Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 1 Timothy 5:11 - 5:11

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Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 1 Timothy 5:11 - 5:11


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Ver. 11. But younger widows decline—namely, to put on the list of widows entitled to special guardianship and sustenance on the part of the church. The reason follows: for when they shall become wanton (The future, êáôáóôñçíéÜóùóéí , seems the better reading, being that of à , C, D, K, L.) against Christ they desire to marry. The compound verb êáôáóôñçíéÜù is found only here, but in Rev_18:9 we have the simple verb óôñçíéÜù , which occurs also in the later Greek comedy, and in the sense of wantoning, or living deliciously; so that êáôáóôñ . is to wanton against, to surrender oneself to a carnal and luxurious course of life, as antagonistic to the claims and calling of Christ. Though the apostle represents this as a general thing to be expected in the case of young widows, if they should be admitted to a place on the regular widow list, it is clear he can only be understood to mean that it is what would not be unlikely to happen; and even a few cases happening of a palpable drawing back into a vain, worldly, pleasure-seeking course of life, after being formally received among the desolate, world-renouncing, heart-stricken widows of the church, could not but bring great reproach and scandal upon the religion of the gospel. If any should actually fall into such a backsliding course, it would be at least a mitigation of the evil that the church had not formally numbered them among its orphaned household. As to the marrying, however, or desiring to marry again, which is given by the apostle as the evidence of a wanton disposition, it must plainly not be isolated, but viewed in connection with the circumstances. They might have re-married, as he presently states, without incurring any blame, yea, with his own approval and advice. But as contemplated by him, the re-marrying was the fruit of a growing insensibility to spiritual things, the result of a light, frivolous, sensual tone of mind, fretting under the yoke of Christ, and seeking to break loose from the restraints imposed by it upon the heart and conduct. So that nothing less than an utter shipwreck of the spiritual life was supposed to be involved in the new and backward direction taken by the parties in question.