Families can be awesome, difficult, wonderful, stressful and a mixture of everything. Some come from incredible families. Families that teach great life lessons, that love and care for each other. Some are even blessed enough to have families that teach them about Jesus and are founded on Scripture. Yet, others come from families that are incredibly dysfunctional, toxic and even abusive. Families where dad does not show any love to his children and even abuses them. Families where love is not shown, only hostility, anger and addiction prevails.

What is most amazing of all, regardless of your family background, when you become a child of God through Christ’s payment on the cross for your sin and victory over Satan, sin and death in His resurrection, you are given a new family. A family of redeemed brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers.

This truth provides great hope for all of us (because we’re all from sinful families), but especially for those who come from abusive and toxic families.

It is this familial context that Paul works with as he is teaching Timothy in our study of 1 Timothy 5:1-16.

Young Men to Older Men and Women

Paul (an older man), speaking to Timothy (a younger man) tells Timothy to relate to older men as fathers and older women as mothers (1 Timothy 5:1-2). He begins by telling Timothy not to rebuke an older man, but to encourage him. This is a matter of respect. Even if you don’t like the guy you are called to respect him and honor him.

Men, you are to respect those older than you. You are not to degrade them, laugh at them or slander them. You are to hold them in high honor and respect. You do this regardless of how you feel about them, you do this because God has called you to do this (really the 5th commandment). So you represent your God by following in obedience.

Young men are to respect the older women as well and to do so as mothers.

Godly Women

Paul continues to teach Timothy how the family of God is to deal and live with one another by moving on to the issue of widows in the church. He lays out a principle for the church to follow when considering which women will receive financial support from the church. The basic concept is, Paul wants godly women who are widows to receive financial help if they do not have any family members or money and he wants younger women who are widows to be married to Christian men so their desire for a man and for children will not lea them away from Jesus and His family the church (1 Timothy 5:3-7 and 1 Timothy 5:9-16).

Some may ask at this point, “Why would Paul only want godly women who are widows receive financial help from the church? Why not all widows?” The answer is that Paul wants to make sure that the financial help they will receive is used in a God-glorifying way. This is precisely why I do not give money to homeless people who ask for it on the streets, rather, I tell them I’ll buy them a burger instead and talk with them, because I know they will likely take the money I give them and buy drugs or alcohol with it. Paul knows that godly women who are widows will spend God’s money in God-glorifying ways and ungodly women will not. Therefore, Paul describes what a godly woman looks like:

• Hospitable (1 Timothy 5:10)
• Prayerful (1 Timothy 5:5)
• Brought up believing children (1 Timothy 5:10)
• Serves the church well (1 Timothy 5:10)
• Showed compassion to those in need and cares for them (1 Timothy 5:10)
• Is devoted to good deeds (1 Timothy 5:10)
• A good manager of her home (1 Timothy 5:10)

Paul also states that the woman must be 60 years of age or older and has no family to care for her. In addition, Paul gives Timothy a description of the women they are not looking for:

• Idle (without something to do) (1Timothy 5:13)
• Given to passion (sensual, lustful, strong desire for marriage and kids) (1Timothy 5:11)
• Gossips (for a further explanation of gossip and what it does to the church click here) (1Timothy 5:13)
• Busybodies (getting into everyone’s business) (1Timothy 5:13)

Paul encourages the younger women to get married to a man who loves Jesus and raise (more, if they already have some) children. Paul really sums up the women he is looking for by making this statement in verses 5 and 6, “She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day, but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives (1 Timothy 5:5-6). She is to be a woman who’s hope is set on God and is not self-indulgent. Everything else will fall into place.

Provision for Your Family

Paul in the middle of his thoughts on widows places the following admonition, “But if anyone does not provide for the needs of his relatives, and especially for the members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).

Provision for your family is exceedingly important. It cannot be overemphasized how important this is. Paul is clear: families needed to be provided for.

Within the context of this passage, Paul is telling Timothy to encourage the people in the Ephesian church to take care of both their extended family and their immediate families. Here Paul is saying that the families must first and foremost care for the widows in their own families so that the church is not burdened by the financial weight of helping these people. This responsibility falls first on the family.

Furthermore, this principle can be applied to the provision into the immediate family as it says, “the members of his household”.

What Does this Mean for a Congregation of mostly 20-Somethings?

Good question! Here is how we see this passage apply to Paradox.

• We must respect those who are older than us. Since we are very young, we’ve got lots of people that we need to respect. This isn’t a matter of whether you would like to or not, this is a matter of obedience to Scripture.
• We resolve as a body to care for those who are in great need. Such as widows (which we don’t have in our body yet) or single moms. We will do this by encouraging them and financially supporting them if and when we are able to do so.
• We call the men, who are the head of their homes, to lovingly provide for their families. We call them to do whatever it takes to make sure their family has what they need. We call those men who do not yet have families to practice providing for their families by going through school, getting a job, working hard at their job, saving some money and prepare to build a family.

It would be easy to look at this passage and say that it holds no relevance to an urban young congregation. It would be worse than that, it would be ridiculous. God’s words are all true and timely and we’ve got much to learn from the Scripture. Therefore, we will take them and apply them to our lives so as to be obedient to Scripture as we are conformed into the image of Jesus (made to be like Him).