, I'm going to give it a shot here. you almost get the feeling you read verse 13, that they're violating a pledge and they become gossips and busybodies and idol, and Paul's like, what, to avoid those sins, women get married and have children. It's almost like marriage and bearing children is, is something that God uses to deliver you from. A host of sins.

Does that make sense? That's almost the context and the flow of thought here. And, and I got to thinking that this is not just true of women, but it's, it's also true of men that there's something about getting married. Being pledged to someone for life, and then bearing children and raising children and dealing with all the mess and the thrills and spills that come from that.

There's something in that whole dynamic that that grows us up as parents, and delivers us from a host of sins. It definitely delivers us from ignorance, right? About ourselves. honestly, I was an extremely Christ-like young man until I got married.

And then had child 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, you learn a lot about yourself, and, and then when I say I was Christ-like, you guys know what. I wasn't nearly as Christ-like as I thought I was. I had no idea how selfish. And immature I was until I got married and had children, and yeah, I'm supposed to grow my children up, but God has used them along with my wife to grow me up.

Does that resonate with you guys? We, single people can experience that dynamic of deliverance by living the way Paul did, just throwing their lives into the lives of other people and spending and being spent for others and loving relationships rather than living a selfish life, so. if you're a single person and you're pouring yourself daily into teaching schoolchildren or whatever, whatever your life is or doesn't even have to be children but investing in the lives of other people, you're experiencing something of this dynamic, but it's extremely intense in the marriage relationship and in child raising.

I love what Gary Thomas says in his book Sacred Parenting.

He says unless we are stone cold spiritually, virtually spiritual corpses, the journey of caring for, raising, training, and loving children will mark us indelibly and powerfully. We cannot be the same people we once were. We will be forever changed, eternally altered. Spiritually speaking, we need to raise children every bit as much as they need us to raise them.

Amen. And Paul is pointing women as a norm in this direction. Find a husband, bear children. And God's going to use you in a great way and he'll grow you in a great way.

And then here's the 5th desire or 4th desire of Paul for for young widows, and that is that they should manage the household, that they should manage. The household He says in verse 14, I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house. Now, in the English translation, this can feel like, ladies, they can, you guys can get into all this trouble and cause problems in the church, so Yeah, yeah, get married, have kids. And stay at home Everything in the church will be just fine.

That there's almost a, it can, it can feel a little bit like he's just putting women off to the side, but if you see what this actually says in the Greek, it just totally blows that picture away. The word, the Greek word here is the Greek word oika, which means house. despoteto. What English word do we get from despoteto?

Say it. Despot, all right, which in English today is a negative word. It speaks of a tyrant. So ladies, Paul is not saying be the tyrant of the household.

This is not your justification to have tirades. But a despotta in Scripture was a good thing. In fact, write down this reference in Acts 4:24, the early Christians are praying to the Lord and what they call them? Despottes.

It means ultimate Lord. It's just another synonym for Lord, but it conveys this idea of power and authority even more so than curios, the other word for Lord. And so literally, to say keep house like the new American Standard does, that's a little bit on the weak side. Literally, it's be the master of the house.

All right, we liken that, ladies. One commentator said, and I'm half inclined to agree with him, it might be a little bit of an overstatement. He says the use of this word illustrates the new and improved position which was secured to women by the gospel. This is a very powerful word that conveys great authority and.

Responsibility. In fact, this is the only time this particular verb occurs in the Greek New Testament. However, the noun oika despotes occurs a number of times in the New Testament, especially in the Gospels, and what, it always refers to the man. The man in the Gospels is the one referred to as the Oika Despotes.

In this passage, the woman is given that title. In fact, look at this in Acts 20:1. In some of your translations, when, when the word oika despotas is used, it's translated landowner, not just someone who's in a house, but they own land. and Matthew 20:1, Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is like a man, a housemaster.

That's this word, oika despotes, who went out to hire laborers for the vineyard. This is a guy who's overseeing not just his home but his property, and he's got vines that are growing and they need to be harvested and so he needs to go find employees to harvest his vineyard and so he goes out early in the morning and does that. That's what the oika Despotase does. And this is actually consistent, that that Paul would use this term to speak of women.

