Listen to the talk here or read the transcript below
Preacher: Lionel Windsor
Church: Vine Church, Surry Hills
Date: 21 June 2026
Bible text: based on NIV 2011
Introduction
I want to start by asking you, in Aussie culture, what is the most polite way to refer to an older person? Have you noticed that the words we collectively use to refer to old people keep changing? So it’s a strange process. It’s happened over the decades. We start to use a word or phrase, such as “old woman”.
And after a while, we decide, well, that phrase is a bit derogatory. So we change to another, more neutral phrase, “senior citizen”. After a while, senior citizen starts to sound pretty condescending, a bit offensive, and so we try another word. We think a neutral word that might help is “elderly”. Same thing happens. After a while, even “elderly” starts to sound insulting.
So we try “aged”, and then “ageing”. Why is that? It is not really a problem with the words; it is a problem with our underlying concept of age and ageing. It doesn’t matter what word we choose to express it. After a while, that word just takes on negative connotations because we’ve got that negative view of ageing encoded in us. Ageing for us is not a good thing. It’s shameful. Nobody wants to be old.
This deep shame of ageing is encoded into our modern Western society. Imagine, after church, that I were speaking to a woman over coffee and said, “Oh, hello. You look old.” How would you feel? But what if I said, “You look young”? That sounds honourable, doesn’t it? But if I said “You look old”, it would sound shameful. Why are we so negative about ageing? It’s because in our Western Aussie society, it represents the opposite of our core values because we live in a world that puts a huge value on choice and strength and desire and freedom and increasing age means the opposite of those things.
It means limited choice, lower potential for fulfilment, increasing weakness, growing dependence, and we’re all ashamed of it. Old people limit the potential of young people. Old people are, what are they? They’re a problem, they’re a burden, they’re a challenge, they’re an increasing demand on the economy. And the economy is driven by the young. And young people are all about progress. The old are about living in the past.
And we don’t like the past. My kids sometimes– well, it’s joking, isn’t it? They call me a dinosaur. That’s a joke. But it works because dinosaurs are old. And old, automatically shameful to be a dinosaur. I just say that’s an ageist microaggression and see what they feel. But it’s like that– and the increasing scourge of voluntary assisted dying. That’s an expression of our underlying shame about ageing too, isn’t it?
Now the same is true about motherhood in our society. It’s not really particularly honourable in our world to be a mother. What do we value? We value strength, we value leadership, we value power. Making a difference in society: that is what’s valuable. “She just wants to be a mum.” What difference to society does being a mum make? That’s our kind of social programming that’s encoded into the way, into our language, and into our very souls.
So I want to identify those things as we start to remind us of the context that we’re in and that we approach this passage in, because this is a passage about old mums. In lots of societies, and perhaps even in a society that you may have come from or grown up in, certainly in the Bible’s worldview, old mum would be an honourable thing to say.
But it’s very often shameful. So that just shows that our assumptions aren’t biblical and indeed not true. Because this passage has a lot of positive things to say about old mums in the family of God.
The family of God is about relationships and order (1 Timothy 5:1–2)
This is a series about the family of God and in fact this is a passage that’s very much about the family of God. That’s there in verses 1 and 2, where Timothy is told how to treat various people in the family of God. So there it is, verses 1 and 2.
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, with absolute purity.
1 Timothy 5:1–2
Paul focuses here on that family aspect of church. And here we see that church is actually meant to be, in some ways, like a natural family. We’ve got sisters and brothers of one another. We’ve got mothers and fathers. So do you notice here that family, when you think about family, it’s got a couple of elements. God’s family is about relationships, and God’s family is about order. On the one hand, God’s family is about relationships. Perhaps if I said to you, What does it mean to be a family of God?
You might say, Well, it means that we’re in a relationship with each other. And that is so true. Church is not a small business. Church is not a club. Church isn’t a society. Church is about relationships. Church is like a family. But on the other hand, this is not sort of A blob family. This isn’t like a family like a hippie commune, where we just all sort of randomly love each other when we happen to feel like it. It’s like the natural family.
And so there’s an order to it. And so here in these verses, there’s two dimensions, do you see? There’s both gender and age, male and female, older and younger. And you relate differently to different people according to those dimensions. Now Paul isn’t just saying this because he’s some kind of conservative who happens to like conventional families. No, absolutely not. This is all coming from the truth that is in Jesus, which you’ve already seen in chapter three, the household of God, the family of God is that pillar and support For what?
For the truth. The truth of what? The truth of the gospel, the truth about Jesus, the truth that, well, we are sinners who are saved by God’s grace through Jesus’ death and resurrection, that foundational truth. But when Jesus saves us, he doesn’t just amputate our lives from The regular relationships of the world that God has made, the good world God has made. No, as Paul has repeatedly said, Christ became flesh. He is human.
