Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Timothy · About this commentary
Treat Them as Family
1 Timothy 5:1-2
1 Don’t rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father; the younger men as brothers; · WEB
Before any procedure is given, the categories of the congregation are named in family terms, and one word governs the whole chapter that follows.
Two verses, and they set the register for everything after them. Chapter 5 is the letter's most procedural stretch — enrollment ages, disciplinary rules, evidence requirements — and it opens by refusing to let any of that become administrative.
Verse 1 begins with a prohibition: do not sharply rebuke an older man. The verb means to strike with words, and the alternative is exhort him as a father. Timothy has authority over this man and is told not to use it that way.
The four categories then run through a household. Older men as fathers, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters. Every relation is one nobody chooses, which is the point — a congregation is not an association of the compatible.
That also picks up what the letter has already said about the assembly as God's household 1 Timothy 3:15, and about a man's own household as the training ground for it 1 Timothy 3:5.
The final phrase — in all purity — attaches specifically to the last category and is a piece of practical realism. A young man given pastoral responsibility for young women is told the relation is fraternal, and told plainly why the reminder is needed.
What follows in the rest of the chapter is rules. This is the disposition the rules are to be administered in, and the letter puts it first deliberately.
settled What this mark means