Once again, good morning, Grace. It's wonderful to have you with us this morning as we continue to worship our God. We come to our time in the worship service that we refer to as the ministry of the Word. So I ask you to bow your heads with me one more time as we ask the Lord for help and illumination under the ministry of the Word. Bow our heads. Father God, we thank You for this beautiful and glorious sunshine shining through this window even behind me, Father. We are reminded of Your divine power in its strength, Father. And we thank You that we have a Father who, as powerful as He is and as holy as He is, has made room for people and sinners such as us through the condescension of Your Son in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we pray that in the ministry of the Word this morning that our ears would be open. This text will teach us something, I hope, Father, with the help of your Spirit, that we are not familiar with. It's something that is not, at least to my knowledge, actively practiced in most churches today. So I pray that you would give us ears to hear and eyes to see. and specifically, Father, that as we hear these things, we can think about how we may minister to ladies in this church for Your honor and Your glory. We ask these things in Your Son's name. Amen. I ask you to turn your Bibles this morning to 1 Timothy 5, and we're going to get there in just a moment. Before we do, as Pastor Brendan stated, I am a little under the weather, so please forgive me if I'm out of sorts this morning. Please don't take it personally. It has nothing to do with you. It has to do with this demon called a headache in my head, and I will probably be going home directly following services, so please don't get offended at that as well. So if you're visiting this morning, we have been working through the question and the teaching of deacons in the Bible because next week, in fact, we're actually, our congregation is going to be voting on three new deacons. And in the course of those messages last week, we came to the question about female deacons. And we looked at a few texts, I think four in particular, And we came to the conclusion that while on the one hand Paul does in the middle of qualifications for deacons in 1 Timothy chapter 3 mention women, not the wives of elders or wives of deacons, but women. And while on the other hand he does mention Phoebe, a servant or literally a deacon of the church at Centria, on the other hand, now I have three hands, 1 Timothy 2.12 says that a woman is not to teach or exercise authority in the church. So we concluded that a woman cannot be officially ordained as a deacon, much less an elder in the church. But at the same time, and I wonder if you sensed this toward the end of the message last week, there's still this niggling doubt in my head and perhaps in your head as well. Why does Paul mention women in the middle of the qualifications for deacon in 1 Timothy 3, verse 11? And why does he mention Phoebe as a servant of the church? As I mentioned, that word servant is used of a number of people in the scriptures who are not official deacons in the church. So it left me with this question, whether we're talking about the woman in 1 Timothy 3, or Phoebe in Romans 16 1-2, We don't have the option of saying that this is an ordained deaconess. But it seems like the only other option is that they were just women in the church who served in a very general way. But I wonder if there's a third option available to us, something that on the one hand is less than ordained deaconate, okay, an official ordained deacon in the church, but something more than general service in the church. Well, I think that there is something, and I think that we find the answer in 1 Timothy 5. So I want you to consider this morning, 1 Timothy 5, verses 3-16. I'm going to read this whole text in your hearing, so let us listen carefully and give our attention to the reading of God's Word. 1 Timothy 5, verses 3-16. The Apostle Paul says this, Honor widows who are truly widows, but if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God. She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. But she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach. But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works. If she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work. But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry, and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan. If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows. Thus far the reading of God's word. Now, I want you to notice two general things that Paul is doing here in 1 Timothy 5. Overall, if we can give an overarching description of what he's doing, he's giving instruction about widows in the church. Not in society, not in some government welfare program or social security program, but in the context of the church. And it's very interesting that he leads out in verse 3 with honor widows who are truly widows. When he says honor widows who are truly widows, he's not simply saying, you know, get the door for them and show them respect and show them dignity. All of that obviously is implied. But as is clear from the reading of the text, when he talks about honor, if I could put it in a modern way of saying it, it would be put your money where your mouth is. In other words, take care of the widows in the church. Now, there's two things in general that he's doing here, and I want you to note them because they are going to form the substance and the warp and woof of everything that I say this morning. I would submit to you that Paul is doing two things here. Number one in verses three through eight, Paul is giving instructions for the kind of widow that the church as a whole is to care for. Now when I say care, I don't mean, once again, just general care. I mean actual provision. I mean money. I mean food and clothing and maybe even medical attention to the degree that the church can contribute in that way. So that is what I would submit to you. We are looking at in verses 3 through 8. And I want you to notice before we get to the second thing. that in two verses, verses 8 and 16, which form what is called an inclusio, you might think of it, a non-scholarly way of thinking of it is a sandwich, okay? You have a top piece of bread, the bottom piece of bread, and what is in between is the substance, but the sandwich is what