Fuentes epigráficas. Lex rivi Hiberiensis. Un documento

In the OT, three groups of persons are given special care: the orphan, the stranger, and the widow. Ancient society allowed a young woman two roles: she could be an unmarried virgin in her father’s house, or a faithful and child-producing wife in her husband’s home.

The prophets voiced stern condemnations against the mistreatment of widows. According to Malachi 3:5, God will bring swift judgment upon those who mistreat the alien, the orphan, or the widow. According to the Law and the Prophets, the widow as a member of the covenant com-munity must receive the same merciful treatment that is given to the sojourner (migrant, alien) and the fatherless (orphans; Deut 14:29; 24:17;

Amos 2:8; Zech 7:10). When grain and grapes were harvested, some were left for the hungry widow, the stranger, and the orphan (Deut 24:19-22).

The Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow are to be given a tithe of the produce in the third year (Deut 26:12; 27:19).

God will sustain the fatherless children and preserve the widows if they put their trust in God (Jer 49:11). God is declared to be “father of orphans and protector of widows” (Ps 68:5). He watches over the strang-ers and upholds the orphan and the widow (146:9). Jesus reaffirmed God’s concern for the widow by speaking with anger about those who

“devour widows’ houses” (Luke 20:47). And James writes about pure religion that cares for orphans and widows in their distress (1:27).

In the early church, the same concern about widows in the Jewish Christian community was extended to the Hellenistic Christian commu-nity (Acts 6:1-6). First Timothy 5:3-16 identifies three groups of widows.

First are the older, real, destitute widows, who have no other means of financial support (5:3, 5, 9-10, 16b). Second are younger widows, who are encouraged to remarry (5:11, 14). And third are middle-aged or older widows who have family members to take care of them (5:4, 8, 16). From the first and third groups of widows emerged a special list of widows who were enrolled and given a ministry role in the church (5:9; see notes for 1 Tim 5, above). This special order of widows is recognized by some of the early church fathers, such as Ignatius (To the Smyrnaeans 13.1).

Elders

Elders have a long history in Israel and in the Christian church. As par-ents exercised authority in the family, so elders exercised authority in the clan, tribe, and local community (TDNT 6:655). In Exodus 18:13-27,

1 Timothy 5:1–6:10, 17–19 127 Jethro told Moses, his son-in-law, to choose able, God-fearing, and trust-worthy people who would not take a bribe to help manage the children of Israel. In Numbers 11:16-30, Moses chose seventy elders upon whom the Spirit of Yahweh rested to help give spiritual oversight to the chil-dren of Israel. During the intertestamental period, a “council of elders”

(gerousia, senate) arose and became a ruling body of Jews, with its seat in Jerusalem during the Seleucid Period for Judah (early second century BC). Out of this ruling body emerged the seventy-one-member Sanhedrin (council/court). In synagogues, one person was chosen as “the ruler of the synagogue.” He took care of the building and selected persons to read the OT Scripture and conduct the worship service. By the first cen-tury AD, each Jewish community had its council of elders or presbytery, which gave general administrative oversight of the Jewish communities and represented the Jews in relationships with the Roman authorities (Shepherd: 73).

Over time, Jewish elders added comments to the OT known as “the tradition of the elders” (Matt 15:2; Mark 7:3-5). This commentary on Scripture often was given as much authority as the OT law itself. Jesus confronted the elders and corrected their interpretations by calling attention to the true meaning of the Law. Six times in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus stated, “You have heard that it was said. . . , but I say to you. . . .”

Early Christianity naturally assumed this Jewish eldership model.

The Jerusalem church had elders (Acts 11:30; 15:2, 4, 6, 22-23; 16:4;

21:18). Paul and Barnabas ordained elders in the mission churches in Asia (14:23). Paul met with the Ephesian elders during his final journey to Jerusalem. In Acts 20 the term elder (presbyteros, v. 17) is changed to bishop (episkopos, v. 28), a Greek term used for administrators. There are deacons and bishops in the church at Philippi (Phil 1:1). Titus is exhorted to appoint elders in every town (Titus 1:5). Elders who do well in preaching and teaching in Ephesus are worthy of double honor (1 Tim 5:17), are disciplined only after two or three witnesses present evidence against them (v. 19), and are to be chosen carefully (v. 22). In 1 Timothy 3:1-7 Paul gives the spiritual qualifications for a bishop.

