Verses 1-25
Chapter 5
5:1-2 If you have
occasion to reprimand an older man, do not do so sharply, but appeal to
him as you would to a father. Treat the younger men like brothers; the
older women as mothers; the younger women as sisters, in complete
purity.
It is always difficult to reprimand anyone with graciousness;
and to Timothy there would sometimes fall a duty that was doubly
difficult--that of reprimanding a man older than himself. Chrysostom
writes: "Rebuke is in its own nature offensive particularly when it is
addressed to an old man; and when it proceeds from a young man too,
there is a threefold show of forwardness. By the manner and mildness of
it, therefore, he would soften it. For it is possible to reprove without
offence, if one will only make a point of this; it requires great
discretion, but it may be done."
Rebuke is always a problem. We may so dislike the task of
speaking a warning word that we may shirk it altogether. Many a person
would have been saved from sorrow and shipwreck, if someone had only
spoken a warning word in time. There can be no more poignant tragedy
than to hear someone say: "I would never have come to this, if you had
only spoken in time." It is always wrong to shirk the word that should
be spoken.
We may reprimand a person in such a way that there is clearly
nothing but anger in our voice and nothing but bitterness in our minds
and hearts. A rebuke given solely in anger may produce fear; and may
cause pain; but it will almost inevitably arouse resentment; and its
ultimate effect may well be to confirm the mistaken person in the error
of his ways. The rebuke of anger and the reprimand of contemptuous
dislike are seldom effective, and far more likely to do harm than good.
It was said of Florence Allshorn, the great missionary teacher,
that, when she was Principal of a women's college, she always rebuked
her students, when need arose, as it were with her arm around them. The
rebuke which clearly comes from love is the only effective one. If we
ever have cause to reprimand anyone, we must do so in such a way as to
make it clear that we do this, not because we find a cruel pleasure in
it, not because we wish to do it, but because we are under the
compulsion of love and seek to help, not to hurt.
These two verses lay down the spirit which the different age relationships should display.
(i) To older people we must show affection and respect. An older
man is to be treated like a father and an older woman like a mother.
The ancient world knew well the deference and respect which were due to
age. Cicero writes: "It is, then, the duty of a young man to show
deference to his elders, and to attach himself to the best and most
approved of them, so as to receive the benefit of their counsel and
influence. For the inexperience of youth requires the practical wisdom
of age to strengthen and direct it. And this time of life is above all
to be protected against sensuality and trained to toil and endurance of
both mind and body, so as to be strong for active duty in military and
civil service. And even when they wish to relax their minds and give
themselves up to enjoyment, they should beware of excesses and bear in
mind the rules of modesty. And this will be easier, if the young are not
unwilling to have their elders join them, even in their pleasures"
(Cicero: De Officiis, 1: 34). Aristotle writes: "To all older persons
too one should give honour appropriate to their age, by rising to
receive them and finding seats for them and so on" (Aristotle:
Nicomachean Ethics, 9: 2). It is one of the tragedies of life that youth
is so often apt to find age a nuisance. A famous French phrase says
with a sigh: "If youth but had the knowledge, if age but had the power."
But when there is mutual respect and affection, then the wisdom and
experience of age can cooperate with the strength and enthusiasm of
youth, to the great profit of both.
(ii) To our contemporaries we must show brotherliness. The
younger men are to be treated like brothers. Aristotle has it: "To
comrades and brothers one should allow freedom of speech and common use
of all things" (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 9: 2). With our
contemporaries there should be tolerance and sharing.
(iii) To those of the opposite sex our relationships must always
be marked with purity. The Arabs have a phrase for a man of chivalry;
they call him "a brother of girls." There is a famous phrase which
speaks of "Platonic friendship." Love must be kept for one; it is a
fearful thing when physical things dominate the relationship between the
sexes and a man cannot see a woman without thinking in terms of her
body.
