Is Retirement Biblical? (1 Timothy 5:1-10)

Is retirement biblically acceptable? What are the retirement verses? Is retirement in the Bible? In 1 Timothy 5:1-10 Paul discusses what older, retired people can do. Read or listen to this material from Your Finances God’s Way to learn about Christian retirement. Table of ContentsA History Lesson on RetirementRetire Into Christian ServiceRetired People Can Mentor (1 Timothy 5:1-2 and Titus 2:3-5)Retired People Can Pray (1 Timothy 5:3-5)Retired People Can Assist (1 Timothy 5:9-10)Slowing Down the Wrong Way (2 Samuel 21:15-17)Slowing Down the Right Way (Numbers 8:23-26)Combine Faith and Wisdom When Planning for Retirement Katie and I were part of a wedding reception that took place on a golf course in a retirement community. We saw a room next to the restaurant filled with elderly people. They went there each morning to drink Bloody Marys for breakfast and then spend their day golfing and socializing. While this might seem like a dream come true to many people, I suspect you recognize this is not the most honorable way to retire. While God doesn’t prohibit retired people (or any people for that matter) from enjoying golf, social functions, or other pleasurable pursuits, these activities shouldn’t be the focus of our lives. As 1 Corinthians 6:12 says, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” Many hobbies are “lawful,” but when are we being “brought under the power of [them]”? I can’t answer this for you as it’s an issue of discernment, but I can say the Holy Spirit will be faithful to convict you when you’re spending too much time in unprofitable ways. The Bible never talks about people reaching a point when they can stop working and start living selfishly. It’s tragic when older people who have run most of the race and now have more freedom than ever to serve the Lord simply squander the time they have left on meaningless activities with no eternal value. Take your mind back to the parable of the rich fool. Luke 12:19 says, “I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.’” Sadly, this captures what comes to mind for some people when they think of retirement, but this shouldn’t be the desire for Christians. If our view resembles that of someone Jesus calls a fool, then we should repent and change our thinking. There is nothing wrong with retiring from a secular profession, but there are right and wrong ways to retire. We should view retirement similarly to the way we view money: it is amoral but just as people can use money morally and immorally, people can use retirement morally and immorally. Before we go any further, let’s understand how the world’s idea of retirement developed so we can avoid this approach. A History Lesson on Retirement Retirement began as an inappropriate response to social issues. Before the Industrial Revolution, people’s jobs could change more easily as they got older. For example, an aging farmer could let his sons do the harvesting while he performed fewer and less-intensive chores, and a businessman could hire out the more difficult work and act as a mentor to those under him. When the Industrial Revolution took place, an obsession with productivity and economic growth arose. There were machine-based jobs that could do the work of multiple people at a faster pace and a cheaper price. This was the one moment in history to pinpoint when elderly employees became viewed as liabilities. They couldn’t work as quickly as younger people, and they were prone to more mistakes. This slowed production, increased expenses, and made younger employees more attractive. In response, corporations pushed the government to enforce retirement to remove an aging workforce in favor of a younger one. Because the elderly were viewed as being useless, when they retired, they did nothing. They had been told they had little to contribute and it was best if they simply got out of the way, so they spent their remaining years in unproductive ways. Dr. William Osler and "The Fixed Period" A prominent man in all of this was Dr. William Osler. He was an expert in the field of gerontology (the scientific study of aging). On February 22, 1905, he delivered a speech titled “The Fixed Period.” He said, The effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty, when [people] are energetic and creative. Workers from age forty to sixty are tolerable. Workers over age sixty are useless. Dr. Osler said people should be forced to retire. They should have one year to settle their affairs, and then be “peacefully extinguished by chloroform.” Osler’s speech made headlines, with reports claiming, “Dr. Osler recommends chloroform at sixty.” The concept of mandatory euthanasia for humans after a certain age, often 60, became a recurring theme in twentieth-century literature. For example, Isaac Asimov’s 1950 novel, Pebble in the Sky, called pneumonia “the old man’s friend” because it allowed elderly people a quick and painless death.367 The important point to notice is the concept of retirement came from a worldly, and even somewhat morbid, view of elderly people. The Great Depression worsened the situation. Younger men needed jobs to support their families, so eventually President Franklin Roosevelt developed Social Security. Workers could pay into a fund that they could draw on once they turned 60, encouraging them to retire and leave employment for the younger generation. To convince older people that retirement benefitted them as well as the nation, the government joined with labor interest groups to sell the idea that work was for the young, and the old “deserved” to relax. Retirement became an expectation—something people felt, and still feel, entitled to have. Considering the origin of the concept of retirement should discourage us from seeing it as an acceptable Christian pursuit, at least the way it’s engaged in by unbelievers. Looking at what the world does often gives us a good idea of what not to do. So how should Christians retire? The Bible doesn’t mention 401(k) plans or IRAs, but there are principles that direct us. Retire Into Christian Service One reason it is so important to retire well is Luke 12:48 says, “To whom much is given, from him much is required.” If we have been able to retire, then God has blessed us, and we must be good stewards of that blessing. We can do so by keeping this truth in mind: We retire from secular professions and retire into Christian service. God has simply given us more time to serve Him! We might retire from an earthly job, but we never retire from serving Christ. God changes the address of our workplace, and He changes our role, but He doesn’t change our need to be faithful servants. John Piper said, Finishing life to the glory of Christ means resolutely resisting the typical American dream of retirement. It means being so satisfied with all that God promises to be for us in Christ that we are set free from the cravings that create so much emptiness and uselessness in retirement. Instead, knowing that we have an infinitely satisfying and everlasting inheritance in God just over the horizon of life makes us zealous in our few remaining years here to spend ourselves in the sacrifices of love, not the accumulation of comforts. John Piper, Rethinking Retirement: Finishing Life for the Glory of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2009), 6. What does Christian service look like during retirement? Scripture provides three recommendations that are found in 1 Timothy 5 and supported elsewhere in the Bible. Retired People Can Mentor (1 Timothy 5:1-2 and Titus 2:3-5) Retired people can serve well by mentoring others, in particular, the younger generation. Titus 2:3-5 says, “Older women…are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands.” Older women are told to teach young women, and they’re told what kinds of guidance they should pass along. First Timothy 5:1-2 says, “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.” Young men should look up to older men the way they look up to their father, which implies older men should see themselves as fathers to young men. Young ladies should look up to older women the way they look up to their mothers, which implies what Titus 2 instructs: Older women should see themselves as mothers to young ladies. And what do fathers and mothers do? They teach, train, disciple, and mentor. We’ve all heard, “You should respect your elders,” and according to Scripture, that’s true! If any older people are reading this, I can imagine them saying, “Amen! Preach it! These younger people should look up to us!” Yes, they should, but the older people should also take on mentoring roles. Psalm 71:18 makes this clear: “Even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.” This reveals the desire godly, elderly people should have: telling the younger generation about the Lord. Mentoring and instructing younger people is one of the primary ministries God has given to older people. Often it is older, retired saints who, after a lifetime of walking with God, can convey the truths of God’s Word by relating to younger people how God has worked in their lives. Second Corinthians 12:14 states, “Children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.” This is speaking financially, but if adults should pass along earthly riches, how much more should they pass along the “riches of the glory of…Christ” (Colossians 1:27). By far,