being approved by good works, if she has brought up children, if she has been hospitable to strangers, if she has washed the saints' feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, and if she has diligently followed every good work.
if she have washed the saints’ feet: Footwashing is as literal as lodging strangers and relieving the afflicted. As in the case of hospitality and caring for the sick, it applies in a personal way when there is a need for footwashing. One cannot lodge strangers until the opportunity presents itself. One cannot wait on the sick until someone is hurt or becomes ill. Footwashing was a common practice, an act of hospitality, in the time this was written because most travel was by foot. The command is as binding now as in the time the passage was written, as the need arises and the opportunity presents itself. In our time, the opportunity to wash feet might present itself in a situation in which someone is too sick to bathe himself or because of surgery or injury cannot bend forward to wash his own feet.