Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome & Announcements

“SOUP”erbowl Watch Party on February 12, 2023.

We’re encouraging everyone to bring a homemade soup, we’ll vote on the best soup, and the winner wins a $50 gift card to Brown Dog Catering in Philipsburg.

Kickoff is at 6:30pm.

Please prepare for the Lord’s Supper on February 19th, 2023.

Josh Dickson will be preaching February 26th, 2023, during the Sunday AM Service.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Preaching of God’s Word (1 Tim 5:1-16)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please turn to 1 Timothy 5:1-16.

Paul is getting towards the end of this letter to Timothy—he really only has chs.

5-6 to wrap it all up (and really, ch.

6 includes a lot of personal statements specific to Timothy).

So, what we’re looking at over the next few weeks are a few sections of the Scripture that almost gives several commands in a rapid-fire sort of way.

Because of this, it could be easy to neglect or even just miss a lot of the details that Paul gives here, but if we look at it in a way similar to how someone would read a letter, it gives us a little help in dealing with the rapid-fire commands.

So, think with me, if you were to receive a handwritten letter today—after being shocked that someone would still write you a hand-written letter in a world in which texting and emailing is so much more convenient, what would you do?

Of course, you would read it, but would you just read it and then throw it in the garbage?

Maybe, but more than likely not—you would read it and then re-read it, and maybe even mark certain parts so that you could remember where exactly it was and remind yourself of what it said (especially if the letter came from someone that you greatly respected and admired).

In a case where someone rapid-fires multiple commands, you wouldn’t just read it and then throw the letter away—you’d read it much slower so that you could gain as much information from the letter as possible and that’s precisely what we’re seeking to do as we work through the rest of 1 Timothy.

Especially since the rest of the text gives multiple commands to how the individuals within the church ought to treat one another.

Keep this in mind as we read 1 Timothy 5:1-16 together.

As we study this passage, we’re going to break it into two sections (1) Interpersonal Relationships (1-2) and (2) The Treatment of Widows (3-16).

These two sections start a series of commands concerning how relationships within the local church ought to be.

So, of course, the text starts in the most basic of ways—how do you treat men and women that are older or younger than you—before he almost goes on a rabbit trail about how the church ought to handle widows within the church.

I say a rabbit trail because he goes on at length about it before returning to how relationships within the local church ought to be, so we’ll do precisely what Paul does.

Prayer for Illumination

Interpersonal Relationships (1-2)

Paul starts this section of Scripture with a single sentence that has wide implication to how we do just about everything within a church—and it answers an important question, how do you treat others within the church?

This question provides the basis for not just today’s message, but next week, and really just about everything Paul says until the very end of 1 Timothy.

For today’s text, He divides his answer into two, (1) this is how you treat other men in the church and (2) this is how you treat the women in the church.

Let’s break that down:

This is how you treat men— “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers.”

He divides men into two categories—men that are older than Timothy and men that are younger than Timothy and the reasoning for this is rather simple—people have a tendency to look at others who are much older or much younger and treat them differently than people their own age.

Instead, Paul tells him that when it comes to men that are older than him, he ought to treat them like he treats his father—he says that Timothy ought not rebuke an older man.

Now, let me clarify this—rebuking is the idea of sharply correcting someone, but here’s the thing, Paul is not saying that Timothy should never correct an older man.

In fact, part of the purpose of pastors within the local church is to correct people and steer them towards Jesus.

Rather, what Paul is speaking of is that Timothy shouldn’t correct an older man like he would a child—there’s a certain amount of respect that Timothy ought to treat those who are older than him with.

When Paul says that Timothy should “encourage him as you would a father,” the concept of encouraging here, in this context, is to implore or to urge or to maybe even convince him.

Or in other words, when dealing with men older than himself, Timothy ought to treat them with respect like he would treat his own father and when correcting an older man, Timothy ought to do it in a way that he doesn’t sharply critique him like he would a child, but rather he should appeal or exhort the man towards the truth.