A gradual transition took place within the NT from an earlier char-ismatic form of leadership (1 Cor 12:4-31) to office gifts (Eph 4:11-12) and finally to the full development of offices. In this transition we see a combination of lay leadership gifts alongside office gifts. Many agree with Lightfoot’s classic theory that the episcopate arose out of the presbytery in a gradual process whereby one of the elders was chosen as bishop. Thus, all bishops formerly were elders, but not all elders became bishops.

128 1 Timothy 5:1–6:10, 17–19 By the time of Ignatius (ca. 115), the threefold order of bishop, elder, and deacon as ordained offices was prominent (e.g., Ignatius, To the Magnesians 2; To the Smyrnaeans 8.1; To the Trallians 3.1; 7.2). Already in about AD 96, Clement of Rome spoke of a succession of “tested men”

to replace the bishops and deacons so that there would not be strife over the title of bishop (1 Clement 42.4-5; 44.1-3; Shepherd: 74). What Clement of Rome hinted at later became known as apostolic succes-sion, in order to establish a clear line of authority for the church.

Slavery

In the biblical world and the world of the ancient Near East, slavery was unlike the slavery practiced in the New World of the West (Dandamayev:

58). In biblical times, slavery was not tied to race. Slavery was an eco-nomic institution, much like unjust employer-employee relations in the modern world: an institutionalized classism.

We see slavery in all periods of antiquity among the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hittite, and Persian societies. In the Greek tradition, an enslaved person was considered inferior by nature and thus fortunate to have a Greek master (Dandamayev: 66). Aristotle taught that some eth-nic groups were by nature suited to be slaves (Politics 1.1255a.20; Bell:

193) and defined a slave as a “living tool” (Nicomachean Ethics 8.11; de Silva: 142). Sources of slavery included captives taken in war battles, persons who could not pay their debts, persons born as children of slaves, and the sale of children of free persons into slavery. Slaves were bought and sold, deposited as security, included in dowries, and trans-ferred by inheritance. Ancient laws prohibited slaves from leaving their master. A slave who escaped and was caught had to return to the mas-ter. Children born to a female slave were considered to be the property of her master.

According to the OT, a person could be held in slavery for only six years (Exod 21:2; Deut 15:12; Jer 34:14). If a Hebrew slave was married when he became a slave, his wife was set free with him at the end of the six-year period (Exod 21:3; Lev 25:40-42). When freed, the slave could go back to his family (Lev 25:39-41). If the slave decided not to go free, but become part of the master’s family, the master would pierce the slave’s ear with an awl, which marked the slave for life (Exod 21:6; Deut 15:16-17). If a Hebrew sold himself to a resident alien (such as to pay a debt), that alien was required to set him free as soon as he or a relative could pay for his redemption (Lev 25:47-52). If the slave could not redeem himself through hired labor, he continued to work until the year of Jubilee, when he and his children were to be set free (25:53-54).

According to the Deuteronomic law, a Hebrew may sell oneself to

1 Timothy 5:1–6:10, 17–19 129 another Hebrew and work for six years; in the seventh year the master is to release that slave and give the freed person gifts for establishing a household. After all, six years of slave labor was worth far more to the master than that of a regular hired man (Deut 15:13-14, 18).

Female slaves were often treated as a commodity. A female was leased for work, given as a pledge, or handed over as dowry. Male mem-bers of a household understood that they could use a female slave’s body for her physical strength in work or for sexual exploitation. On the year of Jubilee, all slaves were to be freed (Lev 25:40-43). Release from slavery by the hand of God became a metaphor for divine redemption.

“Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you” (Deut 15:15).

Slavery in Palestine was a domestic and economic way of life. Slaves worked alongside their master in the field, were treated like members of the family (in some senses), and participated in the religious obser-vances of their master, including Sabbath rest.

Slavery in the NT must be interpreted in the context of the Greco-Roman world. First-century slavery was largely an economic way of life.

The education of slaves was encouraged, and many slaves carried out highly responsible social functions. Slaves took part in religious and cul-tural life, much the same as freeborn persons. Most urban and domestic slaves anticipated emancipation by the age of thirty (Bartchy: 66).

