Specialized Ministry — March 2007

By Betty Rodgers, Fort Oglethorpe, GA  

(Betty is an ordained minister in the Church of God, and is on staff at the East Lake Church of God in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as administrative coordinator. She founded the newsletter,

Plead for the Widow , as a source of encouragement, information, and support for widows.)

Widow’s Ministry . . . History and Calling!  

“It was in the mud and slime of a peat bog, in a Kemigawa farmyard twenty-five miles southeast of Tokyo, that a team of workmen found what they were not looking for . . . and alive!” Paul Harvey then adds his famous line . . . “and that brings us to the rest of the story.” In his book More of Paul Harvey’s the Rest of the Story by Paul Aurandt, the story is told of a flower seed that had lain dormant since Jesus’ time.

The workmen had been digging in a peat deposit not far from Tokyo. They found something important. That’s how a team of archaeologists heard it; that’s why they rushed to the scene. Eighteen feet down, cradled in the fossilized remains of a canoe, a two-thousand-year-old ungerminated, dormant, seemingly lifeless seed was carefully dug up and filmed by cameramen.

After four days, a sprout; after fourteen months, a delicate, pink lotus flower grew. The seed that went to sleep when Jesus rose from the dead . . . was awake!

Widows Ministry has also lain dormant for hundreds of years. Turning the pages of God’s Holy Book, we can see the history of a ministry that is dear to His heart. The fact that God championed their cause time after time in Scripture, tells us that He cares. God is indeed concerned about widows as a group, and He cares for the individual widow. He has a plan for their protection and provision.

The Old Testament singles widows out and calls for their protection. God promises to respond if a widow cries out to Him (Exodus 22:22-24); He will punish those who harm her (Psalm 68:5).

Job defends his claim to be a good man partly on the basis of his favorable treatment of widows (Job29:13). Old Testament law also gave specific provision for meeting the needs of the widow through food stored in each community as Israel’s third-year tithes. (Deuteronomy 24:19-21; 26:12, 13). In early times widows wore a distinctive garb, so others would know to give them the aid they needed.

Jesus continues the idea of special concern for the widows (James 1:27) and of judgment upon those who oppress widows (Mark 12:40). Jesus criticized some of the Pharisees who opposed Him for making a show of their piety while they devoured widows’ houses.

James, writing in that same early period, restates the Old Testament idea by identifying true and undefiled religion. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” ( James 1:2).

Adam Clarke’s Commentary addresses the words . . . “To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.” “Works of charity and mercy are the proper fruits of religion; and none are more especially the objects of charity and mercy than the orphans and widows. False religion may perform acts of mercy and charity; but its motives not being pure, and its principle being defiled, the flesh, self, and hypocrisy, spot the man, and spot his acts. True religion does not merely give something for the relief of the distressed, but it visits them, it takes the oversight of them, it takes them under its care; so episkeptesyai (Gr. Visit) means. It goes to their houses, and speaks to their hearts; it relieves their wants, sympathizes with them in their distresses, instructs them in Divine things and recommends them to God. And all this it does for the Lord’s sake. This is the religion of Christ. The religion that does not prove itself by works of charity and mercy is not of God.”

The young New Testament church formed a new system of care in Acts 6 . . . the first pastor’s council was created . . . just to take care of the widows needs. This chapter introduced a new care ministry.

Paul’s later epistles show a corps of widows who served as active Christian workers (1 Timothy 5:3-16; Titus 2:3-5). Those widows over 60, who had been the wife of only one man, who had a reputation for good works along with a reputation for faith and effectiveness in their own home, and without family to aid them, were enlisted in this widows’ corps, supported by the church. They gave their time to help and to train younger Christian women to live the faith in their homes.

This order was abolished by the synod of Laodicea, A.D. 364. From that time, except for individuals here and there, the organized work of widows’ ministry lay dormant just like the lotus seed buried beneath layers of mud and slime.

My husband, Jimmy, was one of those individuals. In our church there were many lovely elderly women, widows indeed! He would donate his time and materials to assist in the upkeep of their homes and autos. Looking back approximately 20 to 25 years, I remember those times so well. Today, he must be receiving special crowns for ministering to widows for God. ( Matthew 25:40 : And the King shall answer and say unto them, verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.)

I was personally introduced to widows’ ministry October 24, 1994, when I watched Jimmy take his last breath. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I asked the question, “How can this be?” All the plans and dreams that he and I had made lay shattered in a casket that was lowered beneath the soil.

Yet, God, in His infinite wisdom and care propelled me into a time of healing and restoration. As I was able to allow Him, He used His Word to nurture and heal my heart and bring forth a new beginning. The purpose and dreams that I thought were lost to me began to grow, much like the unearthed lotus seed in Japan.

Scriptures that I had not noticed before popped off the page as I read God’s Holy Word. A few months into the grieving process, the last four words of Isaiah 1:17 “. . . plead for the widow” held my attention with a strong directive to minister. “God, how can I plead for widows . . . I am hurting” was my cry.

Not only was I receiving the call to minister to widows, but, others around the world were receiving a similar call. In the 1990s the church of God was also heeding this firm directive. Our church has seen the seed of widows’ ministry begin to germinate. The first ever of its kind, the Iris B. Vest Widows Ministry Center was built on the campus of the Smoky Mountain Children’s Home. In 2003 another first, a special day for widows was instituted in the Church of God. The first Sunday in summer is Honoring Widows Day ( 1 Timothy 5:3). Church of God state offices, individual churches and multitudes of individuals have put their hand to the shovel and moved the centuries of mud that covered organized widows’ ministry. This is wonderful and I praise God for the work that is being done, however, it is only the beginning.

Jesus gives us instructions in Luke 19:13. “. . . Occupy till I come.” We are to work while it is day. ( John 9:4: I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.)

Jesus is soon to return; we must occupy or work until He comes. It is my firm belief that a church, organization, business or individual that fulfills the call to widows’ ministry will be mightily blessed of the Lord. It is when we all work together that widows’ ministry can grow from the beginning seed to a full blossom of beauty. If you listen closely to the heart of

God . . . you will hear these words, “take care of the widows and the fatherless.”

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end ( Jeremiah 29:11).  

God has a plan . . . we are to work His plan!!!  

Isaiah 1:17: “. . . plead for the widow.”

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