16If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her assist them; let the church not be burdened, so that it can assist those who are real widows.
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “widow” in English is translated in West Kewa as ona wasa or “woman shadow” (source: Karl J. Franklin in Notes on Translation 70/1978, pp. 13ff.) and in Newari as “husband already died ones” or “ones who have no husband” (source: Newari Back Translation).
The etymological meaning of the Hebrewalmanah (אַלְמָנָה) is likely “pain, ache,” the Greekchéra (χήρα) is likely “to leave behind,” “abandon,” and the Englishwidow (as well as related terms in languages such as Dutch, German, Sanskrit, Welsh, or Persian) is “to separate,” “divide” (source: Wiktionary).
The Greek that is often translated as “church” in English is translated into Avaric as imanl’urazul ahlu: “the community of believers” or “the believing people.”
Magomed-Kamil Gimbatov and Yakov Testelets (in The Bible Translator 1996, p. 434ff. ) talk about the genesis of this term (click or tap here to read more):
“The word ‘Church’ presents particular difficulties, as we might expect when we think that even many Christians do not understand it correctly. When people today say ‘church,’ they often mean a particular building, or an organization consisting chiefly of clergy (priests and monks). It is even harder to find a word or combination of words which adequately translates the meaning for people unfamiliar with Christianity. Surprisingly, the Greek word ekklesia, indicating in the classical language ‘an assembly of the people,’ ‘a gathering of citizens,’ has come into Avar and other Dagestani languages in the form kilisa. This, like the word qanch (‘cross’), is an ancient borrowing, presumably from the time before the arrival of Islam, when Dagestan came under the influence of neighboring Christian states. In modern usage, however, this word indicates a place of Christian worship. Thus it is completely inappropriate as a translation of its New Testament ancestor ekklesia.
“We were obliged to look at various words which are closer to the meaning of the Greek. Some of these words are dandel’i (‘meeting’), danderussin (‘assembly’), the Arabic-derived mazhlis (‘meeting, conference’), zhama’at (‘society, community’), ahlu (‘race, people, family, group of people united by a common goal or interest’, as in the Arabic phrase ahlu-l-kitab ‘people of the Book’ or ‘people of the Scriptures’), which describes both Jews and Christians, and ummat (‘people, tribe’). In Islamic theology the phrase ‘Mohammed’s ummat’ means the universal community of Muslims, the Muslim world, in the same way as the Christian world is known as ‘Isa’s ummat.’ None of these descriptions on their own, without explanation, can be used to translate the word ‘Church’ in the New Testament. Thus, after long consideration, we adopted the phrase imanl’urazul ahlu, meaning ‘the community of believers,’ ‘the believing people,’ This translation corresponds closely to New Testament teaching about the Church.
“It is interesting that the same word ahlu with the meaning ‘tribe, community’ has been used by translators for different reasons in the introduction to the Gospel of Luke in order to translate the expression in the original Greek pepleroforemenon en hemin pragmaton (πεπληροφορημένων ἐν ἡμῖν πραγμάτων), which the Russian Synodal translation renders ‘about the events well-known amongst us’ (Luke 1:1). The expression ‘amongst us’ cannot be translated literally into Avar, but has to be rendered ‘among our people’; and here the same term was used as for the word ‘church’, literally ‘among our tribe, community (ahlu).'”
In Kamo “church” is fang-balla (“owners of writing-people”) when referring to the church community and “house of writing-people” when referring to a church building. David Frank explains: “In Kamo culture, Christianity was associated with writing, so Christianity is called balla, which they say means ‘people who write.’ Christianity is balla, and Christians are called fang-balla, which means ‘owners of Christianity.’ That is the term that is used for the church, in the sense of people, rather than a building. In Philemon 1:1b-2a, Paul says he is writing ‘To our friend and fellow worker Philemon, and to the church (fang-balla ‘owners of Christianity) that meet in your house.’ The word fang “owner’ is very productive in the Kamo language. A disciple is an ‘owner of learning,’ an apostle is an ‘owner of sending,’ a believer is an ‘owner of truth,’ a hypocrite is an ‘owner of seeing eyes.’ The expression ‘house of writing-people’ is used in Matthew 16:18, which reads in Kamo, ‘And so I tell you Peter, you are a rock, and on top of this rock foundation I will build my house of writing-people, and never even death will not be able to overcome it.” (See also Peter – rock)
In Bacama there also is a differentiation between the building (vɨnə hiutə: “house of prayer”) and the community (ji-kottə: “followers”) (source: David Frank in this blog post ).
