Living Dead

1 Timothy 5:6 KJV

But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.

The Bible speaks of the unsaved person as being "dead in trespasses and sins"; alive and yet dead. But this passage speaks of one who is a believer and yet is dead while alive. In the case of the passage it is the widow who lives in pleasure. Barnes says the kind of pleasure Paul speaks of is a “wanton, luxurious pleasure, one living in unrestrained fulfillment of the flesh.” He then says there were apparently widows Paul knew personally to be living in this manner and that there have been Christians in every age that have done the same. His meditations on what it means to be dead while living are those things that interest me in this piece.

He says,

"To all the proper purposes of life she is as if she were dead. ...nothing could convey more forcibly the idea that true happiness is not to be found in the pleasure of sense. There is nothing in them that answers the purposes of life. They are not the objects for which life was given, and as to the great and proper designs of existence, such persons might as well be dead."

True happiness is not found in pleasure but in purpose. To live for pleasure is to sink deeper and deeper into the mire of living death because pleasure only lasts for a little season. Those seasons seem to be shorter as time goes on and the sense of pleasure requires more and more to pique it over time.

To fulfill ones purpose, on the other hand, leads to godliness with contentment and that is great gain.