In this week’s message from 1 Timothy 6, we see why Christian slaves were to honor their masters and how that speaks to us at work. Our dignity is bestowed by God, and Christ became a slave for us. So we give honor and hard work to every boss, adorning the gospel and guarding the name of God.
Transcript
We’re continuing this morning. We’re going to move into chapter 6 this morning of 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy chapter 6, and my plan is to look at these first two verses of this chapter.
Last week we looked at, well, over the past few weeks, we looked at honoring widows and what that means, and honoring the church leaders and what that means. And this morning we’re going to look at honoring someone else. And so that’s the connection in this passage that we’re going to look at in verse 1 and 2. Let me read this. This is God’s holy, inerrant word.
All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard your own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against. Those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they are brethren, but must serve them all the more because those who partake of the benefits are believers and beloved. Teach and preach these principles.
Let’s ask God to bless His holy word today.
Father, we thank you for this passage and what it means for us today. Father, it has significant historical purpose. And Father, it also has purpose for each of us. Help us, Father, as we take this passage, apply it, and find the many principles here, Father, that you have for us. Please guide our thoughts and teach us, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
The Hunger for Significance
I didn’t print any of them out or include them in my notes, but I was looking at several surveys about work. And I noticed that several surveys indicate that work, some aspects of work in the United States and worldwide have reached a new low recently in the past few years, that people are discouraged with the work that they’re doing. They feel like their work isn’t significant.
And I think the majority in the last survey that I looked at, the majority was okay with their work and felt that their work was significant enough, but that was still just a majority. That means an awful lot of people are discouraged in their work.
I was talking to a man who works in law enforcement and safety a few months ago, and what we talked about for a good long while was his feeling that the things he is doing has no real purpose or significance ultimately. And so that’s something lots of people struggle with.
And believe me, I know what it’s like to work in a workplace. I’ve had many jobs, especially when I was in college. I stayed in college for almost forever. And I supported myself in part through working various jobs. So I’ve had lots of jobs, worked for lots of different people, and it’s very easy to become discouraged in jobs, especially if the people who are employing you don’t care a lot about you.
R.C. Sproul wrote a book years ago called The Hunger for Significance. And in that, he writes about an ache that God has implanted in every human soul for dignity and for worth. And he talks about it. At some point in his academic career, he was researching the life of Wayne Alderson, who was a pioneer in labor management reconciliation in the coal mines area and steel mills of western Pennsylvania.
As he was studying this guy, he kept hearing steel workers use a curious phrase, “dropping his head.” A worker would say, “The supervisor walked through the shop this morning and dropped his head.” And Sproul didn’t know what it meant.
But one day, he was standing in a hospital corridor and he was observing the hierarchy in the hospital, and he noticed how everyone perked up when a prominent surgeon walked in. Clearly, the doctor was at the top of the pyramid. But when the doctor walked down the hall past a nurse’s aide or an orderly at the bottom of the chart, just at the moment when two human beings normally would make eye contact, the doctor would subtly drop his head and look at the floor.
So without saying anything at all, he was basically saying, “You’re invisible to me. You’re beneath my notice. You don’t really count.” If you ever worked at a job where people treated you that way, you know how discouraging that can be.
A Christian Slave in Ephesus
Well, if you think that’s difficult, and it is, imagine what it would be like to be a Christian slave in the first century in Ephesus. It was something that a lot of people at the time experienced. There were about 60 million people throughout the Roman Empire. And some estimates are that half of the population that made up the Roman Empire were slaves.
That varies. I’ve looked at several studies, and it varies from 20% to 60%. But certainly in certain parts of Rome, there would be more slaves than there were free men.
It’s an interesting thing, the nature of slavery and the problem of slavery and what it would be like to be living at that time. According to Roman law, a slave wasn’t considered to be a person at all. He was considered to be a thing. He was a property object of his master.
Aristotle, who is considered the greatest of the Greek philosophers, wrote that there could never be a friendship between a master and a slave because the master and the slave have nothing in common. And here’s the quote.
A slave is a living tool, just as a tool is an inanimate slave.
Think about that. A tool, something that you use, a saw or a computer. I don’t know how inanimate computers are these days, but it’s a tool, obviously. And a slave is a person who is just a tool, nothing more than that.
