Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Timothy 5:2
The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.
2. with all purity ] Accurately in; the R.V. shews the connexion of the phrase with ‘the younger’ by a colon instead of comma after ‘mothers.’ Jerome’s rule is well quoted here ‘omnes puellas et virgines Christi aut aequaliter ignora aut aequaliter dilige.’ There is no simpler safeguard against illnatured remark and gossip than to maintain an even level of careful courteous intercourse, and what old George Herbert calls ‘grave liveliness.’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The elder women as mothers – Showing still the same respect for age, and for the proprieties of life. No son who had proper feelings would rebuke his own mother with severity. Let the minister of religion evince the same feelings if he is called to address a mother in Israel who has erred.
The younger as sisters – With the feelings which you have toward a sister. The tender love which one has for a beloved sister would always keep him from using harsh and severe language. The same mildness, gentleness, and affection should be used toward a sister in the church.
With all purity – Nothing could be more characteristic of Pauls manner than this injunction; nothing could show a deeper acquaintance with human nature. He knew the danger which would beset a youthful minister of the gospel when it was his duty to admonish and entreat a youthful female; he knew, too, the scandal to which he might be exposed if, in the performance of the necessary duties of his office, there should be the slightest departure from purity and propriety. He was therefore to guard his heart with more than common vigilance in such circumstances, and was to indulge in no word, or look, or action, which could by any possibility be construed as manifesting an improper state of feeling. On nothing else do the fair character and usefulness of a youthful minister more depend, than on the observance of this precept. Nowhere else does he more need the grace of the Lord Jesus, and the exercise of prudence, and the manifestation of incorruptible integrity, than in the performance of this duty. A youthful minister who fails here, can never recover the perfect purity of an unsullied reputation, and never in subsequent life be wholly free from suspicion; compare notes, Mat 5:28.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 2. The elder women as mothers] Treating them with the respect due to their age.
The younger as sisters] Feel for every member of the Church, old and young, male and female; consider them as fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters; treat them all with gentleness; and labour to keep them in, not to expel them from, the Church.
With all purity.] . With all chastity. See note on 1Ti 4:12.
There are some who seem to take a barbarous pleasure in expelling members from, the Church. They should be continued in as long as possible; while they are in the Church-under its ordinances and discipline, there is some hope that their errors may be corrected; but when once driven out again into the world, that hope must necessarily become extinct. As judgment is God’s strange work, so excommunication should be the strange, the last, and the most reluctantly performed work of every Christian minister.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The elder women as mothers; the same prudence also is to be used to matrons and aged women.
The younger as sisters; yea, and to younger women too, considering our relation and equality in Christ.
With all purity; only as to them, (considering their sex), a further gravity and prudence is to be used, that we give no occasion to lust, or unclean motions.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. with all purityrespectfultreatment of the other sex will promote “purity.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The elder women as mothers,…. When they offend in any point, they are to be reasoned, and argued, and pleaded with, as children should with their mothers; see Ho 2:2 and are to be considered as mothers in Israel, and to be treated with great tenderness and respect.
The younger as sisters; using the freedom as a brother may with a sister; and considering them as sisters in Christ, and in a way becoming the relation, tell them their faults freely and privately, but
with all purity: in such manner as to preserve chastity in looks, in words, and actions.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The elder women as mothers ( ). Anarthrous again, “older women as mothers.” Respect and reverence once more.
The younger as sisters, in all purity ( ). Anarthrous also and comparative form as in verse 1. See 4:12 for . No sort of behavior will so easily make or mar the young preacher as his conduct with young women.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
The elder women [] . N. T. o. Comp. presbutidav aged women, Tit 2:3. The word indicates distinction in age merelly, although some think that it points to an official position which is further referred to in the following directions concerning widows. 118
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “The elder women as mothers” (presbuteras hos meteras) “Older women (also exhort) as mothers.” While even chiding for needed correction, the pastor must do it with the love of a son for his mother, Psa 113:9.
2) “The younger as sisters” (neoteras hos adelpas) “Younger women (also exhort or intreat) as sisters.” The calling along side, motivating of the younger women, was to have been done by Timothy with both intimacy, of care and aloofness, from occasion for entrapment, Rom 16:1.
3) “With all purity.” (en pase agneia) “In all purity,” with strict regards to purity, or exhort with propriety, avoiding temptations to moral and sexual wrong, or even giving occasion for such suspicions, 1Ti 4:12.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
2 The younger as sisters, with all chastity The phrase, with all chastity, relates to younger women; for at that age they ought always to dread every kind of suspicion. Yet Paul does not forbid Timothy to have any criminal or immodest conduct towards young women, (for there was no need of such a prohibition,) but only enjoins him to beware of giving to wicked men any handle for laughter. For this purpose, he demands a chaste gravity, which shall shine throughout all their intercourse and conversation; so that he may more freely converse with young persons, without any unfavorable reports.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(2) The elder women as mothers.The same watchful care against all assumption of superiority must also be exercised in his dealings with the Christian matrons of Ephesus.
