Page 61 - Pastoral Epistles student textbook

We have a responsibility to help our church members. What if any responsibility do
we have toward non-members?
What written guidelines does our church have in place, as to who we will help with
our benevolent fund and if not – who makes the decisions?
1 Timothy 5:1-2.

1 Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat
younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters,
2
with absolute purity.

We need to remember that the church is sometimes referred to
as “a family.” In the church family, we have mothers and fathers
and brothers and sisters and grandparents and aunts and uncles
and cousins. As leaders, we should not be insensible but instead
we should be caring. We should treat our older people with
respect, gentleness and affection. We should interact with
people of the opposite sex with self-control and purity; and we
should love each other in the way that God intends for us to love each other. And yet we are
not to look the other way when someone in the church needs correcting.
What Paul means with the phrase absolute purity?

1 Timothy 5:2.
Is there such a thing as purity without it being absolute purity. Is it possible
to be only partially pure?

1 Timothy 5:3-16.
God always cares for the down-and-outers. God has a special place in his heart for poor people and
people who are not easily accepted in community. He has established certain structures – the church
and the family – to provide help and compassion for those who are left alone. But each church and
each family has specific responsibilities for how they handle God’s resources and distribute those
resources to people in need.
Just because someone has a need does not mean the church must help.

Just because there are widows does it mean the church has a responsibility to care for them?
What other criteria does Paul mention? V9-10.

For widows who are really in need we have a responsibility to personally care for our parents and
grandparents.

In Western cultures this is not accepted by everyone. Most parents and grandparents do not live with
their children – as they do in many eastern cultures. Westerners tend to rely on government
programs. What is you experience?

V5-6. Worthy and unworthy widows.
 Puts her hope in God.

 Prays night and day for help.
 Unworthy widows live for pleasure.
V7-8. Christian obligation.
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