\nDay 1<\/p>\n
Paul ,after talking about how to relate with older people and how to treat them well, now moves on in this relationship chapter to talk about widows. Verse three asks the pastors to give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. And I think that is a vital thing to understand for a church. The first thing we must talk about is proper recognition. It means some people can be poor, but because they are not recognised, they will continue to suffer. Not because the Christians around them are not interested in helping them, but they don”t even know they exist. So, we need as a church to identify around us, in our captive area, to understand the sociological issues that are around us. I think it is important for us not to think that the people we are sent to are just our church members, no.<\/p>\n
We are sent to the community around the church. The church members are the people we disciple to reach the community. And when we reach the community, it means we meet them where they are in their place of need. It”s a pity that a lot of churches, if you check their financial report, all the money they receive in tithes and offerings, they are the same ones using it. Paying salaries, meeting certain costs, doing construction, and it sounds like the mission of the church is to itself. I think we have to work on many of the churches and pastors to understand they are not sent to their members, they are sent to their community’ and beyond.<\/p>\n
First it is our Jerusalem, then moving on wards. That being true, I would expect several things of a church planter. The moment you plant a church in a place; you have taken the responsibility of the people within a certain radius of your church. So, I i expect you to study that community, to know their social needs, or what challenges they are facing, ways they are doing well and are not doing well. How can your presence bring a difference in that community?<\/p>\n
Day 2<\/strong><\/p>\n When the first missionaries came to Kenya, they would go to a place, look for somebody who was willing to give them land, of course, among quick adaptors. These are people who hear the word of the Lord and follow it early. Those people were seen as people who were taking risks because neighbours feared the demonic spirits would be on their case.<\/p>\n Okay, the word they used is not demonic spirits. We are talking about angering ancestral spirits , but it is the same thing’\u0080\u00a6they were talking spirits. So, they are seen to be taking a lot of risks. I was told by my grandfather that those people who followed the mzungu like were not stable in their minds. As a way of showing how much they don”t fear the dead, they would drink water using the heads of dead people. Of course, it was false, but my grandparents just wanted to graphically show how different those locals were after they received the Lord. Their belief system, their behaviour, was totally different.<\/p>\n But then he immediately knew that these people have needs. So, in addition to the church, the missionaries would build a school. Because he knew they would need to know how to read and write so they can read the bible for themselves. Then, after some time, there would be a clinic with many single ladies who came as missionaries, playing critical role of running the clinic so they could meet the health needs of those people.<\/p>\n And because of that ‘\u0080\u00a6 looking after people”s health, education, their spiritual and religious needs, within sixty years, almost every corner where the first missionaries went, had been reached with the gospel and education. It doesn”t mean that they had all become Christians, but they now knew what Christianity was all about.<\/p>\n So, I think we need to understand that meeting people’s other needs is Paul is showing as part of the mission. When you go to a new, you will be interested in analysing the needs of the people, their financial resources and where they get their money from, so that you don”t expect them to tithe money they don”t have.<\/p>\n Day 3<\/strong><\/p>\n You will also need to learn how to help them. Some of the things the missionaries did were to organise training in agriculture and introduce new crops, which was a good thing. But in addition to that, they also taught carpentry. They had trades that they taught the new Christians.<\/p>\n So let me ask you now, as a pastor, how are you meeting the needs of the community around you? How are you discipling your church members to see those needs as needs that must be met because Christ has sent us to them? Or are you totally ignoring those needs?<\/p>\n But the first thing here is that we need to identify those needs. Number two, we need to recognise who has those needs, and number three, we need to ask ourselves how we can relieve them of their suffering. How can we help them to meet their needs?<\/p>\n Of course, there is the same danger many NGOs face. Instead of helping the people meet their needs, they impoverish them by giving them free things. So even the little farming they are doing, they actually stop farming because they are getting relief food. I don”t think that”s a superb way of dealing with the problem.