1 Timothy 5:1-2

‘Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, the younger men as brothers, the elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters, in all purity.’

Timothy is to see the whole church as one family and behave accordingly. While he is to exhort them, he is not to behave arrogantly and berate them but is to act with graciousness towards them, treating the older man as his father, younger men as his brothers, older women as his mothers, and younger women as his sisters. (Thus he is to honour them). The early church had a great consciousness of being the family of God (1 Timothy 3:15; Matthew 12:49-50; Galatians 6:10; Ephesians 2:19; Ephesians 3:6; Ephesians 3:18, and see also Romans 8:14-17; Galatians 4:5-7) but without breaking up the individual sense of family among believers.

And this is to be done in all purity. Such relationships are not to be treated as a means of unseemly behaviour. Paul was aware, and wanted Timothy to be aware, of the dangers of close contact with the opposite sex, and in a world rampant with practising homosexual behaviour, of the danger of over-friendliness towards his own sex.

Note the emphasis on the fact that the church is one big family. It is this concept that leads on to the question of looking after widows who have no family.