Bondservants And Masters Series

Scripture

Paul left Timothy in Ephesus to deal with problems in the churches around Ephesus. He was to deal with false teachers and their teaching. And he also was to instruct God’s people about living in God’s church. Paul gave Timothy instructions about the treatment of widows (in 5:3-16) and elders (in 5:17-25). Then he turned his attention to a third social relationship, namely the behavior of bondservants toward their masters.

Let us read about bondservants and masters in 1 Timothy 6:1-2:

1 Let all who are under a yoke as bondservants regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. 2 Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers; rather they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved. (1 Timothy 6:1-2)

Introduction

Do you think your boss is tough or unfair? Try working for the world’s worst boss—Mike Davis, aka Tiger Mike. Davis started as a chauffeur and rose in the 1970s to become a Houston oil and gas magnate. But he earned even more notoriety as “the world’s worst boss” and “the world’s grumpiest boss.” Throughout his career he routinely issued grumpy memos to his employees.

For example, on January 11, 1978 he sent the following terse memo to all his employees: “Idle conversation and gossip in this office among employees will result in immediate termination. DO YOUR JOBS AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!”

A month later, he banned office birthday parties with the following memo: “There will be no more birthday celebrations, birthday cakes, levity, or celebrations of any kind within the office. This is a business office. If you have to celebrate, do it after office hours on your own time.”

In another memo, he explained why he could swear but his employees could not: “I swear, but since I am the owner of this company, that is my privilege, and this privilege is not to be interpreted as the same for any employee. That differentiates me from you, and I want to keep it that way. There will be absolutely no swearing, by any employee, male or female, in this office, ever.”

The vast majority of people work for a boss. And far too often the boss is a difficult person for whom to work, although not always. So, how do we as Christians serve such a boss?

When Paul wrote this letter to Timothy, he addressed this question head-on. However, the social and economic setting in Ephesus was very different than what we know today. One commentator notes that “it has been estimated that there were between fifty and sixty million slaves in the Roman Empire, and that as many as one third of the populations of large cities such as Rome, Corinth, and Ephesus were slaves.” Because Paul addressed the issue of how slaves—which the English Standard Version has translated as “bondservants”—were to serve their masters, we know that the churches in Ephesus had a mixture of slaves and masters in the same congregation.

Let me briefly define terms. The Greek word for “bondservant” (doulos) can be translated as “bondservant, slave, or servant” and it means “a person who is legally owned by someone else and whose entire livelihood and purpose was determined by his or her master.” The slavery that existed in this country until the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 was horrific and filled with abuses.

Slaves in Paul’s day were acquired in several different ways. Slaves were not always ethnically different. Prisoners of war that became slaves may have been ethnically different (Numbers 31:7-35; Deuteronomy 20:10-14). Slaves could also be purchased (Exodus 21:7; Leviticus 25:44-46). Some poor people sold themselves into slavery (Leviticus 25:39ff.; Deuteronomy 15:12-17); others were sold into slavery to pay their debts (2 Kings 4:1; Nehemiah 5:1-8). Slaves could be received as gifts (Genesis 29:24), or inherited (Leviticus 25:46). Still others were born to slaves and remained in that role.

Slavery was also different in Paul’s day than the slavery in this country. Slaves in Paul’s day were accorded the same social status as their owners. From outward appearances, it was usually difficult to distinguish slaves from free persons. Slavery was often preferred to freedom because it offered security. Moreover, as one commentator noted, “A slave could be a custodian, a merchant, a C.E.O., and even a government official. Many slaves lived separate from their owners. Finally, selling oneself into slavery was commonly used as a means of gaining Roman citizenship and gaining entrance into society.” He continues, “Roman slavery in the first century was far more humane and civilized than American/African slavery practiced in this country during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Whereas nineteenth-century slavery was tragically racist, theirs was rarely racist but rather reflected the economic and political realities of ancient culture.” Nevertheless, that still did not make slavery right. One person still owned another, and a slave was still considered to be the property of another person.