1 Timothy 5:3

1 Timothy 5:3. The verses that follow depend for their right interpretation on a true estimate of the position of the ‘widows' in a Christian community in the Apostolic Church, and this seems accordingly the right place for bringing together the data for such an estimate. (1) At the beginning of the Church's life we find them recognisd as a distinct class, maintained wholly or in part out of the common fund of the disciples (Acts 6:1). So in Acts 9:39, they appear as recipients of the bounty of Dorcas. It was natural, however, in the simple communism of the period, that some conditions guarding against abuses should be attached to these privileges, that where there was still any capacity for work, that work should be required of them. And thus they became more and more an order of women leading a devout life. We enter here on the rules which St. Paul thought expedient.

Honour widows. Possibly, as the context indicates, with the secondary meaning of ‘support,' as in Acts 28:10, and, to some extent, even in the Fifth Commandment. The addition, ‘that are widows indeed,' implies a half-humorous reference to the class of those who claimed the privileges but did not answer to the ideal.