(2) The elder women as mothers.--The same watchful care against all assumption of superiority must also be exercised in his dealings with the Christian matrons of Ephesus.

The younger as sisters, with all purity.--In the case of the younger women, St. Paul adds to his directions respecting brotherly and sisterly regard a grave word, urging upon Timothy, and all official teachers like Timothy, to add to this self-denying, loving friendship a ceaseless watchfulness in all their conversation, so as not to afford any ground for suspicion; for, above all things, the recognised teacher of Christianity must be pure. No one can read and forget the quaint words of advice of St. Jerome: "Omnes puellas et virgines Christi, aut aequaliter ignora aut aegualiter dilige."

Verse 2. - In for with, A.V. Purity (ἀγνείᾳ); see 1 Timothy 4:12, note. See how jealously the apostle guards against any possibility of abuse of the familiar intercourse of a clergy- man with the women of his flock. They are his sisters, and ἀγνείω is to be the constant condition of his heart and character.

5:1,2 Respect must be paid to the dignity of years and place. The younger, if faulty, must be rebuked, not as desirous to find fault with them, but as willing to make the best of them. There is need of much meekness and care in reproving those who deserve reproof.The elder women as mothers,.... When they offend in any point, they are to be reasoned, and argued, and pleaded with, as children should with their mothers; see Hosea 2:2 and are to be considered as mothers in Israel, and to be treated with great tenderness and respect.

The younger as sisters; using the freedom as a brother may with a sister; and considering them as sisters in Christ, and in a way becoming the relation, tell them their faults freely and privately, but

with all purity: in such manner as to preserve chastity in looks, in words, and actions.