Paul begins and ends with. And in verse 8 and 16, what he's saying in both of those verses in different ways, albeit is, you must take care of those within your under your care. So he singles out the families, and he says families, if you have widows in your family, it is you that should take care of them and not the church. Okay? And he says this in verse eight, and he says this in verse 16. So care for widows, specifically in verses three through eight, is the principal concern of Paul. But here's the thing. One of the things Paul is at pains to do in verses three through eight, listen to me very carefully, is explain who a true widow is. In other words, if you're going to lay out a plan or an instruction or an imperative for the church that they take care of widows, you're gonna need to know specifically what kind of widows need to be taken care of. So I would submit to you that in verses three through eight, what Paul does is he explains specifically the kind of widows you should, as the church, should and should not take care of. So look at verse four. This has already been said, so we won't spend much time here. But in verse four, he lays out that widows who have families The families are the primary breadwinners, if you will, or the primary source from which the widow should receive her sustenance. Okay? So what he's basically saying is, if widows have family, they are to take care of them. So that is a widow, a first classification of a widow, who should not be provided for by the church. But then in verse five, He literally leads out with who is a true widow. And a true widow, he says three things, and this is very important. A true widow, within the context of verses three through eight, who should receive provision from the church follows these qualifications. She's been left all alone. Notice that that is in contrast to verse 4. She doesn't have any family. She clearly doesn't have a husband. He's died. If she did have kids, they've moved away or something else has happened, but she is left all alone. Secondly, she has set her hope on God, and thirdly, she continues in supplications and prayers night and day. Paul says this is a true widow. This is the kind of widow that you, congregation, should care for. But then in verse 6, and he doesn't give us a lot of information here. It's one of those many places in Scripture where you're like, Paul, I wish you would have said more. You're not saying as much as the source of many theological discussions throughout church history. But he basically says in verse 6, She who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. So this is once again talking about some type of illegitimate widow. Now, my best crack at this and what most commentators have said is that this is perhaps a widow who's just looking for a handout Maybe an unbeliever or maybe a highly immature believer but nonetheless a widow who is just looking for some type of financial gain from the church and Paul has very strong words of condemnation for her so these are three classifications widows who have family family should take care of him a true widow been left all alone has been devoted to God and continues in prayers and supplications day and night and an illegitimate widow, but now I want you to come to verses 9 and 10 and Because here, and this is very interesting, something you do not see in the English syntax, in the Greek syntax at the beginning of verse nine, there is no what's called connective. A connective would be something like an and, or an even, or a namely, or an also, or a but, or a furthermore. Something that would connect what has gone before, verses three through eight, to Paul's comments in verse nine. You don't see anything like that. In fact, this has led many commentators to conclude just on syntactical reasons alone that Paul is here beginning a new section, still under the heading of widows, but he's shifting gears here. And I think that that's exactly what he's doing. Let me read verses 9 and 10. Now that he's talked about widows that should be cared for in the church, he says, let a widow be enrolled, literally put on the list, if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works. If she has brought up children, and has shown hospitality, and washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work. Now this is one of those places where you're like, man Paul, you seem to be assuming what the list is. Nobody really knows what the list is. Obviously the church in Ephesus, over which Timothy was a pastor, knew what the list was. And Paul is basing his comments on their previous knowledge. But we don't know what the list was. Commentators have basically broke up into two camps. And one interpretation of this list is that this is a list of widows who are to be cared for by the church. And if you take that interpretation, what you are doing is you are basically saying Paul is just continuing his thoughts from verses three to eight, now into nine and 10. And he's now officially saying these women, the true widows of which I spoke, You are to put them on a list, and this is a list of widows that you are to care for. Give them money, give them food, give them shelter, give them medical attention to the degree that you can. But there's another way of interpreting it, and this is the direction that I'm going to go this morning, and that is that Paul is talking about a list. of widows who serve the church. A list of widows that, once again, we know from 1 Timothy 2.12, are not ordained, but they are widows in some quasi-official sense that serve the church, that take care of the church needs in a way that, I'm not going to say only women can, but I will say this, in a way that women do most optimally. Okay? In a way that women can tend to the needs of certain subsets of the congregation in a way that only a mother can. And I think that this is what Paul is getting at for at least three reasons. So let me lay them out for you. So once again, what am I doing? I'm saying that this list in verse 9 is talking about a list of widows who serve the church in some type of official capacity. And I'm going to give you three reasons for that. Why would Paul give Timothy a set of requirements in verses 9-10 regarding which widows to receive aid after he had just done so in verses 3-8? Once again, if you look at verse 5 and you just contrast it with verses 9-10, Verse five, which talks about a