Care for our parents and grandparents is a fundamental life responsibility. Part of our worship of God is also to sacrificially care for widows in our close family. It should be a well-known fact around the globe that Christian families care for their own. This pleases Christ.

1 Timothy 5:3-16 is packed with implications for local churches and especially older saints but is rarely discussed. Economic prosperity often buries this rich and very practical passage. It may be that many churches that have not taken this passage seriously because of prosperity will soon do so.
I encourage you to take the time to read these verses carefully before continuing: 1 Timothy 5:3-16.[1]
As we take the time to understand this text and consider its implications, we find that it is relevant for every cultural context. We might also might find ourselves surprised that we have overlooked such valuable instruction.
Paul taught Timothy about how local churches are supposed to function. In doing this, he included a lengthy passage on the support of widows. In it Paul teaches us about the role of widows, how to support them, and also gives us principles that are applicable to all of God’s senior saints. We will spend the next several articles meditating on this passage together.  You might want to read the intro article to this series as well: https://rootedthinking.com/2022/12/20/still-fruitful-the-value-of-senior-saints/.
A continual need through the centuries.
Financial support for needy widows is something followers of God have taken seriously since the beginning. The Bible teaches us that those who are genuinely righteous protect and help care for the poor, particularly widows and orphans.[2] Local churches are responsible to financially assist impoverished widows and orphans within its membership.[3] Just after Pentecost, the church in Jerusalem was zealous in this regard.[4] There were political and cultural reasons why Jerusalem had so many widows at that time, so the Jerusalem church needed immediate guidelines about it (Acts 6).
Churches throughout history have supported widows, often as a part of their church budget. Though deacons were originally elected to oversee this kind of ministry in Jerusalem, churches have generally given this responsibility to certain women in the church.
In 1 Timothy 5, Paul answers this question in detail: How and when are local churches to financially support widows?
What it means to be a widow in much of the world.
Paul’s instructions to Timothy begin with the definition of a “true widow,” the kind of widow that local churches are responsible to help. Paul then shows us how to prioritize funds for this purpose.
Becoming a widow was a tragic event in New Testament times, a reality that is just as tragic for women in much of our world today. For many, to be widowed meant at least relative poverty, maybe even abject poverty. To survive, provide for their children, and avoid shame, women usually remarried as soon as possible. Jobs providing enough income to avoid poverty were unknown. Some cultures have not even allowed women to earn wages. Imagine being in this situation! But it is often worse than this.
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He shows how leaders must cultivate trustworthiness, cherish the teams they put in place, and insist on accountability for themselves and others. He writes about stewarding money well, communicating clearly, and fostering just the right kind of culture. He continually uses the turnaround at Midwestern as an illustration of these principles in action. I have long observed that some of the most effective books are those that describe principles through the lens of narrative, and in this book Allen does that with great effectiveness. 

There are a lot of people in the world who are in positions of leadership, but there are not a lot of true leaders. There are many people who achieve positions of prominence, but few who can back up that position with the ability to lead. And though the shelves of bookstores are groaning under the weight of all the books dedicated to the topic, and though they seem to sell in such vast quantities, still few of us can say we are being led well.
New to those shelves—the shelves, at least, of stores that sell Christian books—is Jason Allen’s Turnaround. For the past 10 years, since he was 35 years old, Allen has been the president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He took on the position at a time when the seminary was in grave peril—it was mired in controversy, burdened with debt, and financially upside-down. Its campus facilities were in a state of disrepair and its faculty undistinguished. Little wonder, then, that there was talk of closing it down.
Today, though, MBTS is a thriving and world-class institution that is financially solvent, that has strong campus morale, that features some lovely new buildings, and that is the envy of many other seminaries.
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While our modern world may not speak with the same theological vocabulary, modern people face just as much pressure to prove that we are right with ourselves and right with the world. We may not ascend a holy staircase on our knees, but many of us daily count our steps and count our calories. We may not cry out to saints in the middle of a storm, but every time a hurricane comes, leading intellectuals will cry out to science to save us from our carbon sins.

Reformation Day may be behind us, but a huge responsibility lies before us. The faith of the Reformation must be kept alive because the ideas Luther combatted are just as much present in our own day.

The story should be familiar to most Protestants.

Martin Luther was walking toward the village of Sotternheim when he got caught in a thunderstorm. Terrified by a bolt of lightning, Luther cried out in fear, “St. Anne, save me! And I’ll become a monk.” Two weeks later, an anxious Luther entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt.

Five years later, in the winter of 1510, Luther and another monk were on their way to Rome to represent one side of a conflict involving the Order of the Augustinian Hermits. As the junior partner in their monastic tandem, with few official responsibilities, Luther turned the trip into his own personal pilgrimage. For Luther, the Holy City of Rome was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see holy places and sacred shrines, to do works of penance, and to gain indulgences for himself and for his loved ones.

One day while in Rome, Luther visited the Scala Sancta—the Holy Stairs said to be the very steps Christ ascended during his trial before Pontius Pilate. The staircase, filled with relics and carved crosses, provided pilgrims with an unparalleled opportunity to procure a plenary indulgence for himself or for others. A young man racked with guilt, Luther dutifully climbed all 28 steps on his knees, kissing each step as he went and repeating the Lord’s Prayer all along the way.

As earnest as he was in his self-abasement, the Scala Sancta provided no relief for Luther’s anxiety. Upon reaching the top, Luther looked back down and said to himself, “Who can know if these things are so?” Luther desperately wanted to know that he was right with God, which is why he cried out to St. Anne in the thunderstorm, and why he made an 800-mile pilgrimage across the Alps to Rome, and why he climbed the Holy Stairs on his knees, and why he was almost killing himself with vigils, prayers, and a punishing pursuit of obedience.

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