In 16th-century Classical Nahuatl, a transliteration from Spanish (Santa Yglesia or Santa Iglesia) is typically used rather than a translation, making the concept take on a personified meaning. Ottman (p. 169) explains: “The church building, or more precisely the church complex with its associated patio, has a Nahuatl name in common usage — generally teopan, something like ‘god-place,’ in contradistinction to teocalli, ‘god-house,’ applied to a prehispanic temple — but the abstract sense is always Santa Iglesia, a Spanish proper name like ‘Dios’ or ‘Santa María’, and like ‘Santa María’ often called ‘our mother.’ As a personified ‘mother,’ in the European tradition as well as in Nahuatl, She instructs Her children or chastises them; as Bride of Christ, She both longs for Her heavenly rest and bears witness to it, in the ‘always-already’ of eschatological time; as successor to the Synagogue, the blindfolded, broken-sceptred elder sister who accompanies Her in painting and sculpture, She represents the triumphant rule of truth. ‘The Church’ can mean the clerical hierarchy; it can also, or simultaneously, mean the assembly of the faithful. It dispenses grace to its members, living and dead, yet it is also enriched by them, living and dead, existing not only on earth but in purgatory and in heaven.”
In Lisu the building (“church”) is called “house of prayer” (source: Arrington 2020, p. 196) whereas in Highland Totonac the community is referred as “those who gather together” (source: Hermann Aschmann in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 171ff. ), in Huehuetla Tepehua as “those who gather together who have confidence in Christ” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), in Uma as “Christian people” (source: Uma Back Translation), in Kankanaey as “the congregation of God’s people” (source: Kankanaey Back Translation), and in Tagbanwa as “you whom God separated-out as his people because of your being-united/tied-together with Jesus Christ” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation).
In American Sign Language, “church” (as in the community of believers) is made up of the combination of the signs for “Jesus-into-heart” (signifying a believer), followed by the sign for “group.” (Source: Ruth Anna Spooner, Ron Lawer)
“Church” in American Sign Language, source: Deaf Harbor
While British Sign Language also uses a sign that focuses on a group of people believing in Jesus (see here ), another sign that it uses combines the signs for “ringing the (church) bells” and a “group of people.” (Source: Anna Smith)
“Church” in British Sign Language (source: Christian BSL, used with permission)
Following are a number of back-translations of 1 Timothy 5:16:
Uma: “If there are Kristen people, and they have one of their family who is a widow, they are the ones who should take care of her. It is not right [lit., It is not the way] that all our one-faith relatives must take care of that widow. For our one-faith relatives must take care of widows who are really widows, whom no one takes care of.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Therefore as I said, if there is a woman there trusting in Isa and has a relative who is a widow, she should be the one to take-care-of the widow not the others who trust Isa, so that they also can-take-care-of the widows who do not have relatives.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “If there is a woman believer who has relatives who are widow women, she must take care of them. She must not expect other believers to be the ones to take care of them, so that the believers might not be troubled in taking care of the other widow women who have no one to depend on.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “The last-thing I will say concerning the widows, if there is a woman who believes who has relatives who are widows, she should be the one to take-care-of them so that the congregation of believers will not have-a-hard-time in order that the congregation will be able to take-care of the widows who have no relatives.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “It’s necessary that the women believers take care of any relatives of theirs who are widows, so that they won’t be made a bother/disturbance to the believers who are her follow-group-members. Isn’t is so that if it’s like that, the believers can help well those widows who have no-one they can rely on because they’re all alone.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “Concerning if there be a man or a woman who is a believer and if some relative is widowed, that one should care for her, giving what she needs. I don’t want that all of the believers provide for her expenses. Because the believers should provide for the widows who do not have anyone to care for their needs.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
Translations of the Greek pistis and its various forms that are typically translated as “faith” in English (itself deriving from Latin “fides,” meaning “trust, faith, confidence, reliance, credence”) and “believe” (from Old English belyfan: “to have faith or confidence in a person”) cover a wide range of approaches.
