On Servants and Masters; the Doctrine of Godliness (1 Timothy 6:1–3)

Up to this point the Apostle taught how to guide various persons primarily according to their position in the Church. Now he turns to indicating the manner of dealing with persons according to their position in society. As there, so here St. Paul does not encompass everything, but touches only on: aa) slaves (1 Tim. 6:1, 2); and bb) the wealthy (1 Tim. 6:3–19)—because, of course, this was especially needed.

Aa) What to teach slaves? (1 Tim. 6:1, 2)

1 Tim. 6:1. Let as many as are under the yoke as slaves count their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed.

“The Apostle says this of slaves whose masters are unbelievers” (blessed Theodoret). “Teach them, he says, and exhort them, that even though their masters are unbelievers, they should obey them, counting them worthy of all honor both in words and in deeds” (blessed Theophylact). Some slaves could have thought—and perhaps did think—that since they had received forgiveness of sins, been received into God’s favor, and had the freedom to draw near to the Lord, these privileges meant they should no longer serve unbelieving masters. The Apostle, to forestall this, commands St. Timothy to explain to each of them: “Do not think that because you are a believer you are therefore free” (St. Chrysostom). “You are free in spiritual nature (free from sins, you draw near to the Lord freely), but a slave in body. But this very thing is freedom—to serve, I say, in the name of Christ” (blessed Theophylact). Resolve to serve willingly, believing that such is the Lord’s will for you, and your work will become an act of freedom, pleasing to God, and not a yoke. This is precisely what the Apostle points to and urges; for he says: let slaves count their masters worthy of all honor. This is how it stands in Greek. Whoever has such a conviction in his heart will not feel the yoke of slavery. One who honors another willingly bows before him and submits to him.

But the counsel on how to make the yoke of slavery light for slaves is only hinted at in the words: let them count them worthy of honor. The Apostle’s chief intention is to inspire slaves to faithful service through the benefits of the faith. Instruct them, he says, that if they do not honor their masters with faithful service, their masters will form a poor opinion of our teaching and our faith, and they will thus give occasion for the name of God—called upon Christians—to be blasphemed. But if they serve them willingly and respectfully, especially after formerly reluctant and grumbling service, they will thereby give a high impression of our teaching and dispose them to turn to faith in the Lord and Saviour. “If an unbeliever sees that through faith people fall into conceit, he will often denounce it as a teaching that inclines to insubordination; but if he notices that they have become more obedient, he will all the more readily submit himself, will be more attentive to what is said (in the preaching of the Gospel)” (St. Chrysostom). — For a believer who loves and honors the faith, there can be no stronger incentive to calm and willing bearing of the yoke of faithful service to unbelieving masters.

1 Tim. 6:2. And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brothers; but rather let them serve them, because those who benefit from their service are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things.

That was speech about relations with unbelieving masters; now it is about relations with believing ones. Believing masters are understood as not merely those who hold the faith, but those who live in the spirit of the faith, and consequently treat their slaves in a brotherly manner, not overburdening them beyond their strength, taking pity on them and caring for them. Seeing this, unwise servants could become presumptuous, indulge the feeling of equality with their masters, and as a result become negligent in their duties and disrespectful toward their masters. It is against this that St. Paul here gives instruction. Teach them, he says, that servants should not despise believing masters but serve them even more zealously. “Slaves whose masters are godly should not turn their masters’ godliness into an occasion for negligence, but should account them worthy of even greater service for this very reason” (blessed Theodoret). Say to them: “If you have been accounted worthy of such an honor as to have brothers for masters (or to have masters as brothers), then for this very reason you ought to be especially obedient to them” (St. Chrysostom). “It cannot be that, since you have come to have your master as a brother by virtue of baptism, you are therefore free to treat him negligently; on the contrary, find in this very fact an incentive to serve and to slave for him with even greater diligence” (blessed Theophylact).

The incentive put forward for this is: “because they are believers and beloved, who are partakers of grace.” Faith does not take away the right of lordship but adorns it. A servant who holds the faith in high esteem holds it in high esteem in his master as well, and for its sake holds his master in high esteem. Hence—not a lessening of the sense of obligation to serve, but its elevation and, as it were, sanctification. And serve all the more, he says, “because they are believers.” But by virtue of the faith they are also “beloved”—beloved of God (Oecumenius)—and beloved of the slaves, because to this both the faith obliges and disposes, teaching one to love even strangers, and not only one’s own, and above all those who are one’s masters. You cannot but feel how good it is for you to have masters who are believers and beloved. But “to the degree that you have been benefited by having your masters as brothers, to that same degree be yourselves grateful, serving them with greater zeal” (Oecumenius). “Having said ‘beloved,’ the Apostle drives out fear—under which servants often fall into hatred of their masters—and in its place introduces love” (blessed Theophylact), or “joins love with fear” (Oecumenius).