true widow, has very minimal and very broad qualifications. And Paul says there, that is a true widow. Verse eight, verse 16, these are the types of widows that you are to care for unless they have families. They are left all alone, therefore the church takes up responsibility for them. So I think that it would be odd for Paul to give further qualifications when he's already set them out in verse five. But under this point, I want you to notice this. The qualifications for these widows that we see in verses 9 through 10, almost all of them have to do with what? Service. Isn't that interesting? She has to have a good reputation or a reputation for good works. She has brought up children. Why is that important? Well, I'll expand on this a little bit more in a moment, but one of the reasons why she needs to have brought up children in her former days is that she is going to be ministering to mothers in the church. And let me just say, while it is not impossible, and this is very important, it's not impossible for a woman who has never had children to minister to a woman who has children. It's not impossible. It's also not the most optimal, once again, person to do so. So she needs to have brought up children. She needs to have shown hospitality. I think that this requirement is very interesting. Because if you look at the qualifications for a true widow in verse 5, once again it's clear that in verse 5 this is the kind of widow who's going to receive support from the church. It doesn't say anything about hospitality, and I think that there's a very good reason for that. And the reason simply is this, the very fact that a woman, a widow, in the church needs to be taken care of may mean, among other things, that she is poor and desolate. It may mean that she doesn't even have a home, and if she does have a home, it's probably a very humble home. Now, once again, having a humble home doesn't mean that you can't show hospitality with what the Lord has given you, and we've talked much about that. But it is interesting that the women that he's talking about in verse nine and 10, he assumes that they are robust showers of hospitality. He assumes that they have not perfected the art per se, but are women who are very intentional in their hospitality, which I think assumes at least that they had something of a home to show hospitality in. It's interesting, another qualification is that she has washed the feet of the saints. Now, this was a big thing, obviously, in first century Palestine and in Greco-Roman society. Why? Well, very simply, they didn't have paved roads like we do today. The roads were dusty and dirty and so when a guest would come into the home, Their feet would be washed, and who would typically be the person who did it? A slave. A slave would be the one. But the Lord taught us in John 13 that we are to take the posture of a slave and serve our brothers and sisters even in the act of washing their feet. Now this doesn't mean that this continues to be a sacrament of the church today. Jesus' point in John 13 when he said, I have given you an example, now do likewise, was simply that where our brothers or sisters have needs, we are to meet those needs in a servant way. but also that she has cared for the afflicted, that's very interesting, and has devoted herself to every good work. So those qualifications in and of themselves all have to do with service. The other two qualifications that I'm gonna get to in just a moment are that she can't be younger than 60. I think that's very interesting. We'll come back to that. So she's gotta be 60 or older. But then also, and this is very fascinating, in verse nine, She is to be, she was to have been a one man woman. That phrase in the Greek really mirrors in a converse way the exact same qualification for elders and deacons that they be what? One women men. So I find it very interesting that Paul is setting up these very narrow qualifications for these women, and it doesn't make as much sense to say, well, all of these qualifications are so that she could receive aid from the church. No, I think that the service-oriented qualifications, together with the fact that she's a one-man woman, or she was a one-man woman before her man died, which does not mean that she could not have remarried because Paul says later that she could. What it means is that when she was married, she was faithful to her husband. The fact that those mere elders and deacons who, listen, are also officers in the church all seem to me to point to verses 9 and 10 a list where widows serve. So that's the first reason. Here's the second reason why I think the list in verse 9 is referring to widows who serve in the church. If verses 9 and 10 are referring to women who can receive provisions from the church, then that means that a legitimate widow with legitimate needs, according to verse 5, would be forbidden from receiving support from the church if she were under 60 years old. Now, we need to be careful with this argument, but I don't think it's unfair to say or ask the question, that doesn't really seem to be fair. It doesn't seem to be the heart of God. It doesn't seem to be the heart of Paul. That just because if a woman were 55, but she didn't have family, and she was poor, and she was destitute, Paul would say, sorry, you don't meet the requirements. I don't think that that's what Paul's getting at. Does this also mean that a woman who had been unfaithful to her husband before conversion couldn't receive help from the church if she was less than 60 years old and now a widow? It just doesn't seem fair. When he mentions widows in verse 5 under the section of widows who receive aid, he doesn't mention any age requirement, only that they are all alone. and that they have needs. So the third reason why I think this is talking about a list of widow servants, and this gets a little complicated, and I need you to look at verses 11 and 12 in the text for a few reasons. First off, this is incredibly confusing in the English, and I hope to clarify things for you. It seems as if the widows in this order, on this list, took a vow of celibacy. Now, I want to show you that it's implied in verses 11 and 12. Look at verse 11 and 12. After he's already explained the widows who are to be on this list, in my view, for service, he says in verse 11 and 12, "...but refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry, and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith." Whoa, Paul, settle