1 Timothy 5:9-16 "Real Widows"

Observation: I'll level with you. The Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus) are not my favorite New Testament books, and it's passages like this that explain why. The author, writing in Paul's name, gives the church advice on how to care for widows, and  his words strike me as extremely harsh. Only women who are above 60 and have a good reputation for helping others should be put on "the list" (for financial support from the church). The concern is that younger widows who receive financial support are more likely to get into mischief and give the church a bad reputation, so the author suggests they remarry. 

This one is hard. I really don't like what the author is trying to say here. I resent the way it depicts women. It's hard to see the merciful heart of Jesus in this legalistic language. That said, as a twenty-first century American Christian, I'm in no place to judge, and here's why: the whole conversation from this epistle is based on the assumption that if a widow does, in fact, qualify as "real," whatever that means, she is to be supported fully, in all her daily needs, by the ministry of the church. That's a very different context from what we live in today. 

Application: Again, I have big problems with this whole way of figuring who genuinely "deserves" support, and who doesn't. 

Still, we do make decisions every day with our own finances. When we have money we could be sharing with other worthy causes, we have to ask which ones are more worthy than others. We don't have an unlimited amount of money or time, so saying "yes" to one thing means saying "no" to others. In Western nations today, usually this conversation is one that either takes place in individual households, as we decide how much to share and with whom, or on the governmental level, where we have a major clash of values about larger social programs to help those in need. We don't usually have these conversations in the Church anymore. We're not living communally, as an extended family, like the early believers did, and we are not taxpayer-funded, like some European churches are. Therefore, too often, this starts to feel like a totally secular conversation, with no connection to our faith. Jesus is not invited to the table: neither to the kitchen table nor the legislative table. 

What I get from these verses in First Timothy, as judgmental as they may seem at first, is this is not a community asking "whether" it's their responsibility to support widows and others in need. They are asking hard questions about "how." I don't think there's any wiggle room in the Bible about "whether" to help those in need. The only question is "how." The answer may change over time, but reading scripture does at least ground us in the right question: for our personal finances, as well as our larger civic conversations. 

Prayer: God, ground me in your word before I open my mouth. May my words reflect your values, in my home, in my community and in the larger conversation of our society. Amen.