3Honor widows who are widows indeed; 4but if any widow has children or grandchildren, they must first learn to practice piety in regard to their own family and to make some return to their parents; for this is acceptable in the sight of God.
Benevolence in the church must not devolve into an unbridled socialistic state. In other words, we should not expect the church to do what we ourselves should do for our families. The core needs of humanity are designed to be met within the nuclear family structure. When God created humanity, the primary social structure He set up was the family. Read Genesis 1-4; there is no other way of framing it. First came marriage, then came children. No mention of a godly nation like Israel; no mention of the church of like-minded believers. Everything else hangs on the family as the basic social unit. And this hasn’t changed in the church.
To be sure, the first church at Jerusalem experienced tremendous communalism:
[T]he congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them . . . and abundant grace was upon them all. For there was not a needy person among them for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them . . . and they would be distributed to each as any had need.” (Acts 4:32–35)
Notice that this sharing was entirely voluntary, inspired by the Holy Spirit , and it was indeed need-based. And it seems to have been a complete liquidation of assets. We must be careful, though, about creating an enduring social structure for the church based on only one passage of Scripture. At some point, the liquid assets would become exhausted! It may very well be that, unbeknownst to them, the Lord was freeing up their resources so everyone would have the means to flee the coming persecution.
Benevolence was close to the heart of the apostle Paul from his early days as a follower of Christ (Acts 11:29–30). All the apostles had this same heart:
Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27, also Gal. 2:10).
Paul now fleshes out how this can work sustainably in the church as it has matured. There is more to it than just giving money away.
Lord, help me be wise in my sharing with others.
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