5:3-8 Honour widows
who are genuinely in a widow's destitute position. But if any widow has
children or grandchildren, let such children learn to begin by
discharging the duties of religion in their own homes; and let them
learn to give a return for all that their parents have done for them;
for this is the kind of conduct that meets with God's approval. Now she
who is genuinely in the position of a widow, and who is left all alone,
has set her hope on God, and night and day she devotes herself to
petitions and prayers. But she who lives with voluptuous wantonness is
dead even though she is still alive. Pass on these instructions that
they may be irreproachable. If anyone fails to provide for his own
people, and especially for the members of his own family, he has denied
the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
The Christian Church inherited a fine tradition of charity to
those in need. No people has ever cared more for its needy and its aged
than the Jews. Advice is now given for the care of widows. There may
well have been two classes of women here. There were certainly widows
who had become widows in the normal way by the death of their husbands.
But it was not uncommon in the pagan world, in certain places, for a man
to have more than one wife. When a man became a Christian, he could not
go on being a polygamist, and therefore had to choose which wife he was
going to live with. That meant that some wives had to be sent away and
they were clearly in a very unfortunate position. It may be that such
women as these were also reckoned as widows and given the support of the
Church.
Jewish law laid it down that at the time of his marriage a man
ought to make provision for his wife, should she become a widow. The
very first office-bearers whom the Christian Church appointed, had this
duty of caring fairly for the widows (Acts 6:1).
Ignatius lays it down: "Let not widows be neglected. After the Lord be
thou their guardian." The Apostolic Constitutions enjoin the bishop: "O
bishop, be mindful of the needy, both reaching out thy helping hand and
making provision for them as the steward of God, distributing the
offerings seasonably to every one of them, to the widows, the orphans,
the friendless, and those tried with affliction." The same book has an
interesting and kindly instruction: "If anyone receives any service to
carry to a widow or poor woman...let him give it the same day." As the
proverb has it: "He gives twice who gives quickly," and the Church was
concerned that those in poverty might not have to wait and want while
one of its servants delayed.
It is to be noted that the Church did not propose to assume
responsibility for older people whose children were alive and well able
to support them. The ancient world was very definite that it was the
duty of children to support aged parents, and, as E. K. Simpson has well
said: "A religious profession which falls below the standard of duty
recognised by the world is a wretched fraud." The Church would never
have agreed that its charity should become an excuse for children to
evade their responsibility.
It was Greek law from the time of Solon that sons and daughters
were, not only morally, but also legally bound to support their parents.
Anyone who refused that duty lost his civil rights. Aeschines, the
Athenian orator, says in one of his speeches: "And whom did our
law-giver (Solon) condemn to silence in the Assembly of the people? And
where does he make this clear? 'Let there be,' he says, 'a scrutiny of
public speakers, in case there be any speaker in the Assembly of the
people who is a striker of his father or mother, or who neglects to
maintain them or to give them a home'." Demosthenes says: "I regard the
man who neglects his parents as unbelieving in and hateful to the gods,
as well as to men." Philo, writing of the commandment to honour parents,
says: "When old storks become unable to fly, they remain in their nests
and are fed by their children, who go to endless exertions to provide
their food because of their piety." To Philo it was clear that even the
animal creation acknowledged its obligations to aged parents, and how
much more must men? Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics lays it down:
"It would be thought in the matter of food we should help our parents
before all others, since we owe our nourishment to them, and it is more
honourable to help in this respect the authors of our being, even before
ourselves." As Aristotle saw it, a man must himself starve before he
would see his parents starve. Plato in The Laws has the same conviction
of the debt that is owed to parents: "Next comes the honour of loving
parents, to whom, as is meet, we have to pay the first and greatest and
oldest of debts, considering that all which a man has belongs to those
who gave him birth and brought him up, and that he must do all that he
can to minister to them; first, in his property; secondly, in his
person; and thirdly, in his soul; paying the debts due to them for their
care and travail which they bestowed upon him of old in the days of his
infancy, and which he is now able to pay back to them, when they are
old and in the extremity of their need."
It is the same with the Greek poets. When Iphigenia is speaking
to her father Agamemnon, in Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis, she says (the
translation is that of A. S. Way):
"'Twas I first called thee father, thou me child.
