Straying While Staying at Home

In 1 Timothy 5, Paul gives the qualifications for widows who were to be enrolled in the church care program. In 1 Timothy 5:11–12 Paul commands that the church refuse to enroll younger widows, because they will eventually want to remarry (which Paul encourages in 1 Timothy 5:14) and may abandon “their former faith,” perhaps by breaking a vow to remain widows and/or by marrying an unbeliever.

What I want to focus on, however, is Paul’s further reasons for the refusal of young widows in 1 Timothy 5:13–14. Paul lists some character traits that these women learn:

• “They learn to be idlers, going about from house to house” (1 Timothy 5:13, emphasis added). Idle is the Greek word argos, meaning lazy, useless, and worthless. This idleness was apparently a learned trait; with too much time on their hands, they went from house to house accomplishing nothing. This characteristic evokes the description of the adulterous woman in Proverbs 7:11–12, who has “feet that do not stay at home, now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner.”
• While idly going about from house to house, they also learn to be “gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not” (1 Timothy 5:14, emphasis added). Gossip = “one who talks nonsense, gossipy.”¹ Busybodies = “paying attention to matters that do not concern one, of persons, meddlesome, officious, curious.”² Being a busybody is contrasted to being busy at work in 2 Thessalonians 3:11.

Paul then positively directs his focus in 1 Timothy 5:14 to what the young widow should do instead:

• Marry. Titus 2:4–5 instructs older women to teach younger women to love and submit to their husbands.
• Bear Children. Titus 2:4 likewise instructs older women to teach the younger women to love their children.
• Manage their households. The Greek uses the verb oikodespoteō, a combination of “house” (oikia) and “master” (despotēs), which translates to being the despot/master/lord of the home. “Being mistress of one’s own household . . . is the antidote to ‘meddling in other people’s’ households (5:13). The Greco-Roman household was of a size that required good administrative skills on the part of the mistress. If a woman took good care of her household, the enemy would not be able to say anything against them.”³

Paul concludes his reasoning in 1 Timothy 5:14–15 by describing the spiritual ramifications of women who marry, have children, and manage their household instead of going from house to house, being gossipy, meddlesome, idlers:

• They give the adversary no occasion to slander (by straying after Satan).
• Straying after Satan can be avoided. Some of the Ephesian women had strayed after Satan in this way. “Having forsaken their true calling to have children and manage the home, they had given themselves to various sins (cf. 2 Tim. 3:6). Some were no doubt following false teachers, and even helping to spread false doctrine themselves [cf. 2 Tim 3:6–7]. Some may have married unbelievers, and thus brought shame to the church. They were no longer serving Christ, but Satan. For that reason, Paul’s command that the younger widows remarry was all the more urgent.”⁴

While most of us are probably not young widows, I think there are some valid principles of application that can be applied to both the stay-at-home-mom/wife as well as the women who also work outside of the home.

In her book Glory in the Ordinary, Courtney Reissig describes how at-home work has changed over the years. Before the Industrial Revolution almost everyone worked at home. As the Industrial Revolution took place, men went to work outside of the home in factories, while the women stayed home. As time went on and modern appliances became more common, “the work of the home was suddenly simplified in ways never seen before. . . . With children at school during the day, women had a lot of extra time on their hands.”⁵ The changes continued as feminism grew in popularity, developing into the “Mommy Wars” and arguments for and against women staying at home or working outside of the home.

My point here is that our work at home (though difficult, challenging, and often time-consuming) has become easier than it used to be due to the many modern appliances and conveniences at our disposal. Is it possible that we—even with husbands and children at home—can be tempted to idleness and gossip because less time-consuming work leaves us with more time on our hands?

Is it even possible that while staying at home we virtually go “house to house” through various social media and internet sites? Although the people we “like” and “follow” have willingly “opened their doors” to us by posting what they think and do, do we spend unnecessary time paying attention to matters that do not concern us, meddling in other people’s lives as busybodies?

Do we soak up all the juicy little details that taste so good (cf. Proverbs 26:22)? Do we spread the news that really isn’t ours to share, like a gossip? Do we say things we ought not to say, simply because we get riled up by someone else’s foolishness that they display for all to see?

In virtually moving from house to house, we can inadvertently learn to be lazy idlers. We do not love our husbands and children well nor manage our households when we waste time following useless pursuits—even while we stay at home.

More importantly, rather than just an exercise in good time management, we care well for our souls when we focus on our families and homes. We give Satan no cause to slander us. We keep the door to false teaching from the internet and social media (prevalent and sometimes deceptively legitimate) closed.

“Our work. . . is telling the world about the God we worship. It’s telling what we value most. It’s telling what we hope in even when it is hard. Christians work differently, in every kind of work, because we work for the Lord.”⁶ Women, whether we are at home full-time or also work outside the home; whether we have young children, older children, or no children at home, let us avoid the pitfalls of idly wandering (literally or virtually) in other peoples’ lives, becoming meddlesome gossips and time-wasters. Let us mind our own households, managing our own families and homes in a way that brings glory to the Lord.

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Holly Huffstutler serves with her husband David, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Rockford, IL. She blogs with him here. Holly is a homemaker, raising and schooling her four children.

Image by Robin Higgins from Pixabay

1. Johannes P.Louw and Eugene Albert Nida,Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (2nd ed.; New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), vol. 1, p. 431. [↩]
2. WalterBauer, Frederick W. Danker, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich,A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (3rd ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 800. [↩]
3. Linda Belleville, “Commentary on 1 Timothy,” in Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews(Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2009), p. 101. [↩]
4. John F. MacArthur, Jr.,1 Timothy(Chicago: Moody Press, 1995), pp. 213–14. [↩]
5. CourtneyReissig, Glory in the Ordinary: Why Your Work in the Home Matters to God (Wheaton,IL: Crossway, 2017), p. 19. [↩]
6. Ibid., p. 141. [↩]