A Commentary in Simple English on 1 Timothy

CHAPTER 5

Verses 1 and 2: Old and young

The Bible teaches us (Exodus 20:12) to honour our father and mother. In the same way, a Christian will want to give honour to someone who is older than he is. Timothy was quite a young man so he was to give honour to older men in the church. These older men would at times do or say something that was wrong. Timothy had to tell them that they were wrong. But he is not to speak to them too strongly. Paul uses a word that had once meant to hit someone several times (verse 1). The church is like a family. Although Timothy is a church leader, he is to speak to other people like brothers, mothers or sisters. So far as we know, Timothy did not marry. So he had to be extra careful when he spoke to the younger women in the church.

Verses 3-16 Widows in need

Paul now speaks about the needs of women who have lost their husbands. Death has 'robbed' these women. That is what the word which Paul uses for 'widow' meant. The Bible often speaks about the needs of widows (Deutoronomy 10:18; Psalm 146:9; Isaiah 1:17; Acts 6:1; James 1:27). There were few ways in which a widow could earn money to live on. [5.1] The church at Ephesus was big enough for the needs of widows to be a problem. Perhaps this church had some small homes for widows. But there were not enough homes for all the widows. So Paul lays down some rules. The word for honour or 'proper recognition' probably does not mean 'give money to' here.

When a woman married, her father would give her husband money. This was her 'dowry'. In many parts of the world this still happens. If her husband died, the widow did not receive the 'dowry'. It went to another man in the family. The widow then went to live in that man's home.

Now this could cause trouble. A Christian widow might not want to live in the home of a man who was not a Christian. A Christian man might not want to take in a widow who was not a Christian. There might be little money left from the dowry. So Paul says these things: -

Verse 3 Some widows are in real need. Some are not.

Verse 4 It is the duty of a Christian to care for widows in his family. There may be no dowry to help them to do this.

Verse 5 The Christian widow who is in real need prays. She prays all the time. She trusts God for his help. How good for the church if it gives her the answer to her prayers. It will do God's work.

Verse 6 Not all widows spend all their time in prayer to God. Some only look for pleasure.

Verse 7 So the church has rules about when to help widows. These rules must speak about the two different kinds of widows. Of course, Paul has given us a picture of two very different widows. There will be lots of widows who will be in between the two kinds. But no one must be able to say: 'How wrong it is for the church to help that lady. She never spends time in prayer. She is always off out for a good time.'

Christian leaders in new churches will want to ask themselves: 'Should we do something to help older widows and perhaps other women in need'? And they will find rules to help them here.

In verse 8, Paul speaks about the head of a house or family. It is his Christian duty to provide for the needs of all his family. That means his children and any older people too. Paul probably meant slaves and servants as well as family. A slave must not be thrown out of the house when he is ill or if he cannot work. People who are not Christians meet the needs of those who depend on them. A Christian must be better, not worse, than a man who does not believe in Jesus.

There is a problem for us here. Some Christian people believe that it is right for them to trust God to give them all that they need. They will give all their time to God's service. There are many wonderful stories about the way in which God answers the prayers of people who live in this way. Very often they will not ask anyone except God for help. And for long years they live and work for God. God does give them what they need. And there are things which Jesus said which point to this way of life (Luke 14:26 and 27). There are four things that should be said to such people: -

a) You must be very sure that God calls you to live in this way.

b) Your children and perhaps your parents depend on you. You may be able to live in this way. You still have a duty to care for your family.

c) If you live in this way, you must never be proud. You are not a better Christian than another man is. He works hard and earns money. Some of it he gives to help you (1 Sam 30:24).

d) God will give you what you really need. You must not expect him to give you all you want. Your life may be very simple.

All Christians 'live by faith'. (See Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; 2 Corinthians 5:7.) So for people to call this way of life 'living by faith' is not quite right.

In verse 9, Paul begins to give some more rules about widows. The church must have had a list of widows' names. No one under the age of 60 was to go on the list. Up to that age, they might well marry again. And a widow had to be a 'one man woman'. She must be a woman who had always been faithful to one husband.

