Today’s post is sponsored by BJU Seminary and written by Stuart Scott, professor of biblical counseling and ACBC Fellow. BJU Seminary equips Christian leaders through an educational and ministry experience that is biblically shaped, theologically rich, historically significant, and evangelistically robust. God cares how we treat people because He Himself is gracious and kind to all. But in our individualistic society, the doctrine of “loving your neighbor as yourself” is not commonly put into practice. We often neglect others, especially a particular group of people in great need: widows. God expresses concern for widows, divorced parents, and single parents and instructs His people to care for them throughout the Bible. For example, in the Old Testament: “you shall not mistreat any widow” (Exod. 22:22); “cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the … widow” (Deut. 27:19); “plead the widow’s cause” (Isa. 1:17). In fact, widows were so frequently subject to abuse in the Old Testament that the Book of Job uses their exploitation to exemplify human iniquity. In the New Testament, Jesus Himself dealt with the topic of widows throughout the Gospels, and He even saw that His mother, probably a widow, was taken care of as He hung from the cross. Then one of the first issues the church faced was the neglect of widows’ needs (Acts 6). And the most thorough passage on the church’s care for widows, 1 Timothy 5:1–16, goes so far as to give specific instructions for specific types of widows. At the end of the day, caring … Continue reading Our Obligation to Care for Widows