'Twas I first throned my body on thy knees,
And gave thee sweet caresses and received.
And this thy word was: 'Ah, my little maid,
Blest shall I see thee in a husband's halls
Living and blooming worthily of me?'
And as I twined my fingers in thy beard,
Whereto I now cling, thus I answered thee:
'And what of thee? Shall I greet thy grey hairs,
Father, with loving welcome in mine halls,
Repaying all thy fostering toil for me?'"
The child's joy was to look forward to the day when she could repay all that her father had done for her.
When Euripides tells how Orestes discovered that an unkind fate
had made him unwittingly slay his own father, he makes him say:
"He fostered me a babe, and many a kiss
Lavished upon me....
O wretched heart and soul of mine!
I have rendered foul return! What veil of gloom
Can I take for my face? Before me spread
What cloud, to shun the old man's searching eye?"
To Euripides the most haunting sin on earth was failure in duty to a parent.
The New Testament ethical writers were certain that support of
parents was an essential part of Christian duty. It is a thing to be
remembered. We live in a time when even the most sacred duties are
pushed on to the state and when we expect, in so many cases, public
charity to do what private piety ought to do. As the Pastorals see it,
help given to a parent is two things. First, it is an honouring of the
recipient. It is the only way in which a child can demonstrate the
esteem within his heart. Second, it is an admission of the claims of
love. It is repaying love received in time of need with love given in
time of need; and only with love can love be repaid.
There remains one thing left to say, and to leave it unsaid
would be unfair. This very passage goes on to lay down certain of the
qualities of the people whom the Church is called upon to support. What
is true of the Church is true within the family. If a person is to be
supported, that person must be supportable. If a parent is taken into a
home and then by inconsiderate conduct causes nothing but trouble,
another situation arises. There is a double duty here; the duty of the
child to support the parent and the duty of the parent to be such that
that support is possible within the structure of the home.
5:9-10 Let a woman be
enrolled as a widow only if she is more than sixty years of age; if she
has been the wife of one husband; if she has earned an attested
reputation for good works; if she has nourished children; if she has
been hospitable to strangers; if she has helped those in trouble; if she
has washed the feet of the saints; if she has devoted herself to every
good work.
From this passage it is clear that the Church had an official
register of widows; and it seems that the word widow is being used in a
double sense. Women who were aged and whose husbands had died and whose
lives were lovely and useful were the responsibility of the Church; but
it is also true that, perhaps as early as this, and certainly later in
the early Church, there was an official order of widows, an order of
elderly women who were set apart for special duties.
In the regulations of the Apostolic Constitutions, which tell us
what the life and organization of the Church were like in the third
century, it is laid down: "Three widows shall be appointed, two to
persevere in prayer for those who are in temptation, and for the
reception of revelations, when such are necessary, but one to assist
women who are visited with sickness; she must be ready for service,
discreet, telling the elders what is necessary, not avaricious, not
given to much love of wine, so that she may be sober and able to perform
the night services, and other loving duties."
Such widows were not ordained as the elders and the bishops
were; they were set apart by prayer for the work which they had to do.
They were not to be set apart until they were over sixty years of age.
That was an age which the ancient world also considered to be specially
suited for concentration on the spiritual life. Plato, in his plan for
the ideal state, held that sixty was the right age for men and women to
become priests and priestesses.
The Pastoral Epistles are always intensely practical; and in
this passage we find seven qualifications which the Church's widows must
satisfy.
They must have been the wife of one husband. In an age when the
marriage bond was lightly regarded and almost universally dishonoured,
they must be examples of purity and fidelity.
They must have earned an attested reputation for good works. The
office-bearers of the Church, male or female, have within their
keeping, not only their personal reputation, but also the good name of
the Church. Nothing discredits a church like unworthy office-bearers;
and nothing is so good an advertisement for it as an office-bearer who
has taken his Christianity into the activity of daily living.
They must have nourished children. This may well mean more than
one thing. It may mean that widows must have given proof of their
Christian piety by bringing up their own families in the Christian way.