Bratcher and Nida say this (1961, p. 38) (click or tap here to read more):
“Since belief or faith is so essentially an intimate psychological experience, it is not strange that so many terms denoting faith should be highly figurative and represent an almost unlimited range of emotional ‘centers’ and descriptions of relationships, e.g. ‘steadfast his heart’ (Chol), ‘to arrive on the inside’ (Chicahuaxtla Triqui), ‘to conform with the heart’ (Uab Meto), ‘to join the word to the body’ (Uduk), ‘to hear in the insides’ (or ‘to hear within one’s self and not let go’ — Nida 1952) (Laka), ‘to make the mind big for something’ (Sapo), ‘to make the heart straight about’ (Mitla Zapotec), ‘to cause a word to enter the insides’ (Lacandon), ‘to leave one’s heart with’ (Baniwa), ‘to catch in the mind’ (Ngäbere), ‘that which one leans on’ (Vai), ‘to be strong on’ (Shipibo-Conibo), ‘to have no doubts’ (San Blas Kuna), ‘to hear and take into the insides’ (Kare), ‘to accept’ (Pamona).”
Following is a list of (back-) translations from other languages (click or tap here to read more):
Limos Kalinga: manuttuwa. Wiens (2013) explains: “It goes back to the word for ‘truth’ which is ‘tuttuwa.’ When used as a verb this term is commonly used to mean ‘believe’ as well as ‘obey.'”
Ngiemboon: “turn one’s back on someone” (and trusting one won’t be taken advantage of) (source: Stephen Anderson in Holzhausen 1991, p. 42)
Mwera uses the same word for “hope” and “faith”: ngulupai (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Yala: ɔtū che or “place heart” (in John 5:24; 5:45; 6:35; 6:47; 12:36; 14:1); other translations include chɛ̄ or “to agree/accept” and chɛ̄ku or “to agree with/accept with/take side with” (source: Linus Otronyi)
Matumbi: niu’bi’lyali or “believe / trust / rely (on)” and imani or “religious faith” (from Arabic īmān [إيما]) (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
Ebira: “place one’s liver on something” (source: Scholz /Scholz 2015, p. 60)
Barí: a word related to standing in a hammock. Bruce Olson (1972, p. 159f.) tells this story — click or tap here to read more)
One evening, though, Bobby began to ask questions. We were sitting around a fire. The light flickered over him. His face was serious.
‘How can I walk on Jesus’ trail?’ he asked. ‘No Motilone [speakers of Barí] has ever done it. It’s a new thing. There is no other Motilone to tell how to do it.’
I remembered the problems I had had as a boy, how it sometimes appeared impossible to keep on believing in Jesus when my family and friends were so opposed to my commitment. That was what Bobby was going through.
‘Bobby,’ I said, ‘do you remember my first Festival of the Arrows, the first time I had seen all the Motilones gathered to sing their song?’ The festival was the most important ceremony in the Motilone culture.
He nodded. The fire flared up momentarily and I could see his eyes, staring intently at me.
‘Do you remember that I was afraid to climb in the high hammocks to sing, for fear that the rope would break? And I told you that I would sing only if I could have one foot in the hammock and one foot on the ground?’
‘Yes, Bruchko.’
‘And what did you say to me?’
He laughed. ‘I told you you had to have both feet in the hammock. ‘You have to be suspended,’ I said.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You have to be suspended. That is how it is when you follow Jesus, Bobby. No man can tell you how to walk His trail. Only Jesus can. But to find out you have to tie your hammock strings into Him, and be suspended in God.’
Bobby said nothing. The fire danced in his eyes. Then he stood up and walked off into the darkness.
The next day he came to me. ‘Bruchko,’ he said, ‘I want to tie my hammock strings into Jesus Christ. But how can I? I can’t see Him or touch Him.’
‘You have talked to spirits, haven’t you?’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I see now.’
The next day he had a big grin on his face. ‘Bruchko, I’ve tied my hammock strings into Jesus. Now I speak a new language.’