There were lots of those living tools living in the church, attending the church at Ephesus. And these living tools had come under the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they had been washed in the blood of the Lamb, and they had been adopted into the household of God and seated at the Lord’s table alongside freeborn men and women. You had masters, slave owners, sitting beside slaves.
And it was interesting because sometimes, slaves held positions of influence within the church. It’s how upsetting Christianity dealt with the culture of the day. You could have a slave who was the pastor or elder of a church, who was one of the chief leaders in the church, a deacon in the church. And then his master would be just someone who’s attending the church or a fellow believer but not holding any office. So in the church fellowship, the master could be under the authority of the slave. It’s quite interesting how this came about.
And so Paul writes Timothy, and he wants them to know how believers are to conduct themselves in God’s household. And he talks about honor, as I said a few moments ago. He talks about honoring widows, what it means to give honor and support widows indeed, and what it means to honor church leaders and to value them and to support them if necessary.
And then he talks about something that seems exactly unexpected to me as I read this. You would expect that he would say next that people ought to honor and give the honor deserving to the slaves. But that’s not what he says. He says, slaves, all who are, and listen to the way he describes it,
all who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their masters as worthy of all honor.
Worthy of all honor. They’re to regard their masters as worthy of honor. That’s kind of a surprise to me.
Honor Is Given to Us
It’s kind of interesting, too. In Sproul’s book that I mentioned earlier, he points out something that is important for us to grasp, but we don’t give much thought to. He says in humanism, which is the culture we live in today, humanists believe that a person’s honor is intrinsic to the person, which is that a person has honor if he does things to earn honor. That’s the idea. So certain people, like a babe in the womb or an elderly person who seem to have outlived their usefulness, don’t really merit any honor.
But he points out that in reality, honor isn’t something that’s intrinsic to us. Honor is extrinsic to us. It is something that is given to us. And he says that it is bestowed on us from outside ourselves by a sovereign God who created us in his image and who redeemed us at the infinite price of Christ’s blood.
A person is valuable and deserves honor not because of what they merit, but because of what is given to them, the fact that they’re created in the very image of God. Everyone who’s created in the image of God, everyone deserves honor.
Under the Yoke as Slaves
So when we’re thinking about this, and as we move back to thinking about ourselves, how can a Christian who has a job that feels quite a bit like an oppressive yoke of slavery view his work with dignity, especially if he has an unreasonable supervisor? And so we find that in this first verse. Why should a slave give respect and hard work to his unbelieving master? Why should Christians today do the same who work for an unbelieving boss? And there are two reasons, and they’re found in this verse.
All who are under the yoke of slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of honor so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against.
So there’s real reality in what Paul is saying. He’s not whitewashing the problem of slavery. He’s not saying that this isn’t really a problem or seeing it through some type of rose-colored glasses.
He calls it the yoke as slaves. I mean, the idea is bondage, just like a yoke is what bound an oxen to the plow. It’s a burden. It’s a weight.
If you’re under the yoke of slavery, you have a lot to deal with. In the first century, that was certainly true. If you are tied to a job, you can have a lot to deal with as well.
Paul Is Not Condoning Slavery
But Paul isn’t arguing that slavery is okay. Now, in our history in the United States, there were lots of Christians, pastors, who used verses like this to say that slavery was okay. You can read this and maybe think that he’s arguing for slavery. He’s not.
He’s not talking to the master here at all. He’s not saying that what you’re doing is okay. What he’s saying here is he’s addressing the slaves and how they are to respond in the situation that they’re in.
If you want to know what he thinks about slavery overall, in chapter 1, verses 10, we commented on it as we looked at that passage, and the language he uses when he’s making that list of sins, he condemns slave traders along with enslavers, along with murderers and liars. That’s the language. That’s exactly what he says there. And so he’s not condoning slavery.
The slavery and all of its evils are evil in particular because of the nature of the human heart. And so this is an institution that existed in Paul’s day. It was an institution that existed in the history of our nation as well. But it’s not an institution that God designed.
It’s not like family or marriage, which is written right into the creation account, that you have the nature of the church, which is brought about through the covenant of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those are institutions that God has ordained. This is an institution that was a human construction, a human institution, and that most of its evil came about because of the nature of the human heart.
