Verses 3-4
"The basic thought of the word ’widow’ is that of loneliness. The word comes from an adjective meaning ’bereft’ and speaks of her resultant loneliness as having been bereft of her husband." [Note: Hiebert, First Timothy, p. 91.]
Paul distinguished three kinds of widows in the church. First, there were the bereaved who had children or grandchildren who could support them. Second, there were those who had no family to care for them, the bereft as well as bereaved. The Christian physical relatives of the former group should care for the first type (cf. Mark 7:10-12; Ephesians 6:2).
"In explanation of ’nephews’ in KJV, the Oxford English Dictionary (7:91) notes that in the seventeenth century (when KJV appeared) the term nephew was commonly used for a grandson, though that meaning is now obsolete." [Note: Earle, pp. 376-77.]
"No ’corban’ business here. No acts of ’piety’ toward God will make up for impiety towards parents. . . . Filial piety is primary unless parents interfere with duty to Christ (Luke 14:26)." [Note: Robertson, 4>584.]
The church should care for the latter group, the widows with no family to care for them, and presumably widows with non-supportive family members. The church should honor this second group of widows, the extremely dependent, rather than looking down on them.
"It is what a person is, not what he has, that is the proper gauge of honour, or of dishonour . . ." [Note: King, p. 90.]
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