1 Timothy 5:4Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Notice Paul's prudence, how often he exhorts by appealing to human considerations. Here he did not mention anything great and exalted, but something intelligible to all.

"And to render," he says, "what is due to their parents." For what? For their upbringing and care.

For example, you received great care. They died, and you could not repay them the debt. Indeed, you did not give birth to them or raise them.

Therefore repay them in the grandchildren. Render the debt through the children. "Let them learn," he says, "to show piety toward their own household." To put it simply, he is speaking here about good works.

Then, to move them more strongly to this, he adds: "for this is pleasing to God."

"But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety toward their own household." That is, let the children and grandchildren learn to honor their mother by providing her rest and sustenance.

Here εύσεβεΐν, "to act piously," means to give rest to one's mother or grandmother in old age. The dignity of parents is a divine dignity. Therefore to give them rest is to be pious.

Conversely, not to give them rest in old age is impiety. "And to render what is due to their parents, for this is pleasing to God." To render to parents means to render to the mother or grandmother.

Notice Paul's prudence, how he touches a good feeling, namely the feeling of repaying parents for their upbringing and care. To this he adds the reason: "for this is pleasing to God."

If a widow has children and grandchildren, let her first learn from you to show her gifts in her own household, and only afterward toward others. But if they have not fulfilled their just duty and have not repaid what they owed for the benefits by which they were indebted to father and mother, who will believe that strangers will be satisfied with them, when their own household has such great dissatisfaction with them? For this matter of which I have spoken is pleasing before God.

From this it follows that a widow must possess both qualities of love: she must love her children and honor her parents.

By rendering obedience to her parents, she will thereby instruct her children also. Through this fulfillment of her duty she will obtain a reward for herself. What she grants to others will also benefit her.

"For this," he says, "is pleasing to God" (1 Tim 5:4). Therefore, if you, a widow, care about how to please God, you must do precisely what you have learned is pleasing to Him.

Earlier, when calling widows to the struggle of continence, the holy Apostle also said that they care about how to please the Lord (1 Cor 7:34).

Widows who have no source anywhere for meeting their needs ought, the Apostle says, to receive assistance from the Church. Since they are freed from cares, they have one task: always to remain in divine prayers.

Those who have children or grandchildren ought to care for them. They should repay them with the same solicitude they themselves received from their parents, so that the recompense due to parents may be passed on to children and received back from them in their service.

"But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to order their own household piously." Grandchildren are the children of children.

Since many widows living in the world usually have children and grandchildren, he used the plural in view of the greater number of such widows: "let them learn."

He used "to order piously" in place of setting in order and arranging well. Before being enrolled among the widows attached to the church, each such woman must arrange her own household well.

"And to render recompense to their parents." This also belongs to the general expression, "let them learn." It means that the same care they received from their parents and forebears should be shown by them toward children and grandchildren.

“To repay their parents.” The upbringing of children and grandchildren, of which he speaks here, is, according to the Apostle’s thought, nothing other than the repayment of what is owed to one’s parents. Since a person cannot thank his parents with any equal benefits for giving him life and raising him, the begetting and upbringing of children becomes a beautiful means toward this. The Russian translation gives the thought that widows should teach their children and grandchildren to fulfill the fifth commandment.

“But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents. For this is pleasing before God” (1 Tim 5:4). That is, widows who are not helpless, but have sons or grandchildren, should not burden the Church with their support. Rather, let them strive to impress upon their household their sacred and God-pleasing duty to support their mothers and grandmothers, in return for their own upbringing and support in youth and helpless childhood (Oecumenius; Blessed Theophylact).

The Apostle speaks at length about widows, because they and their poor children were then under the special care of all the Churches.

Moreover, the more honored women were, as it were, numbered among the clergy as deaconesses. They helped distribute assistance and performed other Christian services, especially in relation to the female sex (Acts ch. 6).

Young widows caused no small concern for the Church because of temptations that could give Jews and pagans occasion to slander the good conduct of all believers.

By commanding honor for true widows in verse 3, defining their qualities in verse 5, and especially indicating the age of their selection in verse 9, the Apostle clearly has certain honored widows in view.

After exhortations of a general character, the Apostle gives Timothy directions about dealing with the various persons who belong to the Church.

Touching first on the relations in which Timothy should stand toward ordinary believers of different ages and sexes, the Apostle turns his attention to the question of widows.

Only those widows have a right to church assistance who have no close relatives, children or grandchildren, obligated to care for their nourishment.

Moreover, a widow living under the Church's care must conduct herself as befits a woman not bound by kinship ties to the world. She must devote herself to constant prayer and not indulge in a luxurious life at another's expense.

The widow, he says, who has children or grandchildren should find support in her own family. Justice requires this, and it is pleasing to God.

Saint Paul lays this duty upon the children or grandchildren of the widow who remains: “Let them first learn to arrange their own house piously.”

“Let them learn,” manthanetosan, may also be translated, “let them be trained,” or “let them acquire the habit.” “To arrange piously,” eusebein, means to be pious, to show or maintain a pious manner of life.

“Their own house,” ton idion oikon, means in relation to their own house, in their own house, with kata understood. The sense will be this.