Honor Widows Who Are Truly Widows

In one paragraph

This sermon from 1 Timothy 5 worked through how the church is meant to function as a genuine family, honoring one another across generations. Pastor Ray used the occasion of senior recognition Sunday and the death of a longtime saint from his home church to bring the text close to home. The thread running through everything was the question of how Christians actually treat each other, and what an...

Read together

1. Colossians 3:16 Opening reading about letting the message of Christ fill your lives, teaching and singing with thankful hearts
2. 1 Timothy 5:1 Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as a father, the main passage being preached
3. Isaiah 43 Mentioned as the theme verse for Vacation Bible School: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you
4. Proverbs 3:5-6 Spoken over the graduating seniors: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your path
5. 1 Corinthians 1:18 Referenced as the message of the cross slide: it is foolishness to those who are perishing but the power of God unto salvation for those who are being saved
6. Galatians 3:28 In Christ there is no Jew nor Greek nor slave nor free, barbarian, Scythian, male or female
7. Ephesians 5:21 All of you be submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, cited as the verb that carries forward to wives submitting
8. Ephesians 5:22 Wives submit to your husbands, noted as having no verb of its own but borrowing from the preceding verse
9. 1 Timothy 5:3-8 Instructions on honoring true widows, family provision, and the warning that failing to provide for relatives is worse than being an unbeliever
10. 1 Timothy 5:9-10 Qualifications for enrolling a widow: not less than sixty, wife of one husband, reputation for good works, hospitality, washing saints feet, caring for the afflicted
11. Proverbs 31 Referenced in the obituary reading to describe Miss Zany Bennett as one who did not eat the bread of idleness
12. John 3:16 Miss Zany Bennett pointed it out to the preacher as a child, calling it an invitation to come to Jesus and believe

Talk about it

1. Pastor Ray spent time on the image of treating people in the church the way you would treat a father, mother, brother, or sister. How does thinking of your church family that way actually change the way you might approach a conflict or a correction with someone here?
2. Pastor Ray talked about two ditches on either side of the gospel way, legalism on one side and license on the other, and said people from both ditches have come to him for help. Which ditch do you think is harder to reach people in, and why?
3. The sermon described Paul's instructions as pointing toward an ultimate ethical application even when the specific cultural situation has shifted. Where do you find it hardest to trust that direction, and what makes it difficult?
4. Pastor Ray read from the obituary and tributes for Miss Zany Bennett and held her life up alongside the list of qualities Paul describes. Who in your own life has modeled that kind of faithful, unhurried service, and what did it teach you?
5. Pastor Ray closed by asking what an outsider could walk in and rightfully criticize about how we treat one another. What honest answer does your own corner of church life give to that question?