”But younger widows be refusing. For when they should be drawn away by impulse from Christ, they are wanting to be marrying...having judgment, since the first faith they rejected.”
-Is it bad, or wrong for a widow to remarry? No, of course not - Paul says as much in verse 14. But apparently what you don’t want is for a widow to get put on this list, and then to have to be taken off because of a natural desire to remarry.
-The problem comes into better focus when we get a clearer picture of what all is involved as it pertains to this list. Getting put on this list of honored widows involves some kind of a pledge, a commitment of some sort apparently. Again, some suggest that what Paul has been talking about is these older, unattached and otherwise destitute widows entering in to a official order within the church, a life devoted to service, caring for orphans and the like - and for this service the church would commit to providing for them financially. Some insist that the widows referred to in Acts 9.39 and 9.41 are an early glimpse of this order.
-Even if Paul only has some kind of formal financial assistance, here we do find a second group of widows who should NOT be supported by the church in any special manner per se. There are some widows who, as we have seen, still have family or relatives who can (and should) take care of them. And then there are these younger widows who are still marry-able. They can still bear children. All the things that go with doing that one flesh thing. So Timothy, don’t even bother going through whatever formalities might be involved in having the church begin to support one of these younger widows who could still remarry.
-What Paul is trying to do is to spare them condemnation. Nobody likes condemnation. And actually, Paul tells us in Romans 8.1 that actually there is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ. So what’s he talking about here? It looks like we are talking about some horizontal commitment associated with this list, a pledge of some sort. Getting on this list involved making some kind of pledge of celibacy. There was a consecration to Christ - and this again is why some feel that there is some kind of official service at stake. Sort of like a cloister. But surely whatever condemnation would be incurred by a woman setting aside her pledge of celibacy and full-time service would be strictly a horizontal one. But there is perhaps an even greater problem associated with putting a younger, re-marryable widow on this list. Next verse...
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