“Who are partakers of grace”—who are partakers of grace, who share in grace—that is, who have received forgiveness of sins, been received into the sonship of God, and endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Those who have been received into such favor of God and so honored by God—should they not also be more honored by their servants through the expression of greater submission and greater zeal in serving them? Such a meaning is suggested by the Slavonic translation, which is also permitted by the Greek text: οι της ευεργεσιας αντιλαμβανομενοι,—who receive the beneficence, or who are partakers of beneficence—namely, God’s beneficence to us sinners, the crown of which is the economy of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ—“grace upon grace” (Jn. 1:16).

But the Greek text may also convey the meaning: who care for and are zealous for the benefiting—understood as benefiting the slaves—“who diligently endeavor to do good to the slaves” (Oecumenius, blessed Theophylact). In Russian it is translated accordingly: who do good to them—the slaves. And all our commentators hold to this meaning. St. Chrysostom says: “Masters give more to slaves than slaves to masters; for the former both spend gold on them and take care to supply them with necessaries—clothing and everything else. And pointing to this here, the Apostle says: οι της ευεργεσιας αντιλαμβανομενοι,—who take care to do you good, O slaves. They trouble themselves and labor for your ease—and should they not enjoy great honor from their own household?” The same in blessed Theophylact: “Remember (O servant), that he (the master) is also your benefactor (not only a believer and beloved), he troubles himself and takes care for you, to feed you, to clothe you, and to satisfy every other need and want of yours—so that he has many claims upon you (upon your submission and service to him), besides having purchased you.”

It is assumed that the masters, having believed and been sanctified by grace, changed their despotic character and began to treat their slaves as their own kin—caring well for them and showing loving affection toward them. As a result, those who were beloved by the slaves through the faith are even more beloved through their benefactions to them. Therefore the latter naturally ought to serve them more zealously now than before. To believing masters, says the Apostle, slaves ought to serve more zealously, because they are believers and beloved, and all the more because they themselves do good to them—as if repaying them with kindness before they themselves have done anything for them; consider yourselves already benefited on the part of your masters in advance of your service to them (Oecumenius). By serving them you will be repaying a debt of gratitude for their benefactions toward you, which encompass and embrace you.

“Teach and exhort these things.” Teach as one who has authority; entreat—persuade, urge—as a loving father or brother. “Do the first as a teacher, the second as a father” (blessed Theodoret). “A teacher must employ not only authority but also great gentleness, and on the other hand, not only gentleness but also authority” (St. Chrysostom). “For he is a physician, and a physician sometimes prevails with gentleness and sometimes with firm compulsion” (blessed Theophylact).

In our text these words stand in connection with what precedes—that is, with what should be impressed upon slaves. This may indeed have been required, not so much because of the importance of the subject itself—the obedience of slaves to their masters—as because of the harm that their disobedience could bring upon the Church and upon believers. But it seems better to connect these words with what follows and to refer them to everything said above. St. Chrysostom detaches these words from this (second) verse and connects them with the following third verse.

Bb) What to teach the wealthy? (1 Tim. 6:3–19)

This entire section (1 Tim. 6:3–19) contains the following: α) the exhortation: “teach these things” (1 Tim. 6:2)—followed immediately by a censure of those who teach otherwise, whose final and most characteristic failing is that they “suppose that godliness is a means of gain” (1 Tim. 6:5) (1 Tim. 6:3–5). This provided occasion for: β) an indication (1 Tim. 6:6–16) of: αα) the ruinous consequences of love of money for faith and life (1 Tim. 6:6–10) and the exhortation: ββ) “flee these things” (1 Tim. 6:11)—and pursue godliness, faith, and the rest, with a solemn charge to observe this command without fail until the coming of the Lord (1 Tim. 6:11–16). After this follows: γ) what to teach the wealthy—namely, not to be proud, not to set their hope on riches, but to use them for good works, “laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future” (1 Tim. 6:19) (1 Tim. 6:17–19). Thus all of this speaks of love of money in its various aspects. It was therefore deemed fitting to entitle this section “what to teach the wealthy,” treating the indication of the harmful consequences of attachment to wealth and the exhortation to flee it and to pursue every virtue as an introduction to the main theme, and the indication of the unworthy qualities of those who teach otherwise as the occasion for it.

