For a widowed member of the church to be supported financially by the local congregation, the following prerequisites must be met.

1) She must be truly alone, with no family to support her.
2) She is a woman who puts her hope in God.
3) She has an active prayer life.
4) She is of an age when remarriage would be unlikely.
5) She was faithful to her husband.
6) She is well known for her good deeds.

Point # 1 The pastor should relate to others in the church like family (1-2).

Point # 2 The church should give proper recognition (honour) to widows who are really in need (3), but those widows with family should be cared for by their families (4).

Point # 3 The widow “who is really in need” is alone, has set her hope on God and continues in prayer (5), but those widows living in self-indulgent pleasure are already dead (6).

Point # 4 Timothy is to command these things in the church (7), but if someone does not listen they have denied the faith and are worse than unbelievers (8).

Point # 5 The Church must let older, godly women be enrolled (9-10), but refuse to enrol younger, ungodly widows who are likely to abandon their pledge (11-13).

Point # 6 To sum up, the younger widows should remarry (14-15), those who have families should receive support from them (16a), and the church should care for those widows who are truly in need (16b)

Two critical principles in assessing our responsibility to the poor and helpless*

Principle 1: We are most responsible to help those closest to us.
Principle 2: We are most responsible to help those able to help themselves.

*taken from Kevin DeYounge's "Obligation, Stewardship and the Poor"