Chapter 5

1 Timothy 5:4 - Paul instructs the church to let the children of a widow support their mother first. Then, if there are still needs, the church may step in. Clearly, God has established the order where family helps family. Paul couples "repaying" (lit.) parents with "godliness".

1 Timothy 5:6 - Paul is referring to a specific case of a "widow" who is self-indulgent or "riotous" (which is an old English expression for "exuberant" or "abundant". But in this case it would translate "extravagant"). This person is already dead inside, though they think they live. Did Paul intend to exclude all other possibilities? No. There is a principle to extract from this specific case. Those who live self-indulgent or extravagant life-styles are dead inside.

1 Timothy 5:9 - This verse tells us a few things: (1) "not less than 60 yrs old" tells us something of the life expectancy in a Roman colony at that time. However, modern historians say that the average life expectancy in Roman colonies may have been as low as 25 or averaging about 30. But there is no disconnect between modern scholarship and the biblical witness. Consider the fact that infant and adolescent mortality rates were very high. When you factor in those death rates, it drags the average life expectancy down to where historians calculated it. Just because there is a low average life-span, doesn't mean that people don't live long and healthy lives. Rather, Paul seems to confirm that fact with this verse.
(2) This verse also mentions "one man woman." This speaks more about the marriage potential of the widow in question rather than her matrimonial history. The question is, "Will she want to marry again?" Of course, if she marries again, then she will no longer receive support from the church. John Calvin rightly comments that Paul "wished carefully to guard against laying any females under a necessity of remaining unmarried, who felt it to be necessary to have husbands." We must carefully guard against those who would discriminate against the twice married people. As we saw previously in this same book, Paul warns that a sign of apostasy is that some will prohibit marriage (4:3).

1 Timothy 5:10 - Is Paul saying that barren women (the childless) should not be under the care of the church? No. He is not showing partiality to mothers. Rather, he is distinguishing between self-centered women who disdained having children, and thus they would lack the generosity to care for strangers. He commends to the church those women who operated for the good of others ("having a reputation for good deeds"). See Calvin's commentary on this verse for more discussion.

1 Timothy 5:11 - The presence of sexual passions do not mean we have abandoned Christ, as a cursory reading of the text might sound. Remember that Paul is speaking of a specific case of widows who are candidates for support from the church. If a widow was accepted by the church for support, she was expected to pray, serve the saints, and devote her life to Christ in the fullest sense. So Paul is theorizing: If she were supported by the church and had devoted her life to the Lord, and if she later decided to marry, then (and only then) would it be as if she had abandoned Christ because of her passions.
Furthermore, Paul seems to think a younger widow would most certainly break her vow to enter back into marriage, because he uses the preposition "when." By contrast, a verse earlier he uses the preposition "if", which would denote more of a possibility rather than certainty.

1 Timothy 5:12 - I think the NASB translators did the text well to say that the widows "set aside their previous pledge." Pledge is translated from the word meaning literally "faith." In actuality, they are not setting aside The Faith, but rather what we would consider a pledge. There is precedence in the NT and other early Christian literature for this translation (see Bauer's Greek-English Lexicon).

1 Timothy 5:13 - A heart without a godly occupation (or preoccupation) will tend toward evil. This verse is proof positive. Paul says in vs. 12 that they are idle. Then he says in vs. 13 that they are not just idle. Idle would suggest no harm actively done and no good done either. But the tendency is to evil not neutrality. He says they are "gossips and busybodies" (NASB). Paul wants widows not to have too much free time. If they are young enough, they need to marry again and have children (vs. 14). If they are too old for children, then they need to continue "in entreaties and prayers night and day" (vs. 5 NASB).

1 Timothy 5:15 - To gossip and be a busybody is equated in this passage as "straying after Satan."

1 Timothy 5:17 - Paul is making a generous provision for elders in this verse. Specifically, we must define these elders as those ruling in a church. This does not include itinerant ministers (Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists) because they do not rule over a single church. Inherent in this instruction is the relative comfort of Pastors and Teachers, which "higher" callings such as the aforementioned are supposed to be less comfortable. Paul said "we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless" (1 Cor 4:11, NASB). This does not sound like the person he just described in 1 Timothy. But he was the foremost of the Apostles, responsible for penning the majority of the NT, a major factor in why the Gospel went to the Gentiles at all. Why the disparity? With higher callings come greater adversity: "And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations...to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh..." (2 Cor 12:7, NASB). Let no one seek a higher calling than God has appointed him. For indeed, it would be asking a difficult thing (2 Kings 2:10). Evangelist is one notch more suffering than a pastor. Prophet is the next notch up. Then the Apostle, I think Paul best describes this way, "We have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world" (1 Cor 4:13). Apostles can expect the greatest suffering imaginable for a minister of the Lord. Certainly we have the precedent given to us in the Apostle Paul. Read his resume in 2 Cor 11:23-33.

1 Timothy 5:20 - There are those who believe that we should not teach people to fear sinning or that obedience should not be motivated by fear. I frankly do not see the biblical support. In fact, this verse commands us otherwise. We should rebuke publically so that "the rest also may be fearful of sinning" (NASB). Obedience motivated by fear. This verse really represents a preservation teaching. When our love for the Father wanes to the extent that we are tempted to sin. Having seen someone else rebuked publically will inspire enough fear to keep us from sinning and re-establish our close walk with the Lord.

1 Timothy 5:21 - Who are the chosen angels? It seems that these are the angels chosen to minister in the presence of the Lord. Paul says that he charged Timothy in the presence of the Lord and chosen angels, who must also have been in the presence of the Lord.
"Without prejudice..." would mean that you shouldn't rebuke one person and not another, all things being equal. Show no partiality in the discharge of your duty.

1 Timothy 5:23 - The Greek word for "drink water" is a compound verb(water+drink). It appears to have originated from a noun form "water drinker" (see Liddell & Scott lexicon). It is possible that the actual meaning of this verb is stative, which is to say "No longer be a water drinker" or one who drinks water exclusively. The Greco-Roman world saw wine as a blessing. It was enjoyable to drink and they felt it had great health benefits as well. This is evident from this passage as well as other ancient Greek writings (see Xenophon, Cyropaedia 6.2.26; Herodotus, The Histories 1.71.3).

1 Timothy 5:24 - This verse encourages us that "our sins shall find us out" (Num 32:23). Calvin does not see "judgment" as referring to Judgment Day. But rather, he sees it as temporal judgment by human courts. Even in the second case where the sins "follow after." This he says also is the human realm, but the sins will be discovered more slowly. The text itself does not lean in a particular way in this verse, however, a clue to translation can be found in the next verse, "...otherwise cannot be concealed" (NASB). I.e., sins cannot be concealed on earth.