He’s still to correct or critique, he just has to do it with respect and honor.

Thomas Lea and Hayne Griffin, “In dealing with the older men Paul urged Timothy to avoid a harsh, insensitive treatment which would not appreciate their age.

The term “rebuke,” mentioned here only in the New Testament, describes a severe verbal pounding.

Such treatment would show no appreciation for age.

The youthful Timothy faced a ticklish situation in appealing to older men, but differences of age did not make admonition to these men any less necessary.”

(Thomas D. Lea and Hayne P. Griffin, 1, 2 Timothy, Titus, The New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 145.)

For men who are younger and what Paul means by this is really, men that are Timothy’s age and younger, Timothy ought to treat them as he would treat his brother.

That means that he’s not to lord his position over younger men, he ought to treat them like they were his equals.

Again, that doesn’t mean that Timothy ought not correct error in their thinking or their religious thoughts, it’s that he is to do it in a way in which he’s not coming to them as a pompous know-it-all, but rather as a brother correcting a brother.

Now, of course, we all know that when you’re young, siblings tend to bicker and fight, what Paul has in mind is when siblings age and they start treating each other as peers, as friends, as those individuals who genuinely care for one another and know each other.

So, essentially, Paul is stating that while correcting men older, younger, and the same age as him, he ought to do it not as a know-it-all, not too sharply, not with disdain, but with genuine care and respect for the men.

This is how you treat women— “older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.”

Paul directs Timothy to treat women in different age groups with the respect, honor, and care that are owed them.

When it comes to older women within the church, Timothy needs to treat them respectfully as if they were his own mother.

He needs to have a personal respect for the older women in the church, which let me be abundantly clear, during this time in history, this is completely counter-cultural.

Paul is showing Timothy that just like older men are to be treated with utter respect, so should older women.

With the parallelism in the text, you could rightfully assume that the same statement concerning older men, not to rebuke them sharply would also apply to older women.

Again, not that he ought never correct an older woman within the church, he just has to do it with grace and mercy and respect.

When it comes to younger women, he is to treat them as sisters and then he adds a phrase, “in all purity.”

The concept of purity in this context refers to a moral purity based on his profession of faith in Jesus Christ—or in other words, unlike the world around them that practices abhorrent and aberrant views of the relationship between men and women, Timothy is to treat women with pure ethical motives.

You must remember that Ephesus was a city with several temples to false gods, the biggest of which is the Temple to Artemis, who was the supposed goddess of not just hunting and wild animals, but of childbirth; and in Ephesus, she wasn’t really worshiped as a goddess of hunting, but rather a goddess of fertility.

You can only imagine then that those who adhered to Artemis, which was a massive group of people, had a very wild and debauchery-filled way of worshiping Artemis

And in a city in which that was the norm, you have to imagine then that just about everyone has a warped understanding of what it means for a younger man to treat a younger woman.

Timothy is to treat all younger women as if they were his sister—he is to care for them, protect them, and be there for them with all grace, mercy, respect, and purity.

So, essentially, Paul is stating that even though the culture around them has a warped understanding of how men are to treat women, he is to treat all the women around him with grace, mercy, respect, and in purity.

Really, what Paul shows us in the first two verses in 1 Timothy 5, is that when it comes to interpersonal relationships within the local body of Christ, there are certain ways that you treat other people and it’s epitomized as a family.

Older men are to be treated as if they were your fathers, older women are to be treated as if they were your mothers, younger men are to be treated as if they were your brothers, and younger women are to be treated as if they were your sisters.

Now, in the next fourteen verses, we then see how exactly this concept of the local church being a family plays out in one specific instance.

Again, it’s almost a rabbit trail, but it is an example of what is to be done when caring for the people of the church.

Let’s look at vv. 3-16.

The Treatment of Widows (3-16)

Paul gives us an example of how a church ought to treat older women in the church and the reason why he does this is probably because it was and still is an oft debated question—what responsibility does the church have to those who are widowed?

