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.
Paul has just told Timothy which widows the assembly should support and which it should not. Verse 16 closes the subject with a rule about money: a believer with a widow in the family pays, so the assembly's funds stay free for women who have no one.
Relief starts at home
The verse sets an order of responsibility.
Leslie M. GrantBut if a widow did need support, her own relatives were responsible for this first. That left the assembly more able to relieve those who were widows indeed — alone in the world and godly in character.
This is not the church shrugging off the poor.
On GivingGod never meant the family to be set aside in this world, nor to give to the Church the work which rightly belonged to the family. We should dread any weakening of family ties as a sign of the final apostasy. All other giving must come after you have met the needs of your own relatives. This is emphatic, and no so-called work or service for the Lord should set it aside.
Not a repeat of verses 4 and 8
Verse 16 adds a case the earlier verses did not cover: a believer connected to a widow who is not her child. One writer also weighs a manuscript question here — some copies read "believing woman," others "believing man or woman."
William KellyThe external evidence for the shorter reading in verse 16, "believing woman," is so strong that it sways the chief modern critics and revisers. But the sense that results is strange and unsatisfactory. Why should the relief of a young widow fall on a believing woman in particular?… The direction in verse 16 is in no way a mere repetition of the principles laid down in verses 4 and 8. In the earlier case, if a widow had children or descendants, they came before anyone else. They had to learn devoted care for their own family, in return for what their parents had done. Verse 8 presses this duty of providing so plainly that it calls failure a denial of the faith, and even worse than an unbeliever.
Either reading gives the same duty: a believer with widows in the family relieves them.
The purpose of the limit
A limited list is not meanness. It guards what the church is meant to be.
Hamilton SmithThere may, however, be needy people in the Christian circle who have no relatives to provide for them. Such people belong on the list of those the assembly can rightly care for. Even so, one must take care not to use the house of God as if it were merely an institution for supporting needy people.
Being left off the list did not mean being left without help.
Edward DennettThe saints might of course help others in private, and the Church might help them from time to time. But only these went on the list of those who had undeniable claims on the funds of the assembly. If the wisdom of God, expressed here, had governed in this matter, the Church would have avoided much difficulty.
Who the freed money is for
Relieving the assembly has a point: it can then care for "those who are truly widows" — the "widows indeed" of older translations. Such a woman is more than a woman whose husband has died. She is not a burden the church carries; she carries the church.
The Christian's FriendWhere, then, are the "widows indeed" of the present day? … God calls those who are truly widows to give themselves to fasting and prayers. In this way they may bear up the whole Church with their intercessions, and so kindle afresh in many hearts the blessed hope of the Lord's return.
A rule that outlived Timothy
Timothy is long gone. Does his instruction go with him?
J. N. DarbyTimothy was to watch that widows did not live at the expense of the Church when they had relatives who could support them. That remains a rule for the relatives of widows, even though Timothy is no longer here. The instruction addressed to him is a means of knowing the will of God about those people.
Summary
- Family first. A believer with widows in the household relieves them. The church must not take over work that belongs to the family.
- Not merely relief. The house of God is not an institution for supporting the needy; only those with no relatives belong on the list.
- Freed for the desolate. The freed funds exist for a purpose — the widow who is alone in the world and godly in character.
- She gives back. The assembly supports her, and she bears up the whole church in prayer. The rule still binds families today.