Note 15 at 1 Tim. 5:5: Continuing the criteria for church assistance, Paul required those who receive assistance to be, "a widow indeed, and desolate." This statement is in the perfect tense and conveys a completed action that has lingering and ongoing results, or a condition. The widow who is to be helped is in a permanent condition of being alone and without life's necessary resources (see note 9 at v. 3, p. 1295).

Note 16 at 1 Tim. 5:5: Paul requires that the church limit its assistance to widows (see note 11 at v. 4, p. 1295) who are truly seeking God and trusting Him for provision. The Greek tense indicates a continuous state and condition of trust. This would exclude those who are not trusting God and are not godly women. That is not to say that the widows who don't meet this requirement are not to be shown any benevolence; they are not to "be taken into the number" (see note 24 at v. 9, p. 1297) of those widows who are regularly and completely supported by the church.

Paul lists two things as indicaters that a widow is really trusting God: supplications and prayers (see note 2 at 1 Tim. 2:1, p. 1272) night and day, meaning constantly, always, or all the time. Contrast this with the characteristics of the widows in verse 13 whom Paul said to reject. Those widows were idle or lazy, gossips, and meddlesome. Therefore, we can see that those who take their cares to God don't have to take them to people and gossip and slander others. Likewise, those who do gossip and slander others reveal that they are not trusting God and have not thoroughly prayed about the matter.