1TIMOTHY CHAPTER 5-CONTEMPORARY ALIGNED VERSION (SPIRITCODE)

1. With older men, don’t reprimand them, but get your point across respectfully as you would to a parent, and with younger men the same, as if he were a brother.

2. Treat the elder women as if they were your mother, and the younger women as your sisters, with a protective and pure attitude.

3 Give special treatment to genuine widows who are in need.

4 But if the widow has children or close family relatives then they are the ones who should care for their needs and look after them, because this is the way God wants these things to be.

5. A genuine widow is one who is on her own with no means of support , and who spends all of her time in prayer for others.

6. But a woman who lives just for herself and having a good time is living a useless life.

7. Make these things clear to everyone so that they will be known for doing the right thing.

8. But if any Christian does not look after his own family, especially if they are in the same household, then he isn’t a true Christian at all – he is worse than an unbeliever.

9. The church should not have to financially support a widow who is under sixty years of age, and she has to have had only one husband.

10. She needs to have a reputation of having herself been a helpful person to others, having raised children, shown hospitality, shown care for those in the church family, comforted those in trouble, and looked for ways to help other people in any way that she could.

11. But don’t feel obliged to help younger widows, because when they have started to live the good life and forgotten about their commitment to Christ they will want to get married again.

13. They will be inviting judgement towards themselves because they have disregarded their commitment to God.

13. at the same time they become lazy, strolling about from place to place, not just being lazy, but becoming involved in everybody else’s business and spreading stories and rumors all over the place.

14. I think those younger women should indeed get married and rear children and look after the household and don’t give anyone an opportunity to speak badly about them.

5. Some of them have already started to live just the way Satan wants them to.

16. So if any Christian man or woman has a mother that has been widowed then it is their responsibility to look after them and not the church, so that the church can help those genuine widows I mentioned before.

17. The elders that actually give themselves to running the church should be rewarded financially, especially if they spend time in  studying and teaching the Word.

18. Becase the Scripture says ‘Don’t muzzle the ox as it treads out the corn’, and it also says ‘The laborer is worthy of his reward’.

19. Don’t receive any accusation against one of these elders unless there are two or three reliable witnesses to substantiate it.

20. Those elders that commit a public scandal should be rebuked in public, so that others will have a healthy respect of accountability.

21. I give you these instructions before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and their chosen angels. Carry them out without showing anyone any favoritism by letting them get away with doing wrong just because you happen to like them.

22. Don’t lay hands too quickly on anyone to give them responsibility for the church, yoking yourself to someone else’s shortcomings, but keep yourself right with God.

23. You should have a glass of wine from time to time instead of only water. It will do your stomach good and help some of your other disorders as well.

24. Some men’s unsound behavior is obvious and you can deal with it here and now, while with others it will just have to catch up with them later

25. It’s the same with virtuous behavior. Some of it is obvious here and now, and that’s a good thing, but true virtue can’t fail to be noticed somehow in the end.