In verse twelve of
chapter four Paul writes “Let no one look down on you because you are young” (1
Timothy 4:12a). Honor came to someone (at least partially) in conjunction
with age. Though a person would not be looked upon as being honorable
simply because of age, those things that conveyed honor would only be
recognized as being truly honorable when attached to someone of appropriate
age. The church of Christ, unconcerned with the conveyance of honor
according to the world’s standards, recognizes an entirely different set of
honor standards, in accordance with “speech, conduct, love, faithfulness, and
purity” (4:12b). There is no age-discrimination here, and all can
participate equally. Accordingly, these things can be demonstrated
through “the public reading of Scripture… exhortation… teaching” (4:13), and it
is these things that should absorb attention and be marks of progress
(4:15).
In the fifth chapter
of this letter, Paul addresses an issue that is near to the heart of the
Creator God, which is that of widows. The Hebrew Scriptures---the words
that reveal the character of that God, and which must be viewed through the
event of the incarnation and the cross---are filled with words that speak to the
covenant God’s concern for widows. Widows, along with orphans, were among
the most vulnerable members of society, and the mark of the people of the
Creator God was their proper care of widows (and orphans, though this study
will ultimately be limited to widows for the sake of the treatment of Timothy).
Indeed, it could be
said that a driving force behind the judgments of the Creator God that rained
down upon His people through the instrumentation of Assyria and Babylon, was
Israel’s treatment of the groups of people to whom their God had directed them
to offer special concern and consideration. This group included
widows. Therefore, one should not be surprised to find the issue of
widows treated in the New Testament, as the church of the Christ sought to find
its way in a culture that was quite dismissive of widows as those that had no
place in the honor system---who were relegated to the margins of society, and
whose existence, by and large, was going to be meager at best.
The Creator God’s
passionate concern for widows, as revealed in the narrative tradition that was
foundational for the covenant faith of Israel, is best summed up by James, as
in the context of the early church’s grappling with the continuation of that
narrative tradition and the re-shaping of that covenant faith around Jesus as
Lord, he writes “Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to
care for orphans and widows in their misfortune” (1:27a). This has an
added benefit of making it possible “to keep oneself unstained by the world”
(1:27b).
There is a tendency
to see this as a statement with a double directive, with the first directive
concerning achieving a pure and undefiled religion being caring for orphans and
widows, while the second directive is keeping oneself unstained by the
world. Perhaps this is a false division? Perhaps it is time that
Christians saw this as directive and consequence---action and reaction?
Perhaps this statement by James follows hard on the directives and examples of
the Hebrew Scriptures? Israel failed to care for the orphans and the
widows, and therefore they became stained by the world around them. Had
they cared for the orphans and the widows, and kept that at the center of their
covenant-keeping, such staining would not have taken place.
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