but if any widow have children or descendants, let them learn first to be pious as regards their own house, and to render a return on their side to [their] parents; for this is acceptable in the sight of God.
The apostle has just told Timothy to honour widows who are truly widows. Now he draws a line: if a widow still has family, the family carries the cost. Two questions follow. Who must learn this duty, and what does it look like day to day?
The instruction speaks to the widow's family, not to the widow. One writer notes that readers have long disputed this, and gives his reason:
Such a widow, unlike those of verse 3, is entrusted to her immediate relatives, who must learn their duty if they did not already know it. Strange to say, most of the early church writers take the widows to be the ones who must learn, and so do some later German scholars, including Winer. Chrysostom, Theodoret and others among the Greeks read it that way, as did Jerome and others among the Latins, and even Luther and Calvin. But the Syriac stands with others in the true view, that it is the children or grandchildren who are called to learn. This best agrees with the context, and is morally sound in itself. The younger owed loving and respectful care to the widow of their family. That is the strict sense of making a return. The church was never intended to swamp the family. Instead, the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ should deepen every sense of duty and widen the reach of active love.
Older English versions read "nephews," a word that has since narrowed in meaning. The same writer traces how the translation drifted:
Tyndale translated the Greek word as "neves," and the Protestant versions that followed kept it, right down to the King James Version. In that day the word seems to have covered grandsons or descendants in general. Now it means only the children of a brother or sister. So the common translation is not a mistake. It is only an outdated usage, and "descendants" is the better word.
"Making some return to their parents" means practical support. One writer shows how seriously God treats a failure here, and how a public reputation can hide it:
Notice how clearly this teaches that children and descendants are responsible for the support of their parents. In this way they show godliness, or piety at home. Let us fix this in our minds, for we forget it easily in these days of state handouts and other forms of public support. Verse 8 condemns the man who avoids or neglects this duty in very severe terms. That shows how serious a sin it is in God's sight. Some men are famous for their piety in public, yet they stand branded as worse than an unbeliever for lack of this piety at home.
Some once found a way around the duty of honouring parents, turning religion itself into the excuse:
This command plainly made it obligatory on the Jews to maintain their parents if that was needed. But they wanted to escape this responsibility, and they invented a religious pretext for doing so. They taught that a man who dedicated his property to God for His service was free from the duty of honouring his parents. So they said, "It is Corban." That means a gift, something set apart for sacred use. In this way they excused themselves from their responsibility.
The word "first" sets an order. One writer weighs it against public service:
I do not wish to devalue teaching or preaching or missionary work in the slightest. But I dare to say that piety at home is more important than a class in the Sunday School or speaking at the corner of the street. My reason comes from the verse itself: "let them first learn to show godliness to their own household." What God has put first, we are always wrong to put second. How much more to neglect it altogether!
He then asks why home is the test, and why the family so often gets our worst:
Why is home the best place? Because there you are more off your guard than perhaps anywhere else... Why should you keep your sweetness for your Christian friends and your sourness for your family? You must first learn to show piety at home. It will make you a better teacher of children, and a better disciple of Christ in every way.
The verse ends by naming who is watching:
If such parents are in real need, let the descendants prove their practical piety by making a return to them. This is good and acceptable before God. Here again we see that piety brings God into all the details of life, and seeks to act in a way that pleases Him.
- Learn. The children and grandchildren must learn this duty, not the widow. Commentators have long differed here, and many early writers read it the other way.
- First. God set the order. Piety at home comes before public service, and what God puts first we must never put second.
- Family. "Descendants" is the better word than the older "nephews." The duty runs down the whole family line, and the church was never meant to swallow up the family.
- Repay. The return owed is practical support, not sentiment. Religious excuses for holding it back, like the Corban gift, push God's command aside.
- Accepted. This is what God calls acceptable, and it brings Him into the smallest details of ordinary family life.
Now she who [is] a widow indeed, and is left alone, has put [her] hope in God, and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.
Paul is telling Timothy which widows the church should honour and support. Here he describes the genuine one — and raises a question that goes far beyond widows: what does God do with a person stripped of every human resource?
One writer names the three marks in order.
The Apostle then gives us the beautiful marks of one who is "truly a widow". She is desolate, with no human resources. Her confidence is in God — she "has set her hope on God". And she depends on God, for she "continues in supplications and prayers night and day."
One writer asks why this constant prayer belongs to the widow, and answers from what she has lost.
Here we have individual perseverance "in supplications and prayers." Why is it the widow's part to continue in them "night and day"? Because she is alone and stripped of every resource. She can only turn to God, and in this way learn dependence.
Many such women had once been the ones helping others. Now they receive instead.
In the days of her prosperity this Christian woman gave herself to the good works listed in verse 10. She would have recognized that it was really God Himself caring for the afflicted through her hands. He was the Giver; she was only the channel. Now her position is reversed. But she knows well that she must not look to the channels, but to the mighty Source of all. So her trust is in God, and she waits on Him in prayer. She too is marked by that trust in the living God which is such a large part of practical godliness.
What kind of God does she trust? One writer answers from what God says about Himself.
He is high over all — great, mighty and awesome. But He has a heart for the widow and the fatherless. They are helpless, stripped of every earthly and natural support: the poor grieving, broken-hearted widow and the orphan left alone. God thinks of such people and cares for them in a very special way; they have a claim upon His loving heart and mighty hand. "Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation." "She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day." "Leave your fatherless children; I will keep them alive; and let your widows trust in me."
