Making the list

1 Timothy 5:1-21

First, did widows take some kind of pledge to be faithful to Christ alone after the death of their husband (sort of like being a nun)? Basically, Paul tells Timothy to not put young widows on a list of people needing support from the church because they will eventually get married (their sensual desires will overcome their dedication to Christ). It seems like widows had some sort of special status in the ancient church or ancient culture. Today, I don’t think we would base aid on age but on to what extent they needed it. I can think of several “widows” (made so by death of or abandonment by a husband) who need assistance. The church needs to do a better job of helping those people. I don’t think we should hire a pastor (or director if it is a woman – note the sarcasm!) of helping widows. I think that the church (the community of saints, the body of Christ, not the institution) should take on the responsibility of helping widows (isn't that part of the religion that God approves of - James 2). I think that it should be a function of small groups and of people. Maybe, in a church our size, we need to keep a list like Paul told Timothy to do but I am resistant to institutionalizing this.
Whatever the case, we (the church) need to be better at looking out for the marginalized in our church and our community because a) we need to learn from them. As we seek to be Jesus to them we will find them to become Jesus to us (see Matthew 25) and b) that is where Jesus would be and as his body or ambassadors we should have the same concerns, priorities and ministry as Jesus would if he were here in our community in this time.
In all of this, we must not play favourites. We must not minister to the attractive, the smart, the cool to the exclusion of the others. We must not minister to the others to the exclusion of the attractive, the smart and the cool. We must not minister just in Africa but also in Brocket.