down. Paul, are you saying, are you saying that if a woman remarries after her husband has died, that she is abandoning the faith and has incurred judgment? Well, this is why the Bible needs to be interpreted, right? I want you to notice that a better, I don't think the translation, I say this humbly, the translation in verse 12 of the English Standard Version I think is unhelpful. Look at verse 12. He says, and so incur judgment for having abandoned their former faith. Now that word faith in the Greek is the standard garden variety word for faith that's typically used in the New Testament. It's pistos or pistis. But that word in certain contexts can also mean something else. You know what else it can mean? It can mean oath or pledge or assurance. Now, I would submit to you that that's exactly what it means. Why? Because if you take this as faith, then it gives the implication that a woman is renouncing her faith if after having become a widow, she remarries. But there's two major problems with that. Paul, in Romans 7 verse 3 and in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 39, speaks to the issue of widows and in both places tells them, if you are a widow, you are free to remarry. He gives only one qualification. Does anybody know what it is? in the Lord. So if Paul is saying it's totally fine for you to remarry. Now, he gives his opinion early in 1 Corinthians 7. He says, you know, I'd prefer that you be unmarried, but he says this is I, not the Lord, okay? But then he later says, because I think his Christian liberty, his robust Christian liberty views are coming out, and he's saying, you know what? If somebody's husband dies, they are free to remarry in the Lord. So it can't be that here Paul is now saying if they remarry, they are abandoning the faith. No, he's not saying that. Here's how I think verse 12 should be translated. They incur condemnation for having renounced their former pledge. I think that's what he's getting at. Now what does this mean? He's telling younger widows that he doesn't want them to be part of this list or this order of servant widows in the church. Rather, he wants them to remarry. But in telling them that, what he's saying is, I don't think it would be wise to have you take this vow. Now, that assumes that the widows who are on the list are what? Are taking the vow. They're taking a voluntary vow of celibacy, 60 years and above. And I agree with many commentators here, this is a general statement. But the reason for that is, number one, they're left all alone. They don't have any family. It was generally acknowledged in Greco-Roman culture that around the age of 60, the sexual passions and desires were starting to wane. Furthermore, because she is a widow, she has more time to devote to the church and giving herself to the church. And so she takes a vow of celibacy so as to give herself over to the needs of the church. But Paul's concern is that younger women, something like this might happen. Their husband dies, they're overwhelmed with grief, the church steps in and takes care of her needs, mows her lawns, fixes her A.C., does all those things that we try to do in a place like this. And she's so overwhelmed with gratitude that she's like, I want to serve the church. I want to serve the church. I want to be enlisted into this order of servant widows that Paul talks about in 1 Timothy 5, 9, and 10. But then she takes the vow, and according to Numbers 30 verse 9, anybody who takes a vow of celibacy must keep it. They can't renege on it. They can't go back on it. But what'll happen is because she's still young and still in childbearing years and still later may desire to have a husband, she may even start to resent her vow. She may begin to resent God to whom she gave that vow. And Paul's saying, let's not put that stumbling block before younger women. And so he sets an age. Why 60? Well, I've given you a few reasons why, but Paul was inspired, so we'll just leave it there. 60 years old. for the order of widows. So here's the thing. Here's what I would say. I would say if the widows described in verse 9 and following are only placed on a list in order to receive charity and not as servant widows, then why is a vow to remain unmarried necessary? I mean, think about it this way. If those on the list were receiving charity, we would expect Paul to encourage remarriage as soon as possible to relieve the financial burden of the church. So a vow of celibacy makes no sense whatsoever if the list consisted of widows who'd receive church funds. But on the other hand, if these older widows over 60 were dedicating their lives to serving the poor and the sick, The vow makes perfect sense. They have time to devote themselves to the service of the church. So I submit to you those reasons for believing that the list in verse 9, 1 Timothy chapter 5, is talking about an order of servant widows. Now, let me just pause here for a second. I don't know about you, but As I was studying this this week, it was a very difficult week of study because I have always interpreted this text, that list in verse 9, as the list of widows who were to receive support. I've always kind of had questions about it, but as I dug deeper I realized, no, this is talking about a list of servant widows. But one of the reasons that it seems so odd is when is the last time you heard about something like this in a church? We just don't hear about these things. Why do you think that is? I think there's a number of different reasons, but just think about it for a moment. In the first century Greco-Roman world, they didn't have our modern equivalent of welfare. They didn't have our modern equivalent of social security. They didn't have things like this. So when a widow, when a woman's husband died, she was just thrown to the wolves as it were. If she didn't have somebody or some entity step in, she was going to starve and die, or would have to resort to some undesirable things. And so Paul, thinking of how the church is to minister to all the needs of all the saints in every way that we reasonably can, gives these instructions for them. Now, I would have you notice secondly, that church history corroborates this order of servant widows. This could be a whole other sermon, but it would be all church history, and some of you would get perturbed, and I understand that. But