In that spirit, James echoes what the Lord said to Israel – that if your heart is beating with God’s heart then it will be reflected in your caring for the most vulnerable - your life will reflect and define the essence of pure and undefiled religion. If Israel was not caring for widows and orphans, then their heart was far from God because He considered himself “a Father to the fatherless.” How believers live their life is a reflection of their heart.

James knows that in the 40+ references in the Old Testament about orphans, many of those verses are God judging Israel because they ignored or took advantage of widows and orphans – the most vulnerable in society. There is only one other reference to “orphan” in the New Testament and that is in James 1:27, “Pure and undefiled religion is this: to minister to widows and orphans in their distress and keep oneself unstained by the world.” It is amazing that when James is pressed to give his definition of what pure religion is - he uses widow and orphans as his example. All this imagery is consistent with the Old Testament definition of orphan. Then he adopted us into His family as sons and daughters. The Father sent His Son to pay our debt – sacrificing him on the cross but then raising Him from the dead in order that we would not be orphans – we were reconciled to the Father through the death and resurrection of His Son. It is interesting that in the New Testament the Lord says, “I will not leave you as orphans.” You see before we were saved, we were separated from our Father because of sin – everyone is an orphan. In judgment statements, the Lord says to the nation He is judging, “I will make your wives widows and your children orphans.”Īn orphan is a child who has lost his father, Once a father died he left his wife as a widow and his children as orphans. In the Old Testament the orphan is a Hebrew word meaning ‘fatherless.’ The Bible most times refers to “widow” and “orphans” together, which makes sense if the term is defined as fatherless.

Who or what is an orphan? You would think that would be an easy question to answer but definitions and perceptions vary greatly.

Care for the widows and orphans