Widows and Orphans

(Biblical truth doesn't change...society changes... we just need to find new and different ways to apply the truth!)


The Bible talks many times about widows and orphans and how their families and God’s people ought to look after and care for them. Life expectancy was low and Israel was often at war; men died young as a matter of course. In the context of Bible times, their plight would be extreme. Without the right to own property or in many cases the means to earn a living, the call for care was practical as well as spiritual.

Life expectancies are much longer now and we are not so often at war. Women are no longer treated as second class and children receive an education courtesy of the local taxpayers. I can’t think of any orphans that I actually know and only a few widows. So does the exhortation of James 1:7 to “look after orphans and widows in their distress” still apply?

Consider this. Let’s shift our paradigm just slightly and think of the all the single parents we know, especially women who have been left behind for a variety of reasons. Think also of all the children who don’t have a father in the home, and perhaps never knew their father at all. Suddenly, we see a whole new group of modern “widows and orphans” many of whom desperately need help; many of whom live right next door.

So follow James and do what you can. Make a meal. Cut the grass. Become a mentor to a teenager you know. Pray for them. Let them know you care.


Thanks for all you do.

Brian