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Aaron with me please now to first Timothy 5. We'll be looking at verses 11 through 16 today. Let's hear God's word now. Beginning at verse 1. Do not rebuke an older man but exhort him as a father younger men as brothers older women as mothers younger women as sisters with all purity. Honor widows who are who are really widows. But if any widow has children or grandchildren let them first learn to show piety at home and repay their parents for this is good and acceptable before God. Now she who is really a widow and left alone trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives and these things command that they may be blameless. If anyone does not provide for his own and especially for those of his household he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Do not let a widow under 60 years old be taken into the number and not unless she has been the wife of one man or reported for good works. If she has brought up children if she has a lot of strangers if she has washed the saints feet if she is relieved the afflicted if she is diligently followed every good work and now our text but Refuse the younger widows for when they begun to grow wanton against Christ they desire to marry having condemnation because they've cast off their first faith and besides they learn to be idle wandering about from house to house and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies saying things which they ought not. Therefore I desire that the younger widows marry their children manage the house. Give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully for some have already turned aside after Satan. If any believing man or woman has widows let them relieve them and do not let the church be burdened that it may relieve those who are really widows. Now finishing the chapter at verse 17 let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. The scripture says you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain and the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses. Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all that the rest also may fear. I charge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels that you observe these things without prejudice doing nothing with partiality. Do not lay hands on anyone hastily, nor share in other people's sins. Keep yourself pure. No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for your stomach's sake and your frequent infirmities. Some men's sins are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment, but those of some men follow later. Likewise, the good works of some are clearly evident, and those that are otherwise cannot be hidden. And now may God bless to us his word. As we look at verses 11 through 16 here, we see that it's still dealing with widows, but these are younger women and they have a different calling from those who are over the age of 60 with no dependents or no descendants whatsoever. These older women have no children around. They may be dead or moved far away. No grandchildren. No nephews or nieces or anything of the sort. Naomi had Ruth. Ruth and Orpah for a while and then Ruth. But these have nobody. Maybe some of you have read the novel. It was popular 20 some years ago. And Ladies of the Club and one of the two main characters ends up she loses her daughter at age 14. She loses her husband when she's 51. She loses her son, an adult son, when she is about 60. And his only kid is far away in California after a divorce. And so she's left with nobody around. Thankfully she's financially well off does not have to depend upon the church. But this is the sort of woman that's being looked at here just like Anne Alexander Gordon in that novel. But in the days in which Paul wrote there were many younger widows or at least some let's say. length of life once one reached adulthood was normally not too far from what it is today. If you made it through all the childhood diseases and such and got perhaps to the age of 30, well then you were less likely than in later years to have problems with illness and such. A lot of our sexually transmitted diseases hadn't shown up. There's no such thing at that time in humanity. It was probably out there somewhere in animals or something, but such as syphilis and gonorrhea if I remember correctly. Tuberculosis was not as great a problem as it would be in the Middle Ages and until really mid century this year. Excuse me, in our day, you know back in the middle of the 20th century. But there were other things that could and did happen. There were other illnesses that were abroad that would attack and kill somebody. that were around until antibiotics were discovered at around the same time as we saw tuberculosis ended. So there would be widows. Women physically are able to withstand a lot of problems, physical problems, better than men are. This is why they have longer life and don't have quite the same mortality figures. So there would be widows around. Particularly these younger women. What's to be done with them? Some with a profession of faith might be interested, for example, in taking on this work of the older women. Paul says no. Paul says this not because he has some hatred of women. It is because he is led by the Spirit of God and because God does not want them to be out of the calling he has for them. First of all, they are kept from the work that the older widows are commissioned to do because of the strong possibility of broken promises. They would be, in getting on this role, in getting enlisted, so to speak, to be doing this work of helping the deacons and instructing the younger women and such, in this role they would be promising to leave off everything else and dedicate