Today’s devotion is rather personal, but I hope it brings to life a little the ideas surrounding the term ‘widow’ in the Bible.
5 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.
As discussed in v. 3, ‘widow who is really in need’ is the NIV’s liberal translation with the Old Testament term ‘orphan (lit. the fatherless) and widow’ in mind, which represented the people who were poor and therefore in need of mercy of others (Deut 10:18 and many more). Figuratively, that is who Israel was before God (Lam 5:3). The ESV and NSAB have it as widows who are truly or actually widows.
There are a few such widows in the Bible that we can remember. The widow who gave all she had into the Temple treasury (Mark 12, Luke 21). The widow in a parable who pleaded with the unjust judge day and night until her case was heard (Luke 18). In the Old Testament, the widow who was devastated and cursed Elijah when her son died (1 Kings 17). With Paul’s explanation, we can better understand why these women behaved the way they did. They had no hope whatsoever elsewhere.
6 But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.
When our Dad died in a fatal car accident in the middle of nowhere in Egypt 30 years ago today during a family holiday, our dear Mum and we, the three children, were widowed and made fatherless. We were devastated and enormously sad for years and years, of course, but biblically speaking, we were not ‘actually widows and orphans’. With our Dad being a pastor, our financial means were always Mum. So financially, things did not change dramatically. We surely did not want to appear ‘poor’ or ‘in need of mercy’. We lived diligently and conscientiously and remained cheerful to save our faces from the humiliation and shame of not having Dad.
Without knowing, however, this kind of attitude creates a bigger problem than you think. Thinking that you do not need mercy can be likened to the Pharisee in prayer: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get’, as opposed to the tax collector who prayed, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ (Luke 18:11-13). In accordance with Paul’s diagnosis, as long as we claimed that we did not need mercy, we lived, but we were dead.
7 Give the people these instructions, so that no one may be open to blame.
The word of God has instructed us repeatedly, whether we understood it or not, for the last thirty years, and it still does. ‘He openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction’ (Job 33:16, KJV). He pleads with us so that we may be blameless. ‘To turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride’ (Job 33:17, NIV). He pleads with us so desperately for the sake of who He is to us, as if we were the only hope that He had left. As the Creator God, what did He lack? Nothing! Yet He played ‘the widow’, when in fact we were the ones, to bring us out of the endeavour to disguise our own shame into pride, out of ‘death’.
8 Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
So, in conclusion, when God takes some but lets others remain, He must have a good reason. If you do not think so, you must be an unbeliever. It is not a question of understanding the reason, because we could not, even if He chose to explain it all; it is a question of submitting (or surrendering, rather) to His knowing the best. It takes time and mind. But when it is done, you come out like pure gold (cf. Job 23:10)—that is, with your clothes washed in Christ’s blood.
Dear Lord God, our Provider! You sustained us throughout the last 30 years and more. You are the just judge who deals with us for who You are to us. Yet sometimes You willingly played the widow as if you were the one who needed mercy and was in need. You desperately sought after us. You were anxious that we might spiritually die and not know you. Lord, you cover us with your own blood so that we may come out as pure gold. All our efforts to cover ourselves are in vain. You make us live. As we confess this, let us sustain our family and friends who are in need, not only in material terms but also with encouragement and examples to remain and live in you. Let us not live dead lives but alive lives, even if we physically die. Praise be to our merciful, unchanging, compassionate Father, our God.
Image: Aleksandr Ivanov, 1806-1858. Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, Tenn.