Welcome Monday Morning Coffee with Mark

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Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special Monday Morning Company Podcast. On this podcast, our preacher, Mark Roberts, will help you get your week started right with a look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily life. Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday morning coffee with Mark.

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Good morning, good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast for the week of October 11th through the 17th. This is Monday, October the 12th, the episode for Monday, October the 12th. And this is, by the way, the last week that Dean and I will be overseas in the Mediterranean, pre-recording these episodes. And as I look at the calendar, the plan is, the plan is yesterday we would have been in Ephesus. So really excited about that. Maybe try not to talk too much about all those things when I get home, but we're home, starting for home on Thursday. West Side, I'll be with you on Sunday. Of course, wasn't in the pulpit at West Side yesterday, so can't talk about the preaching. We're going straight to daily Bible reading. You know what to do. Grab your Bible, grab your coffee. Let's grow together.

Monday 1 Timothy 1

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And it is Monday, and our reading for Monday is 1 Timothy chapter 1. We're starting 1 Timothy. The reading for Monday is 1 Timothy, the first chapter. I'm holding a great cup of El Salvador coffee. Mm-hmm. A little pour over with that coffee, and it is absolutely incredible. We could talk a lot about the details to introduce this particular book of the Bible. 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus are extremely important. Books of the Bible read Titus earlier this year. These books really give us kind of a church manual, how things are supposed to be done and carried on in the local church, as Paul writes to two evangelists who are working with local churches. But I think it's more important for us to dive into the text and especially here to be thinking about what's going on that causes Paul to write. Deriving a date for 1 Timothy is pretty complicated, probably early 60s, and most of that comes because we know that Nero died in 68. And most traditions, and there's pretty good evidence for this, say that Paul died under the hand of Nero, so can't be after 68. And you kind of look at where this fits, maybe a few other things here, probably get probably get 62, 64. This is written to Timothy. We know about Timothy from the book of Acts. The real key here is what's happening where Timothy is. Timothy is in Ephesus, and there are some problems going on here. Mostly it seems like there's false teaching happening. Talk about that a lot today. And mostly it seems like not really necessarily an organized system of teaching, but just kind of some things being added on and tacked on to Christianity. And really, as we look at all of this, you'll see Paul's emphasis on Jesus. So maybe they're downplaying Christ. I wonder if some Judaizing teachers are downplaying Jesus the Messiah, because he's not really the kind of Messiah that the Judaizing teachers liked very much. But right away, verse one, Paul an apostle, by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope. He's going to work straight up right away on this problem. And he says, I urged you when I was going into Macedonia, by the way, that is not recorded in Acts. We're not sure where that fits. Remain at Ephesus so that you can charge people not to teach any different doctrine. I want to say a word here about the word, the words for different doctrine. The word for teaching here is Didasco. That's the base, the base word there. And the word in front of it then is hetero. So it's really not the idea of strange or erroneous or new, even though some translations render it that way. It's the idea of different. Different Didasco, hetero didasco, hetero, like you have heterosexuals and you have homosexuals. And we all understand what that means. Hetero is different. And so the main point here is that this teaching is different from the teaching of the apostles. Just think about that. That's worth