But it can mean more than that. In an age when the marriage bond was
very lax and men and women changed their partners with bewildering
rapidity, children were regarded as a misfortune. This was the great age
of child exposure. When a child was born, he was brought and laid
before his father's feet. If the father stooped and lifted him, that
meant that he acknowledged him and was prepared to accept responsibility
for his upbringing. If the father turned and walked away, the child was
quite literally thrown out, like an unwanted piece of rubbish. It often
happened that such unwanted children were collected by unscrupulous
people and, if girls, brought up to stock the public brothels, and, if
boys, trained to be slaves or gladiators for the public games. It would
be a Christian duty to rescue such children from death and worse than
death, and to bring them up in a Christian home. So this may mean that
widows must be women who had been prepared to give a home to abandoned
children.
They must have been hospitable to strangers. Inns in the ancient
world were notoriously dirty, expensive and immoral. Those who opened
their homes to the traveller, or the stranger in a strange place, or to
young people whose work and study took them far from home, were doing a
most valuable service to the community. The open door of the Christian
home is always a precious thing.
They must have washed the feet of the saints. That need not be
taken literally, although the literal sense is included. To wash a
person's feet was the task of a slave, the most menial of duties. This
means that Christian widows must have been willing to accept the
humblest tasks in the service of Christ and of his people. The Church
needs its leaders who will live in prominence; but no less it needs
those who are prepared to do the tasks which receive no prominence and
little thanks.
They must have helped those in trouble. In days of persecution
it was no small thing to help Christians who were suffering for their
faith. This was to identify oneself with them and to accept the risk of
coming to a like punishment. The Christian must stand by those in
trouble for their faith, even if, in so doing, he brings trouble on
himself.
They must have devoted themselves to all good works. Every man
concentrates his life on something; the Christian concentrates his on
obeying Christ and helping men.
When we study these qualifications for those who were to be
enrolled as widows, we see that they are the qualifications of every
true Christian.
As we have already said, if not as early as the time of the Pastoral
Epistles, certainly in later days, the widows became an accepted order
in the Christian Church. Their place and work are dealt with in the
first eight chapters of the third book of The Apostolic Constitutions,
and these chapters reveal the use that such an order could be and the
dangers into which it almost inevitably ran.
(i) It is laid down that women who would serve the Church must
be women of discretion. Particularly they must be discreet in speech:
"Let every widow be meek, quiet, gentle, sincere, free from anger, not
talkative, not clamorous, not hasty of speech, not given to
evil-speaking, not captious, not double-tongued, not a busybody. If she
see or hear anything that is not right, let her be as one that does not
see, and as one that does not hear." Such Church officials must be very
careful when they discuss the faith with outsiders: "For unbelievers
when they hear the doctrine concerning Christ, not explained as it ought
to be, but defectively, especially that concerning his Incarnation or
his Passion, will rather reject it with scorn, and laugh at it as false,
than praise God for it."
There is nothing more dangerous than an official of the Church
who talks about things which ought to be kept secret; and a Church
office-bearer must be equipped to communicate the gospel in a way that
will make men think more and not less of Christian truth.
(ii) It is laid down that women who serve the Church must not be
gadabouts: "Let the widow therefore own herself to be the 'altar of
God,' and let her sit in her own house, and not enter into the houses of
the unfaithful, under any pretence to receive anything; for the altar
of God never runs about, but is fixed in one place. Let therefore the
virgin and the widow be such as do not run about, or gad to the houses
of those who are alien from the faith. For such as these are gadders and
impudent." The restless gossip is ill-equipped to serve the Church.
(iii) It is laid down that widows who accept the charity of the
Church are not to be greedy. "There are some widows who esteem gain
their business; and since they ask without shame, and receive without
being satisfied, render other people more backward in giving.... Such a
woman is thinking in her mind of where she can go to get, or that a
certain woman who is her friend has forgotten her, and she has something
to say to her.... She murmurs at the deaconess who distributed the
charity, saying, 'Do you not see that I am in more distress and need of
your charity? Why therefore have you preferred her before me?'" It is an
ugly thing to seek to live off the Church rather than for the Church.
