1 Timothy 5:1 - Homilies By W.m. Statham

"Rebuke not an elder." Comprehensive indeed is Scripture. Its virtue is no vague generality, but is definite and distinct. It is this which makes the Bible a daily portion. There is ever in it some special counsel and comfort. With the cross for a center, all the precious jewels of truth are set in their places around it. For each relationship of life there are separate behests of duty, and he must read in vain who does not feel that it was written for him. With this light none need go astray; and if they do, it is because they love the darkness rather than the light.

I. THERE IS TO BE REVERENCE FOR AGE . We are to entreat the elder rather than to rebuke them. Scolding is often mistaken for fidelity; and there is a scolding preaching which holds up mistake and error to scorn rather than to pity. The Bible reverences age. The elder, if he be here, must have seen and known terrible troubles and fierce temptations. His bark has been in many seas. His sword has been almost shivered, in many fights. His countenance tells of tears and tribulations. He has known defeat as well as victory. Rebuke him not. With the soft down of youth on your cheek, deal reverently with the gray-headed men. If evil seems to be getting the mastery, and the lingering angels are about to leave, entreat age by the memories of the past and the great hopes of the reward so nigh at band.

II. THERE IS TO BE FELLOWSHIP WITH YOUTH . Be a son to the aged, but a brother to the young. "And the younger men as brethren;" not as a proud priest sent to rule them and to shrive them, but as one who has the passions and. the hopes, the duties and the dangers, of a brother.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 5:2 .—What women should be.

"The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity." Full of the power which comes from feminine pity. Full of motherly experiences about children. Fall of daily care and the deaconate of serving the home-tables. Full of a great heart-love that would make a roof-tree for all, as a hen that gathereth her chickens under her wings. Timothy will yet learn in the Church work the value of a mother in Israel.

1. Mothers were our first pastors .

2. Mothers were our earliest examples .

"The younger as sisters, with all purity." Beautiful is the holy grace of purity, and sensitive is the girl-heart to the loveliness of true virtue! Put them not into confessionals to suggest sins that they never knew, and deprave the nature under the pretence of absolving it.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 5:3 . — Sympathy with widows.

"Honor widows." Let them have a special place in reverent care and common prayer, as they have a lot which is so isolated and so hard—a battle so keen and terrible, and as they find that the slender means are so soon spent. The lonely hours are full of pictures of the past: as wives they were the first to be thought of and provided for—the best was for them, the first place at the table and in the heart was theirs; so honor them, for they are sensitive to slight and indifference . Let the Church counteract the neglect of the world.

I. THE SPIRIT OF CHILDREN . If they have children, or, as sometimes happens, nephews—or sister's children—who lost their mother in life's dawn of morning, let them show piety at home—the piety of gratitude, the piety of help, the piety of reverence, the piety of requital. How large a word "piety" is! An ungrateful child, who never thinks on a parent's past self-denial in its education, a parent's watchfulness in times of weakness and sickness, a parent's interest in its pleasures and counsels as to its companionships, and a parent's long interest in all that relates to mind and heart, is an impious child. Quick, clever, it may be flattered by new friends, and favored by fortune with pleasant looks, and yet be selfish, indifferent, and forgetful.

II. THE REQUITAL TO BE GIVEN . Remember, young friends, that you have to requite your parents, not with the patronage of commercial payment when you succeed , but with the requital of the tender inquiry, the watchful love, the jealous service, the gracious respect.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 5:4 . — What pleases God.

"For that is good and acceptable before God." He looks not merely on the great heroisms of confessors and martyrs, but on the sublime simplicities even of a child's character.

I. AVOID MISTAKES IN CHILD TRAINING AND TEACHING . I am one of those who think that it is a monstrous mistake to fill their hymns with rich rhapsodies about heaven, about wanting to be angels, and about superior emotions, when the very things next to them are seldom referred to at all. To the father the son must always be a boy, and the daughter to the mother a girl; so that all manner , even which is high-flown and independent, or brusque and irreverent, is painful, and brings tears to the hearts of parents.

II. REMEMBER THE RELIGIOUSNESS OF HOME - LIFE . "Piety at home," by which is not meant precocity of religious opinion, or plentifulness of religious phraseology, but the piety of respect, attention, obedience, requital, and reverence. This is "good and acceptable before God."—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 5:5 . — Desolateness.

"Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate." Here the apostle returns to widows again, showing that he has them very much in his mind.

I. DESOLATE . That is the revealing word. "Desolate." She may be poor and desolate, or she may he competent and desolate, or she may be rich and desolate—all surrounding things making her feel more the loss of that which is not ; all framing "emptiness;" all but reminders of the presence which gave value to them all.

II. DESOLATE ; FOR THE LIFE - PATH IS AND MUST BE TRODDEN ALONE . The wakeful hours find her alone; the hours when pain and weariness come to her find her alone; for the difficult problem of thought has none to aid in its solution now—she is alone. So desolate; for other fellowships are not for life ; they only help to vary her life. Desolate; for none can quite understand her care and grief, and think that she will soon put them , off with the weeds and crape.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 5:5 . — Confidence in the Father.

"Trusteth in God." Let Timothy remember that in her case experience has ratified truth. She will need no elaborate arguments for the truth, because—

I. SHE HAS THE EVIDENTIAL PROOF WITHIN . Did she not in the dark hours fling her arms around her Father's neck; did she not tell him that she would fear no want, though she felt such change? Did not that trust—simple trust—do her more good than all human words, all kindly letters, all change of place and scene? Others wondered at her, rising up in her poor strength to arrange, to order, to readjust life to means and circumstances, to do her best for the little flock that she was shepherdess to in the wilderness.

II. SHE HAS THE FELLOWSHIP OF PRAYER . Yes, O man of the world, O scorner of truth, O soft-spoken atheist, she prays! Makes the air quiver, yon say. Hears the echo of her own cry, you say. Bends before an empty throne, you say. It may be you , have never felt to need God as she needs him now. Her need is an instinct and an argument; for somehow in this world there is a Divine revealing, call it what you like, that satisfies the desire of every living thing. And sloe has prayed, and the secret of the Lord has been made known; and that it is no empty experience, is now to be proven in this way.

III. SHE REVEALS ITS POWER BY HER PERSEVERANCE IN IT . She " continueth in prayers and supplications night and day." Then there must be relief. The burden must be lighter, the load must be easier, the vision must be clearer. None of us continue in that which mocks us. The invisible world is as real as the visible one. We know when there is a whisper within us and an arm around us, and so does she. Surely you would not rob her of her only wealth—her trust . But you cannot. " Night and day." Mark that. She finds in the night an image of her grief. She finds in the night silence . The children, if any, are asleep. She whose tears have watered her couch, whose hand has reached forth into the empty space, whose every movement would once have awakened solicitude, as of pain, or weariness, or sleeplessness, is now alone. But not alone ; for the lips move and a great cry goes up: "O God, be not far from me! Listen to the voice of my cry, my King and- my God. My heart within me is desolate. Hear me out of thy habitation, thou Father of the fatherless, thou Judge of the widow. I mourn in my complaint and make a noise. Oh, when wilt thou come to me?" And God does come; and. it may help Timothy to know that this gospel which he has to preach is a Divine living seed, bearing its harvests in the hearts and homes of the eiders and of the widows. We shall see in our next exposition that St. Paul knows that there are worldly hearts to whom affliction brings no gracious fruit; and if there be a sight on earth more appalling than another, it is the frivolous widow whose very mourning is a pride and a study, whose manner is that of a pleasure-seeker, and whose heart is unaffected by the reverences of the memories of love and death. It is very evident that the gospel which Timothy was to teach and preach was no mere creed, no mere perfect ritual or ceremonial, but. a religion human and Divine, a religion that anticipates the changes and sorrows and dangers of every individual life. This Book is a vade-mecum . Here we go for all the medicines of relief and hope that our poor humanity needs. We shall never outgrow the Book. Its leaves are still for the healing of the nations, and it makes life calm, restful, and beautiful. How comes it that we have known the sweetest angels in such guises as these afflictions and bereavements bring? Yet so it is. Where shall we go? Oh, life has many roads; banditti lurk here and there, and there are swollen rivers to be forded, and dangerous passes to be entered. How shall we go? With this rod and staff we may go anywhere. If we take a fable, let it be the ancient stone : if you look therein, strange transformations take place—you ask me what I see? Now a sword; now a mountain; now a simple loaf of bread; now a touchstone of evil and of good; now a rock high above the waters; now a pilot on a dangerous sea; now a pillar rising on the plain of time; now a harp from which sweetest music breathes; now a pillow—a simple pillow. Cowper puts aside his own 'Task' and takes God's Testament; so will we. On these promises of God we will fall asleep.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 5:6 . — Death in life.

