Does the church conflict with teaching by Paul

When you refer to "the church" do you mean the evangelical church in the aggregate? Just like when it comes to church discipline, there are some churches that do it right while many others do not practice it at all.

 

From what I can see, our over 60 widows are all financially set.

May I ask what what exactly you believe the church isn't doing in regards to the yoinger widows?

 

Paul presented a culturally appropriate remedy for widows. In the three steps of bible study, does this passage have an application today with care provided by family, private insurance, and government programs. Certainly the church provides care for those in need.

 

You would be wrong.

 

Wait, you know thw financial status of the widows in our church?

 

I have a good brother/friend who is an Old Regular (Primitive Baptist) in the hills of Kentucky. When they rebuilt their church building the construction was done by the community... he is an electrician so he did the electrical ( panel, wiring, lighting and termination device points) others did the foundations, drywall etc. the budget back then was 10-12k to run the place. The Elders serve the church, via sermons, discipleship, baptisms (at the river) and communion. That’s it, acapella singing and straight gospel sermons. And don’t think these folks are rubes... no no, they are highly educated with advanced degrees in mathematics, physics, etc. But they live simple lives, dedicated to putting God first.

 

And here is something I find very interested. For years I asked God to bless me in order to bring my home community back to Christ ... I wanted to be a mechanism to rebuild this communities relationship with God. I have totally failed in that endeavor. The area is now more transient, more secular, more postmodern. So as I look at my options, I find a church in the very community that my son just moved to... one that meets my criteria for Christian behavior.... one that I’ve been mentioning to my wife. Un- be-known to me, my Pam (wife) has been googling the place and listening to the sermons contained on the website... and she was delighted by the messages she has heard... so much so that she wrote and has been corresponding with the Teaching elder.

Now to put a spin on all this, she/ Pam had become calloused to the churches in our home community. And she has her reasons...let’s just say again, the churches here are post modern. Well, the sermons she listened to at the Winter-Garden PB church helped her to realize that there are indeed good gospel churches in other places other than this God forsaken place.... her words not mine. Folks, I rejoice in her seeing a future (with God) somewhere else. And I can for my own self praise the Lord, “God is good.”

 

As Reformed mentioned, which church? Some do and some don't.

No, not in the context in which he was writing, a church taking on the support of widows. It should be appropriate to the age he set, and first the responsibility of the family.

That said, this does not restrict the church from helping anyone who is in need at the appropriate time they are in need, children, adults, husbands and wives, widows, widowers, and so on. Such help is taught in the Bible, but what Paul is talking about in 1 Timothy 5:9-16 is specific and ongoing support.

 

Could the scriptural principle regarding widows needing to be age 60 to be enrolled for support and younger widows suggested to remarry have been (unconsciously?) an underlying basis for Social Security, which requires a widow be 60 and not remarried before that point in order to receive her husband's benefits? Just wondering aloud....

 

Does the church conflict with teaching by Paul?

Yes. Paul doesn't like to see believers claiming allegiance to men by name...

e.g.
Some say I am of Cephas, others I am of Apollos.

We have many who say I am of Arius others I am of Calvin...

This is not good. I know supposedly it lets folks know where we stand but usually quarreling breaks out and often breaks down to an exchange of ad hominems.

 

To approximately the same extent that the widows do.

Age is not the only requirement that Paul lists in the scriptures that you quoted, yet it is the only requirement that you are focusing on. Why not focus on "widows with no family" instead? Or widows who have lived a life of service to God? Paul excludes serial polygamists (v.9 "having been the wife of one husband"), so should the Church?

All the standards that Paul presents, or just some?

Within the original cultural situation in which Paul wrote, the widows described had given their "best years" to the Church and had no other source of support. You can ask if the church should be caring for all widows (and orphans and the sick and the poor, etc.), but that is not what Paul is advocating in this particular section of Scripture.


Now to answer your question directly ... some Churches are. When a pastor of an Evangelical Free Church abandoned his vocation, his wife and his children, the Church Elders chose to continue to pay his salary to his family for years afterward as she struggled to put the pieces of her life back together and move forward. She was not a widow over 60, but she was no less vulnerable through no fault of her own. That Church did what was right for that woman.

 

My mom was a widow... I was the oldest at 12 yo and I looked after my younger siblings . Kinda know that if they can or can’t swing it by observation.

 

Just an observation, but at the Pentecostal Church near my home the Men's Fellowship asked the "widows" at the church (who had a sort of mutual support group) what their needs were. The answer was a bit of a surprise in that their greatest need was simple handyman tasks. They had a light switch that needed to be replaced or a faucet that needed a new washer to stop the drip. The cost of an Electrician or Plumber to do some 'stupid simple' task was something not in their budget, but beyond their ability to do themselves.

Who would think that cleaning the leaves out of the gutters would really make a difference in someone's life. Yet who do they have to do it if the Church does not step up?

For anyone 'into' the Tithe, it is more than money ... Time, Talent and Treasure: Share what you have (Acts 3:6).

 

Good ideas.These are simple and easy and yet perhaps the kind of stuff most often overlooked.