(iv) It is laid down that such women must do all they can to
help themselves: "Let her take wool and assist others rather than
herself want from them." The charity of the Church does not exist to
make people lazy and dependent.
(v) Such women are not to be envious and jealous: "We hear that
some widows are jealous, envious calumniators, and envious of the quiet
of others.... It becomes them when one of their fellow-widows is clothed
by anyone, or receives money, or meat, or drink, or shoes, at the
refreshment of their sister, to thank God."
There we have at one and the same time a picture of the faults
of which the Church is all too full, and of the virtues which should be
the marks of the true Christian life.
5:11-16 Refuse to
enrol the younger women as widows, for when they grow impatient with the
restrictions of Christian widowhood, they wish to marry, and so deserve
condemnation, because they have broken the pledge of their first faith;
and, at the same time, they learn to be idle and to run from house to
house. Yes, they can become more than idle; they can become gossips and
busybodies, saying things which should not be repeated. It is my wish
that the younger widows should marry, and bear children, and run a house
and home, and give our opponents no chance of abuse. For, even as
things are, some of them have turned aside from the way to follow Satan.
If any believing person has widowed relations, let such a person help
them, and let not the Church be burdened with the responsibility, so
that it may care for those who are genuinely in the position of widows.
A passage like this reflects the situation in society in which the early Church found itself.
It is not that younger widows are condemned for marrying again.
What is condemned is this. A young husband dies; and the widow, in the
first bitterness of sorrow and on the impulse of the moment, decides to
remain a widow all her life and to dedicate her life to the Church; but
later she changes her mind and remarries. That woman is regarded as
having taken Christ as her bridegroom. So that by marrying again she is
regarded as breaking her marriage vow to Christ. She would have been
better never to have taken the vow.
What complicated this matter very much was the social background
of the times. It was next to impossible for a single or a widowed woman
to earn her living honestly. There was practically no trade or
profession open to her. The result was inevitable; she was almost driven
to prostitution in order to live. The Christian woman, therefore, had
either to marry or to dedicate her life completely to the service of the
Church; there was no halfway house.
In any event the perils of idleness remain the same in any age.
There was the danger of becoming restless; because a woman had not
enough to do, she might become one of those creatures who drift from
house to house in an empty social round. It was almost inevitable that
such a woman would become a gossip; because she had nothing important to
talk about, she would tend to talk scandal, repeating tales from house
to house, each time with a little more embroidery and a little more
malice. Such a woman ran the risk of becoming a busybody; because she
had nothing of her own to take up her attention, she would be very apt
to be over-interested and over-interfering in the affairs of others.
It was true then, as it is true now, that "Satan finds some
mischief still for idle hands to do." The full life is always the safe
life, and the empty life is always the life in peril.
So the advice is that these younger women should marry and
engage upon the greatest task of all, rearing a family and making a
home. Here we have another example of one of the main thoughts of the
Pastoral Epistles. They are always concerned with how the Christian
appears to the outside world. Does he give opportunity to criticize the
Church or reason to admire it? It is always true that "the greatest
handicap the Church has is the unsatisfactory lives of professing
Christians" and equally true that the greatest argument for Christianity
is a genuinely Christian life.
5:17-22 Let elders who
discharge their duties well be judged worthy of double honour,
especially those who toil in preaching and in teaching; for Scripture
says: "You must not muzzle the ox when he is treading the corn," and,
"The workman deserves his pay."
Do not accept an accusation against an elder unless on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
Rebuke those who persist in sin in the presence of all, so that the others may develop a healthy fear of sinning.
I adjure you before
God and Christ Jesus and the chosen angels that you keep these
regulations impartially, and that you do nothing because of your own
prejudices or predilection.
Do not be too quick to lay your hands on any man, and do not share the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.
Here is a series of the most practical regulations for the life and administration of the Church.
