Care for God's Family

Read aloud

Paul tells Timothy not to rebuke an older man harshly, but to appeal to him as a father. Younger men should be treated as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters with absolute purity. The church's relationships should not be shaped by contempt, flirtation, or the ease with which people use one another.

Paul then addresses widows who are truly in need. If a widow has children or grandchildren, they should first learn to show godliness toward their own family and repay their parents, for this is pleasing to God. Family care is not a way to avoid the church's responsibility; it is one of the first places love becomes concrete.

A woman with no family support is not reduced to her need. Paul describes a believer whose hope is in God and whose nights and days are marked by prayer. By contrast, Paul calls the woman who lives for pleasure spiritually dead even while she is physically alive. Outward life can conceal a turning away from God.

Paul says these instructions should be given so believers will be above reproach. Anyone who does not provide for relatives, especially members of the household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. The statement is severe because professed faith that ignores dependent family members has contradicted its own claim.