Yeah, I think the gospel does tremendously elevate women, but the picture that we see here in 1 Timothy 5 is not an awful lot different than what we actually see in Proverbs 31, because the virtuous woman, the strong woman literally that Paul that Solomon is talking about, it says in Proverbs 31:16 that she considers a field and buys it from her earnings. She plants a vineyard. This is This is a woman of tremendous skill and giftedness and power and authority, and she's purchasing property and then making plans on what to do with that.

This is the virtuous woman.

The strong woman, the epitome of wisdom that Solomon ends the book of Proverbs with. And so Paul's use of this term, just to summarize this, it's a position of tremendous authority that is being conveyed. the husband and other passages in the Gospels is the one who is the household master, but here, the woman is essentially given that same function. And so what that means is this the husband is the oika despota, the wife is the oika despota.

They're both the housemasters. And so the husband definitely is that, but he doesn't hoard that authority and say, No, no, no, I am the master of the house. No, biblically, the husband confers that authority on his wife and gives her tremendous responsibility and authority in the household that must be respected by the children and anyone else connected with the household. Let me say two other things about this real quick.

understand that like nowadays, our homes, are very different than they would have been 150 years ago. We live so differently due to the industrial revolution in ways we don't even imagine. It used to be that the home was a production center. Most people, they lived and operated out of their home, and they had some business enterprise, whether it was farming or whatever, woodworking, making chairs, tables, whatever.

They operated out of their home. Their home was A production center nowadays when you want to produce something you get in your car, you drive away from your home about 30 miles and you go do your production stuff and then when you're done earning income or whatever, you then come back home and home is the place where you eat and a lot of times we don't even eat at home because we've got restaurants for that. We go home and that's the place to sleep and shower and watch television.

And the home is not really a happening place in our culture.

So it's easy to project that onto Paul and say, well, he's just telling women to know all the exciting stuff is happening outside of the home and he's just telling the women, hey, get back in the house. That's not what he's saying. The home in this day was buzzing with adventure and buzzing with life and commerce. And Paul is saying that I want you to get married and have children, and ladies, I want you to be a master of the center of production and commerce and child rearing and love and hospitality.

You also think about what we've already learned in Chapter 5 in the mind of Paul. Where does the home, where does the household rate? Is it all this other exciting stuff, and then somewhere down here is the home, and hey ladies just stay there? No, in the mind of Paul, the household is the ultimate place.

It is first on the list. It's the ultimate place where godliness is learned and godliness is practiced. The greatest things Paul would say you're ever going to do for society, the greatest things you'll ever do for the church are what you do in the context of your own household. It is first in that sense.

And he's saying, ladies, get married, bear children, and be the master along as a co-regent, speaking, with your husband. Working alongside of him with this authority and responsibility over this ultimate place where godliness is first learned. And it's a great benefit to others outside of the household. the role of the woman as Paul envisions it here.

Think about Joseph, what Joseph in the Old Testament was to Pharaoh and to the Egyptian people. That's what the wife is to her husband and to the members of the household. It's a position of great elevation and authority, and Paul says, this is, this is a great life, ladies, a great life, and I would commend it to you. There's a 5th and final thing that Paul desires, and that is that such young women, widows, rather than making a vow to remain single for the rest of their lives, they get married, they have children, they are the oika despotes of their household on behalf of and alongside of their husband, but also they should behave in a way that provides the enemy no opportunity for reproach.

Do these things and be a godly woman. Realize that the enemy is out there everywhere, looking for any opportunity to slam the gospel, to slam Jesus Christ, and to reproach his name, Live. Ladies in a godly fashion so as to allow no foothold, no base of operations for the enemies of the gospel to come in and to point to you as a part of their argument to reproach the name of God and Jesus Christ in the gospel. And this obviously applies to men, but what he's saying is, ladies, you've got enormous power for good and for evil, and the way you live your life can adorn the gospel, can adorn the name of Jesus Christ, and beautify his reputation.