And so when he saves us, he saves us in our human relationships, our messy human relationships and lives with others in different ways as older and younger, as men and women. And so church family
The family of God is about honour, not just welfare (1 Timothy 5:3)
Church family is a place where we love each other, while taking account of those real human dimensions. And when you understand that, you can see what Paul says about widows here. He makes a strong point not just about caring for widows, but about honouring widows. Verse 3 says:
Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need.
1 Timothy 5:3
Now that phrase, proper recognition, it’s just literally the word honour. It’s the word honour. It’s actually the same word that’s used in the next passage, verse 17, to talk about older men or elders in the church. So verse 3 says to honour widows; verse 17 speaks about honouring elders, older men. And that is quite deliberate. There’s a reflection there. Now, of course, if you’re going to honour a widow, then you don’t just do it in words. You actually have to do it in deeds. To honour a widow, you need to concretely care for them. That’s what the Bible says in multiple places.
Certainly in the ancient world, the world of the Old Testament, the world of the New Testament, women generally relied on marriage and on family for economic support. And so widows generally were highly vulnerable and they needed that concrete care, they needed that support. And you could say, oh, it’s different today because we’ve got Centrelink, don’t we? But, well, it’s not that different. Not in such a big way. Today, on average, both women and older people are especially vulnerable. You know, the statistics are after divorce, men come out better than women.
And as for age, well, the aged care sector is in major trouble, isn’t it? But it’s not just about welfare, this verse in 1 Timothy. No, this verse is primarily about a bigger idea, and that is honour. You see, if you just have welfare, then you just go, okay, well, we’ll give them money, and there might be an economic sort of burden.
But no, this is about seeing these older women as valuable. They’re not just a financial burden. It’s about treating them with dignity because you realise their worth. It’s about giving them respect, which, of course, is the deeper issue that our world’s actually dealing with. So if you want to cast your eyes over the people in your own church who are vulnerable, think about the widows, think about the older people. How do you think about them?
Is honourable the first thing that springs to mind for you? The kind of honour that widows are to receive here is to kind of think of them as the valued mothers of the church. You know, honouring widows is like the commandment itself. Here is Exodus 20:12:
Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Exodus 20:12
But here, Paul is not talking only about honouring your natural father or mother. We will come to that. He is talking about honouring the widows in the church as mothers of the church. That does not mean the church family ignores natural family relationships and obligations.
God’s church family doesn’t deny natural family relationships and obligations (1 Timothy 5:4–8)
So we see that in verse 4.
But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.
1 Timothy 5:4
If a widow has natural relatives who can provide them with care, well, that’s their responsibility. So yes, church is like a family in lots of ways, but church isn’t just a replacement for our family and our responsibilities. When we become Christians, we don’t just escape from those natural family obligations and responsibilities. The church family and the natural family here are supposed to work together.
So the first port of call for honour, as well as support, is actually the natural family. And then the church family. And that’s the ideal, of course, isn’t it, that Paul sets out. But you know and I know that life is more messy than that. People die. Families break apart. Sin is real this side of heaven. And that’s why in the messiness of family life, this principle of church as family can easily be abused. It’s that potential abuse that Paul goes on to talk about. The principle of church as family can be abused in two ways. First, it can be abused by the widows themselves.
Do you see verses 5 and 6?
The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.
1 Timothy 5:5–6
You see verse 5, the widow who is being honoured and cared for, especially by the church, she has the great privilege, she has the great joy, she has the need and so therefore a responsibility to pray, to join in the prayers, to ask God for help for herself and others. Do you know widows who are praying for you? I certainly do. It’s incredible the way in which these widows who tell me, I am praying for you, that is such a privilege, so joyful, so wonderful, and under God, so vital to the ministry of the church.
Problem is there may be some widows getting honour and support from the church who are not actually relying on God in that way, therefore not praying to God. But they’re just using their support to live indulgently, selfishly. Those people we need to call to repent, to change. Paul says they’re dead. It’s almost as if you don’t actually give help to dead people.
And so these are not people to honour, Paul says. Well, secondly, that principle of church family honour and support can be abused by younger believers. See verses 7 to 8.
Give the people these instructions, so that no one may be open to blame. Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
1 Timothy 5:7–8
That’s where people are relying on the church to care instead of keeping their own obligations to their natural older family members. I’m not sure if you feel tempted that way. You actually can. You can be tempted to think that way, couldn’t you?
“My elderly mom in a nursing home with no help, she’s somebody else’s problem now because I’m living for Jesus instead, you see. And I have a new family. I have a chosen family which is more important than my natural family and that’s the church. And so what I do is I serve Jesus and I serve the church and my natural family, well, someone else can take care of that.”
But that’s an entirely un-Christian way to think. Jesus doesn’t save us. Out of our created lives. We don’t go and just get beamed up to heaven. He saves us so that we can serve others and as Paul says here, true religion starts at home. Otherwise we’re actually worse than unbelievers. We’re actually under the same condemnation.
