Overview
What do Boaz, Lazarus, Stephen, Philip the Evangelist, and Dorcas all have in common? Each of them cared for widows. This teaching traces the responsibility of caring for widows across Scripture, from Deuteronomy’s command to execute justice for the widow and the fatherless, through Boaz’s redemption of Ruth and Naomi, Jesus entrusting his mother Mary to Lazarus from the cross, the appointment of Stephen and Philip to oversee care for the widows in Jerusalem, and Dorcas’s ministry to the widows of Joppa. It closes with a personal, first-person account of caring for a mother-in-law for over two decades, and the reminder that widow’s care runs both directions: the widow blesses the family caring for her just as much as she is blessed by them.
Transcript
What Boaz, Lazarus, Stephen, Philip, and Dorcas Have in Common
Boaz, Lazarus, Stephen, Philip the Evangelist, and Dorcas all cared for widows. As a kinsman-redeemer, Boaz redeemed two widows, the elder widow Naomi and the younger widow Ruth. Lazarus took on the responsibility to care for Mary when the dying Christ on the cross entrusted her to him. Stephen and Philip were part of the seven given the duty to oversee the daily distribution to the widows entrusted to the care of the church at Jerusalem. And Dorcas ministered to the widows in Joppa.
Caring for widows is a big deal in God’s heart. This responsibility was first set forth in Deuteronomy, where Israel was taught to love God and love their neighbor. Deuteronomy 10:18 (ESV) says, He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. This is an example of the figure synecdoche, where a part is put for the whole: widows, the fatherless, and the sojourner stand for the whole class of the afflicted, all those who’ve lost a spouse, all orphans, and all who are without a place to call home or people to call family.
What is a widow? The Hebrew term indicates being unable to speak. A widow is someone who has lost an advocate in society. She may have had a husband or a child, but now finds herself alone and struggling to find her new place, someone who could use a boost, some TLC, and quite possibly some financial help as well.
Boaz Redeems Naomi and Ruth
In the culture of the Bible, God made provision for young widows to remarry and raise a family through the practice of the kinsman-redeemer. Deuteronomy 25:5-6 lays out the responsibility: if brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and the first son she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.
Boaz became the kinsman-redeemer for the young Ruth. Ruth 4:10, 13 records it: Also Ruth, the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place. So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. By deciding to redeem Ruth, Boaz also took responsibility for the care of the older widow in the family, her mother-in-law Naomi, his blood relative.
Ruth 4:14-16 records what the women said to Naomi: Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel. He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age. For your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him. Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. Naomi was clearly not just some sidekick in this endeavor, she had the privilege of a pivotal role in the nurture and development of Ruth and Boaz’s son Obed, who grew up to become the grandfather of David. God cares for widows at any age, young or old.
Jesus Entrusts Mary’s Care to Lazarus
No one ever loved and cared for his mother more than the Lord Jesus Christ loved Mary. Yet the nature of his duty to redeem mankind put a certain distance in their relationship that no ordinary mother and son would have to navigate. He would care for her in her widowhood, not by staying alive on earth to take responsibility for her, but by becoming her Lord and Savior following her new birth on the day of Pentecost. As the eldest in his family, Jesus Christ was responsible for the care of his widowed mother, and the exchange on the cross between the Lord and the disciple whom he loved, making sure this would be taken care of after his departure, is most poignant.
John 19:26-27 records it: When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home. Lazarus is the only man in the Gospels of whom it is explicitly stated that Jesus loved him. John 11:5 says, Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. For this reason, Lazarus must be the disciple whom Jesus loved, the son mentioned in John 19:26-27.
Jesus drives the point home by telling Mary, Behold your son, and telling Lazarus, Behold your mother. He calls Mary woman, a term of respect rather than mother, helping both Lazarus and Mary come to grips with the fact that he would have to take on the role of son to her from now on. But Jesus had four brothers, James, Judas, Simon, and Joseph, and at least three sisters. Why did he not entrust his mother to one of them? Perhaps because they had not yet believed. We know from Acts 1 that Mary and the Lord’s brothers were gathered with the disciples before Pentecost, but we cannot know for sure whether Jesus’s siblings believed during the gospel period; we do know from 1 Corinthians 15 that it was only after the resurrection that Jesus appeared to his brother James in his new body, surely a turning point for all his siblings.
In any case, it was surely revelation that Lazarus was the man to care for Mary after Jesus’s death on the cross, and it would have been a blessing for Mary to be with him for a number of reasons. As the disciple whom Jesus loved, Lazarus was undoubtedly a man of great love and compassion himself. His sisters, Mary and Martha, were also wonderful disciples much loved of the Lord, and could be daytime female companions of his mother. In the days before the resurrection, Lazarus stood as living proof to Mary that God raises the dead, and Lazarus and his sisters lived in Bethany, the very spot from which Christ would ascend some fifty days later. Jesus Christ did his utmost for God’s highest with regard to his mother’s care after his approaching death.
Stephen, Philip, and the Widowed Saints at Jerusalem
What triggered the commissioning of the seven in Acts 6, the first such named group in the church since the calling of the twelve? It was the care of the widows. Acts 6:1-3 records: Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.
Notice who got the job: seven men. That’s not to say women had no involvement, but as in the other instances we’ve seen, the men needed to be at the forefront of taking care of the widows, since what the widows had lost, after all, was their men. The men tasked with the job are described as of good repute, verse 3, full of the spirit and of wisdom, verse 3, and full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, verse 5. Slackers need not apply; only the best for God’s widows. The result, in Acts 6:7: the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
Dorcas and the Widows of Joppa
Like Stephen and Philip, Dorcas was a Greek-speaking Judean, the first named female Grecian mentioned in the New Testament, and she had an outsized impact because of the enormity of her great big, wonderful heart. Acts 9 records: Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room.
Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men urging him, please come to us without delay. So Peter rose and went with them, and when he arrived they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. Peter put them all outside, knelt down and prayed, and turning to the body he said, Tabitha, arise. She opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up, and he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive, and it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.
Was Dorcas herself a widow? Scripture does not tell us, but it is indisputable that she was greatly loved by the widows with whom she kept company, and for whom she was a great example, caring for the widowed of her day.
A Personal Story: Caring for Mom for Over Twenty Years
It would be impossible to share all that has transpired since first deciding to invite mom, a wife’s mother, to stay with us, but a few personal experiences give a window into what it’s like to share a roof and share hearts with a believing parent over many years. When her father fell asleep in 1993, there was concern about mom living on her own halfway around the world in Malaysia, with no siblings there to care for her, her closest relatives being brothers and sisters scattered around the world in various countries.
God put it on my heart to make a decision: I really think we need to get your mom to come and live with us. We were both agreed, and after convincing mom that we really wanted her, freeing her to come on a visit first and see how things went, it took three years for all the paperwork to go through with Immigration and Naturalization. Finally, in 1996, we welcomed mom into our home along with our nine-year-old and twelve-year-old daughters. It has since proved to be one of the most momentous decisions of our lives. There were no conditions when we extended the invitation to mom to stay with us. We didn’t expect her to become actively involved in our fellowship since it wasn’t a condition of sharing our home; we actively discouraged her from doing so for the first few months, until it became evident that was her true desire.
When our daughters grew up and left home, mom wondered if she had perhaps fulfilled her purpose living with us. We assured her that wasn’t the case, that the reason she was here was simply because she was our family, because she was our mom. We’ve now spent more of our married life sharing a home with mom than the years before that, and we are by far the richer for it.
Benefits of Caring for a Widow in Your Home
Here are a few of the benefits of having mom live with us. The impact of her prayers on our family and fellowship, illustrated by one incident: while working out in the yard, mom prayed simply, God, just give Tom what he needs. A neighbor who had always refused to remove a row of twelve fifty-foot Leland cypress trees, one of which was leaning toward the house, inexplicably began agreeing to take out first three, then six, then all twelve, plus two more in his own backyard. The men who cut them down and removed the stumps finished the job two weeks before a hurricane came through the area.
Another incident involved healing. Mom fell and broke her hip visiting a neighbor across the road, and began sleeping downstairs in the living room since her bedroom was upstairs. A friend who visited and ministered to her told her, you’re going to get better progressively day by day. Doctors had said it would be three to six months before she could negotiate the stairs again; she was going up the stairs within three weeks, a tremendous blessing from her believing for a healthy body and sound mind. She’s now 92, having already outlived her own parents by three decades and some of her seven siblings by half a century.
The full list of benefits: the impact of her prayers on the family and fellowship; the learning and exposure for the kids growing up sharing a home together; bonding with her grandkids and great-grandkids; her witness in the neighborhood, telling everybody about the word and about fellowship; her believing for a healthy body and sound mind; her unreserved giving from a small reserve; her attitude of thankfulness for the word; her daily contributions where she’s able, sweeping, cooking, sewing, unofficially serving as everybody’s grandma to anyone in the fellowship without a grandparent figure nearby; her connecting the family to the wider family around the world and to family history; her patience, taking time to live at a slower pace and to just stop and realize not everything has to get done right away; the value of conversation and of speaking the word to each other; her example of simplicity, not needing the latest in material things, and being very frugal; her forgiveness in the day-to-day affairs of life together, always loving and forgiving through the small irritations that come up; and, now being retired, having her companionship during the day even while a spouse is still working.
Key Takeaways
- Boaz, Lazarus, Stephen, Philip, and Dorcas all cared for widows in Scripture, and their examples together show what it takes to wholeheartedly care for widows.
- Deuteronomy 10:18 sets the responsibility to care for widows, the fatherless, and the sojourner, together representing the whole class of the afflicted.
- Boaz, as kinsman-redeemer, cared for both the younger widow Ruth and the elder widow Naomi, showing that God cares for widows at any age.
- Jesus entrusted the care of his widowed mother Mary to Lazarus from the cross, choosing him over his own believing brothers, in one of the most poignant provisions in Scripture.
- The care of widows was significant enough to trigger the first commissioning of leaders in the early church, the seven of Acts 6, held to a high standard of spirit, wisdom, and faith.
- Widow’s care is a two-way street: the widow blesses the family caring for her, through prayer, wisdom, patience, and example, just as much as she is blessed in return.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who in Scripture cared for widows?
Boaz, as a kinsman-redeemer, redeemed two widows, the elder widow Naomi and the younger widow Ruth. Lazarus took on the responsibility to care for Mary when the dying Christ on the cross entrusted her to him. Stephen and Philip were part of the seven given the duty to oversee the daily distribution to the widows entrusted to the care of the church at Jerusalem, and Dorcas ministered to the widows in Joppa.
Why did Jesus entrust his mother Mary to Lazarus instead of one of his own brothers?
Perhaps because they had not yet believed. We know from 1 Corinthians 15 that it was only after the resurrection that Jesus appeared to his brother James in his new body, surely a turning point for all his siblings, but we cannot know for sure whether Jesus’s siblings believed during the gospel period itself.
Why was the care of widows important enough to trigger the appointment of the seven in Acts 6?
A complaint arose because widows were being neglected in the daily distribution, and the twelve summoned the disciples and said it was not right that they should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, were appointed to this duty, and the result was that the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.
Scripture References
Deuteronomy 10:18; Deuteronomy 25:5-6; Ruth 4:10, 13-16; John 19:26-27; John 11:5; Acts 1; 1 Corinthians 15; Acts 6:1-3, 6:7; Acts 9