holding on to. That's worth holding on to. We should ask, whenever something's being taught, is this hetero doctrine, is it different than what the apostles taught? And he does say some things in verse 4 about stewardship. And that says something about the stewardship which the Lord gives in regard to the church and taking care of the church. Maybe there are some leaders that are involved in some of this. Look at the motivation, verse 7. They kind of want to shine. How often did Jesus talk to the Pharisees? They want to look good in front of everybody. And then Paul gives what's called a vice list. Starting in verse 9, it's actually very carefully arranged in some alliteration in the New Testament Greek here. It starts generally, it gets more and more specific, following roughly the order of the Ten Commandments. And then Paul says some things about himself. And the idea beginning in verse 13, actually verse 12, and verse 12 to verse 17 forms a unit because there's the idea of I thank him. There's thanksgiving there. Do you see those bookends there? Verses 12, verse 17. And then Paul talks about how Jesus came to save sinners. And his argument here, this is not really a departure. He's still working the idea of people who are teaching a different doctrine. And the idea is that salvation comes from Jesus through mercy and grace, not by following all kinds of Jewish myths and genealogies, those kinds of things that he's called out, for example, in verse 4. And there's a beautiful, beautiful metaphor in verse 14 of grace overflowing like a flooded river. And I would say something here in verse 15. There Paul says that Jesus came to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. And I've heard that verse read, I've probably read that verse. It said, you know, look at Paul. He's so humble. He still still sees himself as chief of sinners. And actually, I don't think that's where Paul is in verse 15, and I don't think that's what he's doing with verse 15. There's plenty of places where Paul talks about himself as being a servant of Christ and he presses on to the goal. I think about the passages in Philippians. Paul's very positive about his relationship with Jesus and certainly does not see that somehow he's still carrying around a load of sins in the time that he persecuted the church. He's aware of that. There's no question about that. But I but that's not that's not something that is still part of his self-image. What he's saying here in verse 15, I think, relates to the past. Look at all the verses here about the past. Though formally, verse 13, I was a blasphemy and a persecutor. That's not who he is now. And then verse 16, I received mercy. So verse 15 fits in the past. And sometimes we can say an I am statement that references our past, and that's just not where we are today. Maybe this isn't a great illustration, but I think of the 12-step meetings, and someone stands up and says, Hi, I'm Mark, and I am an alcoholic. Well, that person can have been dry and not touched alcohol for 50 years, but but they're saying some things about where they used to be, and they're saying some things to be careful not to lose their places. I think Paul is setting himself very firmly in the past. I that's not where I am now. And I say all that to say sometimes Christians act like sin is this permanent stain, and we just have to keep our head down, and we're just always kind of beat down and lousy, and God hates us, and that's absolutely not the case at all. Don't don't carry that self-image as far as the east is from the west, the psalmist says, so God has separated us from our sins. And then as Paul continues to work this chapter right at the end after that Inclusio, those bookends in verse 17, he says, Here's the charge. This is what I'm talking to you about, verse 18 Timothy. You need to do these things, you need to hold fast the faith, you need to make sure that you have a good conscience and don't be like Hymeneus and Alexander. And we don't know anything else about these guys, except Hymeneus gets mentioned again in 2 Timothy chapter 2, but Paul is unhappy with them, and he says, I'm handing them over to Satan, probably a reference to withdrawing fellowship from them. The reading for Monday, 1 Timothy chapter 1. It

