Let no idler, who hath no particular calling, or vagrant person under pretence of a calling, be suffered to perform worship in families, to or for the same; seeing persons tainted with errors, or aiming at division, may be ready (after that manner) to creep into houses, and lead captive silly and unstable souls.
In more modern language, we might say that people who are lazy or have no settled work or home should not be allowed to perform worship in families even if they have a desire to. Why? These kinds of people are likely to introduce error and division into the family and potentially the church. The reference to leading captive silly and unstable souls seems to be a reference to 2 Timothy 3:6 where Timothy is warned by Paul against people who “worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires.”
Now when I initially read this I struggled to see the relevance to our situation today. To be honest, the chance of many Christian families even having regular family worship is not particularly high. So what are the chances of some ‘idler’ coming in and performing worship in families and leading people astray?
Yet when you think about it, there are many idlers and vagrants who are allowed into many Christian homes. We have social media where the clamor of idle, ignorant and bellicose women often reigns supreme. We have the teachings of Hollywood reminding us to ‘be true to ourselves’ and even those prosperity gospel preachers who deceive many ill-taught Christians.
While the original intent of this document lay in a slightly different direction, I think there is a call here for fathers and church leaders to warn against these deceitful teachers and influences. Certainly, fathers should police strongly what influences are allowed in their home via screens. It is our duty to protect our families. But what about our church leaders? If our church leaders used to take steps to stop idlers and ‘vagrant persons’ from creeping into houses and leading unstable souls captive, what ought we to see from our leaders with respect to the current day embodiments of this danger?