FAMILY VALUES

1 Timothy 5: 1 – 8
How do I start a teaching about family values? Well I guess I have to define what a family is, and what our values are supposed to be.
Jesus was faced with that same issue;
Mt 12:47 Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you."
Mt 12:48 He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?"
Mt 12:49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.
Mt 12:50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."
So, that decided, let's get on with what Paul wrote to Timothy.
The letters to Timothy are really a set of instructions of how we are to live, and thereby setting up our value system.
1 Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers,
2 older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.
3 Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need.
4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.
5 The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help.
6 But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.
7 Give the people these instructions, too, so that no-one may be open to blame.
8 If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Here Paul directs his comments not only to our perspective of our immediate family, but the family that we call the church.
If we can take these lessons beyond the boundary's of our close relationships and take them to the streets, we can make a huge impact on the lives of those who do not know the Lord.
It has been said many times that we may be the only Bible that other people read, so if we can continue to show our adherence to our values we make our beliefs attractive to these other people and improve our lives as well as theirs.