属灵的解决方案 Spiritual Solutions

Title: Spiritual Solutions
Date: 10th Sept 2023
Preacher: Rev. Wong Siow Hwee

A few weeks ago, I was having tea with deacon SC when he shared with me the story of his great-grandmother. She became a widow soon after giving birth to her third son; her oldest son was about 10 years old then. It was an era in China when it was difficult for widows to survive, most people would not hire women and it was hard for a woman with children to remarry. Thankfully the church was willing to take in her and her 3 sons and provided them with daily necessities, and in return, she served in the church faithfully & wholeheartedly in whichever way she could. She also taught her 3 children to have faith and trust God in what they do. Deacon SC shared that it was because of these acts of grace and honor between the church and her family that her descendants are called to serve in church in the same spirit. I instantly remarked to SC that his great-grandmother’s story is a textbook example of how widows’ ministry might have been practiced in the early church, and got his permission to share it with you today.

When church ministries like this go well, we see the lives of those who are ministered transformed, and ministry staffs serve with joy when they see the fruits of their labor multiplied. Unfortunately, due to the sinfulness of men, this is not always the case. Ministries do often face problems; the fact that we have so many letters in the New Testament is a reminder to us that solving problems is part and parcel of running ministries from the first century till today. Today’s passage is about solving ministry problems in the church.

In our passage today, Paul dealt with two concerns. The first concern was in widows’ ministry. Like in the case of deacon SC’s great-grandmother, there was a fund to support widows in the Ephesian church. In return, these widows probably served in church in various capacities. However, there were two issues with this arrangement. The first issue was with the financial support: some people in the Ephesian church were questioning such spending. The second issue was with the serving: some of the widows who were serving in church had become problematic.

Let’s address the first issue. Accusations against providing for widows would be considered highly unusual because widows’ subsistence support is rooted in the Old Testament laws (Deuteronomy 10:17-18; 24:17-22), so by right such spending should be fully justified. But the problem is: some of the widows belong to wealthy families. So Paul rightly suggested that these widows should be taken care of by their families, whether it is their children and grandchildren out of filial piety, or by their relatives out of kinship. Church funds should be reserved for those who are truly in need. Otherwise, there would not be enough to share, and whatever is left would be quickly depleted.

As for the second issue, some of the younger widows who were funded by the church were still sexually active. But you can imagine from the perspective of outsiders, it was as if the widow’s ministry was justifying the promiscuity of these young widows with financial support. Not only that, as they also serve in church, they become a bad moral influence to others. It was likely that some of them were in cahoots with the false teachers, and participated in teaching in a position of authority. Such false teachings could be spread even further beyond the church walls if they were also involved in home visitations. Paul labeled them as “busybodies who talk nonsense”. If the above historical reconstruction is valid, then you can see how Paul’s instructions made sense. He set a minimum age limit to the recipients of widows’ ministry fund, and restricted beneficiaries to only those who had displayed fidelity to their marital vows, and had served the church members with hospitality and prayers. Widows who were young were urged to remarry to start a new family.

The second concern of Paul is on church leadership. The criteria of church leaders were addressed in previous sermons of Titus [1] and 1 Timothy [2], so today’s passage is again mainly focused on the proposed solutions from Paul to Timothy. The issue that they are addressing is that a few of the church elders may have been misled by the false teachers, or maybe one or two may have become a false teacher. Paul first proposed that those who did well be rewarded accordingly. Obviously some of them had to do double work because of those others who had stumbled. Secondly, those who are errant need to be judged, but it needs to be done in a fair and transparent manner. Thirdly, Timothy must not be too hasty in replacing them. The assessment of new leaders should still be rigorous despite a temporal shortfall.

One way of looking at all the above instructions from Paul to Timothy is to see them as administrative solutions. Certainly it is important to have proper systems to ensure good governance, whether it is to control the use of church funds, or to deal with leaders have been compromised. But if the ministry problems just needed practical solutions, then Paul could have just informed the Ephesian elders to execute these instructions accordingly. But instead, he left Timothy behind in Ephesus to handle the problems. Why? It was because the problems in the Ephesian church weren’t just administrative problems, they were also spiritual problems. And so, Paul needed Timothy to solve them as a pastor, and not just as an administrator of his instructions. Now you see why he told Timothy “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.” (4:13) He needed Timothy to confront the church regarding the quality their faith because that was the root of the problem. For spiritual problems, you need spiritual solutions.

