NOTES for Ti1 5:1-16
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.