(i) Elders are to be properly honoured and properly paid. When
threshing was done in the East, the sheaves of corn were laid on the
threshing-floor; then oxen in pairs were driven repeatedly across them;
or they were tethered to a post in the middle and made to march round
and round on the grain; or a threshing sledge was harnessed to them and
the sledge was drawn to and fro across the corn. In all cases the oxen
were left unmuzzled and were free to eat as much of the grain as they
wished, as a reward for the work they were doing. The actual law that
the ox must not be muzzled is in Deuteronomy 25:4.
The saying that the workman deserves his pay is a saying of Jesus (Luke 10:7).
It is most likely a proverbial saying which he quoted. Any man who
works deserves his support, and the harder he works, the more he
deserves. Christianity has never had anything to do with the sentimental
ethic which clamours for equal shares for all. A man's reward must
always be proportioned to a man's toil.
It is to be noted what kind of elders are to be specially
honoured and rewarded. It is those who toil in preaching and teaching.
The elder whose service consisted only in words and discussion and
argument is not in question here. He whom the Church really honoured was
the man who worked to edify and build it up by his preaching of the
truth and his educating of the young and of the new converts in the
Christian way.
(ii) It was Jewish law that no man should be condemned on the
evidence of a single witness: "A single witness shall not prevail
against a man for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any
offence that he has committed, only on the evidence of two witnesses, or
of three witnesses, shall a charge be sustained" (Deuteronomy 19:15).
The Mishnah, the codified Rabbinic law, in describing the process of
trial says: "The second witness was likewise brought in and examined. If
the testimony of the two was found to agree, the case for the defence
was opened." If a charge was supported by the evidence of only one
witness, it was held that there was no case to answer.
In later times Church regulations laid it down that the two
witnesses must be Christian, for it would have been easy for a malicious
heathen to fabricate a false charge against a Christian elder in order
to discredit him, and through him to discredit the Church. In the early
days, the Church authorities did not hesitate to apply discipline, and
Theodore of Mopseuestia, one of the early fathers, points out how
necessary this regulation was, because the elders were always liable to
be disliked and were specially open to malicious attack "due to the
retaliation by some who had been rebuked by them for sin." A man who had
been disciplined might well seek to get his own back by maliciously
charging an elder with some irregularity or some sin.
This permanent fact remains, that this would be a happier world
and the Church, too, would be happier, if people would realize that it
is nothing less than sin to spread stories of whose truth they are not
sure. Irresponsible, slanderous and malicious talk does infinite damage
and causes infinite heartbreak, and such talk will not go unpunished by
God.
(iii) Those who persist in sin are to be publicly rebuked. That
public rebuke had a double value. It sobered the sinner into a
consideration of his ways; and it made others have a care that they did
not involve themselves in a like humiliation. The threat of publicity is
no bad thing, if it keeps a man in the right way, even from fear. A
wise leader will know the time to keep things quiet and the time for
public rebuke. But whatever happens, the Church must never give the
impression that it is condoning sin.
(iv) Timothy is urged to administer his office without
favouritism or prejudice. B. S. Easton writes: "The well-being of every
community depends on impartial discipline." Nothing does more harm than
when some people are treated as if they could do no wrong and others as
if they could do no right. Justice is a universal virtue and the Church
must surely never fall below the impartial standards which even the
world demands.
(v) Timothy is warned not to be too hasty "in laying hands on any man." That may mean one of two things.
(a) It may mean that he is not to be too quick in laying hands
on any man to ordain him to office in the Church. Before a man gains
promotion in business, or in teaching, or in the army or the navy or the
air force, he must give proof that he deserves it. No man should ever
start at the top. This is doubly important in the Church; for a man who
is raised to high office and then fails in it, brings dishonour, not
only on himself, but also on the Church. In a critical world the Church
cannot be too careful in regard to the kind of men whom it chooses as
its leaders.