But note, that Paul’s definition of a widow is a little different than most people today:

Most people today just consider anyone who lost their spouse a widow, but in Paul’s thinking, there is a difference between those who are truly widows and those who aren’t, and the primary difference is that those who are truly widowed have no other family whatsoever.

We see in v. 4, that “if a widow has children or grandchildren,” that the responsibility to take care of that person is actually on the children and the grandchildren; and not the church.

Or put differently, though the church does care for widows, Paul differentiates between those who are widowed and have literally no one who can take care of them and those who are widowed and have family that ought to take care of them.

In fact, Paul’s thinking is rather simple, that if a widowed person has children or grandchildren, their children or grandchildren reveal their godliness by taking in their parents or grandparents, Paul says that this is pleasing in the sight of God.

And for those who refuse to take in their parents and really, for those who refuse to care for the members of their household, “he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

The idea at hand is that if you’re genuinely a believer, you’ll want to care for the members of your household; and Paul’s understanding is that even unbelievers do this, which is why if you’re a believer and you refuse to even care for your family, he says you’re worse than an unbeliever and you might not even be a believer.

The reality is that those who take in their parents or their grandparents to care for them when they need help, this action pleases the Lord and it reveals your godliness or in other words, it reveals the fact that you believe in Jesus.

The idea at hand is that if believers act and react the way that they’re supposed to, then when their parents or grandparents are widowed, they ought to step up, take them in, and care for them “to make some return to their parents.”

Now, of course, this looks different depending on the situation—for instance, if your widowed mom needs medical attention—whether that’s daily dialysis or specialized treatment, then it might mean that you help her get into a nursing home or hospice care.

Your widowed dad might still be able to mostly function on his own, but maybe you just take him dinner every night to make sure he eats and has some company.

In some cases, it might involve moving your widowed family member into your home and being there for them whenever they need help.

The key is that when your family needs help, they should be able to turn to you—of course, this would be different if the relationship within the family wasn’t healthy or if there was some sort of abuse or something along those lines.

Now in vv.

9-16, Paul gives prerequisites for widows that don’t have family to care for them—and the idea is that for those that don’t have family to care for them (or if the family absolutely refuses to care for them), then the church is supposed to step in to help.

And in this, he essentially explains this to be almost like a list of widows within the church that is almost on the list of responsibilities for the church.

Meaning, if the person has no family or the family has chosen to be worse than unbelievers and refuse to aid their widowed parent or grandparents, then the church is to step in and help that believing widow who is a member of the local church.

In particular, they are to help with the ones that meet these requirements:

According to v. 9, she is to be enrolled, “if she is not less than sixty years of age.” — the reason for this is given later in the passage, so we’ll come back to it.

She had to have been “the wife of one husband.”

— now note, that this isn’t speaking of someone who had experienced divorce and remarried or someone who had a husband, that husband passed, and got remarried and then that husband passed.

Like the requirements for elders and deacons, this is actually speaking about faithfulness to one’s spouse—meaning, if the widowed woman was faithful to her husband, then she can be enrolled as a widow.

She needs to have a reputation for doing good works—she has a track record for doing good deeds, which makes sense because what it tells us is that this widowed woman took seriously her faith and her role within the church.

Some of the specific works that Paul has in mind are as follows:

If she had children, she brought them up in the love and admonition of the Lord—note that this doesn’t preclude women who didn’t have children, it only emphasizes that if she did have children, she did her best to raise them properly.

Paul says that she has a track record of showing hospitality—meaning, she needs to have been willing to help others in their times of need.

The idea of “[washing] the feet of the saints” ties in with that hospitality and shows a willingness to serve others—even to the extent that she would get on her knees and wash the feet of others.

The Bible says that this widow needs to have cared for the afflicted and had devoted herself to every good work.

And then there are some that ought to be denied, presumably, those who had not been faithful in their marriage, those that didn’t have a reputation of doing good works, those that were inhospitable, unwilling to serve, and without care for others.