Honoring Widows, Caring for our Own

1 Timothy 5:3-8   
3 Honor widows who are really widows. 4 But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents; for this is good and acceptable before God. 5 Now she who is really a widow, and left alone, trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. 6 But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives. 7 And these things command, that they may be blameless. 8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

The church should support and help real widows, especially ones without income as in the times this was written, to care for the needy.  This if they don’t have children or even grandchildren who can support them - if they refuse to do so, they are not only worse than before they were believers, but they deny the very grace of faith that gave them everything.  We are to first provide for our own parents (the first commandment with promise, Eph.6:2-3) before burdening others in the church or elsewhere.  Concerning the widows themselves, they are also to trust God and live righteously by prayer and faith to be blameless before Him, not seeking pleasure with men instead of remarrying, and not forgetting the new life they have been given in Christ.  Living as the old man in sin is bringing death back and carrying the corpse of sinful pleasure while forgetting the real and eternal that is ever more satisfying.  This is how we care for each other as a family in Christ, and how loss should drive us to draw closer, not further, from Him.