How should a Widow be treated?
Widows are to be treated with honour and compassion and offered protection so that no one takes advantage of them. God has a plan for widows; we see it in Proverb 15:25. God would tear down the house of the wicked, self-righteous, and overconfident, but he would keep watch and defend the helpless widow. And not only the widow but the fatherless children as well.
In Ruth’s 1st chapter, we see Ruth’s love and care for her mother-in-law.
The opening of the Book of Ruth begins with sorrow. When a famine devastated Bethlehem, Naomi and her husband sojourned in Moab, and their two sons took Moabite wives named Ruth and Orpah. But after a decade, the women were left alone in the world when their husbands passed away.
Naomi, hearing about the Lord’s faithfulness to his people in the land of Judah, decided to return there. Both Ruth and Orpah insisted on going with her, but she told them to return to their own mothers instead. Hearing this, Orpah kissed Naomi and left, but Ruth “clung to her,” refusing to leave her side.
The story of Ruth teaches us that hardships are opportunities to turn to God in faith. God can take a hopeless situation and turn it into something glorious.
According to 1 Timothy 5:3-8, give proper recognition to those widows who are truly in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to practice their religion by caring for their own family and thus repay their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. The widow who is genuinely in need and is left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and ask God for help. But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. Give these instructions to the people so that no one may be held accountable. Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
God honours widows and treats them with compassion; believers should do the same: “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17).
