Local & temporary vs universal and permanent.

I've been exercised by F. F. Bruce's take (in A Mind for what Matters) on certain scriptures as having been of 'local and temporary' application....ie: 1 Tim 5:3-16...counsel about widows. These thoughts are of bearing on our approach to women in the church.
It seems to me that we do the scriptures a disservice when we take the truths brought to us in them and apply them as inflexible rules or laws. I don't believe this was ever what God intended when He gave us the scriptures. When we treat the scriptures like this we fall into the same trap as the scribes and pharisees.