Main news for 20 October 2024

King James Version (en)

1 Timothy, Chapter 5, verses 14-15

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

¹⁵For some are already turned aside after Satan.

NOTES

Speaking about relationships within the church community, Paul, of course, does not accidentally liken them to family relationships...

Speaking about relationships within the church community, Paul, of course, does not accidentally liken them to family relationships, reminding Timothy that everyone he has to instruct must be treated as members of his own family (vv. 1-2). Of course, he is speaking here first of all about that love for one's neighbor without which it is impossible to fulfill the Torah. But there was also something else in the apostle's instruction. It is no accident that the Yahwistic tradition, already from the time of Hosea, likened the relationship between God and His people to a family relationship. Of course, relationships within a family by no means always have a spiritual foundation; otherwise the Savior's well-known words about members of one's household becoming one's enemies would never have been spoken. And yet in our still untransformed world, the natural bonds joining husband to wife or children to parents are the closest, though natural, analogue of the relationships that join people in the Kingdom.

Of course, this is only an analogy, but it allows us to see the main quality that distinguishes the relationships of the Kingdom: their obviousness and unconditional character. Family members are loved, if they are loved, as a rule not for some natural or spiritual qualities of theirs, but simply because they are "one's own"; here the fact of relationship, of "belonging to one's own," determines everything and outweighs everything. In our still untransformed world such natural love can prompt a person not only to throw aside all social norms, but even to break a commandment given by God. In the Kingdom, of course, this is impossible, because for the inhabitants of the Kingdom the Torah is written on the heart; but the unconditional character of the relationship remains, now connected not with old, untransformed human nature, but with the breath of God's love that permeates the Kingdom.

Such, in Paul's thought, should also be the relationships within the church community, because for the apostle the Church is the Kingdom entering the world. That is why he responds so sharply to every possibility of profaning these relationships, especially when the matter concerns church widows ("widows"). In this case, of course, he is not speaking simply about widows who are members of one church community or another. He is speaking about widows who, after the death of their husbands, voluntarily gave up a second marriage, which the Church by no means forbade, and dedicated themselves to church ministries. There lay the danger of profanation: instead of doing God's work, the widows, especially the younger ones, occupied themselves with anything at all except church ministries (vv. 11-13).

In such a case, according to the apostle's words, it would be more honest before God and more correct to enter a second marriage, without playing at "spirituality," and to live an ordinary family life (vv. 14-15). Paul clearly considers any attempt to evade family cares and duties under "spiritual" pretexts inappropriate for a widow (vv. 4-8). And the matter here is not only the responsibility a woman takes upon herself when she enters marriage, a responsibility that is by no means removed from her by her husband's death. The matter, above all, is that playing at "spirituality" has nothing in common with genuine spiritual life; it only distances from the Kingdom those who seek it.

All of today’s reading shows us how pragmatic the apostle Paul was, how full of common sense and...

The attitude toward widows in the Church of the first Christian period was very special. Of course, a widow enjoyed special protection in...

The attitude toward widows in the Church of the first Christian period was very special. Of course, a widow enjoyed special protection in the Synagogue as well, and the Torah pays special attention to protecting the rights precisely of widows and orphans. This is understandable: widows and orphans, often deprived of the support of their family and clan, were in every respect the most vulnerable.

But in the Church, where the attitude toward marriage was special, the attitude toward widows was also special, though in some respects it resembled the traditional synagogue attitude. Widows in the Church enjoyed special attention and protection. But for the Church there also arose the question of widows' second marriage, its advisability or, on the contrary, inadvisability. Every believing Jew understood that if a widow after her husband's death had the opportunity to marry again, she should do so: after all, it was a matter of fulfilling the commandment given to the first people, be fruitful and multiply.

Family was therefore always very important for believing Jews; family life was in fact considered a religious duty, and voluntarily refusing it was considered strange and impossible. If a widow after her husband's death received the opportunity to marry a second time, she of course had to use it. But in the Church marriage was viewed somewhat differently. On the one hand, the Church always saw in marriage a measure of spiritual fullness that could be compared with the spiritual fullness of the Church as the body of Christ. In fact, marriage was considered the introduction of ecclesial fullness into the home, into family relationships.

On the other hand, precisely for this reason the Church directly forbade divorce, except in cases when one of the spouses proved guilty of adultery. In that case he automatically fell away from the Church as well, where by definition there could be no place for the sexually immoral. And the perception of every marriage as absolutely unique called into question not only divorce, but also remarriage in the case of the death of one spouse. Many widows therefore found themselves in church ministries, no longer remarrying and not striving for a second marriage. But here Paul advises Timothy to be cautious.

After all, the Church still did not forbid a second marriage for widows, and if a widow was young she could well use her presence in church or near-church circles to search for a bridegroom rather than for ministry. Or, worse, to satisfy herself with a kind of substitute family life, finding it in contact with the people with whom the ministry she had supposedly taken upon herself brought her together. From such "ministries" the church community could expect nothing except unpleasant misunderstandings, fraught with possible violation of the seventh commandment, about which Paul warns Timothy.

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