So we need to recognize that he’s not condoning slavery as he says this, as he gives this communication to these slaves. He’s saying you need to honor your master, even if they don’t deserve it, as far as their behavior and the way they act and how they treat you.
Worthy of All Honor
Same thing is true for us, as we go to work, as we work for other people. When we’re laboring for the kind of boss that doesn’t look you in the eye when he walks by you, if you’re working for someone like that, how are you to treat that person? Well, Paul says we’re to treat them with honor and respect, and we’re to give them a good hard day’s work. That’s the idea.
We must respect because God has ordained their authority. Two reasons. You already have one, don’t you?
- Your boss, whoever he is, however he is, is a man created in the very image of God. And as a human being, he deserves honor for that reason alone.
- And more than that, he’s in a situation, and you’re in a situation under him, that has come about by the providence of God. God himself has allowed this through his providential care, and so you’re under this person’s authority because of God’s providence.
Now, it’s not the same kind of situation that you had in the first century, obviously, but it can feel like it. Today, if you cross your boss or something, you might have to worry about whether or not he’s going to fire you. In the first century, they had to worry about whether or not he was going to have you executed. So it’s quite a bit different than today.
Today, if you don’t like your job, one of those surveys I looked at said that half of people who quit give no notice, which is interesting. And the reason they quit is because they felt disrespected in the job. That’s kind of interesting. But if you feel disrespected in the job, in today’s world, you can quit your job. So it’s not exactly the same situation at all, but there are lots of parallels.
Where Do You Find Your Purpose
And if you need work, as just about everybody does, then where do you find your purpose and your significance? How are you to approach this?
Well, our purpose isn’t just in the work. God uses you in the labor force. God uses you to bring blessing to people as a general rule.
Almost everything that anybody does benefits somebody in some way. That’s one of the good things about work, is that somebody is being blessed. If you’re a baker, then the bread that you make is probably the answer to somebody’s prayer for their daily bread. So you can think about how God uses you and the calling you have. There’s purpose to it in some way.
But beyond that, in talking about the relationship between the employee and the employer, we need to recognize that there’s more to it than just our own well-being or the fact that we get enough money to buy our next meal or support our family. Those are important things. But there’s more involved than that.
So That the Name of God Will Not Be Spoken Against
And so the first thing that he mentions here is the name of God. The name of God, the holy character. The name of God is God’s holy character, his majesty and reputation as the creator and redeemer. And as a Christian, you go into the workplace, you carry the name of God with you. You carry the name of Christ with you. And so more at stake than even our physical well-being, the very name of God is at stake as well.
So the unbelieving boss may never enter the door of a church or read a Bible or a Christian book, but he will read you. He will look at you, and he will know you.
And I have Lenski’s commentary, and his commentary on 1 Timothy, he writes this. I’m going to read the whole quote. This is the first century picture. He says,
If a Christian slave dishonored his master in any way, by disobedience, by acting disrespectfully, by speaking shamefully of his master, the worst consequence would not be the beating he would receive, but the curses he would cause his master to hurl against this miserable slave’s God, his religion, and the teaching that he had embraced.
And here’s the quote that he puts into the mouth of the master.
“So that’s what this new religion teaches its converts.”
So instead of bringing honor to the true God and the gospel of his high and holy name, the slave would bring about the very opposite to the devil’s delight.
You see, what is going on in our workplace situations, wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, we are, first of all, ministers of Jesus Christ, every one of us. We are all missionaries. And as important as the physical benefits of our work is, and they are, greater importance has to do with our kingdom relationship with God, his name and reputation, and the soul of people, the eternal soul of the master in this case, that has to be considered.
Because if you treat this wrongly and the name of Christ is denigrated, the gospel is spoken against, then the way to be able to hear the gospel, to come under the word of God, to have the Holy Spirit apply it to the heart, well, I wouldn’t want that on my conscience. That’s what Paul is saying here.
Adorning the Doctrine of God
The opposite of that is the faithful servant who adorn the doctrine of God. In Titus chapter 2, verses 9 and 10, Paul writes that a faithful slave
adorns the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect.
