Day 1

1 Timothy 5

3 Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need.

Paul, after talking about how to relate with older people and how to treat them, now moves on to this relationship chapter to talk about widows. Verse 3 says,

give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. And I think that’s a very important thing to understand.

The first thing he must talk about is proper recognition of the poor. It means some people can be poor, but because they are not recognized, they will continue to suffer. They suffer not because the Christians around them are not interested in helping them, they don’t even know they exist. And so we need as a church to identify those around us in our captive area to understand the sociological issues that are around us.

I think it’s important for us not to think that the people we are sent to are just our church members. No, we are sent to the community. The church members are the people we disciple in order to reach the community. And to reach the community, it means we meet them where they are in their place of need.

It’s a pity that for 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 administrative costs, building repair , doing construction’€¦etc. that makes it sound 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, beginning in Jerusalem, moving onwards.

So I would expect several things of a church . The moment you plant a church in a place, you have taken responsibility of the people within a certain radius of your church. So we therefore expect you to study that community, to know what are their social needs, what are the challenges they are facing, in which ways are they doing well, in which ways are they not doing well. Then say how can your presence bring a difference in that community?

Day 2

Matthew 6

1 Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven

You know, when the first missionaries came to Kenya, they would always go to a place, look for somebody willing to give them land, and then, of course, get quick adapters, they are people who hear the word and follow it early, and those people, of course, who are seen as people who are taking risks, because the demonic spirit will be on their case help the missionary know the tribe.. Okay, the word they use is not demonic spirit, they talk about ancestral spirits, but it’s the same thing. So the early believers are seen to be taking a lot of risks.

I was told by my grandfather that those people who followed the Mzungu, it’s like they were not stable in their mind. They were seen to even not fear death.As a way of showing how much they don’t fear the dead, they would drink water using the skulls of people. Of course, it may not be true, but they just wanted to graphically show how different those locals, after they received the Lord, their belief system, their behavior was. It was totally different. But then the missionary immediately knew that these people have needs.

So, in addition to the church building, the missionary would organize a school, because he knew they would need to know how to read and write. Then sometimes there’ll be a clinic with many of single ladies who came as missionaries, playing that very important role of running the clinic. That way he meets the health needs of those people. And because of looking after people’s health, looking after people’s education, looking after their spiritual and religious needs, the church reached ,within 60 years, almost every corner where the first missionaries went . It doesn’t mean they had become Christians, but they now knew what Christianity was all about.

Day 3

Matthew 6

2 ‘”So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full

So, I think it’s important for us to understand what Paul is showing us. When you go to a place, you’ll be interested in analyzing the needs of the people. You’ll also be interested in understanding their financial resources and where they get their money from, so that you don’t start expecting them to tithe money they don’t actually have. And so, you’ll also learn how to help them.

Some of the things the missionaries did was to organize training in agriculture and introduce new crops, which was a good thing for the community. But in addition to that, they also taught carpentry. They had other trades that they taught the new Christians.

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? But the first thing is, here we need to recognize those needs.

Number two, we need to recognize who has those needs. And number three, we need to ask ourselves, how can we relieve them of their suffering? How can we help them meet their needs?

Of course, there is a danger of many NGOs, instead of helping the people to meet their needs, they actually impoverish them by giving them free things. So, even the little farming they were doing, they actually stopped farming because now they are getting relief food. I don’t think that’s a very good way of dealing with the problem. I think it will be important that you help people to move from poverty, rather than impoverish them by giving them the 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 actually have or should have. So, give proper recognition. That means get to know what and how of the situation in the community.

And then, I think the next 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 I saw where a missionary wanted to teach church women how to bake, how to crochet, things like that. But as one of the members of the church was a graduate in home economics, yet this missionary lady, I don’t think she had a degree. She is only teaching 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 teacher is a white woman. And do you know that African actually did? Until we challenge that? Why would you not offer to pair-up with a missionary that you can help the other women because you know better than her?

Day 4

Matthew 6

3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

So, I think it’s important that you don’t go giving help until you know that help is actually required and is needed. Because otherwise, you end up doing things that would make people think you are looking down on them, that you don’t care about them. And that will not be a very good thing if you really are after bringing transformation in a community. You know, the general principle is help the needy, but only help first those who truly need it.

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. What that meant is that if your husband died, you had no source of income. Widowhood was instant poverty, or equal to poverty, and that was quite an issue. So, you need to understand that need is obvious.

So, when we talk about recognizing a widow,or honor a widow, please understand that you recognize that they need assistance. Because you did not expect anybody in the government in those days to help your widows. It is you to see how you can help those widows.

You know, you did not actually have a social support system that says that 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 unless they married the brother of the husband which the new testament stopped.

But if you go through the Old Testament, they’re always talking about helping the foreigner,orphan and the widow. It was very important that you understand that class. Because foreigners, in the same way, could not own land. Just like widows, they were all seen as vulnerable.

In your own community, you have to decide who is it that needs help. But I think even now, the women, may need help. But sometimes there are men who are the ones that are helpless and actually need help.