I didn’t understand what he meant. ‘Have you learned some of the Spanish I speak?’
He laughed, a clean, sweet laugh. ‘No, Bruchko, I speak a new language.’
Then I understood. To a Motilone, language is life. If Bobby had a new life, he had a new way of speaking. His speech would be Christ-oriented.
Awabakal: ngurruliko: “to know, to perceive by the ear” (as distinct from knowing by sight or by touch — source: Lake, p. 70) (click or tap here to read more)
“[The missionary translator] Lancelot Threlkeld learned that Awabakal, like many Australian languages, made no distinction between knowing and believing. Of course the distinction only needs to be made where there are rival systems of knowing. The Awabakal language expressed a seamless world. But as the stress on ‘belief’ itself suggests, Christianity has always existed in pluralist settings. Conversion involves deep conviction, not just intellectual assent or understanding. (…) Translating such texts posed a great challenge in Australia. Threlkeld and [his indigenous colleague] Biraban debated the possibilities at length. In the end they opted not to introduce a new term for belief, but to use the Awabakal ngurruliko, meaning ‘to know, to perceive by the ear,’ as distinct from knowing by sight or by touch.”
Language in southern Nigeria: a word based on the idiom “lose feathers.” Randy Groff in Wycliffe Bible Translators 2016, p. 65 explains (click or tap here to read more):
What does losing feathers have to do with faith? [The translator] explained that there is a species of bird in his area that, upon hatching its eggs, loses its feathers. During this molting phase, the mother bird is no longer able to fly away from the nest and look for food for her hungry hatchlings. She has to remain in the nest where she and her babies are completely dependent upon the male bird to bring them food. Without the diligent, dependable work of the male bird, the mother and babies would all die. This scenario was the basis for the word for faith in his language.
Teribe: mär: “pick one thing and one thing only” (source: Andy Keener)
Tiv: na jighjigh: “give trust” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
Luba-Katanga: Twi tabilo: “echo” (click or tap here to read more)
“Luba-Katanga word for ‘Faith’ in its New Testament connotation is Twi tabilo. This word means ‘echo,’ and the way in which it came to be adapted to the New Testament meaning gives a very good idea of the way in which the translator goes to work. One day a missionary was on a journey through wild and mountainous country. At midday he called his African porters to halt, and as they lay resting in the shade from the merciless heat of the sun. an African picked up a stone and sent it ricocheting down the mountain-side into the ravine below. After some seconds the hollow silence was broken by a plunging, splashing sound from the depths of the dark river-bed. As the echo died away the African said in a wondering whisper ‘Twi tabilo, listen to it.’ So was a precious word captured for the service of the Gospel in its Luba Christian form. Twi tabilo — ‘faith which is the echo of God’s voice in the depths of human sinful hearts, awakened by God Himself, the answer to his own importunate call.’ The faith that is called into being by the divine initiative, God’s own gift to the responsive heart! (Source: Wilfred Bradnock in The Bible Translator 1953, p. 49ff. )
J.A. van Roy (in The Bible Translator 1972, p. 418ff. ) discusses how a translation of “faith” in a an earlier translation into Venda created difficult perceptions of the concept of faith (click or tap here):
The Venda term u tenda, lutendo. This term corresponds to the terms ho dumela (Southern Sotho), and ku pfumela (Tsonga) that have been used in these translations of the Bible, and means “to assent,” “to agree to a suggestion.” It is important to understand this term in the context of the character of the people who use it.
The way in which the Venda use this term reveals much about the priority of interpersonal relationships among them. They place a much higher priority on responding in the way they think they are expected to respond than on telling the truth. Smooth interpersonal relationships, especially with a dominant individual or group, take precedence over everything else.
It is therefore regarded as bad form to refuse directly when asked for something one does not in fact intend to give. The correct way is to agree, u tenda, and then forget about it or find some excuse for not keeping to the agreement. Thus u tenda does not necessarily convey the information that one means what one says. One can tenda verbally while heartily disagreeing with the statement made or having no intention whatsoever to carry out what one has just promised to do. This is not regarded as dishonesty, but is a matter of politeness.