Paul highlighted to Timothy the spiritual problems that led to the issues in widows’ ministry. Those children and grandchildren, or relatives who were not taking care of the widow(s) in their family were not putting their faith into practice. James 2: 17 faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. Similarly, young widows who spread false teachings or giving in to their sensual desires were breaking their dedication to Christ, even “following Satan” (5:15). As for the church leaders who were led astray, he labeled them as “elders who are sinning”, and he tells Timothy not to share in their sins.

As pastors, we know we need to be dealing with the spiritual problems because that is our most important role. But sometimes, it is unfortunately also the very thing we avoid doing because it is the hardest to solve. If we sense a cell leader or a musician in the worship team is spiritually running dry, we can solve it administratively by swapping out the person. But do we go further to address the spiritual issues the person is facing? As Paul reminded Timothy earlier in 1 Timothy 4: 6 If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. Let me be clear: a good minister is one who deals directly with the spiritual issue when he handles the problems in ministry.

So what do I mean by spiritual solutions? I can identify two in today’s passage.
First, Timothy must restore the household mindset of the church, using himself as an example to the congregation. In the opening verses: “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.” It seems like Paul is telling Timothy to encourage and comfort the elder with respect and reverence, instead of disciplining him. How then can we reconcile this advice with the later instruction: “20 But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning.” But if we were to examine the meaning of the verbs, we will see that to “rebuke harshly” and to “reprove” is not the same form of discipline. The word “rebuke harshly” in verse one means to attack with words, while the word “reprove” in verse 20 means to expose as guilty. So the purpose of disciplining an elder is about making his errors known, but it is not to attack him, but to restore him instead. Disciplining is always painful, but if you do it with upmost sincerity and genuine care for the person, giving him the respect and dignity as you would treat your own father, I would like to believe that the love of the person will ultimately restore all brokenness.

It is the same household mindset in dealing with the widows’ ministry problems. Timothy would preserve the welfare of the older widows like his own mother, and ensure that the younger widows remarry well like his own sisters. If we perceive Paul’s instructions as merely administrative solutions, then a young widow like deacon SC’s great-grandmother would be cut of the widows’ fund because of the age restriction. But if Paul’s instructions also had a spiritual dimension, I would like to believe that Timothy would have applied the instructions flexibly to include young widows who cannot remarry but can prove to be a life-long faithful servant to Christ. They are sisters-in-Christ to Timothy, not just a demographic or statistic of the church population.

The second advice is embedded in Paul’s concern for Timothy in verse 23 Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses. The key to understand this advice is to see it in light of the debate of abstinence as a form of godliness. Some of the false teachers promote staying away from fleshly pleasures like marriage or intoxicating food to show how godly they are. Timothy may disagree with this theology, but nonetheless may still have been pressured to abstain from wine, at an expense to his health, in order to be free from such needless accusations. It was common to use wine to treat digestive ailments in ancient times. So I think Paul was subtly freeing Timothy from even such concerns.

The spiritual solution needed here is true godliness. Allow me to repeat what Pastor Enoch has suggested in term of what is true godliness. [3] Godliness is about upholding the truth with your conduct, such as forgiveness; to journey with the ones who have stumbled; and to bear his burden out of God’s love. In light of the concerns of widows’ ministry and church leadership, I would add on to say that true godliness therefore means that Timothy must bear the sins of the sinning widows and elders not on moral high grounds, but as their pastor. I imagine that this would involve a lot of private counseling and teaching to help them from their fall.

1 Timothy is Paul’s advice to Timothy about his pastoral work in Ephesus. You might be wondering what this has to do with you since you are not a pastor. I believe that even though you might not be dealing with ministry problems as a pastor, you also deal with them in your own ways as a church member. It is common to gossip about church problems, and to think that we can be even more godly than the people who are serving. Allow me to state why the spiritual solutions apply to you as church members as well. Paul’s letter is not just good advice to Timothy, but also a timely reminder to us to have a household mindset and to pursue true godliness. Those who are serving are our family in Christ. Instead of gossips, we can withhold judgment until proven guilty. As Paul said, 24 The sins of some are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. 25 In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not obvious cannot remain hidden forever. Instead of comparisons, with a household mindset, we can see that we share the vision and burden as one family. With true godliness, we hold one another’s spirituality accountable till time will count us as worthy of our calling.

[1]https://www.jubilee.org.sg/sermons/?sermon_id=1031
[2]https://www.jubilee.org.sg/sermons/?sermon_id=1267
[3]https://www.jubilee.org.sg/sermons/?sermon_id=1269

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