Do you remember when Jesus talked to the Pharisees, Mark chapter 7, and he said, What were the Pharisees doing? What the Pharisees were doing is they were saying, Well, we serve God. We love God. We serve the temple. And so what we’re going to do is we’re going to give everything to the temple and not look after our mother and father.
And Jesus says, You need to honour your mother and father. That’s Pharisaic. But at the same time, I’m very aware that as I say this, that some of you might be hearing me say something that the Bible is not actually saying. Because I’m guessing, I don’t know you all, but I’m guessing that some of you may come from overly controlling families where this honour of parents is actually turned into an idol.
And so passages like this are abused. And I know very well that there are families where there may be a mother or father, like the indulgent widow in verse 6, not acting in a godly way, not acting like that, but they make their children feel endlessly guilty by saying, you’re not honouring me. You’re not honouring me. You need to give me this and this and this and this, and you’re not honouring me.
So I need to say honouring your parents does not Mean just obeying their orders no matter how badly behaved they are. Or if they go and dishonour themselves, going and have to pick up the pieces of honour. That’s not honour. That’s actually, in the end, an idolatry of family that you’re joining in. Honouring parents truly, well, it does mean making sure they’re not destitute.
But it doesn’t necessarily mean doing everything that they say. It’s about following Jesus first and not joining in with the idol of the family. And yet, I also know that there are many of us who are so affected by our modern society that we really do need to hear this verse. Brothers and sisters, religion, Jesus, can become in our minds a loophole to escape our responsibilities. Jesus has rescued us, He’s saved us, He’s brought us to life.
But he hasn’t just whisked us away from this creation. He puts us in this creation and in our family responsibilities and our bodies to do those things. So it is worth asking, is there a legitimate family responsibility that you have that you’re neglecting right now? You need to do something about it. Now let’s look at the rest of the passage.
The family of God affirms natural family relationships and responsibilities (1 Timothy 5:9–16)
Paul, he comes back to thinking about the church, verses 9 to 16, and he sets out Policies with more detail about honouring the right people in church. And in these verses, verses 9 to 16, I’m not sure if you noticed that Paul seems to say some pretty strange things here. If you read the section pretty quickly and if you kind of go, I think I know what he’s talking about, then actually it can sound quite bizarre and it can actually end up being full of puzzles for us.
And so let me say, if you come to a passage like this with the puzzles, then rather than just dismissing it and going, well, that was weird, let’s just move on, that’s actually an opportunity for you to look at it more closely, to try to work it out. Maybe question your assumption about what you thought the passage was about. So I want to briefly now read this passage with you and share some things that have helped me as I’ve looked at it, as I’ve tried to work it out, and to see what this passage is about and what it means For us.
There’s a list in verses 9 to 10, a list of widows. Let me read the list.
No widow may be put on the list of widows unless she is over sixty, has been faithful to her husband, and is well known for her good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the Lord’s people, helping those in trouble and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds.
1 Timothy 5:9–10
What is this list? You might assume, and many people do, that it’s kind of a list of who gets to receive church welfare. Now, the problem with that is if you assume that, you’re actually excluding most people who need church welfare. In the ancient world, hardly anyone lived above 60. I mean, people did, but not many. I want to question our assumption. I actually don’t think this list– it doesn’t say it’s about welfare.
And I want to say this list is not just about welfare. There’s a whole lot of people receiving help welfare needy people. But the actual original word for list suggests it’s more than that. It’s actually a word that distinguishes a specially honoured group. Yeah, a lot of people get welfare, but this is a smaller group. This is a group of those who are specially honoured, like an honour roll than a welfare checklist.
This is the list of the exemplary widows, the ones in the church that we really need to look up to, the ones that we really need to honour, who’ve clearly done those wonderful things for the whole church to look up to, the role models, the mothers of the church with a clear track record. Their works, their good works have involved that long, that tiring, that immensely valuable effort of church motherhood. They’ve been contributing to life, to children, to family, to those around them, to the church, to people.
This is housework. But, you know, when I say housework, that’s a dirty word, isn’t it? Yeah, housework. What’s that? Doesn’t that, you know, doing the vacuuming or something? No, I don’t mean doing the vacuuming. Doing the vacuuming, no. This is about running the house for the good of all. Because motherhood matters and older mothers are to be especially honoured. And I know that’s Counter-cultural. I know that it’s out of step with prevailing views. I know that.
But heck, the Bible’s like that. I mean, it doesn’t just conform to our culture, does it? How boring would that be? Now, our culture doesn’t value motherhood. But if you’re a mum in our world, then according to our world, well, you’re a mum, whatever. What have mums ever contributed to society? Well, here’s something, they’ve contributed society to society. And the Bible calls on us to honour them, to see them as valuable.
