28 May 2023
In our day and time, we have a serious problem with terminology. Western Church History is loaded with examples of words that have been invested with special religious meaning. This does violence to the teaching of the Bible.
In Chapter 3, Paul lays out the qualifications for the role of episkope. The current English translations tend to be self-serving efforts to justify church offices that never existed in New Testament times. The root of that word means "visitation" in the sense of an inspector or judge, coming to bring justice. The image is someone tough on those who lead, and often orders relief for the little people. It's a Greek word explaining the Hebrew concept of elder. Our king and head of household is Jesus; the delegate we actually see on a regular basis is the church elder, the one who executes God's justice under the Covenant. This is the executive officer of the church body, as opposed to the ritual shepherd, often translated as "pastor". These are the Two Witnesses in prophecy.
Next up is the service attendant or "deacon". It's not a leadership office, but a formal service role, rather like King David's messenger corps. These people quite naturally have more time with the leadership, because they help to coordinate fulfilling the larger vision by handling time-consuming tasks. But as far as we can tell, they were seldom paid for their service. They were volunteers. And I will not pay any attention to anyone who perverts the translation of "deaconess" into "wives of deacons". Women could serve because it was not a leadership role. The Greek language has no problem differentiating genders here in stating the qualifications. Stop perverting the Scripture by mislabeling roles in how you organize your church, and you won't need to play silly semantic games.
At the end of the chapter, Paul gives us an actual formal confession of faith about who Jesus is. If you feel the need for some kind of catechism, you'll need to include this. Otherwise, it's meant to shut down some silly teachings about the Lord.
He continues in Chapter 4, explaining why he offers a formalized statement like that. There were any number of ascetics trying to make a doctrine of things that should have been regarded as convictions, and marginal ones at that. Paul refers to such people as having cauterized conscience, wholly insensitive and devoid of normal use. This is an excellent image of someone incapable of living in his heart and sensing his own convictions. Their whole orientation was the fleshly reasoning of the fallen intellect.
Thus, marriage cannot be made a sin, nor can eating meat. Paul flatly says that eating any animal that suits you is fine, because what matters is humility and gratitude before the Lord. That kind of fleshly asceticism serves no significant purpose in Christ. Walking in divine truth is a blessing now and eternally. Paul again uses the statement (as in 1:15) that this is something universal to all Christians. This is what we must teach.
Then he remarks on Timothy's relative youth compared to the church elders and pastors. This should segue right into the next chapter where Paul warns him to avoid talking down to older men. It's not that hard to appeal to someone's better nature, regardless of their relative age.
We need to understand that, in those days, the vast majority of women married men 10-20 years older, not age peers. It was common for wives to outlive their husbands. Since ancient times, their extended families were supposed to keep them alive and let them help manage the children and upkeep of the elder son's home, because that son was given a double portion of the inheritance partly for that very reason. While the Gentiles across the Mediterranean Basin might not have customs quite that rigid, the underlying assumption here is that Christians would naturally be more like Hebrews.
Those who followed Christ were often enough disowned by their natural families, and so the church became their extended family household. The church was a tribal clan and took care of their own. Widows and orphans featured large in Jesus' teaching as those who suffered most from the failure of feudal responsibility among Jews. It was often worse for Gentile widows and orphans. The Pharisees who got Hellenized would tend to act like Gentiles on this issue, so Jesus and His followers pushed hard on taking compassion on them.
Thus, Paul wants church leaders to distinguish between actual widows and women who use the loss of their husbands as an excuse to indulge their fleshly natures. It's more than just sexually loose behavior; women with no real mission can cause all kinds of trouble. If they don't belong to a large enough household to care for and keep them busy, give them tasks in the church body that will keep them out of trouble. On the other hand, don't let the church be burdened with supporting widows whose relatives in the church simply refuse to take care of them. Don't let Christians act like pagans. God's Kingdom is more like what the Hebrews were supposed to be.
But widows cannot just take advantage of a free ride. They get life support from the church only because their presence glorifies God. Don't adopt every widow on the street; she must be an ardent follower of Christ. She also must be old enough to embrace her status as a widow. For simple reasons of biology and sociology, women typically outnumbered men in many churches, and too many young widows would embarrass the church by taking up with pagan men. Paul refers to supported church widows as having taken vows of some sort in verse 12, perhaps not radically different from today's nuns.
We stop at 5:16 for now.
Comments
DarkMirror
"It's more than just sexually loose behavior; women with no real mission can cause all kinds of trouble."
It's true, especially today. The danger of men without a real mission doesn't need to be stated because it's usually a very obvious threat. Women are more likely to be underhanded and subtle.
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