(b) In the early Church it was the custom to lay hands on a
penitent sinner who had given proof of his repentance and had returned
to the fold of the Church. It is laid down: "As each sinner repents, and
shows the fruits of repentance, lay hands on him, while all pray for
him." Eusebius tells us that it was the ancient custom that repentant
sinners should be received back with the laying on of hands and with
prayer. If that be the meaning here, it will be a warning to Timothy not
to be too quick to receive back the man who has brought disgrace on the
Church; to wait until he has shown that his penitence is genuine, and
that he is truly determined to mould his life to fit his penitent
professions. That is not for a moment to say that such a man is to be
held at arms' length and treated with suspicion; he has to be treated
with all sympathy and with all help and guidance in his period of
probation. But it is to say that membership of the Church is never to be
treated lightly, and that a man must show his penitence for the past
and his determination for the future, before he is received, not into
the fellowship of the Church, but into its membership. The fellowship of
the Church exists to help such people redeem themselves, but its
membership is for those who have truly pledged their lives to Christ.
5:23 Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine for the sake of your stomach, to help your frequent illnesses.
This sentence shows the real intimacy of these letters. Amidst
the affairs of the Church and the problems of administration, Paul finds
time to slip in a little bit of loving advice to Timothy about his
health.
There had always been a strain of asceticism in Jewish religion. When a man took the Nazirite vow (Numbers 6:1-21)
he was pledged never to taste any of the product of the vine: "He shall
separate himself from wine and strong drink; he shall drink no vinegar
made from wine, or strong drink, and shall not drink any juice of grapes
or eat grapes, fresh or dried. All the days of his separation he shall
eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the
skins" (Numbers 6:3-4).
The Rechabites also were pledged to abstain from wine. The Book of
Jeremiah tells how Jeremiah went and set before the Rechabites wine and
cups: "But they answered, We will drink no wine; for Jonadab, the son of
Rechab our father, commanded us, You shall not drink wine, neither you
nor your sons for ever; you shall not build a house; you shall not sow
seed; you shall not plant or have a vineyard" (Jeremiah 35:5-7). Now Timothy was on one side a Jew--his mother was a Jewess (Acts 16:1)
--and it may well be that from his mother he had inherited this ascetic
way of living. On his father's side he was a Greek. We have already
seen that at the back of the Pastorals there is the heresy of gnosticism
which saw all matter as evil and often issued in asceticism; and it may
well be that Timothy was unconsciously influenced by this Greek
asceticism as well.
Here we have a great truth which the Christian forgets at his
peril, that we dare not neglect the body, for often spiritual dullness
and aridity come from the simple fact that the body is tired and
neglected. No machine will run well unless it is cared for; and neither
will the body. We cannot do Christ's work well unless we are physically
fit to do it. There is no virtue--rather the reverse--in neglect of or
contempt for the body. Mens sana in corpore sano, a healthy mind in a
healthy body, was the old Roman ideal, and it is the Christian ideal
too.
This is a text which has much troubled those who are advocates
of total abstinence. It must be remembered that it does not give any man
a licence to indulge in drink to excess; it simply approves the use of
wine where it may be medicinally helpful. If it does lay down any
principle at all, E. F. Brown has well stated it: "It shows that while
total abstinence may be recommended as a wise counsel, it is never to be
enforced as a religious obligation." Paul is simply saying that there
is no virtue in an asceticism which does the body more harm than good.
5:24-25 Some men's
sins are plain for all to see, and lead the way to judgment; the sins of
others will duly catch up on them. Even so there are good deeds which
are plain for all to see, and there are things of a very different
quality which cannot be hidden.
This saying bids us leave things to God and be content. There
are obvious sinners, whose sins are clearly leading to their disaster
and their punishment; and there are secret sinners who, behind a front
of unimpeachable rectitude, live a life that is in essence evil and
ugly. What man cannot see, God does. "Man sees the deed, but God sees
the intention." There is no escape from the ultimate confrontation with
the God who sees and knows everything.
There are some whose good deeds are plain for all to see, and
who have already won the praise and thanks and congratulations of men.
There are some whose good deeds have never been noticed, never
appreciated, never thanked, never praised, never valued as they ought to
have been. They need not feel either disappointed or embittered. God
knows the good deed also, and he will repay, for he is never in any
man's debt.
Here we are told that we must neither grow angry at the apparent
escape of others nor embittered at the apparent thanklessness of men,
but that we must be content to leave all things to the ultimate judgment
of God.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)