Luke's Gospel supplies faces for the description — one for each mark of the verse.
Three characteristics are given of the woman who is "truly a widow." She is "left all alone." She "has set her hope on God." She "continues in supplications and prayers night and day." … The widow of Nain met our blessed Lord, the Prince of Life, as her son — "the only son of his mother" — was being carried out for burial. She was the desolate one. (Luke 7.) The poor widow who put two small coins into the treasury, who "out of her poverty put in all she had to live on," was one who trusted in God. (Luke 21.) And in Anna we find the last characteristic. It is said of her that "she was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day."
One writer sees another side to her desolation — and a likeness that reaches past widows.
Remember that her desolation, which is her essential feature, is only on the side of earth. In fact it is perfectly true that her very bereaved condition has been the means of her choicest blessing, in the dealings of the God of all comfort. … The same characteristics are seen in our blessed Lord Himself. He was alone. He had nowhere to lay His head, and no one on earth shared fellowship with Him. He trusted in God, and He was always occupied in prayer. So every believer should be marked in the same way, and will be, in proportion as he is like his Lord.
- Left alone. Being desolate means no human help is left. She has lost every earthly and natural support.
- Learning dependence. She can only turn to God, and that is how she learns dependence.
- Looking past channels. She once gave to others as God's channel; now she looks not to channels but to the Source, and waits on Him in prayer.
- Leaning on a promise. Her trust rests on what God says He is — Father of the fatherless, protector of widows, keeper of those left behind.
- Likeness to Christ. The Lord Himself was alone, trusted God, and was always in prayer. Every believer should carry the same marks, in proportion as he is like his Lord.
But she that lives in habits of self-indulgence is dead [while] living.
Paul has just described the widow who has lost everything and leans on God. Now he turns to the woman who fills that same freedom with pleasure. His verdict is not that she is heading for death. She is dead already — so what can "dead" mean about a woman who is plainly alive?
Verse 5 gives the marks of the woman Paul calls a widow indeed.
She is desolate, without human resources. Her confidence is in God — she "trusts in God". And she is dependent upon God, for she "continues in supplications and prayers night and day."
The woman in verse 6 takes the same loss and turns it the other way.
Such a person is false to her character. She denies that she is a widow. She uses her lonely condition as an opportunity to gratify her inclinations and worldly desires, instead of listening to the voice of Him who speaks to her through her sorrows. He spoke that way to Israel long ago: "I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her" (Hosea 2:14). Living that way, she is dead — dead toward God, right in the middle of her pleasures.
Older translations read "lives in pleasure" where the ESV has "self-indulgent". Either way, the words describe a settled way of life, not one enjoyable evening. Paul aims the warning at anyone in the household of God, not only widows.
In contrast with the widow indeed, the Apostle warns us against any in the house of God giving themselves over to "habits of self-indulgence". Such are dead while living. We are told to consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11). We cannot live to self and to God at the same time. If we are living to self we are living to sin, which is lawlessness, or the indulgence of our own wills.
From the outside this looks like the good life. That is the trap.
Such a person would be seeing life according to the ideas of the world. But here she is declared dead while living — dead in practice, that is, to the things of God.
Scripture uses "life" and "death" in more than one sense.
Sin separated man from God — God was no source of enjoyment at all. Man could not get rid of his responsibility. But the state of his soul cut him off from any enjoyment of God, and responsibility brought only fear. He looked for enjoyment in what was beneath him, and hated the One he was answerable to. Now "life" is used in both these senses, and death too. "She who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives"; we are "dead in trespasses and sins," while being alive.
One writer traces this death back to its root — the desires and will of the flesh.
Another has said, "All the workings of the desire and will of the flesh end in death. Yes, they have the principle of death in them, for it is living without God." So we read in 1 Timothy 5:6, "She who lives in pleasure (or 'in habits of self-indulgence') is dead while she lives". Death is separation from God.
Behind the pleasure lies contempt for what God's hand is doing.
Her habitual life was inconsistent, and that deeply offended the apostle's spirit. It ought to offend all who feel what is fitting for the house of God in this world... How out of place it is to despise the chastening of His hand! Was a woman to forget her desolation altogether? If she were happy in the Lord, the last thing she would indulge in is pleasure. And no chastening is meant to touch that happiness. Pleasure is Satan's poor substitute in this world for the happiness above it.
The verse names a woman, but the test is wider. Everything turns on whether there is any appetite for Christ.
But without such an appetite, what is there? Death! A corpse has no appetite — it neither hungers nor thirsts. Neither does the soul that is still dead in sins, dead to God. These words are spoken of the woman who seeks her happiness on earth: "She who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives" (1 Tim. 5:6). But it would surely be just as true to say that the man who lives that way is dead too.
- Loss. Two widows start from the same emptiness. One turns it toward God in trust and prayer. The other turns it toward herself.
- Habit. Older translations read habits of self-indulgence. That is a settled way of life, not one indulgence. No one lives to self and to God at the same time.
- Death. Here "dead" means cut off from God, not the end of existence. A person can be fully alive and dead toward Him.
- Substitute. Pleasure is Satan's poor imitation of the happiness above. Chasing it means despising what God's hand is doing.
- Test. A corpse has no appetite. Where there is no hunger for Christ, this verdict falls on men just as much as on the widow it names.