1 Timothy Chapter 5

Paul directs Timothy to correct members as family, honour and support true widows, sustain and discipline elders justly, and guard his own purity and health.

1 Timothy 5:1-2

Exhorting the Family of Faith

1 Timothy 5:3-8

Widows and the Duty of Families

1 Timothy 5:9-16

Enrolled Widows and Younger Widows

1 Timothy 5:17-20

Honour and Accountability for Elders

1 Timothy 5:21-25

Impartial Judgment and Patient Discernment

1 Timothy 5:1

Paul moves from Timothy’s personal example (4:12-16) to the way he must handle the congregation. A young leader charged to “command and teach” (4:11) could fail in two directions: shrinking from correction altogether, or delivering it with a hard edge that wounds more than it heals. Here the apostle governs the manner. “Rebuke not” renders a verb that once meant to strike at someone. It describes a harsh verbal assault, a dressing-down meant to crush, and Paul forbids it, above all toward an older man.

The “elder” of this verse is a man advanced in years rather than an officer of the church. The pairing with “younger men,” “elder women,” and “the younger” shows that Paul is sorting the congregation by age and sex; the office of elder receives its own instructions from verse 17. Age does not place anyone beyond correction, since older believers can drift as truly as the young. When Timothy must address an older brother, however, he is to “intreat him as a father.” The fifth commandment and the Levitical charge to rise before the gray head (Leviticus 19:32) stand behind the counsel. Respect governs the tone, the setting, and the words, while the truth itself is left intact.

“Intreat” comes from the same family of words Paul has just used for Timothy’s public exhortation (4:13). What the minister urges from the reading desk he now presses person to person, with the warmth that the relationship deserves.

The younger men are to be addressed “as brethren.” Timothy stands beside them, not over them. Jesus had declared that whoever does the Father’s will is his brother and sister and mother (Matthew 12:50), and the church Paul calls “the house of God” (3:15) is meant to live as that family. Correction offered in this spirit aims at restoration (Galatians 6:1). It refuses both flattery and contempt and reflects the patience of the Lord, who disciplines his children because he loves them.

Study Links

Cross References

2 Timothy 2:24-25

Word / Phrase Notes

ἐπιπλήξῃς (epiplēxēs) — rebuke

Found only here in the New Testament, the verb carries the picture of striking a blow and was used for severe, cutting reproof. Paul is not forbidding all correction, for the next clause supplies the proper alternative. He forbids the harsh, humiliating censure that treats an older man as an offender to be beaten down rather than a father to be won.

παρακάλει (parakalei) — intreat

The verb spans appeal, exhortation, and encouragement. It is the action of one who comes alongside to urge another toward what is right. Because Paul links the related noun with public teaching in 4:13 and uses the verb again in 6:2, the word implies that the content of Christian truth is being applied, not merely that feelings are being soothed. The present tense describes an ongoing pastoral habit.

1 Timothy 4:131 Timothy 6:2