I would say this, a simple glance at church history, especially the first seven ecumenical councils and creeds of the early church, shows that by and large, especially and specifically in the Western church, there was this order of servant widows. In fact, in the councils, they constantly talk about these women who would serve orphans and widows and the poor and the afflicted, okay? And you know what they called them? Listen, wait for it. You know what they called these women? Deaconesses. They called them deaconesses. But in those same church councils, they also had language that clarified in no uncertain terms, this is not the same office as male deacons. This is a separate office, okay? But it's confusing because they did call them deaconesses. So, if there is a way for us to understand it on the one hand, we can very much refer to them as deaconesses in some quasi-official capacity, and yet on the other hand not ordained, then we're not only consistent with Scripture in 1 Timothy 5, but I think also we're consistent with church history. Now, what's also interesting, listen to me, what's also interesting about almost every time that these church councils in church history speak of these deaconesses, these widows, When they talk about their qualifications, they almost always mention the qualifications in 1 Timothy chapter 5. Now, I think that this is convincing, and this was actually the view that John Calvin took, for whatever that's worth. For some of you that means a lot, for some of you it doesn't. But John Calvin and his church in Geneva actually had a role, I'm not going to call it an office, but he had a role of deaconesses that would do this very thing. And in both the case of the early church and in Calvin, what did these deaconesses do? What did they do? You might find this interesting. These deaconesses, at least in the early church, would prepare female disciples for baptism. Now, female disciples or male disciples, either one that were preparing for baptism were often called catechumens, because a catechumen was one who was catechized by the catechist, and a catechism is instruction. So the catechumen, the candidate for baptism, would be prepared and instructed and discipled by female deacons. But guess what else those female deacons did? Those female deacons baptized these females, and you say, oh my goodness, why is that? Well, I'll tell you why. Because for at least a short time in the history of the church, in some pockets of the empire, baptism was done in the nude. And the reason for that, you may think it's a good idea, you may think it's a bad idea, but for whatever reason, let me tell you why the church fathers thought this way. They saw an analogy between our physical births and our spiritual births. So just as in our physical births we were born naked, so in our spiritual births, which is what among other things baptism represents, we are born a second time and we should therefore do it in the nude. Where's CJ? Aren't you glad you're in the 21st century? So female deacons would baptize the female baptizees. Why? Because it would be inappropriate for a male to do that, for a male minister or even a male deacon. So one of the things that they would do is they would baptize the catechumens. Another thing that they would do is they would instruct female converts on how to stay holy and how to make good on their baptism. But another thing that they would do, and we see this specifically in the Constitution of the Holy Apostles in AD 381, is that they would visit women in the church, oftentimes invalids, okay, poor women that were in their homes. They would go to their homes and visit them. Why? Because it was considered inappropriate for a male bishop or a priest in that time to go by himself to the home of a woman and catechize her or comfort her or read the scriptures to her or to pray for her. Now, some of you in this congregation think that that's ridiculous, but there is a long history of wisdom and discernment in the context of ministry in the situations that we put ourselves in. I think it is extremely wise for ministers and otherwise to be very careful about the situations that they put themselves in. Okay, so these women would go visit these sick invalids. Okay, so what we see here, I think, from 1 Timothy 5, also put together with church history, I'd like to conclude in number three here, about five conclusions that we can draw before we get to some application. So number one, I just want to reiterate, there are only two offices in the church, elder and deacon, and these offices are limited to men. And we made that case last week. But secondly, I would submit to you that in addition to these two offices, Paul does set forth what we might call the order of servant widows as an auxiliary help to women and the afflicted and the poor in the church. I would say they certainly function as deacons, not the official capacity, not the official title, and certainly not to everyone in the church, but they certainly function as deacons to women in the church, to the poor in the church, throughout church history, oftentimes to the orphans who were found in the church. Because you know what would happen to the orphans in early church history? This is really sad. They didn't have a lot of orphanages in the first century. They didn't have CPS in the first century. So if an orphan didn't have somebody to take them in, they were giving over to some form of prostitution to make money, they were given over to slavery, or sometimes they were thrown into the arena to be eaten by the wolves in the gladiator games. And so the women of the church took great pride in taking care of these little orphans. Now, let me draw a few things together, thirdly on this conclusion. I would submit to you, when we come back to 1 Timothy 3.11, that when Paul seemingly out of nowhere inserts in verse 11, women likewise be dignified, I don't think, once again, he's talking about women deacons in the same sense as male deacons, but I think Paul there is putting something of a placeholder because he recognizes that under this umbrella of deaconing, if I could put it that way, There very much is a place for women, not ordained, but certainly more than general service. There is a place for an order of widow's servants. So he puts a placeholder in chapter 3, verse 11, and then two chapters later in chapter 5, he unpacks it. To put it in a very