<\/p>\n I think it is important that you help people to move from poverty, rather than impoverish them by giving them aid, the relief food. When you leave, they are back where they started. And that”s not a good thing at all. And we need to ask ourselves whether that is something we want to do or not. Do we want to leave people where they are because our interest is only their spiritual needs, we do not seem to care about other needs that they have or might have. So, give proper recognition to the needs in your neighbourhood. That means to know what and how the situation in the community.<\/p>\n Day 4<\/strong><\/p>\n I think the second thing is, don”t help people until you know they are in need. It can be quite insolent for you to go offering somebody something they already have. I”ve never forgotten an experience where a missionary wanted to teach church women how to bake, how to crotchet, things like that. But there is one of the members of the church who was a graduate in home economics. But ,this missionary lady, I don”t think she had a degree. It is only the things she had been taught by her mother. So, what does that mean? She expects this lecturer in home economics to sit there to be taught because the missionary is a white woman.<\/p>\n And do you know that teacher sat under her until we challenged her; why would you not offer to pair up with the missionary so that you can help other women because you know better than her. I think you don”t give help until you know that help is needed. Because, otherwise, you will end up doing things that will make people think that you are looking down on them, or that you don”t care about them. That will not be a very good thing if you are after transforming the community. You know, the general principle is, to help the needy. But only help those who truly need your help.<\/p>\n You know, in the days of the New Testament and earlier, you could not own any property as a woman. And there are many jobs you would not be expected to do. Hence widows were destitute. What that meant is that if your husband died, you had no source of income. Widowhood was equal to poverty, and that was quite an issue in any community of the time. So, you need to recognise that need.<\/p>\n Day 5<\/strong><\/p>\n So, when we talk about the need to acknowledge and honour a widow. Please understand that it is to recognise they need assistance, for you did not expect anybody in the government those days to help your widows. It is for you to see how you can help those widows. You know, you did not have a social system that says the rich should be taxed so that they actually help the poor. That wasn”t there. So, the widows then became a very vulnerable class of people.<\/p>\n And if you go through the Old Testament, they are always talking about helping the foreigner, the widows, and the orphans. It was important to understand that class. Foreigners could not own land the same way just like widows they would be needy. They were all seen as vulnerable.<\/p>\n In your own community today, you must decide who that is. But I think even now, the some widowed women may need help. But sometimes there are men who are helpless and also need help. But it is important to ask yourself, ‘\u0080\u0098this woman, what did she inherit from the husband?” Because she may have inherited enough to live on. So, don”t just assume that because somebody has lost a husband, they now must need help. You need to find out.<\/p>\n Probably, the husband looked at retirement and planned well so that in his absence, his wife would be well looked after. But number two, it may also be possible that she has adult children, and those adult children are doing well financially. So, they look after their wives and take care of their mother. And that is not in every case. Her children may be needy as well. So, check, yeah, number one is that you are a widow, number two is, do you need this help that this church is offering?<\/p>\n So, when you talk about recognising the needy or offering help, I think we are talking about whether you recognise my need, it means you are sensitive to my need.<\/p>\n And that way, you help me to sustain myself so that the need does not bring me down. So, when we say we are recognising the needy, we must seek to do something about it. It is not a good idea to say, Ooh I can see you have nothing to eat, sorry, sorry. And then you go on to eat yourself. That is not recognition. You need to do something about what you have actually recognised. You know, the principles that this passage in first Timothy chapter five is giving us is actually very relevant even today. Because we may look at the congregation in a place, and think they are okay, or you think they are needy. And whatever line we take, we need to take action. And that will be an important thing.<\/p>\n Day 6<\/strong><\/p>\n I think in almost any congregation you go to, if the pastor is doing visitation and getting to know his people, he is likely to give you stories of the kind of poverty they have had to deal with, the kind of help they have had to give.<\/p>\n And sometimes the people contacting you are not members of the church. They are just people with needs in the community and they think that the church can help them before they die. But I think you should feel disturbed by that. You should feel like that”s the reason why God has put you among those people. And you should give assistance as much as you can.