Orphans & missing dads
Orphans come in versions, ages, and ways you might not imagine. Believers are to watch out for widows and orphans. Jesus' brother, James, even said, "Religion that is pure and faultless before God is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress" (James 1:27) Usually we interpret that as children who need to be adopted or have foster care provided for until they are adopted or "age out" of the foster care system. And that's a valid way of saying that in today's terminology. But I believe it incomplete to some degree. _______________ It is 100% true that people without parents need to be "visited" or taken care of because they will be lost, abused, and or die without care. Several older translations say "fatherless" rather than orphans, because "back then" if you didn't have a father, you were essentially an orphan, culturally speaking. To grow up without a father often meant no lineage, no inheritance, no male ...