1 Timothy Chapter 6

Paul closes by exposing greed and false teaching, charging Timothy to pursue godliness until Christ appears, to instruct the rich, and to guard the deposit.

1 Timothy 6:1-2

Servants Who Adorn the Teaching

1 Timothy 6:3-10

False Teaching and the Love of Money

1 Timothy 6:11-16

The Charge to the Man of God

1 Timothy 6:17-19

Counsel for Those Who Are Rich

1 Timothy 6:20-21

Guard What Has Been Entrusted

1 Timothy 6:1

Paul turns from the elders (5:17–25) to the last group addressed in his household instructions: Christian slaves. The word translated “servants” is douloi, persons legally owned by another. Slaves formed a large part of the population of Ephesus, and many early converts came from their ranks. Paul does not soften their circumstances. “Under the yoke” borrows the language used for oxen harnessed to a plow, a frank acknowledgment that many owners regarded slaves as little more than working animals. Because verse 2 turns separately to believing masters, the present verse chiefly concerns slaves whose owners did not share their faith.

The instruction calls for a deliberate judgment. Such slaves are to “count” their own masters “worthy of all honour.” The honor does not rest on the master’s personal merit, which may have been slight. It is a decision made in faith about how to live within a situation the slave could not alter by his own will. It would show itself in honest work and respectful speech (Titus 2:9–10). Elsewhere Paul encourages a slave to gain freedom if the opportunity comes (1 Corinthians 7:21), so the counsel here is no denial of the desirability of liberty.

The motive is missionary: “that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.” In Scripture the name stands for God’s revealed character. Unbelieving owners would judge the gospel by the slaves who professed it. If conversion produced insolence or idleness, God would be spoken against because of His people, as Israel once caused His name to be reviled among the nations (Romans 2:24).

This is not a defense of slavery. The same letter lists “menstealers,” those who trade in human beings, among the lawless (1:10). The apostles did not summon powerless believers to a revolt that would have ended in slaughter; they proclaimed a common Creator and a Redeemer who “gave himself a ransom for all” (2:6), truths that hollow out ownership of persons from within. Meanwhile the believing slave who served faithfully under an unjust yoke reflected the Savior who suffered wrong without retaliation (1 Peter 2:21–23).

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Cross References

Word / Phrase Notes

ὑπὸ ζυγόν (hypo zygon) — under the yoke

The yoke was the wooden beam laid on draught animals, and the image became a figure for oppressive subjection. Paul’s use of it concedes the harshness of the slave’s condition. Scripture uses the same figure for bondage that God breaks, and Jesus offers His own yoke as one that gives rest.

τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ θεοῦ … βλασφημῆται (to onoma tou theou … blasphēmētai) — the name of God … be blasphemed

To blaspheme here is to speak evil of God and His teaching. The concern is reputational in the biblical sense: outsiders form their opinion of God from those who bear His name. The same reasoning governs Paul’s counsel to younger women and his warnings about Israel’s witness.