But also, if you, just like any man, were to behave reproachfully, then you can bring great shame. To your Lord and to His gospel, he even says some have already turned aside. They've already turned aside and followed after Satan. They've already taken that journey step by step that started with a rash vow and then violating their conscience, and one thing led to another, and there are women, Paul says that unfortunately have traveled that path, and some of them have traveled that path to destruction.

let me just close with a few thoughts just as we wrap up this passage on widows. We've spent 3 sermons in these verses, so what does this mean for Cornerstone? Just know that we as elders are going to and the Agape team, we're going to sit down with some of the stuff that we've learned and try to process it. What we've been waiting for is let's just go through the passage and study it and see.

What all it's saying, and then let's process what this means for us as a church, and that's the way we want to do church at Cornerstone is study the Bible, see what it says, and then let it mold and shape us and change us. And if there's changes we need to make, then we want to make those changes to conform with what God wants of us as He reveals it in His word. But at the very least we do know that a church that obeys this passage is a church that cares about its widows. And a church that provides assistance where that is needed by the widows.

It's instructing family members to care for widows where that's appropriate. It's a church that knows what the needs of the widows are. I know at the very least what this passage is telling us as a church is that we need to find every widow in our church and just ask them, how are things going and just to find out what the needs are and maybe they're doing fine. Maybe they're not making 100% of the income that they need to make, and we as a church might need to help out in some way, but we do need to think through this and whatever it looks like, it needs to manifest an attitude of love and care for women who have lost.

Their husbands. Someone has asked me the last two weeks, Well, what do you do with women that never had a husband in the first place? Do you provide for their needs? Well, yes, but they're not widows.

Paul's just talking about widows. If there's someone who's never been married, a guy or a gal, and there's some great need in their life, well, we meet their need even if it's in an ongoing way, if that's what's necessary. Paul's just talking about widows here, OK? also regarding the list, by the way, someone came up to me after the message this morning who's not even a widow.

But she said this, this message today really ministered to me because it tells me that if my husband passes away, and worst came to worst, God's going to take care of me through his church. So, and I really like that. I didn't, I'm not even smart enough to think about that. But, that really encouraged me that this is God showing his love for women.

This is God showing his love for For those that have lost their husbands, administering his comfort and assurance even to those who Whose husbands are still alive, we're going to take care of the widows in our church that need care and provision and just know that we will be committed to that. The last thing I want to address is should Cornerstone have the list, this pledged, devoted singleness for the rest of life for widows that are 60 and over. Should we next week say we got the list going, we need sign ups for the list.

The answer to that, I don't think I can improve on Timothy George in his commentary.

Listen to what he says at the end of this section. He says, based on all we've studied, he says the church may have a list of elderly and godly widows who have no one else to care for them and who commit themselves to serving Christ. The church commits itself to assist these widows and in turn may ask them to perform certain tasks as need arises. But then he cautions us in saying that it would be erroneous.

To conclude from this text that Paul is mandating a widow's organization in the church, the teaching of the passage is rather that the church only provides for widows where families do not. Thus, where every widow is provided for by her family, there is no need in the church for such a list. If, however, there needs to be a list, these are the requirements. So I think that provides a decent answer.

Of course he's assuming that the widows on the list are those that can't provide for themselves and their family members are not alive when we've allowed for that possibility. So that's something that we'll have to think through more anyway. Come to us with your questions. I gave you guys a ton of questions on your discussions sheets for care group tonight.

Process this together and if there's anything that you feel. That you need to, that you would want to add to, to my thinking, please give me a call and I would love to learn from you and for all of us to learn in community with one another, OK? Well, let's close our service with prayer. We're going to take up an offering in just a moment, and we would encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to give.

Let's just pray together. Lord, we thank you for your word. The sometimes passages require hard work, and this is one of those that's required, I think, more work than usual, and it may require more work than usual in terms of fleshing out how to apply it as a church. But help us, Lord, through passages like this to learn how to conduct ourselves in the household of God.

Thank you for speaking to us on this topic that is close to your heart. May what's close to your heart be close to our heart. And may we be the church that you would want to continue to attend, knowing that the things you're passionate about, we're passionate about because we're being taught and instructed and changed and molded by you and your word. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to give of our funds to you.

All we're doing is giving back what you've given to us, Lord, and thank you for the opportunity of giving and participating in your work. And giving of our offerings to you, we at the same time give our hearts to you in the name of Jesus. And all God's people said, I,