Tuesday 1 Timothy 2

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is Tuesday. It is Tuesday, and our reading today is in 1 Timothy chapter 2. There is a ton here. Need to get right to this. There's holy hands and women's roles in the assembly and modesty with a bonus that John Calvin gets blown completely out of the water. It does seem like there are some false teachers here in Ephesus that are excluding people, maybe limiting salvation to a select few and not letting some people pray. What's going on here? And we may have a women's lib movement on top of everything else. So Paul begins 1 Timothy 2 1 by saying, first of all, I want there to be praying. And that says an awful lot about the importance of prayer. This church has got some big problems, and Paul thinks the starting place to fix a lot of that is that we pray and that we pray properly. I'm not impressed that we need to differentiate verse 1 between the different kinds of prayer, supplication, intercession, thanksgiving. I think there's not a lot of difference between those different kinds of praying, but God wants everyone to pray because God, verse 4, wants everyone to be saved. And that absolutely destroys Calvinism. Just crushes it, sinks it, all done and dusted. Calvinism says that from the beginning of everything, God predestines some people to be saved and some people to be lost. And those people who are lost, they are just lost. It's not because of anything they did. God just arbitrarily decided you will not be saved. And no Calvinist can explain 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 4 when they hold to that kind of thinking. 1 Timothy 2.4 says God wants everybody to be saved. John Calvin says, no, he doesn't. He wants some people to be lost, and he's sent them to eternity in hell because he wants them to be lost, and that's just not true. And you can circle that verse in your Bible the next time you talk with somebody who's of the reformed faith. They can't explain it. They'll never explain it. There is no explanation. Oh, wait, there is too. It's false doctrine. So then Paul begins to talk about worship roles here, says some things about his preaching. He's a teacher of the Gentiles. Notice verse 7. Wonder if Gentiles are being pushed out. Are they being marginalized here? And then he deals with some disruptive problems. Some difficulties are going on. And I think all of this is in the assembly. This is assembly stuff. I urge that supplications and prayers be made. What's he talking about? He's talking there about the church. This letter is written to the church, 1 Timothy 3, verse 15. And so I think this is about the church. And men need to pray here by lifting holy hands. And that just talks about having purity of heart, pure hands. And yes, Jewish people lifted their hands. And I don't think it would be a great sin if somebody lifted their hands in prayer today. I would say this, I think it would be a great distraction. Lifting hands is associated now with charismatic practices. It is something that we do not do. And as a result of that, if someone decides in the middle of our assembly to lift their hands, they're just going to be calling attention to themselves and they're going to make a scene. And people, what is he doing over there? Why is she doing that? It's going to be a mess. Don't do that. We've seen enough in 1 Corinthians about making a mess of the assembly. Don't do that. But but it is important that we understand the principle. It's not sinful to raise holy hands. And so dealing with men then that are out of place and being disruptive, he turns then to talk about women. And there is a lot of, let's see here, controversy about this. Controversy is how the British say the word controversy. And I listened to a podcast by some guys in England. And so now I think I'm just going to start saying controversy because I like the way it sounds. And there is, there is controversy about what women can and cannot do, as given in this text. Now, some people will say that this is just male chauvinism, and we're just going to ignore it because we just don't like it. And that won't wash. Can't do that. Can't do that. And I think you know better than that. Some people have announced that this is cultural. This is just cultural. And so that means we don't have to play by these rules anymore. But I would ask, what in the New Testament is not cultural? What in the Old Testament is not cultural? The Bible didn't occur in a vacuum. All is set in culture. And yes, I do think there are passages that we say, okay, that's a cultural kind of thing. For example, Paul sailing on a boat in the Mediterranean, and we use some ideas from culture to help us better understand what is and is not binding. But you can't just announce, oh, it's cultural, so that we don't do that anymore. You have to show that that is part of the culture and not part of the New Testament's instructions for how we are to live, do, act, the doctrine, be, especially here in 1 Timothy, be the church as the Lord wants it to be. You'll notice that all of this is situated 13, 14, 15, in creation, not in culture. Having said that, I will say something here about the culture. This is a time when there is a women's liberation movement taking the Roman Empire by storm. It is called by scholars the New Roman Woman. And these women were casting off traditional roles in society. They were openly advertising themselves as being promiscuous and very open to promiscuity. So the sexual revolution is going on. They want more rights to have money, to be able to speak in the legislature or in various rulemaking bodies and so forth. There's a lot of that happening in this time. And if you read about some of that and then you begin to read 1 Timothy chapter 2, you'll see that Paul is pushing back against that movement very, very clearly. And