Loving One Anothe Financially, Part II: Fathers and Mothers in Need

This second installment will discuss the obligation the church has toward elders and widows who once served the church but can no longer do so.

The best place to go for this instruction is 1 Timothy 5, so we will turn there and discuss a few issues.

One of the issues I first want to bring up is that Paul presents the local church as a household. The larger church universal would be an extended family, but the local church is one’s immediate family. 

In 3:14–15, Paul states:

Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these things so that if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

In 3:5, Paul parallels a man’s household and management thereof as a microcosm of the larger church of God over which an elder is placed. This is consistent with the way Paul will present elders in 1 Timothy as those who have a paternal role over the church, taking upon the role of a father who teaches, oversees provisions, and disciplines in his own family.

In Chapter 5, Paul divides up older widows, i.e., elder widows so to speak (“elder” in sense that they took upon a motherly role in the church as an example of the godly motherhood Paul mentions as the path of salvation for women in 2:15), and elders, and argues that the household of God needs to provide a specific portion of “honor” to each of them. The term “honor” in reference to financial support is clearly in view in light of v. 4, which talks about the alternate means of taking care of widows by their children and grandchildren “repaying the what is owed,” v. 5 talks about the widow who has no financial support from family and so is “truly in need,” and v. 16 that talks about the church being alleviated from the burden of the young widow’s need when she remarries. Likewise, v. 18 states, “For the scripture says, ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain’, and, ‘The worker deserves his pay’.”

 This is parallel to Paul’s argument concerning the support the apostles receive in 1 Corinthians 9:1–12.

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you, for you are the confirming sign of my apostleship in the Lord. This is my defense to those who examine me. Do we not have the right to financial support? Do we not have the right to the company of a believing wife, like the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas? Or do only Barnabas and I lack the right not to work? Who ever serves in the army at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Who tends a flock and does not consume its milk? Am I saying these things only on the basis of common sense, or does the law not say this as well? For it is written in the law of Moses, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” God is not concerned here about oxen, is he? Or is he not surely speaking for our benefit? It was written for us, because the one plowing and threshing ought to work in hope of enjoying the harvest. If we sowed spiritual blessings among you, is it too much to reap material things from you? If others receive this right from you, are we not more deserving?

The elders, in the Pastorals, are taking over for the apostles, which is why Paul urges Timothy to set them up in every place. The apostles were only a temporary leadership in the church who laid its foundation, but the elders are the permanent fathers who should be supported by their family.

This is all corroborated by the fact that Paul is using the word “honor” in a context where mothers and fathers of the church are mentioned that echoes Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees in Mark 7:9–13, where Jesus extends honoring one’s father and other to the obligation to financially support them (τίμα in 7:10 is said to extend to ὠφεληθῇς v. 11). The word τίμα “honor” does not mean “financial support,” so Paul is clearly drawing from the Markan teaching of Jesus, which means he also sees honor as financial support and the older widow as a mother and the elder as a father. We’ll return to the implications of this in a moment.

The point here is simply that “honor” refers to financial support, and that this text allows us to see what God requires of His households in terms of their obligations to their spiritual parental figures.

Since Paul presents these two as mothers and fathers of the church, which is the household of God, it is important to contrast what is done by many churches versus what God wills us to do. Many churches have a business model and employee mentality when it comes to their elders. As a business, an employee provides labor as a product for which he is paid. When he no longer provides that product, the business has no more contractual obligation to him. Unfortunately, many a pastor has found himself impoverished when he grows old or sick. If we understand that the church is a household, one’s immediate family, then what both Jesus says of the Pharisees’ wickedness in not taking financial care of their parents, and what Paul says of the man who does not take care of his own household as someone who is considered worse than an unbeliever and that he has denied the faith should make us cringe at the thought of God’s wrath coming upon such churches as these. 

The family model, however, is one where obedient children/family members take care of their fathers and mothers when they no longer have support from their normative means. 

Now, this is important to understand. The widow here represents the parent who is no longer parenting the church. Her past works are looked at. Everything is about what she has done, not what she is doing. The elder represents the parent/father who is currently parenting. This does not mean that one does not provide for an elder who is no longer parenting just because it only mentions widows. It mentions widows because she no longer has support as one who had parented the church.

Now, one can become Pharisaical about this and try to get around it by saying that it only technically says “widows,” so the family of God has no obligation to fathers who become old or sick and can no longer parent, but one ought to be very cautious at going down this line of thought. The Scripture of the Law doesn’t technically say that “honor” means financial support of your parents is required. Jesus argues that the principle behind the command does. In the same way that He argues that the principles behind the laws concerning murder, adultery, and lying extend to obligations concerning one’s slanderous words, lustful thoughts, divorce and remarriage, and promises, even though the original laws don’t technically spell those out. The Pharisees are condemned by Jesus as having a righteousness that will not enter the kingdom of God because one who looks to technicality when it comes to obedience doesn’t really want to obey God, and one who does not really want to obey God does not really know or love God, i.e., they have no genuine relationship with Him and so are told to depart from Jesus as those who are not known by Him.

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The principle behind taking care of widows as the maternal parent extends to the paternal parent as well when the other can no longer labor as a parent (i.e., because he can no longer labor). Hence, “honor” is appropriate for both parents who no longer parent, and it is the principle to which all who know and love God are called to fulfill to these parents who now or once raised them in the Lord and watched over their souls. Some believe “double honor” for the elder is always appropriate until the elder dies. I would argue that the difference is in whether the elder is parenting or has parented, and so “honor” is appropriate. Ultimately, I would leave it up to the individual church to decide which of those two they want to give as a child may decide to give more to their parents than just necessity, but not less. Hence, it certainly is true that “honor” should be given at the very least. To do otherwise on the foundation of technicality is to annul the Word of God for the sake of a wicked tradition.