proverbial way, you can only skin one cat at a time. So he doesn't, in the midst of the qualifications for deacons, want to give a whole treatise on the order of servant widows. So he just puts a placeholder, recognizing that women have a place, and then in chapter five, he expands it. I think that that's what he's doing, and I think that that's why women are involved in the requirements for deacons. But fourthly, I would also submit to you this, I think it is very likely, I cannot prove this, but I think with all the cumulative evidence, it is very likely that Phoebe in Romans chapter 16 verses one and two was more than likely a servant widow. I think that she was probably a widow in this order of servant-widows. She clearly was a wealthy woman. It says in verse 2 that she was, the ESV says, a patron to Paul. I think a better translation would be a benefactor to Paul, which means that she had money, and it means, among other things, that she probably supported him in his missionary endeavors. And he says in Romans 16, chapter one, to all the congregation, whatever she has need of, whatever help she needs, give it to her. I think that she was an active servant in the order of servant widows, and Paul wanted the church to get behind her in her endeavors. So finally, on this conclusion, while women are certainly encouraged and even exhorted to serve in the church, I would submit to you that there is a peculiar order of widows to serve women and the poor in the church, which Paul lays the qualifications out for in 1 Timothy chapter 5. Now, how do we apply this? This is difficult. It's difficult to apply this because, and I talked to I think our only widow in the church this morning. I just had a little quick conversation with her, let her know that I was going to be talking about this. We have one widow who is technically a widow in the sense that her husband has died. But even then, when you look at the qualifications of 1 Timothy 5, she has family in the area, she's taken care of, and she would not be one who would be taken care of by the church. So as I was praying over this text this week and thinking about how to apply it, this is what I came up with. I'd like to speak to older ladies in the church this morning. Okay, whether, since we don't have any widows that are truly widows according to 1 Timothy 5.5, I want to speak to all older women, and I just want to remind you before I get into these comments of one thing. There was a point in Jesus's ministry where he was saying some pretty crazy things. He had a tendency to do that, but he was saying some pretty crazy things, and his mother and his brothers were coming up, and they saw the crowds, and they kind of wanted to pull him out there to kind of relieve them of the shame that they were experiencing because he was kind of embarrassing them. And they sent a messenger to tell him, hey, your mother and your brothers wanna talk to you. Do you guys remember how Jesus responded? He says, who is my mother and who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. I think at the very beginning as I apply this, I just want to say this, and I think this has application for all of us. Certainly we have our nuclear families, and certainly blood is a very important thing, but from the lips of Jesus himself, he tells us how to think about our broader family in the household of faith. And our broader family is everyone who names the name of Christ, and within that family, even though we often refer to as brothers and sisters, there is also a place, dear congregation, for spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers. And I think this is very important, something that we often overlook in our life together. So what I'd like to do is have us turn very briefly to Titus chapter two. Please turn in your Bibles to Titus chapter two, and I would like to address our older ladies. You interpret that term, older ladies, however you want, okay? But our older women, Paul, I don't think here in Titus 2, 3-5 is specifically and exclusively speaking to the order of servant widows, but I think that that was certainly included. I think he's just talking in general to older women in the church, and this is what he says. Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. I'd like to put an exhortation out there this morning to all of our older women, our sisters in Christ this morning, I want to remind you that you are in a very real way mothers of this church. And let me come behind that statement and say this, we need you as mothers in this church. And I just want to give you a few concrete ways. that you could be mothers in this church. And many of the things I'm going to say you know. I'm not trying to inform you as if you're some knowledge receptacle and all the purpose of the ministry of the word is just to put more knowledge in you. I'm exhorting you. I'm hoping by God's grace and through the Spirit of God this morning to stir you up, to take up in a very intentional way the role of the spiritual mothers of the church. What are ways that you older women can serve our women? First off, you can serve wives and mothers. He says in v. 4 that they are to train young women to love their husbands and children. You know what? Motherhood. Motherhood is a high and holy calling. It is a high and holy calling. If the Lord has given you children, Let me tell you something, that is more of a noble calling according to the authors of Scripture than going out and chasing your career. I'm not saying that chasing your career is a bad thing. I'm not saying that in the least bit. Proverbs 31 makes much of a working woman. Needs to be qualified in massage, but it's there. But the idea that I have in tow a number of children, five, 10, three, whatever, that I have responsibility over, that the Lord has called me, together with my husband, to shape and to form and to put within their hearts, as much as I possibly can, an infrastructure of a moral compass to lead them to Jesus, to give them law, to give them gospel, to teach them etiquette, to do all those things, that is a high and holy calling. And the first thing I'd want to say to you young mothers is you need to, number one, recognize it as a high and holy calling, and number two, recognize it as a privilege, a privilege and a blessing. Because I know, I know, my wife often reminds me that there is a lot of discouragement that comes with being a