themselves full time to this work with pay from the congregation. However with the younger widows natural desires and not merely sexual ones well up within them so that they want to marry again. Now that in itself is not a bad thing. Many people get the idea that the church all along has thought marriage was somehow an inferior calling. That was not Paul's place. That was not the position of the scripture ever. That is a foreign idea that came in from the outside. It came from Greek notions of difference between the spirit and the body that got into the Horrid Doctrine, that got into the church strongly of asceticism. That somehow pleasure was wrong and conceiving children was the worst thing. You're bringing little sinners into the world. And having pleasure was terrible because it was catering to the body when we should be caring about the soul. Totally getting away from scriptural ideas. This is not what Paul is condemning. If marriage in and of itself were a bad thing, Paul would not say, down in verse 14, I desire that the younger widows marry their children, manage the house. Give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully. And so you see, it's not that Paul has anything against the marriage relationship or the proper, godly, in fact commanded pleasures within it. However, if they had promised to give themselves entirely to the work referred to in verses 9 and 10 with these older women, and then they gave it up, they'd be guilty of breaking their promise. That was the problem. Now, we might misunderstand something here. In verse 15 it talks about them turning aside after Satan. That is not necessarily what would happen. It's not that for most of these who would turn away that somehow If they would do so, their salvation were in jeopardy. But at the same time, is it ever a safe thing for Christians to sin? Is it ever something we should be saying, it's not much, it's only a little sin? By no means. And so God, speaking through the apostle, tells these younger women, this is not the calling I have for you. If you fall down, As many of you will. Most of you will. It would show that you're really not faithful. You're really not all that strong. It will be a shame to you, a grief to you, and it will be a discouragement to the church of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, he says, In verse 13, and perhaps this sort of thing had happened before in other places that Paul had seen. But however it was, remember again, it is the Holy Spirit speaking through Paul. This isn't his personal prejudice, his personal judgment. We have the inerrant word of God here. With the younger woman, or I should say women, there is a possibility of spreading trouble. They learned to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not. Now, it would start out innocently. It would start out very much like the older women. What were the older women doing? Well, likely anyway, what they were doing was going from house to house, just like we read here. and ministering to the families and particularly to the women in those households. And it might involve all sorts of teaching and counseling, how they might be growing in their faith, how they might, these younger women that these older women were dealing with, how they might work more effectively and more godly within their families and within the congregation. The older women would do this from house to house. So with these younger women and as they taught and as they counseled they would learn more and more about the church members with whom they were working to whom they were ministering. They would learn about their strengths and weaknesses. They would learn about their degree of sanctification and where it was lagging. They would learn perhaps about some problems and some areas where, well, there was yet remaining sin. And would deal with it, the older women, in a mature and a discreet and a godly way. Because these older women would have grown already in their godliness. They would have learned wisdom and discretion which we all learn with more experience in Jesus Christ. So it would be that many of these younger women would start out, but would degenerate as it so often does with younger people. With no husband to attend to and no husband for companionship, the younger women would be tempted to really do not much of anything. Instead of taking care of business would be busy bodies as we have put here. They would want to look busy in their what others thought of as important work but little of value would be accomplished and much time and opportunity would be squandered. Again the wise older women would seldom do this as they had grown in holiness and in practical godliness. In their going from house to house, instead of being discreet, they would begin to tell about what's going on. Innocently, maybe, in the way of, and not just women do this, men do too sometimes. Oh, I've got a matter that you need to know about so you can be praying about. Sister so-and-so is having a problem with thus and thus. And so this is the way that gossip gets going. Oh, it looks so pious. But they say things which they should not. This would not be nearly the temptation for the older women, once again, with characters transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit. No, rather, God has a different calling for these younger women, which we see there in verses 14 through 16. Therefore I desire that the younger widows marry their children manage the house give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully for some have already turned aside after Satan. If any believing man or woman has widows let them relieve them and do not let the church be burdened that it may relieve those who are really widows. There's