<\/p>\n And you know it is a burdensome issue because the church might not have as many resources as required by the needy of the community you are operating from. It is hard to deal with this kind of situation, although you may be loving them. But sometimes you give and you don”t love them. And yet what you are requiring is both love, that will bring them to the Lord, and rescue, and therefore the relief food and the assistance.<\/p>\n However, there is another issue. People who take advantage of the church, take advantage of the Christians. In other words, they pretend to need help.<\/p>\n They are already richer than you, and come to you, you give them, and they go laugh at how foolish Christians can be. I don”t think the word of God will encourage us to allow ourselves to be taken advantage of. I don”t think it would be a good idea. We need to verify, don”t just help. Sometimes when I see a stranger and they are coming for help, I ask, have you gone to your own friends who know the truth about your need first. For them, you don”t have to convince them. For me, you must convince me you have the need. Why not start with them? Because if you are eager to help without any due diligence, you end up being conned. And the things that God has given you as a steward, you will not be a good steward if you allow yourself to be conned.<\/p>\n We all have experiences with men who call from a place with a big sad story and tell you how much they need your help, and they plead for money in the name of Christian love, and sometimes you feel guilty, and you give only to know later that you have been taken advantage of. Like Joshua case. You know, sometimes they fake it. They tell you to come and see how bad things are, but then they have disorganised their room, made it dirty, made it look terrible, so that they can win the help they are trying to get from you.<\/p>\n Can you imagine going into all that effort to get free things? That”s why we must teach people not to want free things but yet still must help the needy.<\/p>\n Day 7<\/strong><\/p>\n But they should not be enjoying being given. Otherwise, they will stop working to receive free things. And I think that”s important to ask yourself if it is proper to help a particular needy. And yet, again, to say you don”t want to be conned, or taken advantage of so you don”t help, the scripture doesn”t suggest you should do that in the name of Christ. I think you need to see yourself as responsible for helping your community.<\/p>\n When asked to describe his favourite bible verse, one needy man would give one verse or the other as a way of showing truly are Christians but helpless. But the help should not be based on becoming Christians because that”s the way you encourage people to lie that they are Christians.<\/p>\n Ever heard of people who are called the rice Christians? Rice , because when there is a famine and a Christian NGO comes with rice, all of them end up in church. And they remain in church until the relief food is no longer being given. Then after that, they go back to their religion. So, they were rice Christians who were not serious Christians. So even in our desire to help people, we need to be careful not to create something like that by saying if you are not a Christian, I will not give you food. They will become Christians, and they are not repentant; they are just trying to convince you to give them food.<\/p>\n On some occasions, when helping people in need, you may be asked to take over not the immediate problems but long-term problems. Again, you have to think of yourself. That any help you give people on areas where they can help themselves, you are demeaning their future, where they no longer know how to look after themselves. And that will not be a good thing at all.<\/p>\n So, I think you need to be careful not to be taken advantage of, but I think at the same time you need to tell yourself clearly, that God expects me to help the needy in my community. So, the big question is what Paul is really saying in this verse? Are they needy? Are they really widows? So, he is saying to help only those who really are widows.<\/p>\n And you have to look at the context of their needs for finances. But then again, we have agreed you treat them with dignity. So, Paul is introducing a crucial part of the church program. We must care for those in need. Of course, the bible says that you do so, starting with those in the household of faith. So, you cannot go helping people who are poor in the community, and you haven”t started helping those that are poor in the church. So, it is important to begin with your church but don”t end up in your church. It is important that you help others who are not in church but are in the community. Later they may choose to come to Christ because of the kind of love that you have shown them, but it should not be a condition that you should not help somebody unless they become Christians. Witness to them, that”s important. But force or manipulate them, that”s not the way to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Day 1 Paul ,after talking about how to relate with older people and how to treat them well, now moves on in this relationship chapter to talk about widows. Verse three asks the pastors to give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. And I think that is a vital thing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-meditations"],"yoast_head":"\n