Matthew Poole Commentary - 1 Timothy 5:11 - 5:11

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Matthew Poole Commentary - 1 Timothy 5:11 - 5:11


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But the younger widows refuse: by the younger widows the apostle seems (by the last words of this verse) not to mean those that were under threescore, but the younger sort of widows, not past child-bearing; he would not have those (that is, being under no extraordinary circumstances of sickness, or lameness, or the want of their senses) be maintained at the charge of the church, because they were able to labour; nor yet to be taken into any employment relating to the church.



For when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ; katastrhniaswsi tou cristou. How the Vulgar Latin comes to translate this, wax wanton in Christ, I neither understand whether with respect to grammar or sense. Erasmus translates the verb, when they have committed whoredom; but Rev_18:9 confuteth this sense, where we translate it, lived deliciously, (being without the preposition kata), which certainly better expresseth the sense, as also doth our translation, wax wanton; it properly signifies either the lustiness, or the headstrong temper, of beasts, that wax fat.



Against Christ, is against the rule of the gospel, and their profession of Christ; or they disdain the office of serving the saints, as too mean, and laborious, and sin against Christ, in whose name, and for whose glory, and to whose members, the service was to be performed. And then



they will marry, and so put themselves into an incapacity to serve the church in the place of widows.