The younger as sisters, with all purity.In the case of the younger women, St. Paul adds to his directions respecting brotherly and sisterly regard a grave word, urging upon Timothy, and all official teachers like Timothy, to add to this self-denying, loving friendship a ceaseless watchfulness in all their conversation, so as not to afford any ground for suspicion; for, above all things, the recognised teacher of Christianity must be pure. No one can read and forget the quaint words of advice of St. Jerome: Omnes puellas et virgines Christi, aut qualiter ignora aut gualiter dilige.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2. Mothers So that all these successive terms of relation render the Church a holy family.
All purity A caution of momentous importance to all young ministers. Toward these sisters of his own age an avoidance of coquetries, familiar freedoms, is due to his own position as a minister. Sad experiences have shown the folly and guilt of neglecting here a safe reserve.
The widows first awakened the Jerusalem Church to the need of sub-apostolic organization, (Act 6:1-6,) and called the deacons into existence. In an age when men are called to war and subjected to massacre, the widows would form a large and dependent class, and the number of claimants would require their subjection to scrutiny and sifting.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2 The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.
Ver. 2. With all purity ] Not with some only, but “with all purity,” for fear of the worst, : and lest any impure motion therewhile creep into the heart unawares. The souls of ministers should be purer than the sunbeams, saith Chrysostom. They are by their office the lights of the world: let no snuff abide in them, they are fullones animarum, fullers of men’s souls, to make and keep them white; let them take heed of a smutch. Turpe est doctori, &c. Nihil turpius est Peripatetico claudo. It is a shame for a teacher to be found faulty.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1Ti 5:2 . : with the strictest regard to purity , or perhaps propriety . Christians, Athenagoras tells us ( Legat . 32), considered other Christians, according to their age, as sons and daughters; brothers and sisters; fathers and mothers. Ellicott quotes Jerome’s maxim, “Omnes puellas et virgines Christi aut aequaliter ignora aut aequaliter dilige” (Epist. 52, 5, p. 259). Compare de Imitatione Christi , i. 8, “Be not a friend to any one woman, but recommend all good women in general to God”.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
elder women. Feminine of “elder”, 1Ti 5:1.
with. App-104.
purity See 1Ti 4:12.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
1Ti 5:2. , as sisters) Such respectful treatment is well fitted to promote purity.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Ti 5:2
the elder women as mothers;-Treat the elderly women with respect and affection as one would his own mother.
the younger as sisters, in all purity.-As a brother would his own sisters. The younger women must be treated by him in all purity. Let no impure thought or practice be cherished in your association with them. [What miserable scandals would have been avoided in all ages if this had been constantly remembered? If Timothy was thus advised, let others consider what sort of conduct is required of them that they should give no ground of suspicion, no shadow of pretext to those who wish to calumniate.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
elder: 1Ti 5:3, Mat 12:50, Joh 19:26, Joh 19:27
with: 1Ti 4:12, Phi 4:8, 1Th 5:22, 2Ti 2:22
Reciprocal: Mat 23:9 – call Rom 16:1 – our Rom 16:13 – his 1Co 9:5 – a sister 2Co 6:6 – pureness Tit 2:4 – the 1Pe 1:22 – a pure
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Ti 5:2. The elder women were to be given the consideration proper for their age, on the same principle as that expressed for the elder men in the preceding verse. Timothy was a young man, hence it was especially appropriate to mention the subject of purity or chastity in his conduct toward the younger women in the congregation.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Ti 5:2. The exhortation is, of course, parallel to that in 1Ti 5:1, but something more was needed to guard against suspicion and scandal. The free intercourse of a brother with brothers was not equally possible in this case, and therefore the limiting clause is added, in all purity.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
1Ti 5:2 The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.
The term elder women is the same term translated “an elder” in verse one.
Why do you believe that Paul inserted the little phrase “with all purity?
I take it that the idea of “rebuke not” and “entreat as” are applicable to all of the groups listed.
The idea of rebuking my mother was interesting to me for many times I disagreed, but only a time or two did I challenge her on anything. When I was smaller, it was fear. She would have killed me. She was BIGGG!!!!
The obvious picture here is for the elders to treat the people in their church as their own family. As their dad, their mom, their brother, and their sister.
“IN ALL PURITY” is the obvious application to the normal family life – purity in all relationships. Not only moral purity by purity of communication, action, etc.
The thought of moral purity would completely eliminate many problems within the church. If every elder treated all the people of the church as sisters of his own family, then he would never be out of line with them.
Respect should be extended to all of the family, even when they are weird, strange. Senile, tactless etc.
Robertson takes this to mean women employed by the church, women that are hired for work within the church. I for one don’t see this indicated anywhere, nor do I believe it to be true. I would view this as a general principle of how the church is to operate in relation to the widows within the body.
II. BLOOD FAMILY RESPONSIBILITIES