Verse 10 tells us some of the good works, which a woman could do in those days. The widow whose name went on the list had to be well known for doing these things.

a) She could bring up children. These might be children whose mother and father had died. But those times were cruel. And it was common for parents to 'expose' a baby to die. If they did not want a baby they just left it in the street to die. Probably Christians would gather up such babies and bring them up.

b) She could show 'hospitality' (3:2). She could take people into her home. We have seen already that there was a great need for this.

c) She could 'wash the feet of the saints', that is, of Christian people. That was work for a slave. Paul probably means all kinds of lowly jobs for the good of others (John 13:3-5). Some Christians still keep 'foot washing' as a part of worship: but this is no good unless it is done in a spirit of humble love.

d) She could help those in trouble. This might mean Christians who had suffered because of their faith. But it might well mean that she helped people who were not Christians at all.

Paul adds the last words of the verse in case we should think the list he has given us is a complete list.

In verse 11 Paul begins to explain who should not be put on the list of names of widows. First, the young widows' names should not go on the list. Paul fears that these women may become 'high and mighty'. The picture here may be of young oxen, which try to escape the 'yoke', the wooden bar on their shoulders. They do not want to work. They do not want to 'pull together' as oxen would to pull a plough. So these young women do not want to work or 'pull together'.

Now these young widows are ready to marry any man, even if he is not a Christian. This is wrong because the women are Christians. It would be right for them to want to marry a Christian man. If they marry a man who is not a Christian they have broken faith with the Lord Jesus. Once they promised to be faithful to him all through life. Now it matters more to find a new husband. They are too quick and they are not wise.

So in verse 13, Paul says that such young women go from house to house. They talk and share what they hear with one another. This is 'gossip'. Paul may have seen that this happened in other churches. Christian women may have been freer to go out of their homes than other women. And women who were not Christians and who were kept at home may have been only too pleased to have such visits from Christian women.

So in verses 14 and 15 Paul tells Timothy what these younger women should do. They should marry Christian husbands (1 Corinthians 7:39). They should not listen to the Jewish teachers (4:3). They should have children (2:15). Then they will be too busy to go around other homes to talk. They will make good homes for their husbands. The 'enemy' here is probably a man who is not a Christian. He will be eager to find any fault that he can with the church. In verse 15, Paul adds that he has already seen young widows wander away from Christ.

Verse 16 is difficult, partly because what it says is rather like verse 8. But here Paul speaks of a woman who believes .So here he may speak about a Christian wife who has a husband. He may not be a Christian. This woman must take care of widows whose names are not on the church list.

So in these verses Paul says: 'The church must do more than have a list of women whose husbands have died. They must give help to those women who are in real need, and who have no one else to help them'.

Verses 17-25: Honour good elders

In 3: 1-7 Paul spoke about the kind of men who should become elders. In these verses Paul writes about how Timothy is to work with the elders of the church.

So now in verse 17, it seems that all the elders 'ruled' or guided the work of the church. Some of them also taught and preached. [5.2] The church should honour all of them for their good work. Once again, 'honour' here does not mean 'money'. We can see this because Paul uses the same word in 6:1 ('honour' or 'full respect'). No one thinks that there he means that the slave is to give money to his master.

God rules his church by his Word, the Bible. We can see now that the elders also are to rule the church by the Word of God. They are to preach and to teach this Word. Everyone in the church is to hear God's Word and to do what it says.

Then in verse 18, Paul uses some words from Deuteronomy 25:4. He used the same words before in 1 Corinthians 9:9. The picture is of the harvest of a crop of wheat or some other grain. When the farmer cut it and gathered it, the grains had to be separated from the straw. The straw was light, and some of it would blow away. The farmer used an ox, which was a heavy animal. The ox walked over the pile of wheat. This broke apart the straw and the grain. The farmer then threw it all into the air. The wind blew away the straw. So a pile of good grain was left. Some farmers would put leather straps (a 'muzzle') round the mouth of the ox. This meant that it could not eat any of the grain. The Law of Moses said that this was wrong. The farmer should let the ox eat some of the grain.