But it’s important to ask yourself, this woman, what was she left with by the husband? It is possible that she has inherited enough to actually live on. So, don’t just assume because somebody has lost a husband, they now must need help. You need to actually find out. Maybe the husband had 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 can look both after their wives and their mothers. And that again, not in every case, you can be having children, but they are also need help. So, check. Yeah, number one is she a widow. Number two is, do you actually need what this help that the church is offering?

Day 5

Acts 4:34

that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales

So, when we talk about recognizing or honoring, I think we are talking about,social evaluation. If you recognize my need, it means you’re touched by my need. And then you help me to sustain myself so that the need does not bring me down. So, when we say we recognize, we must seek to do something about it.

It’s not a very good idea to say, oh, I can see you have nothing to eat. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. And then you go to eat yourself. Doesn’t sound very christian. that’s not recognition. You need to do something about what you have seen. I can recognize.

You know, the principles that this passage in 1 Timothy chapter 5 is giving us is actually very relevant even today. Because we may look at the congregation in a place,and say I think they are okay. Or think they are very poor. And whatever line we take, we need to take action. That will be an important thing.

I think in almost any congregation you go to, if the pastor is doing visitation and getting to know his people, he’s likely to give you stories of the kind of poverty they are about to deal with and the kind of help they are about to give.

But sometimes the people contacting you for help are not members of the church. They’re just people with needs and they think that the church can help them before they die. But I think that you shouldn’t feel disturbed by that. You should feel that as the reason why God has put you among those people you need to help. And you should give assistance only as much as you can.

But you know, it’s a very difficult issue because the church may not be having as many resources as are required by the community that they are operating in. It is hard to deal with these kinds of situations, although you may actually be loving them. But sometimes you give but you don’t love them. And yet, what you are requiring is both love that you bring them to the Lord and then rescue them. Therefore the relief food or other assistance is ministry of the church.

Day 6

Psalm 9:18

But God will never forget the needy; the hope of the afflicted will never perish

However, there’s another issue to consider. People who take advantage of the church, or advantage of the helping Christians. In other words, they pretend to need help. They already knew you help and so they come and pretend to be poor. You give them and they go laughing at how foolish Christians can be.

I don’t think the word of God would encourage us to allow ourselves to be taken advantage of. I don’t think it would be a good idea. We need to verify any presented need. Don’t just help anyone. Sometimes when I see a stranger and they’re asking for help, I ask, have you gone to your own friends first who know the truth about your need ? For them, you don’t have to convince them. For me, you have to convince me you actually need. Why not start with them?

If you are eager to help without any due diligence, you end up being conned. And the things God has given you as a steward, you will not be a good steward when you allow yourself to be conned.

We all have experiences with the kind of men who call from a place with big sad story and tell you how much they need your help.They plead for money in the name of Christian love and sometimes you feel so guilty you give. Only later do you realize you have just been taken advantage of. You know, sometimes they even fake it. They tell you to come and see how bad things are. But then they have re-disorganized their room, made it dirty, made it look terrible so they can win the help they are trying to get from you.

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 still help them when in real need. But they should not be enjoying being given. Otherwise, they will stop working in order to receive free things. And I think that’s important to ask yourself before giving.

And yet, to say because you don’t want to be conned or taken advantage of, you will not help and that is unchristian as we see in this passage. The scripture doesn’t seem to suggest you should do that kind of meanness in the name of Christ. I think you need to see yourself responsible for helping your community.

Day 7

Psalm 72:12

For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help

When wanting to help a group, When one man was asked to describe his favorite Bible verse, almost always one man would give one verse or the other as a way of showing that they truly are Christians but helpless. That is not a necessary precondition.The help should not be based on becoming Christian because that’s the way you encourage people to lie that they are Christians.

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 will remain in church until the relief food is no longer being given. Then after that, they just go back to their religion. So they were rice Christians, not really serious Christians.

So even in our needing to help people, you need to be careful that you don’t create that kind of lying by saying, unless you are Christian, I will not give you food. They will become Christians but they are not really repentant. They’re just trying to convince you to give them food.

In some occasions, when helping people in need, you may be asked to actually even take over not immediate problems but long-term problems. Again, you have to think of yourself that any help you give people on areas they can help themselves, you actually are demeaning their future where they no longer know how to look after themselves and that will not be a good thing at all.

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 is Paul is raising in this verse?Ask first ‘€¦ Are they really needy? Are they really widows? So he’s saying help only those who really are widows and that you have to look at the context of their needs for finances. But then again, you have agreed you treat them with dignity. So Paul is introducing a very important part of the church. We must care for those in need.

Of course, the Bible also says elsewhere start with those in the household of faith. So you cannot go helping people that are poor in the community and you have not even helped the ones that are members of your church. So it’s important to begin with your church but don’t end up with your church. It will be important that you help others in the community who are not in church. Later they may choose to come to Christ because of the kind of love you have shown them, but it will not be a condition that you will not give somebody help unless they become Christians. Witness to them yes , you give , that’s important. But to Force them, that’s not good. That’s not the way to go.