I should add here, there's nothing in verse 9 that indicates that this is wives. Some have tried to limit this to wives. It's just the word for women here. And I can't imagine that Paul would say, you know, wives have to dress modestly, but the single women, they're good. They just do whatever they want to. That's crazy. And I don't think that works in this text. Notice, please, since we're talking about modesty, that modesty here is overdressing, not underdressing. Now, I think underdressing would fit, particularly underdressing in the assembly. And sometimes when I say this is an assembly passage, somebody will say, Oh, so a woman can dress immodestly outside the assembly. Of course she cannot. There are many other passages that talk about that. But this passage is talking about how you come to church and you don't come to church all dressed flashy and wild and expensive, so that you're drawing attention to yourself with your clothing, with your jewelry and your hairstyle and your pearls and all of that. Instead, instead of dressing like a new Roman woman, but dress like a woman who professes godliness, verse 10. Then we get to this business of what women can and cannot do in the assembly. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness, verse 11. I don't permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, rather, she is to remain quiet. Some of the language that's used here is used in other places in the New Testament to talk about the assembly. And I think that again is what we're talking about here. Women are not to teach authoritatively in an assembly containing men. That's what Paul is concerned about. That's a violation of the creation order, he'll say, in beginning in verse 13. And as a result, when women take that place in the assembly, it's backwards and upside down from how God wants the home to look and to be ordered. I think that's an enormous point that is often overlooked. We don't want something going on in the assembly, then, that upsets what's supposed to be going on in the home. And there isn't any question, Ephesians 5, how the home is to be ordered. Think about that. Well, someone's going to say, how come women can't preach today? And that, of course, is a huge issue. More and more churches, even churches of Christ, are allowing women to take public teaching roles in the assembly. And maybe part of that comes because we haven't done a very good job teaching on this passage, and there's been a lot of confusion. For example, I have been flat told a woman cannot speak in the assembly. Well, I guess she can't sing then or make the good confession. Come on now. Or I've been told a woman can't teach a man the gospel. Woman at work and man says, Where do you go to church? Oh, she better not be telling me anything. Have you read Acts 18? Have you read about Aquila and Priscilla teaching Apollos? Women can teach men. That's completely mistaken. Women teach in many ways. Mamas teach. My mother teaches me all the time. I'm so grateful for her. Dina teaches me all the time. So very grateful. What we're talking about here is a specific venue, a specific place in the assembly. That's what we're talking about here. This is about what we do as Christians, men and women in the church, in our work together. So that means these verses are not saying anything about what a woman like Lydia can do in her business. Can she be the president of her business? Yes. Yes, she can. Can a woman teach history in the local high school? Yes. Yes. Can a woman vote? Certainly. Could a woman be president of the United States? Absolutely she could. That would not be a violation of 1 Timothy chapter 2. But you know and I know a woman runs for president. Somebody's gonna pull this passage up completely out of context and make a complete mess out of it. Well, if I haven't talked, wow, the today's episode's just forever, isn't it? I'll be home by the time you're done listening to this. What about this business of she'll be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, holiness, and self-control? That is a very difficult passage. Very, very difficult. And I am certain I do not know everything about that text and how to make sense out of everything here. But again, new Roman women did not want to bear children. That was something that they did not want any part of. A child would infringe on their freedoms to go and to do and carry on and be all the things that they wanted to be, particularly to be sexually active. And I think that's figuring in here. If if you don't get anything else out of the passage, it certainly would say that a woman is not, Christian woman is not to abort her child like the new Roman women would do. I think probably the best thing to say about verse 15 is that Paul is saying that for women, their role, their salvation will be found in being in their role rather than acting out like these new Roman women or not getting married. We're going to see some things about forbidding to marry. Um, no, don't act like that. Don't be a new Roman woman. I don't think 1 Timothy 2.15 means every woman has to be married or that every woman has to have children. That's clearly outside the realm of possibility. And we all know women, pray for them, who are who are trying to have a child and for whatever reasons they are not having a child. Don't go there with 1 Timothy 2.15. But this whole text just says that women need to act like godly women. Women need to act like godly women. Men need to act like godly men. That's what the text is saying here. And we certainly know what the Bible says about women and about the home and about the family. And we need to uphold those values. I think that's where 1 Timothy chapter 2 is. And that's, wow, that's more than enough on our reading for today. First Timothy chapter 2, the reading for Tuesday. It's Wednesday.