There is still a lesson here for us. Many people work in factories. They are paid, but not very much. They do not have enough money to buy the goods that they make. The law of God says that this is quite wrong.

The second part of the verse says that the man who works ought to be paid his wages. These are the words of Jesus (Luke 10:7; Matthew 10:10). Paul was at Caesarea from about 57-59 A.D. Luke was with him. Luke could have written his Gospel at that time. So Paul could well have used Luke's Gospel about five years later. Notice that the words of Jesus have just the same authority as the words of the Law. So, Paul says, an ox should have a few mouthfuls of grain. The worker should have his pay. The elder should have his honour.

For verse 19, see Matthew 18:16, 2 Corinthians 13:1 and Deuteronomy 19:15. There would be times when people in the church would say: 'This elder has done something wrong'. Timothy was not to listen even if two or three people said this. There must be 'two or three witnesses', that is, people who saw what happened. Then Timothy would listen. But (verse 20) there would be times when Timothy would find that an elder had done wrong. If he went on in his sin, Timothy was to speak to him. This would be done in front of the church to fill the man who sinned with a sense of shame. Other people would not want to sin.

Now we know that some people in the church liked the 'false teachers'. Some of the people who did not listen to them may have thought of themselves as a 'Paul party' (1 Corinthians 1:12,13). Paul would not have been pleased at this. But there were two sides in the church. Sometimes Timothy had to speak in public to an elder about his sins. People might say: 'Timothy let him off lightly. But you would expect that. The man is one of the "Paul party"'! Or they might say: 'Timothy was hard on that elder. But he is one of the "Jewish party"'! Timothy must not show 'partiality'. He must not lean to one side or the other. No one must be able to say: 'That is a man that Timothy likes. That is why he is so easy with him' (2 Chronicles. 19:6,7).

Paul begins this verse with words which are perhaps as strong as any in the New Testament. When any church meets, God the Father and the Lord Jesus see all that goes on. There are always 'two or three witnesses' who see what we do. God's chosen angels watch too (1 Corinthians 4:9; Ephesians 1:21; Colossians 2:10; 1 Corinthians 11:10). We are God's chosen people. The chosen angels must see the glory of God's grace at work in the church.

We should think very carefully about verse 22 . Often the church needs to fill an office. Often there is work that needs to be done. Then there is someone new to the church. Perhaps he has only just become a Christian. Or perhaps he has just moved to the area. There has not been enough time for people to get to know him. But he is a fine man. He has a good job. The church is pleased and even quite proud to have him. Paul says: 'Do not be too quick. Get to know the man. You can give him work to do in the church too soon. If he sins then, you will be partly at fault. You will be blamed'. Once again, Paul tells Timothy to keep his own life pure.

'The laying on of hands' here would sometimes be a time of prayer for a new elder. It may also mean that sometimes people have sinned. They had been really sorry for what they had done. The leaders of the church then laid their hands on them and prayed with them. Timothy is not to be too quick to do this.

Verse 21 tells us two things about Timothy. One was that he did not drink wine. Perhaps he did not like it. Perhaps he did not want other people to copy him if they saw that he drank wine. The other thing is that he was often ill. It may be that the cause of this was that he drank dirty, bad water. The river at Ephesus would have been very dirty. Even today, many people in the world do not have clean water to drink. One sure way to make people stronger and more healthy is to give them clean water to drink. If people are strong and healthy they can work well.

So Paul is quite right to tell Timothy to drink a little wine. This would make his health better. And if Timothy was often rather ill, he would not be able to do his work in the church well.

In verse 24, 'judgment' does not mean the last great day when God will judge men. It means the time when the church will decide about elders who have sinned. Some men have sins that are so open and full of shame that everyone knows about them. Timothy will know what to do about them. But some men have sins that are secret, not open. Timothy and the church leaders are not to blame for those. God will bring our secret sins out into the open at the last great day when he judges. In the same way, the good works that some people do can be seen. Perhaps Timothy feels that much of the good that he does is not seen by anyone. God does see it and he will reward it. And when new elders have to be chosen, Timothy can find out when a man has done many good works quietly. [5.3]