Two things might help us here: (a) The widows are to receive support from the Church, and presumably to minister in some way for the Church. (b) Some of this is surely specific to the situation in Ephesus e.g. verse 9. Calvin considered that the widows of 1 Timothy 5 could serve the Church as deacons who worked out in the field. Dorcas seems to have been doing something like this – Acts 9:39-41.
- Widows are to be cared for.
- 5:3; Ex.22:21-27; Lev.19:9-10; Acts 6:1-4. The Pharisees broke God’s law on this – Matt.23:14. In the middle of the third century the church at Rome was supporting 1,500 widows and destitute persons.
- Widows are to care for themselves first.
- 5:14. There is one inscription from the period of the early Church which honours a widow named Rigine who died at eighty, having ‘never burdened the Church’. Verses 11-14 are problematical in that marriage is regarded as a problem and also as the solution. Douglas Milne says the marriage is to an unbeliever. John Chrysostom writes of Paul: ‘He does not impose a law; but points out a remedy.’
- The family is to care for its own.
- 5:4, 8, 16. William Hendriksen cites a Dutch proverb: ‘It is usually easier for one poor father to bring up ten children than for ten rich children to provide for one poor father.’
- Church charity is not to encourage sin.
- 5:5-7, 9-15. The Bible forbids us to support ‘merry widows’ or freeloaders; it is a sad fact that charity can promote irresponsibility and dependency. See 2 Thess.3:10-12.
- we have a God-given obligation to help the needy (5:3);
- we ought to look after ourselves first (5:9, 14);
- we ought to make sure that families look after their own members first (5:4, 8, 16);
- we ought not to promote welfarism where the solution becomes as bad as the problem (5:5-7, 13).