Wednesday 1 Timothy 3

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Welcome to Wednesday. And today we're reading 1 Timothy chapter 3, the reading for Wednesday, 1 Timothy, the third chapter. As if we did not have enough controversy, aha, got that word in again, didn't I? Enough controversy yesterday with the role of women. Today we have elder deacon qualifications. And I hope that we can keep this in its context as we do our daily Bible reading today. This is not meant to be a deep dive, everything about everything concerning elder and deacon qualifications. Instead, let's just hold on to the fact that clearly some of the problems in Ephesus for Timothy come from his leadership. And so Paul now wants to say, this is what it should look like. This is what an elder should be. This is what a deacon should be. And I'll give you a couple of quick things here about elders, and then when we get to deacons, we'll talk about that a little bit. Sometimes someone will say all Christians are pretty much required to do all of these things. And that, of course, is not true. All Christian men are not required to be married. All Christian men are not required to be teachers. And I think even beyond that, this requires a greater amount of these qualifications where it is evident to the people of God that a man possesses these kinds of things, that he is a leader. And I don't think that is required of every man. Different maturity stages, different levels, different times when a Person comes to the gospel. We need to be careful about that. I think sometimes that almost makes it sound like everybody could be an elder. And that's absolutely not the case, and probably part of the problem going on in Ephesus. And so sometimes someone will say, well, this is just about being an older man. And that's absolutely not true at all because you don't have to qualify to be an older man. You don't need qualifications for that. So the qualification that stands out on this list is in verse two, must be above reproach. And that stands out because it's repeated again in verse seven. He must be well thought of by outsiders. So all of these qualifications may well relate to that general idea. And he is to be the husband of one wife, literally a one-woman man. And I dealt with some of that in QA last month. So uh reference that. I I actually, well, I need some coffee here to get all this. I think that was QA in August when I talked a little bit about some of that. So if you want to know more about that, work with it and and have something to uh still more coffee. Yeah, yeah, more coffee. Listen to the sermon from August. And so verse 4, he must manage his own household well. This is so important because verse 5, it's the only qualification where we get the rationale, the reasoning behind it. If he doesn't know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God's church? Notice shepherds are managing the church. They are overseers, they are in charge. Sometimes people push back against that idea. Don't do that. That's part of their work. It is their work as they see to spiritual things. I think about the Hebrews 13, 17 passage, other passages, Acts chapter 20, where Paul calls the elders from Ephesus to Miletus and admonishes them. Shepherds watch for our souls. They are primarily about spiritual things. And that brings us to deacons then, 8 to 13. Deacons are about physical things. I'm working out of Acts chapter 6, where the apostles say we need some people to take care of some physical tasks so that we can be involved in spiritual tasks. That's where that is. And sometimes people will say there's no such office because the word deacon just means servant. And that is certainly true, but an ordinary term can certainly take on special significance. So for example, Mikel Arteta is the manager for the Arsenal Soccer Club. Wow, how about that? There you go. Got some controversy in there from England. And now I have English Premier Soccer on the podcast. Feeling pretty good about that. Arteta managed Arsenal to the EPL Championship last year. So loving that because I'm a huge Arsenal fan. If you don't know anything about soccer, that probably just means you're a normal American. Skip Schumacher is the manager of the Texas Rangers. And the term manager can have a very ordinary meaning, or it can mean the office of manager. Skip is the manager. And sometimes people see deacons here as being kind of elders in training, and we get this org chart where like you're a member and then you get promoted to deacon. And if you're a good deacon, you can be promoted to elder. And that's nonsense, and that's not what's happening here at all. It's two very different kinds of works, very different things that shepherds do from what deacons do. A person could be a deacon all of his life, and there's no shame in that. That doesn't mean somehow he just, you know, he never got promoted. Let's not try any of that. Verse 11 then talks a little bit about women and the ESV, which I love, as you know, is just horrible here because it says their wives likewise. No, no, no. It's just women. It's just the word for women here, which opens the door to the question: is there such a thing as a deaconess? And is this possibly qualifications for deaconesses? And I think there's I think there's some evidence for that. I think there's a case for that that can be made. I just don't think it's compelling enough to get there. I understand those who want to make that case and want to talk about that, but I just don't think you can get there. However, I think there's a lot to be said for valuing the work and service of women. And most of the time, women don't want a title. What they want is to be valued in the kingdom. And we have a ton of servants who are serving in a wonderful way at West Side, and they haven't asked for the title deaconess. They're not looking for the deaconess parking spot or the perch that come with a job. Yep, saying that tongue in cheek, of course. They they just want to serve, they just want to help the body of Christ. And that's what this needs to be about, rather than getting a title. So then as you look back from verse 13 all the way back to the top of the chapter, what you're seeing here is the kind of core Christian qualities that are necessary in leadership roles. That's what you are seeing here. And no, this was not a deep dive on everything about everything, but in the podcast, you certainly can't do that. I hope that this clarifies and gives you some good ideas to work with as we think about elders and we think about deacons, their work and who they are and what they should do. Paul then says, I hope verse 14 to come to you soon. He ends up actually being delayed. We're kind of glad about that because that means he wrote this letter because he couldn't get there. And then he says, in a super important verse, that the church of the living God is a pillar and buttress of the truth. It's the household of God, the church of the living God, pillar and buttress of the truth. And so household here references the idea of family. The church is the family, and then the pillar, the pillar of truth. The people in Ephesus would be very familiar with pillars because the temple of Diana, one of one of the ancient wonders of the world, it's on that list of seven wonders of the ancient world. It had over a hundred columns, each over 50 feet high, lifting its massive shining roof. So the church lifts up the shining truth of the gospel. And buttress here, that's a difficult term to translate, but it probably means protector, the protector of the truth, the defender of the truth. This is what the church is supposed to be doing, not involved in social good works programs or providing a soccer field and league for kids to play or a gym or a place to have baby showers or all the other fun and games things that so many churches are involved in today. The church is a teaching and preaching institution. What's it do? It holds up the truth, it defends the truth, it's the family of God who love the truth. That's what the church is. Verse 16, by the way, that's probably a hymn. As you read that, that's probably a hymn that first century Christians sang. Reading for Wednesday, 1 Timothy 3.