mother. It's exceedingly difficult. It's exceedingly challenging. You're always trying to balance things like, you know, what am I putting into the bodies of my children? You know, how much MSG is going in, how much high fructose corn syrup, how much grain, you know, all those types of things. How much screen time am I giving them? Am I giving them the right education? Whether you're homeschooling them or what, you have all these things swirling around and understandably, Understandably, you might feel guilt and shame when your children don't obey the way you want them to. You might even start to feel like you're a failure. But you older women in the church who are past child-rearing age, you remember those days, don't you? You remember those days, and you probably thought then, as these young women do now, like there's no hope. You probably thought then, as these young mothers do now, that you just can't do it, and you're gonna give up, and you're an utter failure. But now you're on the other side of it, aren't you? You're on the other side of it, and you realize that the high fructose corn syrup didn't mess your kids up. They're still okay. They still have five fingers on each hand, and five toes on each feet, and they're okay. And all those fears that you may have had, which in the time, in the moment, may have been legitimate, You have a wiser outlook on those now. Can I encourage you to speak into the lives of these younger women? I'm not telling you, listen, I'm not telling you, just in general, if you feel like, I'm asking you and I'm charging you to be intentional in the way that Paul charges women in the church to be intentional in Titus chapter two. You know, Titus chapter two is often used as a proof text to say, hey, women can teach women. Sure, that's fine. I have no problem with that. I think that that's true. I don't really think though that what Paul's getting at here is Bible studies. Maybe. But you know what? I don't know specifically that the women in our church need to hear like, you need to be submissive to your husband. You need to respect your husband. You are the helpmate and he's the head. You need to love him. You need to submit to him. I think most of our women know that in this church. Certainly we need to be reminded of it, there's no doubt. But you know what? You know where I think younger women need help? I know that I'm submit to my husband, but how do I submit to this husband? How do I raise these children? I'm not telling you that older women and young women should get together and bash the husbands or bash the children. That's gossip and you should steer away from that. But I am telling you there is a place and I think that's exactly what he's getting at in Titus chapter 2. There is a place for a younger woman coming to an older woman and say, here's my struggles. I want to guard the dignity of my husband. I want to guard the dignity of my children, but I'm just being honest with you and I need you to help me. I'm not asking you to join with me in some condemnation of my family, but I need help. There's a place for just coming together and sure, sprinkling some scripture there. We need scripture, but I think more than anything, what our women are looking for is the wisdom that is derived from scripture. the wisdom that comes from a life of experience that older women have lived who have reared their children, who have been submissive to their husband and are still fighting to be submissive to their husband. There's wisdom that grows out of that that can be offered to our young women. So it's not just Bible studies, and I'm not bagging on women Bible studies. I think if you want to have them, great, go for it. And maybe In the future, Grace Covenant Church will have things like that. But if we have women Bible studies and yet our women go from day to day with unanswered questions about how to love their husbands and manage their children, I think maybe our priorities might be in the wrong place. Younger wives and mothers need to be reminded that motherhood is a high and holy calling. But secondly, as I'm applying this this morning, it's not just mothers who need the wisdom of mothers in the church. It's also young women, young teenage women, young junior high women. One of the things that Paul says in Titus 2.5 is that the younger women are to be self-controlled and pure. Pure. We hear a lot about how men need to be pure, and that's true. We hear a lot about how men struggle with things like pornography and lust, and that's true, and we need to address that. But don't think that women don't struggle with similar things. I think that women struggle with it in a different way. I don't think that their struggle is as visual, perhaps, as men. But there are many ways in which women struggle in desiring and coveting something that in this particular season of life the Lord has not given them. And there are women who, in letting their guard down, have perhaps put themselves in situations that are questionable. that is caused to bring them into temptation, we need older women to come along, younger women who are not married, who are still singer, and encourage them to be pure. Encourage them to see their body as a holy thing, as a pure thing, and that it's worth keeping that purity until they give their covenant vows. We need older women to do that. That's a very important thing. Can you imagine, can you imagine a pastor sitting down with a young woman in this congregation and say, let's talk about purity? That'd be weird. