“Therefore, I want younger women to marry, have children, manage their households, and give the adversary no opportunity to accuse us. For some have already turned away to follow Satan. If any believing woman has widows in her family, let her help them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it can help widows in genuine need.”
We finally come to the end of Paul’s instructions for widows. This is a continuation of my last post, where Paul was giving instructions for younger widows. The first half was the negative- “Refuse to enroll younger widows…” (v. 11)- as well as the “why”. Here, Paul moves on to what they should do.
He tells Timothy that he wants the younger women to marry, have children, and manage their households. This will give the adversary no opportunity to accuse them. I want to look at this in two parts. Paul knows that younger women will likely want to remarry, and he encourages them to do this rather than take an oath that they may not be able to keep. We will look at this part first.
Some of you may be thinking that this contradicts Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7: 8-9. “I say to the unmarried and to widows: It is good for them if they remain as I am. But if they do not have self-control, they should marry, since it is better to marry than to burn with desire.” And he goes on in verses 39 and 40, “A wife is bound as long as her husband is living. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to anyone she wants—only in the Lord. But she is happier if she remains as she is, in my opinion. And I think that I also have the Spirit of God.” In his letter to the Corinthians, he says that they should only remarry if they do not have self-control and in his letter to Timothy, he says he wants the younger women to marry. Paul wrote his first letter to Corinth in 54 AD. He wrote his letter to Timothy in 62 AD. It is possible that as he visited the churches, and he saw the widows, his opinion changed. Here is another possibility. When Paul wrote the letter to Corinth, Nero had just become emperor. In verse 26, he writes, “Because of the present distress, I think that it is good for a man to remain as he is.” He further writes, “This is what I mean, brothers and sisters: The time is limited, so from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none, those who weep as though they did not weep, those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, those who buy as though they didn’t own anything…” (vs. 29-31). Gotquestions.org puts it this way. “Because time is short, Paul says our outlook on earthly things and relationships should change. The apostle doesn’t mean a man should divorce his wife, not mourn deceased loved ones, never rejoice, or refuse to interact with the world- the rest of the chapter and other passages of Scripture clearly go against such an interpretation. Rather, Paul is conveying the urgency of telling others about Christ and the priority of eternal matters over earthly ones.” I hope this is helpful in explaining Paul’s two views on younger widows.
Clearly, by the time he wrote the letters to Timothy, there were widows that needed to be taken care of by the church. As Paul was giving instructions to the younger Timothy on how to administer the affairs of the church (3:15), widows were a big part of it.
Now we come to the second part of the verse. He wanted younger widows to marry so that the adversary would not have an opportunity to accuse them. Who was this adversary? A. Duane Litfin writes in his commentary 1 Timothy, “The enemy here may refer to the church’s adversaries who looked for every chance to tear others down (cf. 1 Cor. 16:19), or to the opposition of the devil himself (cf. 1 Tim. 5:15). Perhaps Paul did not see much difference between the two (cf. 4:1).”
In verse 15 he writes, “For some have already turned away to follow Satan.” This could be widows who had broken their vows and married unbelievers. It could be that they had fallen into sin in some way. Or maybe they were following the false teachers Paul described in chapter 4, who forbade marriage. Paul is not clear on this, other than to make it another reason younger widows are to marry. Andreas J. Köstenberger writes in his commentary, “Certainly the last thing the church would want to do is support indirectly the propagation of false teaching, as would be the case if they supported widows who spread the opponent’s heresy.”
The last thing that Paul writes about widows is this. “If any believing woman has widows in her family, let her help them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it can help widows in genuine need.” Ultimately, it is a family’s responsibility to care for the widows. Thomas Hale writes in the applied New Testament commentary, “Just as children must care for their widowed mothers and grandmothers, so must the women of a family take care of any other widows in their family such as widowed sisters, sisters-in-law, daughters-in-law, etc. Paul says that such widows who have another woman in the household who can care for them should not be put on the church list of widows. The church should only be responsible for those widows who are really in need.”
How do these verses apply to us today? We do not have widows lists in the church, and there aren’t as many widows as there were in Paul’s day. But we do have widows, and what is our responsibility? First and foremost, the 5th commandment comes into play. We are to honor our parents. This might look different for each family. Some women can live independently all their lives. But it is still important that her children check on her and make sure her needs are being met. Other women will need help in their later years. Whether that is moving in with her children or into a retirement or care facility, her children still need to provide oversight and care.
What about those widows who do not have children or family to check on them? This is where the church can step in. Some things that I have seen the local church step in and do include providing rides to church on Sunday morning, cleaning yards and clearing snow, and visiting assisted living centers to provide much needed company. I hope you have seen your church do these and other things to support widows in need.
Grace be with you!
Abundant Joy 