Thursday 1 Timothy 4

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It's Thursday. It is Thursday. And by the time you're listening to this, Dean and I will be on an airplane headed home. We should be landing at DFW this evening and be home from a great trip in the Med Sea. Remember us in your prayers today as we make our way back to the United States. Let's talk about 1 Timothy chapter 4. There's always somebody shouting about the end of the world and wars and rumors of wars, and a lot of that comes out of the book of Revelation. But some of that could be fixed if we had a better understanding of the last days or the latter times. And verse 1 helps us see 1 Timothy 4 is the reading for Thursday, 1 Timothy chapter 4. 1 Timothy 4 1 helps us see that we are in the latter times, the last days. It's happening right now, and that's a time when there'll be departures from the faith. Please notice that comes because people devote themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons. One writer said, we tend not to take this fact sufficiently seriously. Scripture portrays the devil not only as the tempter enticing people into sin, but as the deceiver seducing people into error. Need to think more about that, don't we? And so there are always people who will argue that there's something wrong with the sexual relationship even in marriage, or that hunger is something, there's something wrong with that. We need to need to abstain from food, need to fast endlessly. Sometimes fasting kind of comes in vogue, it becomes a thing. People want to fast. Look at verse 3. These false teachers forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods. The Bible is very pro-food, very pro-marriage. And so anytime some teacher jumps up and down and starts saying, nope, we can't be doing that, we certainly need to be mindful that that's what Paul calls out because everything, verse 4, created by God is good. Strong echo there from Genesis, the first chapter. Then in verses 6 to 16, Paul just talks about what a good servant needs to be. What does a good servant need to be? He needs to be trained in the words of the faith, verse 6, not involved in the irreverent and silly myths, trained for godliness, because physical exercise, verse 8, has some value, but it's not nearly as valuable as godliness. Maybe those of us who work out need to think a little bit about how much time do we spend working out physically, how much time do we spend working out spiritually, prayer, Bible reading, for example. Verse 9, the saying is trustworthy. That references verse 8, that the bodily training thing is of some value, but godliness is of more value. And I particularly like this idea in verse 12. Let no one despise your youth. Well, you don't get people to stop despising your youth by citing that verse. You get them to stop despising your youth by doing the things that Paul talks about here, like devoting yourselves to the public reading of scripture, exhortation, and teaching. Reading the Bible in public, very important in the first century. People don't have their own Bibles. People are illiterate, hard to get an exact figure on the number, the population percentage that could not read, but a large percentage of people are not reading. And so they would need to hear the Bible read. And we don't know everything about this gift in verse 14. Can't be a miraculous gift because only apostles can give miraculous gifts. Not sure about everything about all of that, but Timothy is to conduct himself in a way that gives him influence so that he can teach and preach the gospel. That's what Timothy needs to do. That makes him a good servant in Christ Jesus. Reading for Thursday, 1 Timothy chapter 4.

