What we’ve seen is that this is a woman who develops whatever skills are necessary in order to better meet the needs of her family, not just for self-enrichment, but her purpose for developing these skills is to meet the needs of her family. Whatever your family’s needs are in this season of life, ask God to help you develop the skills that will help to minister to those needs.
She’s got her priorities in order. This is verse 20; it’s not the beginning of the passage. Her hands were first used to minister to the needs of her own family. I know it sounds like I keep repeating myself, but the passage keeps bringing this truth out; she’s a woman who has priorities.She doesn’t minister to everyone else’s needs before she has ministered to her own family’s needs, but once she has ministered to her family’s needs, in due time, in due season, as God provides opportunities, she reaches beyond the circle of her family, reaches out her hands, extends them. You see that she extends her hands to the poor. She reaches out her hands to the needy.
Her name is Tabitha, or as Acts nine tells us, when that word is translated, the other name you may know her by is the name Dorcas. She lived in a town named Joppa, and you may want to look there in your Bible in Acts chapter 9, beginning in verse 36.
We’re told that she was a disciple. She was a follower of Christ named Tabitha or Dorcas, and here’s the descriptive phrase of this woman. She “was always doing good and helping the poor” (NIV). That’s almost all that we’re told about her.
She was a disciple. She was a woman. We don’t know if she was married or single. She may have been widowed. We don’t know, but we know that she loved Christ and that the way she expressed her love for Christ was that she was always doing good and helping the poor. She had a reputation for that. That’s what she was known for.
Well, verse 37 tells us, “About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter [the apostle Peter] was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, ‘Please come at once!’” (37-38, NIV).
Now, they didn’t go and call Peter every time someone died, but when this woman died, she was really missed. Even the men were sent to him. The disciples heard that Peter was there. They sent two men to him. They urged him, “Please come at once!”
It seems like everyone’s life was affected by the loss of this woman. What a reputation! She wasn’t an apostle. She wasn’t a preacher. She wasn’t a pastor. God has called men to have those roles in the body of Christ.
She wasn’t the head of a home. We don’t know much about her except that she was a woman who was always doing good and reaching out to those in need. When this woman died, she was missed. People were affected.
How will people be affected when you die? Will there be a sense of “this is a crisis” because you were always doing good and helping people, and you’ll be missed for reasons of your being compassionate and merciful?
Well, Peter went with them—verse 39 of Acts 9. “When he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room.” Then listen to this description. “All the widows stood around him” (NIV). Apparently, one of Tabitha’s ministries was caring for the widows.
Now, we don’t know that that’s all she cared for. She cared for the poor. She did good. If she had family, we know she did good to them, but here were widows who stood around Peter. They were “crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them” (verse 39, NIV).
They came to display these things that Dorcas had made for them while she was still alive. They were touched. She apparently had not just done these acts of mercy. She must have had a heart of mercy because they apparently felt connected to her.
It wasn’t just the clothing they were going to miss. It was the woman behind the clothing, so we see that with these acts of mercy there was relationship. There was heart. There was compassion. There was tenderness, and I think I’m not reading into the text to say that that would be the case.
As the passage goes on, it says that, “Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ She opened her eyes, and,” only in the Bible could this be true, and it is true because it’s in the Bible—“seeing Peter she sat up. He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called the believers and the widows and presented her to them alive. This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord” (verses 40-42, NIV).
By her life, by her death, and by her resurrection, God used this woman as an instrument to bring many to faith in Christ. It’s as we as women live out a life of compassion and generosity and mercy toward those who are in need, that we make the Gospel believable.
It’s one thing to have preachers and writers and radio speakers talking about the Gospel. It’s another thing to have a woman in your community who lives out the Gospel, who makes it visible, who makes it tangible, who makes it believable by acts of mercy and compassion, coupled with a heart of mercy and compassion.
First Timothy chapter five, verses nine and ten tells us that when a woman is widowed, as an older woman, if she wants to be cared for by the church—and it is the church’s responsibility to care for her . . . If she wants to be plugged into serving in the life of the church, which I believe is the specific context of 1 Timothy five, if she wants to be put on that list of godly widows, there’s some things that have to have been true of her before she was widowed.
She needs to have been faithful to her husband, and she should be well-known for her good deeds. If you want to qualify to be a godly, older woman, one of the things that must be true is that you are well-known for doing good deeds, and then it tells us what some of those good deeds are, “Such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the saints, helping those in trouble and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds” (verse 10, NIV). These are distinctively womanly ways that we make the Gospel believable.
First Timothy two, verses nine and ten, just three chapters earlier, tells us that as women, we are to adorn ourselves. We’re to make ourselves beautiful, and our primary adorning is not to be the external appearance, but it’s to be a heart that produces good deeds. We’re to be adorned, dressed, with good deeds, and when we do, you know what we do? We demonstrate the beauty of the Gospel.
Susan Hunt says that a true woman’s sanctified, feminine instincts make her a channel of compassion to the afflicted and the oppressed.
Deuteronomy 15 :7-8 and Psalms 72 = You see, when we are givers, we reveal the heart of God, and we may be the only picture that our neighbors, our friends, those in our community ever get of what God is really like. You see, God has a heart for the poor and the needy, and if I have God’s heart, then I will have a heart for the poor and the needy.
“A woman whose heart is not touched by the sickness of sorrow and whose hands do not go out in relief where it is in her power to help, that kind of woman lacks one of the elements which make the glory of womanhood. Some homes bless no lives outside their own circle. Others are perpetually pouring out sweetness and fragrance. The ideal, Christian home is a far-reaching benediction. Its doors stand ever open with a welcome to everyone who comes seeking shelter from the storm or sympathy in sorrow or help in trial. Some wife, weary already, her hands over-full with the multiplied cares and duties of her household life, may plead that she has no strength to spend in sympathy and help for others, but it is truly wonderful how light these added burdens seem when they are taken up in love." – J. R. Miller
Dear Jesus, please give me a heart of compassion and love for people. Help me to do good in word and deed. Help me to put my faith and compassion into action. Not just talk about it because it sounds good, but really experience it. Know it personally. Protect me and my family in the process and help me to trust You and not let fear hold me back from pursuing Your good, perfect, and pleasing will. Amen.
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