Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Timothy 5

Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father.—Two-thirds of Paul’s first Letter to Timothy have been taken up with directions, warnings, and exhortations respecting the public duties connected with the office of superintending presbyter, or bishop, of a church like that of Ephesus. From these directions related to public teaching and official life in the church, the Apostle passes on to speak of the private relations that someone in Timothy’s position should maintain with individual members of the congregation.

And, first, he warns him against a misplaced zeal, which might urge him to inappropriate behavior towards those older than himself. The enthusiastic and ardent young servant of Christ would see with sorrow and dismay the shortcomings of many an older member of his flock, and forgetting to make wise allowance for previous training, thought, and habits, would be likely, unwisely, and possibly unfairly, to find fault. Let him, concerning his elders—for the reference is rather to age than to office, as is clear from the reminder of 1 Timothy 5:2, addressed to the elder women—instead of open rebuke, use respectful and affectionate entreaties, after the manner of a son, not of an official.

The younger men as brethren.—And as regards the younger Christians of Ephesus, let them not be alienated by an assumption of dignity by the chief presbyter of the Church. Let his relations with these younger members of the family of Christ be rather those of a brother and a friend than of a superior in rank and dignity.

The elder women as mothers.—The same watchful care against all assumption of superiority must also be exercised in his dealings with the Christian matrons of Ephesus.

The younger as sisters, with all purity.—In the case of the younger women, St. Paul adds to his directions respecting brotherly and sisterly regard a grave word, urging upon Timothy, and all official teachers like Timothy, to add to this self-denying, loving friendship a ceaseless watchfulness in all their interactions, so as not to provide any grounds for suspicion; for, above all things, the recognized teacher of Christianity must be pure. No one can read and forget the quaint words of advice of St. Jerome: “Omnes puellas et virgines Christi, aut æqualiter ignora aut ægualiter dilige.”

Honour widows that are widows indeed.—The mention of a pastor's relationships with the female members of the flock suggests another train of thought. Christianity, during the first thirty years of its history, had developed an entirely new existence for women who professed the faith of Jesus of Nazareth. In the Master’s new and strange command (new and strange to the civilised world of that day)—that the poor, the needy, and the sick should be aided, that the helpless should be helped, and the comfortless comforted—a blessed calling was, so to speak, invented for Christian women.

Their secluded and, in many respects, degraded life in the old world was, to a great extent, due to the fact that until Christ taught the universal duty of charity, women had no recognised public occupation in the world. The instruction from the Founder of the new religion provided an endless variety of blessed, happiness-giving work for women of all ages and ranks.

However, the new prominence of women in such great centres as Ephesus not only necessitated an organisation to administer alms and generally oversee and direct the self-sacrificing labours of the women in the community, but it also required special vigilance from the chief pastor and his assistant presbyters and deacons to prevent the Church's charities from being misused.

The widow—the desolate and destitute, the mourning widow indeed, she who is in every sense a widow and has no one to whom she can look for aid—she always has a claim on the Church. Not only is she to be honoured by a simple display of respect, but she is also to be assisted and supported out of the alms of the faithful.

But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents (or, nephews).—The Greek word used here should be rendered grandchildren; the original meaning of “nephew” (nepotes) has disappeared.

Here, a warning is given against allowing the Church to be burdened with a responsibility that others should bear. This warning takes the form of a pressing reminder to the children or grandchildren of the destitute and desolate widow.

It is a solemn and imperative duty for children to provide all necessary support—a duty not to be evaded by anyone bearing the Christian name.

For that is good and acceptable before God.—A special blessing is promised to those who truly carry out this too often forgotten duty (and also compare to Mark 7:10-11).

Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate.—St. Paul, after mentioning this exception to the suitable recipients of the Church’s charity and protection, again returns to this special class of helpless ones: the widows indeed—a class, no doubt, in those days of selfish luxury and of extreme misery and hopelessness, often utterly neglected, and frequently left to starve and to perish in want and misery.

It has been asked why, in these official directions to Timothy, the question of relief of poor Christian widows comes so prominently forward. We find also that, in the first years which followed the Ascension, many widows in Jerusalem seemed to have been dependent on the Church for sustenance (Acts 6:1). Now we should expect to find in the Church of Christ the same loving care which was taken in the old days, when Israel was a great nation, for these solitary and unhappy women. (Compare to Deuteronomy 24:17, where we find special laws respecting the garments of widows never to be taken in pledge. See, too, such passages as Exodus 22:22; Deuteronomy 27:19; Isaiah 1:17; Jeremiah 7:6; Malachi 3:5.)

Still, this hardly accounts for the statement of Acts 6:1 and these lengthy directions to Timothy. It is more than probable that there were, especially in these Eastern cities, a very large class of these desolate and unprotected women. The practice of polygamy is accountable for this, in the first instance; and the rigid morality of the Christian teaching would place a barrier to the female convert from paganism relapsing into a life where moral restraints were utterly disregarded.

The charities of the early Church, especially in Eastern cities, were, without doubt, heavily burdened with this grave and increasing charge—provision for these poor desolate women; and it was to relieve the congregations in some degree that St. Paul wrote these elaborate instructions to Timothy, warning him, as the chief minister of the Ephesian Church, against an indiscriminate charity, and at the same time providing him with a system of severe restraints to be imposed upon the assisted women.

Still, the chief pastor in Ephesus must remember that among the women of his flock there were some widows indeed, with neither children nor grandchildren to assist them, without friends even to cheer their desolate, widowed life. To find out and to help these poor, sad-hearted, friendless beings, St. Paul reminds Timothy, was one of the duties of a Christian minister.

Trusteth in God.—These, without love of child or friend, cast themselves on the support of the everlasting arms. The language St. Paul uses here evidently pictures some loving and trustful character then living, of whom he was thinking while writing the Letter to Timothy. “She has trusted and still trusts in God; she continues in prayer night and day.”

And continueth in supplications and prayers night and day.—Like Anna, the daughter of Phanuel (Luke 2:36–37), whom some suppose St. Paul took as the model and example for these Christian widows. The meaning of these words, descriptive of a holy life, is not that the earnest and pious bereaved woman should pass her days and nights in the unrelieved monotony of constantly repeated prayers. Such a life, impractical and useless, would never commend itself to one like St. Paul; the words simply describe the desolate one casting all her care on the Lord, and telling Him, as her only friend, of all her thoughts and actions, her words and her works.