1 Timothy 5:1

πρεσβύτερος here means any elder man (cp. John 8:9 and πρεσβύτας, Titus 2:2), as is plain from the context; there is no idea of ecclesiastical office. The LXX. use both πρεσβύτερος and πρεσβύτης as renderings of וָקֵו, the former being generally employed where an ‘elder’ in an official sense is meant. But, like πρεσβύτης, it often means no more than ‘an old man,’ as here. The injunction is the necessary complement of 1 Timothy 4:12, and is perhaps suggested by the thought of Timothy’s νεότης.

ἐπιπλήξῃς. This is ἄπ. λεγ. in the Greek Bible (ἐπίπληξις is found in 2Ma 7:33 only), though common in classical writers. It is stronger than ἐπιτιμᾶν (2 Timothy 4:2), the usual N.T. word, and signifies to rebuke severely. Field cites from Hierocles (Stob. Flor. T. LXXIX. 53) a good parallel for this injunction. κἀν εἴ τί που γένοιντο παραμαρτάνοντες … ἐπανορθωτέον μέν, ἀλλʼ οὐ μετʼ ἐπιπλήξεως, μὰ Δία, καθάπερ ἓθος πρὸς τοὺς ἐλάττονας ἠ ἴσους ποιεῖν, ἀλλʼ ὡς μετὰ παρακλήσεως. That is, ἐπίπληξις is rebuke addressed to one’s juniors; παράκλησις is entreaty addressed to one’s equals.

ἀλλὰ παρακάλει ὡς πατέρα, but exhort him as a father; παρακαλεῖν being used (as always in the Pastorals) in the sense of grave exhortation.

νεωτέρους ὡς�. We must understand παρακάλει or some such verb before νεωτέρους. Timothy is to address his counsels to the younger men as brothers; he was himself, comparatively speaking, ‘young’ (see on 1 Timothy 4:12 above), and the form of his exhortations must be in accordance with this. It will be observed that there is no corresponding caution given to Titus (see Titus 2:6), of whose age we are not told anything; the inference that he was an older man than Timothy, though somewhat precarious, is nevertheless plausible.