The term u sokou tenda, “to consent reluctantly,” is often used for expressing the fatalistic attitude of the Venda in the face of misfortune or force which he is unable to resist.
The form lutendo was introduced by missionaries to express “faith.”
According to the rules of derivations and their meanings in the lu-class, it should mean “the habit of readily consenting to everything.” But since it is a coined word which does not have a clearly defined set of meanings in everyday speech, it has acquired in church language a meaning of “steadfastness in the Christian life.” Una lutendo means something like “he is steadfast in the face of persecution.” It is quite clear that the term u tenda has no element of “trust” in it. (…)
In “The Christian Minister” of July 1969 we find the following statement about faith by Albert N. Martin: “We must never forget that one of the great issues which the Reformers brought into focus was that faith was something more than an ‘assensus,’ a mere nodding of the head to the body of truth presented by the church as ‘the faith.’ The Reformers set forth the biblical concept that faith was ‘fiducia.’ They made plain that saving faith involved trust, commitment, a trust and commitment involving the whole man with the truth which was believed and with the Christ who was the focus of that truth. The time has come when we need to spell this out clearly in categorical statements so that people will realize that a mere nodding of assent to the doctrines that they are exposed to is not the essence of saving faith. They need to be brought to the understanding that saving faith involves the commitment of the whole man to the whole Christ, as Prophet, Priest and King as he is set forth in the gospel.”
We quote at length from this article because what Martin says of the current concept of faith in the Church is even to a greater extent true of the Venda Church, and because the terms used for communicating that concept in the Venda Bible cannot be expected to communicate anything more than “a mere nodding of assent”. I have during many years of evangelistic work hardly ever come across a Venda who, when confronted with the gospel, would not say, Ndi khou tenda, “I admit the truth of what you say.” What they really mean when saying this amounts to, “I believe that God exists, and I have no objection to the fact that he exists. I suppose that the rest of what you are talking about is also true.” They would often add, Ndi sa tendi hani-hani? “Just imagine my not believing such an obvious fact!” To the experienced evangelist this is a clear indication that his message is rejected in so far as it has been understood at all! To get a negative answer, one would have to press on for a promise that the “convert” will attend the baptism class and come to church on Sundays, and even then he will most probably just tenda in order to get rid of the evangelist, whether he intends to come or not. Isn’t that what u tenda means? So when an inexperienced and gullible white man ventures out on an evangelistic campaign with great enthusiasm, and with great rejoicing returns with a list of hundreds of names of persons who “believed”, he should not afterwards blame the Venda when only one tenth of those who were supposed to be converts actually turn up for baptismal instruction.
Moreover, it is not surprising at all that one often comes across church members of many years’ standing who do not have any assurance of their salvation or even realise that it is possible to have that assurance. They are vhatendi, “consenters.” They have consented to a new way of life, to abandoning (some of) the old customs. Lutendo means to them at most some steadfastness in that new way of life.
The concept of faith in religion is strange to Africa. It is an essential part of a religion of revelation such as Christianity or Islam, but not of a naturalistic religion such as Venda religion, in which not faith and belief are important, but ritual, and not so much the content of the word as the power of it.
The terms employed in the Venda Bible for this vital Christian concept have done nothing to effect a change in the approach of the Venda to religion.
It is a pity that not only in the Venda translation has this been the case, but in all the other Southern Bantu languages. In the Nguni languages the term ukukholwa, “to believe a fact,” has been used for pisteuo, and ukholo, the deverbative of ukukholwa, for pistis. In some of the older Protestant translations in Zulu, but not in the new translation, the term ithemba, “trust”, has been used.
Some languages, including Santali, have two terms — like English (see above) — to differentiate a noun from a verb form. Biswạs is used for “faith,” whereas pạtiạu for “believe.” R.M. Macphail (in The Bible Translator 1961, p. 36ff. ) explains this choice: “While there is little difference between the meaning and use of the two in everyday Santali, in which any word may be used as a verb, we felt that in this way we enriched the translation while making a useful distinction, roughly corresponding to that between ‘faith’ and ‘to believe’ in English.”