Children became the primary source of slaves. Many persons sold themselves into slavery to pay debts, to climb socially, and to find a more secure life than some free persons had (Bartchy: 67). Erastus, the city treasurer of Corinth (Rom 16:23), was likely a slave who had sold himself to the city to the age of forty and then was allowed to go free. The city honored Erastus for his years of service by placing a marker on the street in front of the main theater with his name on it. As a Christian, Erastus was one of the more prominent members of the Christian church in Corinth. Unfortunately, some infants in the Roman world were rejected by their fathers and left at the edge of town to die. Often these infants were picked up by slave traders or other persons who could not have children (Bell: 240). This practice is not mentioned in the NT, but it was a known practice in the Roman world. Owners of slaves not only expected a slave person to work, but they also believed that they had free access to a female slave’s body. Thus, slaves were regarded as sexually available by masters and their sons. The NT often speaks against sexual sins, which surely included the sexual exploitation of slaves.

Slaves who became Christians belonged to larger Roman house-holds. When this happened, tension arose between Christian slaves

130 1 Timothy 5:1–6:10, 17–19 and non-Christian masters, since Christianity required a change in morality [Household Behavior, p. 355]. An account of the Christian influ-ence upon slavery is found in the book of Philemon. Onesimus, a run-away slave, became a Christian under Paul’s missionary work. Paul works with the tension between Onesimus’s world of slavery and his new Christian world. The apostle writes to Philemon and instructs him to treat Onesimus “as a . . . beloved brother” (16). Onesimus cannot be Philemon’s brother on Sunday and just a slave the rest of the week. A new Christian relationship must be forged between the two. From the book of Philemon, it is clear that a new social reality is beginning to arise as the Christian message breaks into the Roman world.

Money

The OT law required a tithe of all possessions as a reminder that God is giver of all things. Sabbath oriented all of time to God. Giving up one’s land in the Jubilee year served as a reminder that land belongs to God. “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine;

with me you are but aliens and tenants” (Lev 25:23). Time, land, and space are God-given things and not one’s own. In fact, all that one pos-sesses belongs to the Lord (Deut 14:22-29). The festivals of Passover (Unleavened Bread, barley harvest, early spring), Firstfruits (Pentecost, wheat harvest, late spring), and Tabernacles (Ingathering, vintage, fall) were reminders of God’s goodness and Israel’s response of thank-fulness for what God had done. The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) recog-nized God as owner, so the firstfruits were to be brought into the house of God (Exod 23:14-17, 19; 34:21-26).

The prophet Amos condemned Israel for its economic injustice (2:6-8). Amos said, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteous-ness like an everflowing stream” (5:24). Similarly, Micah denounced Israel’s injustices and said, “What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

(6:8). Malachi 3:8-10 says:

Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, “How are we robbing you?” In your tithes and offerings! You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the LORD of Hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.

Also insightful is Proverbs 30:7-9:

1 Timothy 5:1–6:10, 17–19 131 Two things I ask of you;

do not deny them to me before I die;

Remove far from me falsehood and lying;

give me neither poverty nor riches;

feed me with the food that I need, or I shall be full, and deny you, and say, “Who is the Lord?”

or I shall be poor, and steal,

and profane the name of my God.

In first-century Palestine about 93 percent of the Jewish people were poor peasants. In the first century, the income of a moderately wealthy person would have been seven hundred times greater than that of a poor person (Bell: 190). Given the economic injustice of the time, it is not surprising that many of Jesus’ teachings were directed to rich persons.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool (12:16-21) and the story of the rich man and Lazarus (16:19-31). Conversely, he commends Zacchaeus for his willingness to make financial restitution: “Today sal-vation has come to this house” (19:1-10). Jesus commends the poor widow who gives out of her poverty (21:1-4). Luke calls for economic conversion to enter the kingdom of God.

In the early church, Ananias and Sapphira were disciplined because they were dishonest about money matters (Acts 5:1-11). Peter rebuked Simon the magician, who thought he could purchase religious power with money (8:14-24). Using religion as a means of financial gain was confronted when the Christian message first came to Ephesus (19:23-27) and was condemned again at a later time at Ephesus, according to 1 Timothy 6:5b. Economic sharing was part of the early church’s life (Acts 2:45; 4:34-35; 11:29). Barnabas is commended for sharing his wealth with the church (4:36-37).