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I think that that would be really weird, okay? But it's not weird for an older woman to do it. In fact, I would say it's highly appropriate for an older woman to do it. But not just older women teaching our younger women to be pure. Let me add another layer to that. What about the younger women in our church who haven't married and have sought to be pure and have failed in that regard? They've fallen into fornication or maybe they have been sexually abused as a young girl. They need older women to come alongside them and give them what? The gospel. They need older women to come alongside them and say, you are not spoiled goods. You, in the eyes of God, whose opinion is the most important, are pure and spotless in Jesus Christ. You want to know why? Because you have the righteous robe of his perfect obedience covering you. That's what we need older women to do, to younger women. Let me give one more way, and this is going to be controversial, and frankly I don't care. I'm sick and I'm losing all inhibitions. There is this odd place in the book of Acts where Apollos, the superstar preacher, is going around and kind of like John Piper, you know, going around preaching to packed out stadiums, and everybody's just, you know, waiting at his every word, and he's popular among all the churches for his eloquent preaching. But there was one minor issue with Apollos. He was messed up theologically. And who does God send to fix Apollos? Anybody know? Priscilla and Aquila. You know who Priscilla is? She's a woman. You know who's mentioned first in the combination of Priscilla and Aquila almost every time? Priscilla. There's probably a reason for that. Not in the context of a formal worship service, but in a private conversation, Priscilla and Aquila as a team pull Apollos aside and correct him theologically. That probably involves some type of rebuke. Do I think that they did it tastefully? Yes. Do I think that they did it respectfully? Yes. Do I think that they preserved his dignity and his honor? Yes. But do I think that they were intent on correcting him so that in his preaching he would not be spouting air to people and giving them the wrong idea of what the gospel was? Yes. Can I submit to you that an application of that for us men in this church is there is a place. There is a place for an older woman in the church respectfully, tastefully, forthrightly rebuking you. There's a place for that. Can I tell you a story? And many years ago when my wife and I were helping plant a Reformed Baptist church in California, I taught the catechism class. I was a deacon, I was an ordained deacon at that time. I taught the catechism class. And at one point I was preaching on thou shalt not kill in the catechism and I, I think like many preachers are wont to do, gave a lot of time to the evils and the wickedness of abortion and just went on and on and on about how horrible it was. And then just pretty much ended, and little did I know, little did I know, that there was a young female convert in the church, I mean fresh, like probably six months converted, who within the last year and a half had had an abortion. I didn't know that. And she was naturally distraught. I don't think that she totally understood the gospel. She understood it enough to be saved, but like, she left that catechism lesson thinking, has God forgiven me? I mean, the preacher just talked about how wicked abortion was, and I got an abortion, and can you imagine the emotional trauma that she was going through? So you know what she did? She just happened to be sisters with the pastor's wife. So she went to the pastor's wife and told her, and of course the pastor's wife was very concerned about her sister in the Lord and her sister in the flesh, and she assured her that she was forgiven, but she brought that young lady to me. And they had a little talk with me. And the pastor's wife basically said, hey Josh, I thank you for your ministry, thank you for all that you do, but you know, we just wanted to make sure that we were on the same page. Like, is my sister forgiven? And are her sins, is her sin of enacting an abortion under the blood of Christ? And I said, absolutely. And I almost broke down in tears because I felt so horrible that I had been so irresponsible to not think that there may be somebody in our congregation who has had an abortion and to give them hope because that is what ministers should do. And so the young converted Christian walked away. She felt a little bit better. And then I was alone with the pastor's wife. And she, once again, tactfully, lovingly, and with dignity, said, Josh, I love you, I respect your ministry, thank you, but I just wanna encourage you, when you talk about things like abortion, just remember what I just said, that there may be somebody in there who has had one, and you need to bring the gospel to bear upon their souls. You know what, I've never forgotten that. You know who taught me that? A woman. a daughter of Christ, a daughter of Sarah, a daughter of Abraham, and I at no point by God's grace despised her for that, but you know what she did? She rebuked me. And there is a place for that. And men in this congregation, if your pride is such that there is no place for a Priscilla in your life, I think that you need to humbly examine your heart and ask yourself the bigger question, what is this all about? Is this about my pride, or is this about sanctification and growth in Christ? So there is a place, even for older women, to instruct outside of the formal liturgies of the church and the machinations of the church, in private conversations, to instruct a man. At the end of the day, We need mothers of the church. But you know what? It's not that we need mothers of the church for character development and moral compasses. That is the product. You know what we need mothers of the church for? We need mothers of the church to bring the gospel to younger women. We need mothers of the church to bring the gospel to orphans. We need mothers of the church to bring the gospel to the poor and the needy and the afflicted. We need mothers of church to work with the deacons and have the deacons instruct them on how they can minister to women in ways that deacons would, it would just be weird or inappropriate. But we need first and foremost for these mothers of the church to bring the gospel before our people. May the Lord give us grace as a communion as we continue to seek to flesh this out in the life of our congregation. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your gospel. We thank you for mothers in this church, Father. Lord, I just want to brag on them a little bit this morning. There are so many women in this place who are just selfless, Father. And yes, they're sinners, and yes, they stand in need of grace, but Father, that same grace has also made them into bold and courageous and loving and compassionate women who have a desire to make Your glory through the gospel of Jesus Christ known. Father, give wisdom to the elders and the deacons in this place to know how we could carve out a more efficient way for women in this church. And Father, thank You. Thank You for faithful servants. Make us faithful more still, we pray. And we ask all of these things in Your Son's name. Amen.