Think about that. Adorn is an idea that has to do with jewelry. And to adorn a jewel, imagine a diamond. You have a beautiful diamond. Well, you could adorn the diamond by placing it on black velvet so you could see it better, or setting it into a setting of gold so that all of the sparkle of the diamond would be easy to see. It catches the light and you can see it more readily.
You can’t add any saving power to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s priceless. It’s like a precious diamond. But showing honor and by giving faithful hard work, it can make the gospel sparkle before the lost and watching world. That’s the idea.
So, it’s not so hard to see why we should be on our good behavior when we’re being watched by an unbelieving boss, because we have a missionary’s witness and we need to honor the name of God. Those things are on the line.
Those Who Have Believers as Their Masters
What happens, though, when the supervisor who signs your paycheck sits next to you as you share the Lord’s table on a Sunday morning? How are you to treat that person?
Now this was probably one of the reasons Paul brings this up in 1 Timothy, is because he is actually saying in this passage, looking at the grammar, it seems that there’s a behavior that’s going on that he wants stopped. He doesn’t want it to continue. And that is the slave who had a master who was a believer, and who, because of this new relationship, begins to take liberties in that working relationship. That’s an interesting problem.
Here you are. You are a slave. You’ve been a nobody all your life in your own thinking and in most other people’s thinking.
And you’re working for this person. Then you come to faith in Jesus Christ and you’re saved. And then your boss comes to faith in Christ and he’s saved. And you have a new relationship. And now you meet as fellow believers, brothers in Jesus Christ.
Must Not Be Disrespectful
Now that’s going to affect, in one way or another, your working relationship. It certainly will. But what it shouldn’t happen is for the slave to think that he has new liberties with his boss because of this relationship. I mean, he can show up late. “If I don’t get this done today, then it’ll be okay because we’re brothers,” presuming on the relationship.
Well, apparently something like that was going on in the church. And so the reason Paul brings this up is so that this will stop.
It should stop, because spiritual equality in the body of Christ doesn’t cancel God’s ordained authority in the workplace. It was the law. It was what was going on in the first century. It was the economic situation. It wasn’t ideal.
Serve Them All the More
Paul’s remedy is this change of heart that takes place in us. That’s the ultimate remedy for sinful situations. And this exposes something in our thinking that needs to be corrected, not just the slave’s thinking, but in us as well. Let me think about the way to put this. When we look at relationships and situations, we need to see them rightly.
And so this slave is looking at his relationship with his master and thinking, “Well, he’s my brother in Christ now, so that means I can get away with a lot more.” And Paul says, no, this needs to be exactly the opposite. You need to be thinking exactly opposite about this.
If this person is your brother in Christ and someone you truly love in the Lord, then you should bless him with your work. If you really love him, you should be doing whatever you can in your relationship with him to honor them, to bless them, to benefit them.
Those Who Partake of the Benefit
So it struck me as interesting in a couple ways, but also, where does the significance of the slave come from? It’s not in what the master gives him, really. Paul is giving the slave unique significance here, special significance.
And the language that he uses is telling in that regard, because when he says, I’m going to read this,
those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they’re brethren, but must serve them all the more, because those who partake of the benefits,
that word benefits, the benefit,
are believers and beloved.
Benefits, that’s the word. Because the word that Paul used is ironic, because it was a word that is used to describe the philanthropic gift of a wealthy person to someone who is lesser.
So here, a person who gives this rich charity, this rich gift to someone else, normally, almost always, that’s going to be the wealthy person who gives something to the lesser person. Here, the slave gives this rich gift to the master. The slave is the one who has the stronger and higher relationship if they act in this way.
The Christian slave is the benefactor. The Christian master is the recipient. So the slave is rich beyond measure. That’s what Paul is saying. He’s dressed in the image of God. He’s clothed in the royal robes of Christ’s righteousness, and he can serve other people, not as the beggar, but as the philanthropist.
Every hour he works, every problem that he solves, every beautiful thing that he produces is a gift to bless those who are both a believer and beloved. Do you love that person? And what a change that makes to this whole thing, if you love the person.
Heaven Is a World of Love
You know, the institution of slavery is a terrible thing in this world because of the sinfulness of mankind. But in a world of love, slavery isn’t even a problem. Nothing like that. No economic institution is really a problem in a world of love.
Jonathan Edwards wrote a sermon called “Heaven Is a World of Love.” And in that, I’m going to read two quotes. This is Edwards. He’s a Puritan. Keep that in mind as I read this. He says,
All that whole society, all the society of heaven, rejoices in each other’s happiness, for the love of benevolence is perfect in them. Everyone has not only a sincere but a perfect goodwill to every other.
Sincere and strong love is greatly gratified and delighted in the prosperity of the beloved. And if the love be perfect, the greater the prosperity of the beloved is, the more the lover is pleased and delighted. For the prosperity of the beloved is, as it were, the food of love, and therefore the greater that prosperity is, the more richly is the love feasted.
How do you feel about somebody that you truly love when God just richly blesses them? You have a child, and all of a sudden they are able to purchase a brand new car that’s really nice, or they move into a nice home, or they’re blessed in countless ways, are you envious of them? Not if you love them. Not at all. You’re absolutely delighted in the prosperity of the people you love.
In heaven, it’s going to be that way. And if we can live the way Paul is exhorting us to live in these two verses, we’ll get just a little foretaste of heaven right here in this life. That’s what Paul is encouraging us toward.
We’re to love people. And if we love people, we continually seek to bless them. And if we seek to bless them, then we’re never going to envy them or be discouraged by them being blessed.
Serving a Heavenly Master
It’s one thing for us to obey an earthly boss and to earn a paycheck, and it’s something else for us to be obedient to a heavenly master who loved us enough to become a slave for us. And that’s exactly what Jesus did for us.
Jesus, whose name is above every name. Jesus, who’s the sovereign of all kingdoms. Jesus, who is the Lord, and our Lord. Jesus, to whom Paul says that we are his bond slaves. He’s the one who looked at us, saw that we were bound and enslaved to sin and Satan, and who entered into this world, and as it tells us in Philippians 2, became a slave, a bond slave for us, laid down his life and died for us.
C.T. Studd, the missionary, said,
If Jesus Christ be God, if he’s God, and he died for me, then there’s no sacrifice that’s too great for me to make for him.
What we do is not for our boss, ultimately. What we’re doing when we’re obedient to the Word of God, and when we show honor to him because he’s created in the image of God, and when we respect the fact that we’re in this situation because of the providence of God, we’re ultimately giving glory to God and serving Him. So we’re to do it for that reason.
We don’t have to get out of some servant relationship to find our worth. We can serve God wherever He places us in the circumstances that we have.
Remember Who You Belong To
And so the truth that Paul sets before us in these two verses is because we realize our God-given dignity through serving the Lord, we honor unbelieving bosses to guard the reputation of the gospel and the name of our Heavenly Father. Remember who you really belong to and whose payroll you really ultimately are on. And as a child of the King, we give honor and hard work in the name of Christ, our Savior, Lord.
Let’s pray.
Father, we thank you for the richness of your grace and the truth of this passage. It’s difficult for us in some ways, but Lord, we recognize that circumstances in this world, you’re aware of all of them. You recognize that the difficulties and the sorrows in this world are temporary, that we can live for the kingdom. Father, that as we are faithful and live for the kingdom of God, the rewards ultimately are eternal and extraordinary.
And Father, we thank you that you and our Savior, the Lord Jesus, Father, you loved us with a love incomprehensible. And Father, you bring us into the family of God where we are in relationships with people whom we are to love, and Father, by the power of your Holy Spirit, enabled to love. We know, Lord, that all of us have weaknesses and difficulties and live in ways that make us unloving, unlovable so often. And yet, Father, nothing erases the dignity we have in Christ and God.
We pray, Father, that we recognize that with everyone. Help us, Lord, to give everyone the honor they deserve. What a wonderful world this would be, how much better our individual lives would be if we lived in such a way that we honored everybody with the kind of honor that they should have because they’re created in the image of God. Teach us these things, Lord.
I pray, Father, that these principles would be written on our heart. And, Father, as we submit to the truth of your word, that you would sanctify us and bless us and give us the great joy that comes when we know that our significance lies with you. We ask this, Father, this blessing in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
