“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16
“Jesus Christ’s name is blasphemed on prime time TV because of us.” (My paraphrase of Romans 2:24 – “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”)
This is the second of two blog posts comparing and contrasting how the early church treated its widows and how today’s church treats its widows.
The Early Church Took its Obligations to Widows Seriously
We saw in my last post that from the very beginning the early church took its obligations to widows (and others) extremely seriously. It understood the importance of widows to God because of the massive number of Old Testament texts commanding God’s people to care for them.
Consequently, numerous New Testament passages, beginning in Acts and continuing into the epistles, attest to how the early church obeyed those commands.
The result of this obedience is the following progression: The early church obeys God’s clear and explicit commands in the Old Testament to meet the needs of its widows. The church gains favor among the larger external community. This favor in turn results in people coming to the Lord.
The Early Church’s Ministry to Their Widows Glorified God
Thus, the early church experienced in practice what Jesus Christ predicted would happen: they let people see their good works and it caused others who observed them to glorify God.
Now fast forward two millennia to the modern church in America.
The Modern Church Often Ignores its Widows
One does not have to look very far to notice that American churches, in contrast to the early church, does next to nothing for its widows. Simply look at a church’s bulletin, its programming, its staffing, its budget and its buildings and you will see that widows have a very low priority indeed.
For example, how many churches do you know that have a “widows list” as described in 1 Timothy 5? A church may have a benevolent fund and do home repair projects for its widows from time to time. But how many actually take final responsibility for those widows in their midst who have no one else to care for them?
I can count on one had the number of churches that I know of with a widows list.
Over the years, I have received hundreds of stories from widows who lament being ignored by their church. Here is just one example:
“(I) buried my husband and my son within months. The financial struggle was almost as bad as the loneliness.The only help my church offered was to pray for me.”
The Result of the Church Ignoring its Widows is Shame
The result of this disobedience by our contemporary churches is a breakdown of that progression that the early church experienced. Instead of obedience to serving widows = favor in the general population = lots of people getting saved, we have a very different progression: disobedience to serving widows = disfavor in the general population = the name of Christ being blasphemed.
Doubt this? Just watch prime time TV. More and more I am seeing and hearing on national television the name of Jesus Christ being used as cuss words. People no longer admire us as Christians, they publicly despise us. We are leaving the post Christian world and entering the anti Christian world.
And we have only ourselves to blame.
For a blueprint for how the church can better serve its widows, check out A Comprehensive Church-Based Widows Ministry.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North American and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single parents in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free online membership training site called “Meeting to Meet Needs.”
Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church here.
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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One thought on “What Happens When the Church Ignores its Widows”
Thank you for working so hard to bring this sin into the light. Thank you for providing such guidance on how to carry out the mandate, itself. The same pastors and leaders who tell us not to pick and choose what Scripture we will apply to our lives, are doing this very thing! I know what it’s like to spend years trying to challenge and motivate my pastors and elders to DO something about the needs in the church God has called them to pastor. I have become weary of hearing all kinds of excuses, and I find it difficult to look to them for leadership when they are neglecting those who are hurting so much. It makes me feel angry. I feel like turning over some tables in the “temple”! Bless you, sir.