05/13/2026
TENNESSEE DAY OF SPECIAL PRAYER FOR WIDOWS
In 2005 a resolution was passed by the Tennessee legislature to designate May 15 of each year as a special day of prayer. At the time this was up for a vote, there was a state senator that challenged it in order to make certain that there was not a conflict between church and state. The state Attorney General, in "Opinion No. 05-063" ruled that it was not.
In I Timothy 5:8 Paul tells us that "Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."
In that this warning, presented in the context of caring for widows, has been written to both individuals as well as corporate bodies of believers, meaning that to deny care to family, which includes all widows related as family, would equally apply to both.
There are a number of areas that Christians have come to believe should be the greatest cause of concern for us, but caring for widows has never been recognized as one of them. Yet, according to verse I Timothy 5 it should be, perhaps, one of, if not our greatest, concern.
This is confirmed by James 1:27 "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans [and] widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
In the original Greek text the word, "and" does not appear and was added centuries later. By adding it James 1:27 is turned into a list that tells us that it is both "visiting widows and fatherless in their distress and keeping ourselves unstained by the world that God considers to be "pure and undefiled" religion. Of special note is that the Greek word for "religion" used in this passage actually means "worship".
When the word "and" is removed, though, this passage is no longer a list and now tells us that visiting the widows and the fatherless in their distress keeps us from being stained by the world. One of the meanings of the word "keep" is "unmarried," so literally "to keep us from living in an adulterous relationship with the world." Which is exactly what I Timothy 5:8 is essentially stating.
Paul tells the Corinthians in II Cor. 11:1-2 "I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him." There is no reason to believe that Paul is inferring that we can lose our salvation, but is telling us instead that being saved does not insure that we remain "pure as a virgin." And if true, then how are we to determine, based on scripture, what our actual condition as Christ's bride might actually be rather than what we only assume it to be.
Once we realize the actual meaning of James 1:27 when the word "and" is removed, it is then possible to understand the correlation between these two passages along with I Timothy 8:5.
In that our own conditions apart from Christ is one for being spiritually widowed and fatherless, it would stand to reason why the physically widowed and the fatherless remain such a priority for us with God. When we accept Jesus' proposal of marriage, he instantly becomes our bridegroom/husband and God becomes our heavenly father. So to pass by those who most represent, not only our conditions apart from Jesus, but also what Jesus has done on our behalf, says to God that we have forgotten what he has done on our behalf.
As long as the widows and the fatherless remain at the fringes of our faith and lives we are only deceiving ourselves if we believe that we are the pure and undefiled bride that God desires for us to be. Which is almost literally what James tells us in 1:26 "Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless."
In other words, if our actions/worship does not mirror what we claim with our tongues our faith/worship is worthless; "Faith without works/worship is death as is works/worship without faith is death.