Likewise, in Noongar, koort-karni or “heart truth” is used for the noun (“faith”) and djinang-karni or “see true” for the verb (“believe”) (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).
After dealing with the problem of the younger widows, Paul now returns to the subject of caring for real widows. This verse goes back to the ideas mentioned in verses 4 and 8, except that it now focuses on the female members of the family. Any believing woman translates the feminine form of the word “faithful” or “believing,” hence a woman who has put her trust in Jesus Christ; so Good News Translation “any Christian woman.” As the UBS Greek New Testament shows, there is a textual problem here. In addition to the adopted reading in the text, there are two other readings, namely, “any believing man” and “any believing man or woman.” While there is a considerable degree of doubt over which is the best reading, it seems that from the evidence believing woman is to be preferred, and many modern translations have opted for this textual reading. It is of course logical for women to be in charge of the care of other women in their own household.
Relatives who are widows is literally widows, but the context clearly shows that these would be widows within the Christian woman’s household, and this information has been made explicit in Revised Standard Version (compare Good News Translation “widows in her family”).
Assist is the same verb used in verse 10 (there translated “relieved”), for which see discussion there.
The purpose of providing the needs of widowed members of the family is to relieve the church of the burden of supporting these widows and enable it to support widows who are really in need. In many languages let the church not be burdened will be translated as “not cause the other Christians to be burdened,” or in languages that do not use the passive voice, “not cause the other Christians to have to bear this obligation,” or “This will mean that the other Christians won’t have to bear that burden.” Burdened translates the imperative mood of a verb that means “to be burdened,” that is, to be troubled and loaded by burdensome obligations. The imperative mood can here be rendered as a command; many translations choose to depict this part of the verse as a result of the previous part; that is, supporting widowed relatives results in not putting additional burdens on the church and enabling the church to support widows who otherwise would not have any other source of support. For real widows see 1 Tim. 5.3.
Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to Timothy. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1995. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
In 5:16 Paul summarized what he had been teaching about widows in the earlier part of the chapter. Use a natural way in your language to indicate that this is a summary. For example, you could start the verse with a phrase like:
I say again…
5:16a
If any believing woman has dependent widows:
Some of the older translations, like the King James Version, say “man or woman,” instead of only saying “woman.” The King James Version says, “If any man or woman that believeth have widows….” However, “woman” is probably the correct text. The Editorial Committee of the UBS Handbook New Testament (4 th edition) gives the reading “believing woman” a {C} rating, indicating that the Committee had difficulty in deciding which variant to place in the text. Metzger, page 642, says, “…a majority of the Committee, observing that the shorter reading is somewhat better attested than the longer reading, regarded the latter as a natural expansion made by copyists who, in light of ver. 4, felt that a restriction of the principle of this verse to Christian women was unfair.”) Paul knew that some of the believing women in Ephesus had widows in their families. Therefore, in some languages, it will not be possible to use an “if” clause here. If that is true in your language, you could say:
Believing women who have widows in their families should…
believing woman: Paul only mentioned women believers here. However, 5:8 makes it clear that men also had this duty. See the note on 5:8a.
dependent widows: Paul used widows(plur) here because a woman might have more than one widow to care for. For example, she may need to care for her mother, her mother-in-law and her grandmother.
5:16c
not allow the church to be burdened: This phrase indicates that believers should not need to care for widows who had families of their own. A literal translation would be difficult in many languages. Some ways that may make the meaning clearer are, For example:
it is not right for her to ask the church to take care of them
-or-
she should not give the church the responsibility of providing for the widows in her family
church: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as church does not refer to a church building, but to all true believers. Together they form the assembly or community of God’s people. Avoid using a term that might suggest that Paul was referring to a building. Some ways to translate the term church are:
the assembly of God’s people
-or-
the community of God’s people
-or-
God’s family
-or-
God’s people
See also the notes on 3:5b and 3:15c.
5:16d
so that it can help the widows who are truly in need: This part of the verse tells the purpose for which Paul gave his command in the rest of 5:16. He wanted to ensure that the believers had enough resources to help the widows who had no family.
it: Here, the pronoun it refers to the church. See the note on 5:16c.
the widows who are truly in need: This is the same phrase that was used in 5:3.
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All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
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