"But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." Christianity purifies and harmonizes the whole nature of man, and assimilates whatever is pure in humanity to the kingdom of God. It does not destroy pure earthly joys; nay, rather it plants many flowers by the wayside of life. But pleasure is often perverted by man, and in that age k had become so associated with what was coarse and carnal, that the very word "pleasure" became in the gospel a synonym for sin. We have here death in the midst of life—"that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth"—or death and life side by side.

I. THE IMMOBILITY WHICH CHARACTERIZES THE DEAD BODY CHARACTERIZES THE DEAD SOUL . There is no movement of thought towards God; no feet swift to do his will; no heart that beats in sympathy with his Law. Instinct is alive; but the brightness of the eye, and the music of the voice, and the activities of lift, are like flowers upon graves.

II. THE INSENSIBILITY OF THE DEAD BODY CHARACTERIZES THE DEAD SOUL . All around there may be signs of outward life. As the body lies in the churchyard, the murmuring river flows by its banks, the birds make their summer music in the trees, and men, women, and children stay to rest, and to read the inscriptions on the graves; but to all these things the sleepers in the tombs are insensible. So the dead soul is insensible to the august realities of religion, to the voice of God, and to the visions of the great day.

III. THE CORRUPTION OF THE DEAD BODY CHARACTERIZES THE DEAD SOUL . This is the dread thought in connection with death, that we must bury it out of sight. When decay commences, corruption begins; and he, who knows all that is in man, tells us that out of the sepulcher of the unrenewed heart of man come evil desires, murders, and adulteries. "They that sow to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption" These aspects of the case show us that, as there are graveyards in the crowded cities with all their busy life, so in the unrenewed heart of man there is death in the midst of life.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 5:8 .—Care for the home.

"But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." The gospel does not leave us with any loose ideas of responsibility. There is often a universal sentiment of goodness which finds no particular application.

I. MAN HAS " HIS OWN ." He is to care for his own soul. He is accountable for his own influence. He is the father of his own family, and, up to a certain age, his will is their law. He is to provide for his own; his thought and skill and care are all to be laid upon the altar or' the household. It is sad to see men sometimes flattered by the world, and welcomed to every hearth, who yet leave "their own" slighted and neglected at home. The gospel says that the husband is the head of the wife; and the gospel evidently understands the design of God, that man should be the hard worker and- bread-winner of life.

II. HE HAS A FAITH TO KEEP . What is meant here by denying the faith, and being worse than an infidel? Surely this, that the faith is meant to make us Christ-like; one with him who pleased not himself, who ministered to others, and who revealed to us that great law of love by which every Christian life must be inspired. The word. "infidel" has often been used. to represent mere skeptical unbelief. It really means " wanting in faith;" and the man who, whatever he professes, does not live out the spirit of the gospel, that man is worse than an infidel, if by infidel we mean a man who intellectually has not accepted the Christian faith.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 5:13 .—The busybody life.

"And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not." Indolence is the parent of all sins, because, with evil so active in the world, some of its emissaries are sure to be wanting houseroom in our hearts.

I. WE MAY LEARN TO BE IDLE . There is no life so undignified as that which is busy in trifles, which has learned to enjoy listless hours. For the wandering thought produces the wandering life. "Wandering about from house to house;" and, having nothing else to build with, too often build aerial structures of untruths and half-truths.

II. NOT ONLY IDLE , BUT TATTLERS . The harm that has been worked in this world by busybodies cannot be over-estimated. It is easy to send an arrow into the air, but not to gather it up again. It is easy to poison the river of good reputation, but we cannot re-purify the stream. It is easy to pluck the flower of a good man's fame, but we cannot restore its beauty. "Speaking things which they ought not." Holy few really make "I ought" govern their lives! Custom and convenience and pleasantness too often constrain our speech. People like to startle others, to give the shock of a new sensation, to amuse them, to please them. And, alas! it is too true that tattlers and busybodies know how to gratify those they visit. St. Paul thinks in this next verse (14) that marriage and care of children and housewifery are good things (which the ascetic Roman Church seems not to think), and that women so occupied give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 5:24 . — Sins that go before.

"Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after." Primarily, these words refer to the ministry. Never act suddenly. You may be deceived, and lay hands on unfit men, damaging the Church and dishonoring God. Manner may deceive. Latent sins may slumber beneath specious appearances. Some sins blossom at once, and evil is unveiled. At times the poisonous springs send forth their deleterious waters at once. Sometimes they are like hidden watercourses flowing beneath the surface soil, and appearing in unexpected places. Moral government always exists, but diversity characterizes the methods of God. Justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne. Sometimes Cain and Ananias are punished at once; the one is outlawed, the other dies. But Herod and Pilate waited for a revealing day. Subject—Sins that go before . They have outriders. As with a trumpet-peal attention is called to their advent. We see the evil-doers; vile in countenance, shambling in gait, dishonored in mien. These sins are revealed. We mark lost delicacy, honor, purity, peace, principle, reputation, joy!

I. THIS IS SPECIAL OR EXCEPTIONAL . "Some men's sins." Do not, in observing them, draw an argument for the necessary goodness of others. The openness of some judgments does not give, necessarily, fair fame to others. In the most decorous life there may be secret sins. The slumbering fire may be in the hold of the stately ship. The hidden vulture may be waiting for the carrion of the soul. But here there is judgment. We look around, we see it. Our newspapers, our neighborhoods say, "Behold the hand of God here." Faith is departed; hope is blighted; beauty is destroyed; the dark outriders are here.

II. THIS IS A SPECTACLE TO MEN . "They are open beforehand," and not made manifest merely in the sense of being sins, but their judgment is with them. For there are two ideas—you may see a sin to be a sin, but you need not have its judgment open . But the translation here requires that we should understand that the judgment is open , as well as the sin. You see not only men's corruption, but their misery; not only their guilt, but their shame. A child might see a poison berry, and know that it is such; or see a snake, and be told it has a sting; but how clear the judgment if, under the one tree, a little child lay dead; and beside the serpent a man was struggling in throes of agony!

III. THEY ARE OPEN BEFOREHAND . That implies they are hints in this world (where there is a place for repentance) of troubles yet to come. They do not exhaust judgment; they are premonitions of it. The light of mercy plays all around even the paths of judgment here; for the Savior of men is able to deliver from every prison-house. The beforehand judgment may be a merciful thing, but let no man deal tightly with it. The gathering clouds presage the fury of the storm; the pattering drops herald the hail and rain; the reddening light of the volcano tells of the desolating lava. "Some men's sins are open beforehand."—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 5:24 . — Sins that follow after.

"Some men they follow after." Here is a revealed fact with no comment upon it, hut it is very terrible. A smooth comfortable life, and yet a life of respectable sin! No blame, no opprobrium, no ostracism from society. Men deceive themselves. They go into the streets of their Nineveh, but no prophet reproves them. The waters are rising, but no Noah warns them; all is placid and full of repose.

I. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN A MAN AND HIS SINS . "And some men they follow after." Our sins are like us; they reflect our faces; they are mirrors which will one day show us ourselves; they follow after us by a moral individuality; they will each fly to their own center. Our sins are not resolvable into some generic whole as the sin of man. The blight in the summer-time is not so disastrous in defacing beauty, the locusts of the East are not so devastating in their all-devouring flight, as are our troops of sins. They follow after us, and blight our immortality.

II. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SHAME AND SIN . " They follow after." That is the reason we are not ashamed of them. Shame for sin is not sorrow for sin. The Hindu is only ashamed when he is discovered. That is not grief at sin: it is horror at being found out. Sins that follow after are not much thought about. The world has given us carte blanche if we preserve our position in society. What men shrink from is exposure and shame. It' all sins were revealed, who could bear it? If the earth were a moral mirror, who could walk upon it? But detection surely comes in God's way—in God's great day when he shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.—W.M.S.