a commercial long ago on TV. I've forgotten what it was for. It may have been for some stupid cereal or something but the one line I remember from it and some of you may remember this feel free to refresh my memory after the worship service is over. But this young lady who is a mom kind of flings up her hands in despair or mock despair and says, what's a mother to do? Well, what's the younger woman to do if she cannot do what is being talked about with the older women? Well, first of all, there is no indication here that she is to stay idle. That she is just supposed to sit around and do nothing. Certainly not to wait on something to appear for her. No, there is much as a godly young woman that she has to do unofficially. And there is no indication that she and her children are to just go off on a corner, sit down, and die. Starve to death. No. There's no indication that there is to be no help from brothers and sisters in Christ. No. There in verse 16, if any believing man or woman has widows, let them relieve them. So brothers-in-law, take care of these young ladies. And if need be, if she has no one, maybe she really is, even though young, she has no one yet, then let the church take care of her. We are not to let the younger women and their children suffer By no means. In no way is Paul saying, just forget about them. But on the other hand, there is much for her to do. The first thing he says here is that she should seek remarriage, if possible, and the Lord opens the way for her. This goes strongly against much of the teaching of the church in later years. It was called serial polygamy by some of the teachers of the church in years to come. Those of you who know church history will know names such as Tertullian or Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate. They had these ascetic ideas that I was talking about before that pleasure is wrong and particularly pleasures in marriage that somehow it's wrong to have these things. That is not the teaching of scripture, that is not the teaching of the Puritans. It may have been the teaching of some in Victorian days and it certainly was the teaching of the church in many ways up to the time of the Reformation. This is why, for example, there are monks and nuns and why priests aren't allowed to marry. Because back long ago, some people strayed from the scripture and decided that marriage was sort of, well, you know, a lower calling. You know, it's kind of vulgar. It's dirty. What an ungodly, unscriptural idea. Secondly, she should seek, if God opens the way for her, to have more children. Let's note here that many children, having many children, is the mark of God's blessing. We should not be looking at them as the world does, as so-called rugrats or many annoyances or curses. And we'll note that one of the qualifications for the godly elderly widow who is ministering for the church in a semi-official capacity is her rearing up of children. Thirdly, they're called upon to manage their homes well. This may seem like a little thing, particularly if you are in the middle of it, but it's a big deal. It is the picture of the Proverbs 31 woman here. It is a young lady, younger lady, who is doing a good job in her calling and seeking to do the best, to be a blessing to her husband, a blessing to her children, a glory to God. That is what she is called upon to do and it's what we are all commanded to do as far as the attitude As far as the generality of it in whatever calling we have with the household managed well there's more money to support for example the older widows in their work of help to everyone in the congregation. In such work this younger widow or perhaps now by this time married again shows practical godliness. That is a good example to all the church. and edifies the church. She trains up her children, the rising generation in the ways of godliness, and she shows the love of Christ to the world. She glorifies God. All that from well managing her household. To do otherwise, well, It often leads to a way that's broad and smooth, that's appealing and part of our culture today, but it's a way that can lead to destruction. Rejecting God's call often leads to destruction. So, it's a different calling. It's one that's not terribly honored by the world in our day and perhaps was not as well honored in the church there in Ephesus as it should have been in Timothy's day. But it is a calling that glorifies God. It is a calling that is used by Jesus Christ. It is a calling that is worthy. It is a calling which you younger women ought to be paying heed to. Not all of you are married yet. But God willing, the time will come for you. You're not widowed yet, but the time may come as a younger or as an older woman. However it is God's calling for you, whatever it might be, follow it faithfully. Do not seek to go where you are not called, but trust that where God has placed you, there He will bless you, there He will use you. There He will honor you and there He will glorify Himself. Amen. We'll close up this evening by singing from Psalm 128. Psalm 128. And we will use the second version of it. It's a well known tune of course it doesn't strike me as particularly Northern Irish it's called Ulster I'm not exactly sure why maybe it's named for the town of Ulster New York or something but it's a basic American gospel song sort of tune. But in any case the text is perfectly appropriate and it really lines up well here not only talking about the man who fears Jehovah but the godly household they're in. So let's rejoice in this. Let's seek to be doing it. Let us glorify God in and through it.
The Elders
系列 Exposition of 1 Timothy
讲道编号 | 12312125320 |
期间 | 25:02 |
日期 | |
类别 | 周日服务 |
圣经文本 | 使徒保羅與弟摩氐第一書 5:17-20 |
语言 | 英语 |