Friday 1 Timothy 5

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It is Friday. It is Friday, and today we're reading 1 Timothy chapter 5. In this section, Paul is giving Timothy some special instructions for dealing with different groups in the Christian family there at Ephesus. Groups by age, then widows, then elders, and then finally he'll say some things here even about slaves in chapter 6. So let's work with some of this. There is a family feel to all of this. Remember 1 Timothy 3.15, the household of God. And Paul said in chapter 4 and verse 12, Timothy, don't let people look down on you just because you are young. And now we read how he is to act towards different groups so that they will not look down on him. And we don't know how old Timothy was. Most scholars think maybe late 20s and into his 30s, given the way the times were and how people viewed age and those kinds of things. Hard to know for certain about all of that. But he says very clearly that families, as we're talking about widows here at the outset of the chapter, verse 4, families are to care for their families. And there does seem to be a problem in verse 8 of families not doing that. And that would be very scandalous in Ephesus. So throughout the pastoral epistles, there is a concern for Christians to at least, at least be as good as the pagans are. And remember the qualifications for elders, be without reproach. Be without reproach. And then young women seem to be causing, these younger widows seem to be causing some of that reproach. What's going on here? In verse 12, not very good in the New American Standard, they incur condemnation, having abandoned their former pledge or previous pledge. That's just a reference to their Christianity, to their previous faith, as the ESV would have it here. And so, as one scholar said, the most likely issue here is that the widows were giving into sensual desires. They were turning against Christ, they were marrying non-Christians and abandoning the faith. This interpretation explains the strong language of the verse. Remarriage is not wrong, but but Paul is saying some things here about these widows who are losing their place, losing their faith even in Christ. And I'll particularly note there in verse 16: if any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let not the church be burdened. Notice this verse makes a separation in the work of an individual and the work of the church. Sometimes people will say the church can do anything an individual can do. You know, individuals pray and individuals teach the gospel. And so, you know, the church can do anything that individuals can do, and that opens the door then for the church to get in the business of doing the kinds of things that a home ought to do, like, for example, providing recreation or daycare education, on and on and on and on. And if you look at verse 16 very clearly, you can see the church can't do everything that an individual can do. An individual here is to take care of parents and so forth, take care of these widows, but the church is expressly told, don't do that. Don't do that. The work of the church is different, different responsibilities in our collective activity, our collective treasury, our collective oversight by the shepherds. That's a different ball game than what we can do in the home. Sometimes when I talk about this, I tell an anecdote. I had a fellow running out as Bible authority. The church can do anything that an individual can do. And I looked at him and I said, I can kiss my wife, but the church better not try. And he had no answer for that at all. The church cannot do what individuals can do. It's a different organization, different purposes. It's a different ball game. So then what about the elderly? Verse 17. There are some principles here about honor, appreciation, fairness, impartiality, verse 21. And then Paul says some things about being careful. So there's some cautions here. Not entirely certain how verse 23 fits in the flow of things. Is Timothy getting caught up maybe in some asceticism here, trying to abstain from everything? And we have to remember that there's no city water supply here and chlorinated water and all the things that go with all of that. And so Paul is indicating that there's some medicine that Timothy could use and that he needs to use. And that verse has often been used to endorse social drinking. Don't do that. You can't do that. That's resting the scriptures. The whole issue of can a Christian drink alcohol? That is, of course, a big issue, but it's not going to be settled in 1 Timothy 5 23. Please don't run that verse out. Bonus, don't run out John 2, where Jesus changes water into wine either. Neither of those verses will support that. So then, wow, no additional charge for that. Then he says, you need to be careful. You just need to be careful, verse 24. It's kind of the iceberg principle. You don't see everything when you're looking on the surface. The reading for Friday, 1 Timothy chapter 5. And that takes us to the end of the podcast for the week. Thanks so much for listening. This is, like I said at the outset, the last podcast for a week when I am out of the country. Dean and I are looking forward to being home and to being back at West Side on Sunday where we belong. Thanks for listening to the podcast. It's a joy for me to read the Bible with you. I'm Mark Roberts. I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come too. I will see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

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Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ podcast, Monday Morning Coffee with Mark. For more information about Westside, you can connect with us through our website, just Christians.com, and our Facebook page. Our music is from Upbeat.io. That's Upbeat with two Ps, U-P-P-B-E-A-T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others, and we'll look forward to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday.