THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO TIMOTHY

          Welcome! Glad to have you back for today’s Daily Bread. We’ve been studying Paul’s first letter to Timothy and the expected conduct for the people within the church.

          If you like to read straight from your Bible either before or after you read through your Daily Bread, you might notice that sometimes Paul jumps from one topic to another, and then back again. Don’t forget, Paul is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and while he’s writing, he may get a vision or a message and need to interject something that doesn’t follow the subject that he’s writing about at the time ... Or it may just appear that way to us, as we get different messages oft times even though we may read the same scripture.

WIDOW BIBLE VERSE STUDY ON WIDOW BIBLE VERSE MEANING WITH WIDOW BIBLE VERSE MESSAGE?

         You know how it is when you’re doing something and you think of something important, so you jot down a note so you won’t forget it? Well, imagine Paul getting messages from the Holy Spirit all the time! He didn’t have Post-It® notes to stick on the walls of his tent, or his prison wall to remind him to add things to his writings later, and Paul wasn’t a rich man either, so he probably didn’t have extra papyrus lying around to scribble notes on either, so when it seems like something is out of context - literally - you can bet that the Holy Spirit has a reason for every sentence to be just exactly where it is. It may not make sense to you, but maybe to someone else, it makes perfect sense. And maybe when you read the same passage at another time, a verse that you simply could not understand for your very life, is suddenly crystal clear.

          Okay then, Paul is now addressing Timothy’s position as minister, and in addition to making sure his youthfulness remains an asset instead of a hindrance to the Gospel, he tells Timothy not to rebuke (scold or criticize sharply) an elder, but advise him as a father, and the younger men as brothers, the elder women as mothers, and the younger as sisters with all purity.

          Now if you’ve ever read the Psalms, you know that the Lord has much compassion on the widowed and the fatherless (Psalms 68:5; 94:6; 146:9), and for most of us as well, even the mention of the word widow, invokes compassion in our hearts.

          If you’ll bear with me, I know that many women are still a little sensitive about what Paul had to say in Chapter 2 of this letter, but when TRUTH is your motive, you call things as you see them, and the Holy Spirit isn’t gonna let Paul sugar coat anything so that women will agree or not be offended.

          In a moment, we’re gonna study some things that Paul says about widows, and in advance, I feel compelled to ask you to be open minded to the TRUTH about women who are alone. What happened to Eve when she was alone in the Garden of Eden? Also, take into consideration her age. We don’t know exactly how old she was, but she didn’t have any children yet, so it’s a good guess that she was fairly young. Now, think about women throughout history and the women that you know today. Would you say that young women or old women are more likely to stray from their faith?

WIDOW BIBLE VERSE INFORMATION WITH WIDOW BIBLE VERSE MEANING

          Okay, while you ponder on those things, let’s look at something that will help you a little. Paul was alive somewhere around 4,000 years after Adam and Eve, and apparently young women then were still easily lured as Eve was. The truth is - painful childbirth and being under man’s rule aren’t the only things that women inherited from Eve. If you hide and watch, today, 2,000 year later, women STILL have the same reputation. Why? Because it’s the TRUTH.

          You see, Paul wasn’t a chauvinist. He wasn’t a woman hater either. Paul had insight. The intuition that women brag about having all the time . . . When you realize where a woman’s characteristics come from, you won’t want to claim this so readily. What Paul had was Spiritual intuition.

          Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that being a woman is a shameful existence by any means. I’m saying there are challenges that are beyond anyone’s control, that if you understand them better, it will make many of your actions, reactions and instincts much easier to understand and deal with as well.

          If you’re a woman and you read all the way through to the end of the study of Chapter 2 of this letter from Paul, kudos to you. Now let’s look and learn what he has to say about widows.

          Honor widows that are widows indeed. (Indeed. In deed) Honor, meaning support. Perhaps it was commonplace for a widow to be "employed" in some respect by the church, thus benefitting the church as well as the widow. In essence, Paul was saying, show compassion to widows that live according to God’s expectations. But if any widow have children or nephews, (near kin) let them support them instead of putting the burden on the church.

          I have an interesting little Daily Bread Crumb for you. Actually, the term nephew used to be used for the word grandchildren, but is now obsolete.

WIDOW BIBLE VERSE LESSON WITH WIDOW BIBLE VERSE EXPLANATION

          Do not accept an accusation against an elder unless it is in front of two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15). Those that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear. I command you before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that you observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing by favoritism.