“But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when they are drawn away from Christ by desire, they want to marry and will therefore receive condemnation because they have renounced their original pledge. At the same time, they also learn to be idle, going from house to house; they are not only idle, but are also gossips and busybodies, saying things they shouldn’t say.”
Now we come to the instructions for younger widows. Verses 11 through16 are dedicated on how to treat these younger women. I am going to break this into two blog posts, to keep it from being too long.
The first thing Paul writes is, “Refuse to enroll younger widows…” Before we get into the reasons why, let’s take another look at what the younger widows are not to be enrolled in. In my last post, I wrote that the list could have been an official order for service in the congregation, or it could have been a list of widows who were to receive support from the church. The early church took these verses and created an order of widows who served in special ways. Later, an order of virgins was developed as well, which is when convents were established.
Paul gives the reason the church was not to enroll the younger widows. “… for when they are drawn away from Christ by desire, they want to marry and will therefore receive condemnation because they have renounced their original pledge.” There are two ways this passage can be read, and I am going to address both of them.
One way to look at it is that, because they are young, they are still naturally attracted to men, and they still desire to be married. This desire could lead them to an unbelieving spouse, which, in turn, could cause them to renounce their original pledge to God. Walter L Liefeld writes in 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, “This may mean a pledge that they took when they enrolled on the widows’ list, but that could only have been the case before, or in spite of, Paul’s restrictions on younger widows. It could refer to their initial promise to follow Christ, but that is not the usual way of describing conversion. It is difficult to determine with precision what the first pledge means, but it is clearly a commitment they have broken.”
The more likely meaning for the original pledge that Paul writes about is the pledge the widows made when they enrolled on the list. A Duane Litfin writes in 1 Timothy, “The pledge Paul referred to was probably a more or less formal commitment, taken on joining the list of widows, where the women vowed to serve Christ entirely without the thought of remarriage.” If a younger woman were to make this pledge, and then remarry, she would be breaking the pledge. This is what the Bible has to say about that. “When a man makes a vow to the Lord or swears an oath to put himself under an obligation, he must not break his word; he must do whatever he has promised” (Numbers 30:2). “If you make a vow to the Lord your God, do not be slow to keep it, because he will require it of you, and it will be counted against you as sin. But if you refrain from making a vow, it will not be counted against you as sin. Be careful to do whatever comes from your lips, because you have freely vowed what you promised to the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 23:21-23). “When you make a vow to God, don’t delay fulfilling it, because he does not delight in fools. Fulfill what you vow. Better that you do not vow than that you vow and not fulfill it” (Ecclesiastes 5:4-5). Paul knows that it is better not to enroll younger widows at all, rather than having them make a vow they may not be able to keep.
There is a second reason for not enrolling younger widows. He writes, “At the same time, they also learn to be idle, but are also gossips and busybodies, saying things they shouldn’t say.” Now, before any of you have a chance to say that Paul is sexist, calling out women, he is equal opportunity in his criticisms. In 2nd Thessalonians 3:10-11, he calls out men in the same way. “In fact, when we were with you, this is what we commanded you: ‘If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.’ For we hear that there are some among you who are idle. They are not busy but busybodies.” Paul knows that if younger women are put on the list for support, and do not have a family to look after, they will have more free time to for these things.
What is it specifically, that Paul means, when he writes “saying things they shouldn’t say”? Remember the beginning of Paul’s letter to Timothy. He is writing to him so that Timothy “may instruct certain people not to teach false doctrine…” (1:3). Perhaps these younger widows were going from house to house with this false doctrine. We read in Paul’s second letter to Timothy, “For among them are those who worm their way into households and deceive gullible women overwhelmed by sins and led astray by a variety of passions,always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth” (3:6-7). Leifeld writes, “It is even possible that Paul here refers not to the widows’ speech in general, as though something akin to gossip were in view, but that he here refers specifically to these young women spreading the false teaching ‘from house to house.’ In this case, the continued singleness of these younger widows may be a sign of their acceptance of the false teaching (‘the nonsense’ of v. 13) that forbids marriage (cf. 4:3).”
In my next post I will cover the next three verses on younger widows and then we will be moving back to elders for most of the rest of the chapter.
Grace be with you!
Abundant Joy 