1 Timothy 5:2

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.

Verse 2. - In for with , A.V. Purity ( ἀγνείᾳ ); see 1 Timothy 4:12 , note. See how jealously the apostle guards against any possibility of abuse of the familiar intercourse of a clergy- man with the women of his flock. They are his sisters, and ἀγνείω is to be the constant condition of his heart and character. 1 Timothy 5:2

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.’

1 Timothy 5:2 . ἐν πάσῃ ἁγνίᾳ : 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”.

(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 æqualiter ignora aut ægualiter dilige.”

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 Paul's 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, Matthew 5:28.