It is striking and more than a little bit unusual that Paul refers to widows turning aside after Satan, and although Paul comments about Satan/the devil often in scripture, as we have repeatedly seen, this context is sufficiently novel and also sufficiently relevant to contemporary concerns for us to ponder what it means for a young widow to turn aside after Satan, which is obviously a very bad thing.  We see this passage as a whole in 1 Timothy 5:3-15:  “Honor widows who are really widows.  But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents; for this is good and acceptable before God.  Now she who is really a widow, and left alone, trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.  But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.  And these things command, that they may be blameless.  But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.  Do not let a widow under sixty years old be taken into the number, and not unless she has been the wife of one man, well reported for good works: if she has brought up children, if she has lodged strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work.  But refuse the younger widows; for when they have begun to grow wanton against Christ, they desire to marry, having condemnation because they have cast off their first faith.  And besides they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not.  Therefore I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully.  For some have already turned aside after Satan.  If any believing man or woman has widows, let them relieve them, and do not let the church be burdened, that it may relieve those who are really widows.”

Let us begin by noting that this context involves the sort of support that the Church of God provided and still provides to widows, who in the world of the early Church of God were in a society that tended to abandon the elderly and inform to a cruel and piteous existence.  Obviously, the fact that the Church of God provided care to widows provided a moral hazard on the part of people to seek such financial aid even though they did not really deserve it, or to seek such aid for elderly relatives so as to avoid fulfilling their own responsibilities to help provide for elderly relatives.  We see this problem discussed about the Pharisees by Jesus Christ, for example, in Mark 7:9-13:  “He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.  For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’  But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother,“Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.””  Given the importance of honoring one’s father and mother as part of the Christian identity, the Church of God from its beginnings sought to provide care for the elderly while also simultaneously commanding families to take care of their own elderly as a way of showing respect and honor and repaying parents at least in part for the care provided to believers as children.

While seeking on the one hand to take upon the congregation only the care of those widows who lack family to take care of them, Paul additionally wishes to limit such care to those who are elderly widows who are unable to marry and thus potentially rear children who would take care of them.  Paul’s definition of a widow includes both the expectations of a good reputation, godly character, hospitality and service on the part of one over the age of 60 (and thus at what was certainly the age of retirement from active employment in the rough world of the time) and also a desire to avoid having the church support young and able-bodied widows who would be likely to feel lonely and find the single life intolerably restrictive or who would be lazy busy-bodies and gossips rather than hard-working wives as they ought to be.  It is telling as well that Paul himself says that those who receive widows should be limited to those who were the wives of one husband, clearly looking at divorce and remarriage as a strike against the character of a woman in the same way that being the husband of one wife is viewed elsewhere in the pastoral epistles as one of the qualities of an elder (see above reference in 1 Timothy 3).

It is in this light that Paul speaks of some younger widows as having turned aside to Satan.  It is clear from the context that Paul is speaking about the context of sexual immorality, pointing out that some young widows have departed from their first faith and have become wanton after being bored of the expectations that a godly widow has.  There is certainly no shame in an elderly widow (or widower) marrying again, but such people are seeking companionship and not to be supported by the Church of God.  Likewise, there is no shame in a young widow seeking to marry and take care of a household and perhaps even raise up children, which is precisely what Paul wants young widows to do lest the experience of being supported by the Church of God lead to immorality and laziness and the sort of behaviors that recipients of government welfare are often (and not always accurately) accused of.  It is telling that the first century Church of God dealt with the same problems and same moral hazards of aid and charity that contemporary social welfare programs have had to deal with, and that both tended to be abused by people who lacked either a strong work ethic or high moral standards with regards to sexual morality.  Turning aside to Satan is nothing new in our own age, after all.