1 Timothy Chapter 5

¹ Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren;

Keeping the use of the word “elder” in context here, we are talking about an older person and not a person who is holding a position of Elder in the Church. We know this is the context because of the instruction for younger men and in the next verse elder women and younger women. This is clearly about their ages and not their positions in leadership.
We are to approach people who are elders with the same respect we give our parents. We aren’t to correct the elder’s behaviors in a disrespectful manner without recognizing the wisdom of their age.

² The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.

Any corrections done are to be done with respect and love in the same way we would correct and love our parents and siblings.

³ Honour widows that are widows indeed.

When a woman has lost her husband, has no family members that she can look to for help, and she isn’t able to take care of herself, she is a widow indeed. The word “honour” here means to prize them and look after them.

⁴ But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents: for that is good and acceptable before God.

Family members are to care for the widowed women.

⁵ Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day.

The mark of a true widow is that she knows she has no other resources, so she is devoted to trusting in God. She spends a lot of time praying. When we are young, we raise our families and work, but when we get older those things are behind us for the most part. Our kids are grown, and our bodies are aged, so we’re limited to what we actually can do. With time in abundance, the older widow can focus on prayer. Older widows are also limited in their abilities to take care of their needs for food and shelter, so her faith is always being tested, and she learns to put her trust in God to supply all of her needs.

⁶ But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.

Younger widows who can still get married have not yet come to fully trust God and die out to their sinfulness. Personal note: I think these widows still have a way to take care of themselves, but the older widows are past the age to work or marry and have children. When I was younger, I would see something that I wanted to do, like camping in the winter, raising my own food, or remodeling my home…I’d dive right in and do it. My body was strong, I didn’t have aches and pains that come with aging….life was laid out before me. Somewhere about 60, I stopped making those kinds of plans without filtering what it would take for me to do it through the filter of my abilities to do them physically…. so at 60 my body became the limitation I had to consider. It was also about this time when my mortality came into focus and I began to see how very short life here is. This led me into a deeper, more serious walk with God. As I read these verses about the widows, I can see how even God recognized and provided for this time in our lives that we who are blessed with long life eventually reach. God thinks of everything.

⁷ And these things give in charge, that they may be blameless.

⁸ But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

——James 1:27  Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

A person can hardly claim to love God with all of their heart and their neighbor as themselves if they allow their mother to starve on the street…. it’s beyond unloving and into the area of cruelty. This person can’t have a regenerated heart and do that to a family member. I remember when I had a worldly point of view about taking care of our parents, it wasn’t really all that long ago either. I felt like a parent had no right to expect their child to look after them in their old age because the child is free and not born into servitude to his/her parents….they never asked or agreed to be born. It was a very worldly point of view where we consider human rights apart from the Laws of love that we find in God. God holds us to a different law.
—Matthew 22:37-39 ³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^{[a] 38} This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

⁹ Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man.

A 60-year-old woman who has only been married once.

¹⁰ Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work.

The older widow that is taken in is given to working for the Lord and doing his work. Her idle days are behind her now. The things that attract the younger woman are no longer attractive to her. The older woman has the wisdom of her age and lives in the reality that this life is short, eternity is long and in the end what will matter is our walk with Jesus, not how many parties we went too…. or any of those things that are of the world. Younger women haven’t come to this wisdom yet and while they may attend to the things of God at first, over time their longing for the other things will draw her away from her commitment.

¹¹ But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry;

¹² Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith.

¹³ And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.

¹⁴ I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.

¹⁵ For some are already turned aside after Satan.

Ephesians 5:16  Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
That saying “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop” comes to mind. Proverbes 16:27-29 ²⁷ An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire.²⁸ A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.²⁹ A violent man enticeth his neighbour, and leadeth him into the way that is not good.
Here Paul is instructing Timothy not to take in the younger ladies as widows. They need to remarry raise children and tend to their home to keep themselves from becoming idle, giving space to the devil to use them as gossips and busybodies.

¹⁶ If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged; that it may relieve them that are widows indeed.

It’s put upon the family to look after their widowed family member so the church can look after those widows who don’t have anyone else to look after them.

¹⁷ Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.

¹⁸ For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.

¹⁹ Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.

²⁰ Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.

Well-placed shame is a great deterrent to bad behavior.

²¹ I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.

²² Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure.

DO NOT appoint a man to a church position without carefully considering the man and will of God. Wait on God and pray for him to show you his will. If a person who isn’t walking completely upright is promoted to a position of authority, there could be serious problems that come up, so this needs careful and prayer consideration…wait on God.

²³ Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.

²⁴ Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after.

²⁵ Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid.