“The condemnation of 1 Timothy 5:8 is that of a man who refuses to provide for his own, not someone who cannot”
That’s not what the Bible says. You’ve added “refuses”. It’s a sin to add to the Word of God.
“having large families usually ensure someone will care for you when you get old.”
That’s sort of hilarious. The stories my husband, a Hospice volunteer, tell would curl your hair. Large families living within 25 miles of the nursing home — they never visit their parents. They generally do show up for the funerals, though.
“The only birth control that is Scripture is not being married, and temperance if they are,”
“Temperance if they are”? Isn’t “temperance” in this context birth control?
It doesn’t require a lot of theological exposition or scientific evidence. America is at its most emotionally unhealthy and unsexy state in ages. More people are into opioids and pornography than they are in meaningful, anxiety-free, and artificial device free sex. It’s not just sexual intimacy that has suffered, but all kinds of relationships. As someone suggested above, more people are into their smartphones than say...going fishing with their grandparents.
The Catholic Church is not saying have a school full of kids. It is saying put God and the natural rhythms of our bodies (that He created!) first. Not romance-killing economics and other preferences shaped by the soul-numbing culture. Put God first and let the economics fall into place. Rather than put economy before God and play constant catch up with the culture...which is more driven but Satan than we would care to admit.
1 Timothy 5:8 NASB
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“d1212: The condemnation of 1 Timothy 5:8 is that of a man who refuses to provide for his own, not someone who cannot”
mfm: That’s not what the Bible says. You’ve added “refuses”. It’s a sin to add to the Word of God.
I don't see a problem with daniel1212's understanding of the passage in question.
There are some who simply do not have the means to provide for their family. We see the poor in Scripture a great deal.
That’s not what the Bible says. You’ve added “refuses”. It’s a sin to add to the Word of God.
Wrong, and slander is a sin. I did not add to the word of God but interpreted its meaning, as you presumed to do by making this text speak of those who found it "impossible for the husband to follow the teachings of the Bible" in providing for his family.
However, damning souls who finds it impossible to provide for their own is nowhere justifiable in the light of the rest of Scripture, which instead instructs us to have compassion on the genuinely poor and commends those who do so, (Deuteronomy 15:7-11; Proverbs 19:17; 28:27; Isaiah 58:7,8) and condemns those who treat them harshly. (Job 22:7; Ezekiel 16:49)
And rather then being a denial of faith, some of those in the Heb. 11 "hall of faith" "wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented." (Hebrews 11:37)
Yet you relegate those who find it "impossible" to provide for their own (because they went too much obeyed "be fruitful and multiply") as being men who deny the faith, and are "worse than an infidel!
But which additional condemnation was not because a man became poor, but one who refused to provide for his very own family, for even infidels recognized their familial obligations and did so,
Moreover, Robertson's word study indicates that the Greek indicates this failure to provide was a willfull choice:
Provideth not for his own (tōn idiōn ou pronoei). Condition of first class with ei and present active (or middle pronoeitai) indicative of pronoeō, old verb, to think beforehand.
“having large families usually ensure someone will care for you when you get old.” That’s sort of hilarious. The stories my husband, a Hospice volunteer, tell would curl your hair. Large families living within 25 miles of the nursing home — they never visit their parents.
That surely does happen, as do abortions, and neither justify not having children, and nursing home warehousing is a modern phenom that coincides with the lack of children.
In any case, you are militating against what Scripture commends in general.
“Temperance if they are”? Isn’t “temperance” in this context birth control?
Are you serious? Taking a pill is self-control? Rather, it enables indulgence without the normal God-ordained results. Might as well argue that using Olestra to eat copious amounts of food is temperance.
In conclusion, while singleness with continence is a Scriptural alternative to bearing children, being joined together in marriage goes together with "be fruitful and multiply." It is contrary to faith to believe otherwise.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:27-28)