α) Teach these things (1 Tim. 6:3–5)

This occasion arose, as it were, unexpectedly. The Apostle had in mind only to urge adherence to sound teaching and to shun all deviation from it and all disputes—as he does repeatedly in this Epistle. But since the best incentive for avoiding the latter is knowledge of the unsoundness of those who teach otherwise, the Apostle describes it. And one of the most prominent characteristics of these false teachers at that time was that they acted “for the sake of dishonest gain” (Tit. 1:11). Having placed this characteristic at the end in the words: “who suppose godliness is a means of gain,” the Apostle then leads the entire discourse to the subject of passion for acquisition and wealth.

1 Tim. 6:3, 4. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the teaching which is according to godliness, he is proud.

St. Chrysostom, as noted, reads this in connection with “teach and exhort these things.” Teach thus—and from those who teach otherwise, turn away. As for turning away from their teaching, there was no need to remind St. Timothy of this. Turn away, he says, from the false teachers themselves—do not engage with them, “avoid them” (St. Chrysostom). For if you engage with them, disputes over words will follow, from which there is never any benefit, but only irritation and strife. They cannot yield to you, because through pride and self-conceit they think they know the truth and stand in it, whereas they know it not at all. This self-deception is what keeps them in their stubbornness and opposition to the truth. And there is nothing to be done with them. The best course is not to engage with them at all. Proclaim the one truth—and whoever is of the truth will listen to you (Jn. 18:37). Such is the content of this present Apostolic lesson.

Who these false teachers are, the Apostle does not specify in particular, but speaks generally: they teach otherwise, they do not consent to the wholesome words of the Lord and to the teaching that accords with godliness. Here one may understand all Christian teaching—both doctrine and the rules of life and sanctification through the mysteries. Whoever in anything departs from the words of the Lord and the sound teaching held by the assembly of the pious is a false teacher, a proud controversialist, unworthy of fellowship. Therefore also: “teach and exhort these things” (1 Tim. 6:2)—refers not to the obedience of slaves alone, but to everything set forth above, not excluding this point, of course.

The wholesome words of the Lord are those of which He testified: “all things that I heard from My Father… I have made known to you” (Jn. 15:15). They are the same as what the Holy Spirit inspired in the Apostles: for He also was to speak “whatever He hears” (Jn. 16:13), and of course whatever He spoke, He spoke as He heard. The wholesome words of the Lord therefore comprehend the truth hidden in the mystery of the Triune God, brought to earth by the incarnate Son of God, and spread among men through the Apostles by the Holy Spirit—truth that is wholesome, that is, pure, unmixed, unchangeable. They are wholesome both as containing pure truth and as imparting health to the soul that receives them. For truth brings health to the soul, while falsehood, even if small, weakens and enfeebles it.

“The teaching that accords with godliness” is composed of the wholesome words of the Lord and the revelations of the Holy Spirit. It brings together all the words and from all the truths proclaimed by them forms one whole, one pattern of contemplating the work of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, according to the good pleasure of the Father. The Lord spoke much; the Apostles also spoke much through the Holy Spirit. Those who heard and received it laid everything up in their hearts, which, as some architect guided by grace, organized that pattern of contemplating the work of salvation. And this pattern encompassed “the teaching that accords with godliness.” Established under the influence of the Apostles, this pattern was carried in the hearts of believers out of the Apostolic age, renewed and preserved by their successors, and handed down to subsequent generations of the faithful, from whom it has reached us by mutual transmission. Thus “the teaching that accords with godliness” is the teaching held by the Church—then, in the time of the Apostles, and now by succession from them.

In Greek the word is not “true faith” but godliness — τη κατ ευσεβειαν διδασκαλια. But this is not a departure from the Apostle’s actual word—it is a more precise expression of it. Godliness is the heartfelt relationship to God. Life according to godliness is life in the fear of God, for the glory of His all-holy name; teaching according to godliness is teaching held on the basis of unshakeable faith in the word of the God of truth. Such a holding of truth is genuinely true belief—and it alone is truly such.