Paul calls attention to the goodness and graciousness of God, who satisfies our needs and teaches Christian stewardship (2 Cor 8–9). Rich Christians in Ephesus are not to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches (1 Tim 6:17a) but to place their hope in the God who richly pro-vides (6:17b). Rich Christians are instructed to respond in four ways to God’s grace: (1) to do good, (2) to be rich in good works, (3) to be gener-ous, and (4) to be ready to share. If rich Christians practice steward-ship in this way, they will be storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life (6:19).

132 1 Timothy 5:1–6:10, 17–19 THE TEXT IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH

Care of widows

Sixteenth-century Anabaptist believers were committed to the church as Christian community and therefore expected radical economic shar-ing within that community of faith. In the case of the Anabaptists of Moravia in the 1520s and 1530s, community sharing led to an organized community of goods. All Anabaptists believed that Christian community meant caring for people who were poor, widowed, and orphaned, and generally living as members of one body (Snyder and Hecht: 6).

Article 9 of the Dordrecht Confession of Faith of 1632 says, “And that also honorable aged widows should be chosen and ordained deaconesses, that they with the deacons may visit, comfort, and care for, the poor, feeble, sick, sorrowing, and needy, as also the widows and orphans, and assist in attending to other wants and necessities of the church to the best of their ability. 1 Timothy 5:9-10; Romans 16:1-2; James 1:27” (Wenger: 380). Nearly all of the confessions of faith in Mennonite history assign deacons the responsibility to care for the poor, including widows (Stuckey: 24-33).

Margarethe Prüss, of Strasbourg, France (d. 1542), was widowed two times. Her father began a printing business in Strasbourg, and Margarethe learned much about the printing business before his death in 1510. Knowing that she would not be recognized as an owner of a printing business as a woman, she married a printer who took over her father’s business when he died. Nevertheless, she was the business man-ager and took care of paying the debts, handled the shop purchases, and distributed the salaries to the employees. In 1519 her first husband, Reinhardt Beck, began printing evangelical works, including a treatise written by Martin Luther. In 1522, he died, leaving Margarethe as a widow. Normally a widow could only run the printing business for one or two years, according to the printing guild. So in 1524 she married Johannes Schwann, who had left the monastery in Basel and made his way to Strasbourg, where he also learned the printing business.

Schwann’s marriage to Margarethe allowed the printing business to continue. Together Johannes Schwann and Margarethe printed some of Luther’s writings and the writings of Andreas Karlstadt. They also became aware of early Anabaptist writings. Johannes Schwann died in 1526, leaving Margarethe a widow for a second time. On May 27, 1527, she married her third husband, Balthasar Beck. He, too, learned the printing trade, and together they continued the business Margarethe had obtained from her father. From their press came the works of Anabaptist leaders. At the time of her death on May 23, 1542, Margarethe and her third husband had printed a large amount of Anabaptist

litera-1 Timothy 5:litera-1–6:litera-10, litera-17–litera-19 133 ture. Despite being widowed twice, she was able to keep the printing business going. Each time she married, she and her new husband increased Lutheran and Anabaptist publications. The printers she mar-ried were either Anabaptist sympathizers or Anabaptists themselves (Snyder and Hecht: 270). As a printshop owner and a woman, Margarethe overcame the limits of the role assigned to women by sixteenth-century culture and, as a result, made a significant contribution to the early Anabaptist movement far beyond the city of Strasbourg (Snyder and Hecht: 270). Perhaps Margarethe’s story of widowhood can be appreci-ated in the context of 1 Timothy 5:9 as one who should be placed on a special list of widows who have served the church.

Elders in the Church

The term, role, and function of elders have gone through several changes in the history of the church. The Catholic Church has fol-lowed a hierarchical model of deacon, priest, bishop, archbishop, car-dinal, and pope. Its recent catechism (§1541) notes that the priesthood of Aaron and the service of the Levites, as in the institution of the

The term, role, and function of elders have gone through several changes in the history of the church. The Catholic Church has fol-lowed a hierarchical model of deacon, priest, bishop, archbishop, car-dinal, and pope. Its recent catechism (§1541) notes that the priesthood of Aaron and the service of the Levites, as in the institution of the