1. Respect your elders. (verses 1-2)

2. Respect younger people, too. (verses 1-2)

3. The church should care for needy, godly widows who have no family to care for them. (verses 3, 5, 9-10)

4. The family should care for family and extended family, and not burden the church. (verses 4-7, 16)

5. If you don’t provide for your family, you’re worse than a non-believer. (verse 8)

6. Young widows should remarry and not become busybodies or lazy. (verses 11-15)

1. Pay your leaders a fair wage. (verses 17-18)

2. Only take seriously the accusations of two or three witnesses against a leader. (verse 19)

3. Correct leaders in front of everyone. (verse 20)

4. Show no favoritism. (verse 21)

1. Don’t be hasty to appoint people in leadership because time is the great revealer. (verses 22, 24-25)

2. Don’t participate in the sins of others—remain pure! (verse 22)

3. Drink some wine for your stomach. (verse 23)

- There were such things as slaves the way we think of them, but they were few and far between.
- The Old Testament gives lots of advice on how masters were to treat Hebrew and non-Hebrew slaves (see Leviticus 25).
- Among the First Century Jews, slaves were more like indentured servants; sold themselves into slavery in order to satisfy a debt, or they were
- extremely poor. In which case, indentured servitude was “stepping up” in society.
- There is modern day slavery and sex trafficking taking place - many scholars say there are more slaves now than in any other period of history.
- But when we read 1 Timothy 6, we should not think of slaves who are forced into slavery, but people who voluntarily entered servitude to pay a debt or to improve their lot.

1. If you owe someone something, pay it all back, and be respectful--you represent Christ!