Silent

DEVOTION
1 TIMOTHY
SILENT
1 Tim 5:11-15
11 As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. 12 Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. 13 Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to. 14 So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. 15 Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan.
NIV
Here I am right in the thick of it one more time. Do I dare write anything about this? I wonder if I even know any widows who are under the age eligible to be put on the list. So then I should just leave this alone and go on. I do find it difficult to conceive of a widow of fifty-nine who is too young to even be put on the list getting married and having children. True the really young women who for whatever reasons have become widows really should go on with life and follow these instructions. I understand a time of grieving must follow, but than life has more to offer and they have more to offer in life. I wonder why this portion of scripture is not preached from the pulpit, at least I have never heard a message from here for the many years I have been in church. Let’s see, fifty-two times thirty-nine is two thousand twenty eight Sunday Morning messages I have heard, and I am not counting the Sunday Night ones. Not a one about this passage, of that I am positive, I would have remembered it. Telling any women she might be guilty of being a busybody and a gossip would simply be committing spiritual suicide. I do not thing she would ever listen to another message from those same lips. I could be so dead wrong about that, and I am sure I just might have stepped off the plank into some really deep waters myself. Maybe I should used backspace or delete and start over, but I cannot for it is what the word declares are the dangers which face younger widows and in fact some have falling to those temptations. Was that just for those of that time in that place or is the word eternally true for all generations and locations? The answer, for me anyway, is yes it is true for both. So I leave it at that, except knowing this truth, and never hearing a message about it, do I have the responsibility to prepare one for when I preach? That is a question I need an answer from the Holy Spirit. I dare not approach this in the flesh at all. I dare not open my mouth about anything of this truth unless I have an absolute go ahead from the Spirit, for I fear I would be tarred and feathered otherwise, much as I have been when I preach or teach about believers investing in companies which promote nothing less than the work of Satan. Once more I am in the deep here and I better just leave well enough alone. Let the widows read this truth in the word and be sensitive to the Spirit. For now I better be silent.