So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.
Paul has just described younger widows who drift into idleness, gossip and meddling. Here he names the cure — marriage, children, a home to run — and ties it to something larger: giving the enemy nothing to say.
"I would have" — a settled judgment
The opening words are stronger than a preference. Paul uses a different Greek verb here from the one used a few verses earlier for the widows' own wish to marry.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe two words differ like this. Thelo means to exercise the will — the will that comes from inclination or desire. Boulomai is the will that follows deliberation, and involves a carefully weighed purpose. In 1 Timothy 5:11, about the younger widows not being put on the list, the word is thelo — they will, their desire is, to marry. In 1 Timothy 5:14 it is Paul's deliberate judgment and will that they should: "I will therefore."
Yet a judgment is not a rule that binds every case. Paul handles marriage the same way elsewhere.
William KellyJust as in 1 Corinthians 7 the apostle tells us what his judgment is, he does not lay everything down as a commandment (verses 25, 40). It is the same here. And it was most painful to one who loved the assembly that "already some have turned aside after Satan." "She is free to be married to whom she will — only in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 7:39).
Who "the younger" are
Most English Bibles add the word "women" after "younger," and commentators differ on whether that is right. One view says the addition is unnecessary.
William KellyIt seems odd that English versions since Tyndale have added "women" after "younger." Only widows are meant, as Wycliffe rightly translated it. The Rheims version seems exact, since it adds neither word. The Greek form makes it unnecessary to add "females," and the context settles it: the apostle speaks only of those who had lost their husbands.
Others read the term more widely, while still keeping widows in view. They also read the verse as a direction, not a restriction.
Edward DennettThe term "younger women" is perhaps general, though with special reference to widows. The home is the appointed place of service for all such, if they would be in subjection to the Lord, and in relative shelter from the snares of Satan.
Occupation as the cure for idleness
The instruction answers a real danger: the empty day.
F. B. HoleThe younger widows were not to be supported at the expense of the church. Otherwise, with no definite occupation, they might decline in heart from Christ and come under judgment — not "damnation," which is too strong a word. Their idleness would then surely produce tale-bearing and general interference in other people's affairs. That is most disastrous to the testimony of God. Idleness in the twenty-first century produces exactly the same crop of evil fruit as it did in the first century.
"Manage their households"
The command about the household is one Greek verb. Its matching noun is the word used for the father of the house.
George C. WillisTranslated word for word, I suppose it would read, "Be the house-mistress." It is one single word, a verb. The matching noun appears twelve times, always in the first three Gospels and always of the father. It is translated "house-master," "master of the house," and so on. One paraphrase of the thought in Timothy puts it well: "It implies a queenly rule, and would not set aside the kingly rule of the house-master himself." They rule together as king and queen do, in the little kingdom God has entrusted to their care.
Writers who take this as the normal pattern still leave room for exceptions.
C. H. MackintoshThere may be exceptional cases in which a Christian woman, having no special home duties, may devote herself to outside work with real benefit to many. But such cases are few and far between.
Nothing for the adversary to say
The last clause reaches past the family to the whole house of God.
Hamilton SmithElders, widows, younger women — all are to remember that they form part of the house of God. And in God's house nothing is to be allowed that gives the adversary an occasion to speak with scorn.
Summary
- Will. "I will" is Paul's weighed judgment. A different Greek verb marks it off from the widows' own wish to remarry.
- Not law. It is judgment, not commandment. In 1 Corinthians 7 he speaks the same way: a widow is free to marry whom she will, only in the Lord.
- Cure. Marriage, children and a household answer the idleness that had bred gossip and meddling.
- Rule. "Manage their households" is one verb meaning to be house-mistress — a queenly rule beside the husband's, not instead of it.
- Guard. It all aims at one end: give the adversary nothing to pick up and use against God's house.