Living Under Authority Series

Introduction:

A. The relationship between bosses and employees can be fodder for many jokes and most of them are not too funny! (Especially if you are the boss)

1. I heard about a boss who put a sign on the company bulletin board that announced: “To err is human, to forgive is not a company policy.”

2. I heard about another boss who put up a sign that said: “Rule #1: The boss is always right. Rule #2: If you think the boss is wrong, refer to Rule #1.”

B. A man called the “World’s Worst Boss” and the “World’s Grumpiest Boss” died back in 2016.

1. Mike Davis, aka Tiger Mike started as a chauffeur and rose in the 1970s to become a Houston oil and gas magnate.

2. Throughout his career he routinely issued grumpy memos to his employees.

3. For example, 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!”

4. 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.”

C. The vast majority of people work for a boss and far too often the boss is a difficult person to work for, so how do we as Christians serve such a boss?

1. As you know from our sermon series on 1 Timothy, Paul left Timothy in Ephesus to deal with problems facing the church in Ephesus.

2. Paul instructed Timothy on how to deal with false teachers and their teaching.

3. Timothy was also instructed about how to properly treat widows and elders.

4. But in the section we will study today, Paul turned his attention to a third kind of social relationship - the relationship of servants toward their masters.

5. Had you or I lived in the Roman-dominated world of the first century, there’s a good chance we would have been one of 60 million slaves - half the population of the empire – and therefore we would have needed to understand how a Christian slave should treat their master.

D. Let me briefly define terms.

1. Let’s start with the word for “slave.”

a. 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.”

2. As you know, the slavery that existed in the United States of America until the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 was sinful and horrific; filled with all kinds of abuse.

3. Slavery in Paul’s day was different from the slavery that existed in our country in the past.

a. Slaves in Paul’s day were accorded the same social status as their owners.

b. From outward appearances, it was usually difficult to distinguish slaves from free persons.

c. In many cases, slavery was often preferred to freedom because it offered security.

d. 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. And selling oneself into slavery was commonly used as a means of gaining Roman citizenship and gaining entrance into society…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.” (commentary quote taken from sermon by Freddy Fritz)

4. The Greek word for “masters” (despotes) is where our English word “despot” comes from.

a. But unlike the English word, the Greek term does not carry the connotation of someone who is harsh, cruel, and abusive.

b. It merely refers to “a person who has general authority over others (slaves or subjects); often as an owner as well as an authority figure.”

c. This word was even used of Jesus because he is our master (2 Tim. 2:21; 2 Pt. 2:1; Jude 4).

5. In Greek culture and terminology, doulos and despotes, bondservants and masters, went together.

E. Although we are not living in a master/slave type system, we all have to deal with authority and live under the authorities in our lives.

1. There are the authority relationships of government officials and citizens, teachers and students, employers and employees, husbands and wives, parents and children, and elders and church members.

2. Each of us, regardless of our occupation or our place in life, are under someone’s authority, and ultimately, we live under God’s authority.