And to see that in the church, let me tell you how much my wife in particular For various reasons has really needed a mum and a widow, a particular widow, who has been so incredibly valuable for her. When we’ve gone to visit this widow, we think, are we going to care for her because of a bereavement? She’s cared for us 1,000 times more by being that mum. It matters.
And that helps to explain the next few verses, verses 11 to 13. Let me read it again and see the puzzles.
As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to.
1 Timothy 5:11–13
So again, if you make an assumption about what Paul’s talking about here, you end up with all sorts of puzzles because there’s just sort of weird contradictions it creates. You remember back in chapter 4 I guess a few weeks ago Paul had said that the false teachers in Ephesus what they were doing one of the key things they were doing is they were denying the goodness of marriage and Paul called that the teaching of demons and then in verse 11 he says oh they want to marry and that’s bad that’s sensual that’s about against Christ and you think well haven’t you just said
But marriage is good. And then you go back into verse 14 and Paul says, yes, so get married. What’s going on? You also think about 1 Corinthians chapter 7 where Paul says that singleness is good. It’s a way to be free from concern for worldly matters. So he said that marriage is good. He said that singleness is good. And if you just come to this passage with simple assumptions, he seems to be saying marriage is bad and singleness is bad. What’s the problem?
Well, again, the problem isn’t with the Bible. The problem is with us and our assumptions as we read it. Here’s just a helpful little thing that really helps. The word widows in the ancient world wasn’t always literally used for women whose husbands had died. Sometimes in the early church the word was applied to a young woman who decided that she never wanted to get married.
I greet the households of my brothers with their wives and children, and the virgins who are called widows.
Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 13:1a
Now that’s literally contradictory, but the point is there are young women who are saying, I don’t ever, ever want to get married and I want to dedicate myself to being a widow. That really helps us to see what’s happening here. Because these younger women who want to be put on the widow’s list, he’s not just talking about any woman who loses her husband. He’s talking about young women who’ve decided that they want to be on the list. I like the list. I like the honour list. That’s the list of honourable, honourable people. I want to be honoured in the church.
I want that honour. He’s talking about young women who’ve decided that they want to be on the list. They’re getting the honour, but they’re bypassing all the family obligations. They’re bypassing motherhood altogether. Escaping from the world. They’re sort of saying, well, marriage is not good, which is actually what the false teachers were saying in chapter 4. They deny the goodness of creation and marriage. Paul’s saying, well, actually they will end up marrying.
But what they’re going to be marrying into is marriage probably to these false teachers who speak nonsense. And so therefore, they’re going to be following the teaching of demons. They’re not going to be affirming the goodness of households. And so actually, that is why they’re denying Christ and incurring judgment. So long story short, this is about particular young women who are hacking the church’s good structures for honouring women and using them to escape from this life, from the world that we live in and that is actually not escaping towards Christ, that’s ultimately denying Christ is what Paul says.
But the Bible keeps telling us we don’t come to salvation in Christ through escaping from our responsibilities, for escaping from our bodies, from escaping from the way that God has made us to be, from this world. No, we actually come to salvation in Christ. Christ has rescued us, saved us as sinners, and we come through this world to glory. Christ became flesh and he affirms living in this world. That’s why he goes on to affirm motherhood in verses 14 to 16.
And it says in the NIV younger widows, it’s actually just younger women.
So I counsel younger widows [women] to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan. If any woman who is a believer has widows in her care, she should continue to help them and not let the church be burdened with them, so that the church can help those widows who are really in need.
1 Timothy 5:14–16
In other words, don’t live in a way that denies the importance and goodness of motherhood. Paul says they’re managers in this vital area of life. And in fact, they are the ones who are going to be able to be running these things so that the widows can be taken care of and it will work. Don’t try to escape it. That doesn’t mean that singleness is wrong. Paul said that in 1 Corinthians 7.
But it does mean that denying the goodness of our created reality—the goodness of family life, with men and women, younger and older—is contrary to the point of this passage. I could say more. We don’t have time to keep going, but I’m having to chat to you afterwards about it.
So what does this passage do for us?
Well, it actually challenges us, doesn’t it? It challenges us to rethink our assumptions about what is good. It challenges us to live radically and differently from the world around us. In a world where the idea that ageing is shameful has been encoded into our very language and souls, we are to be radically different: we are actually to honour those who are older, in our words and deeds.
In our world, motherhood is sometimes treated as the low-value option, a menial servitude, just housework, an embarrassing indulgence rather than real work. But we are to honour motherhood, mothers and widows, in our words, our deeds and our church life together. Will you pray with me?
Our Father, we thank you that you have rescued us, saved us and given us life in the Lord Jesus. We pray that you would help us by your Spirit to live in this world in a way that responds to that great salvation, for your glory and our good. In Jesus’ name. Amen.