Under the yoke ( ). As slaves (, bondsmen). Perhaps under heathen masters (1Pe 2:18). For the slave problem, see also 1Tim 6:1; Col 3:22; Eph 6:5; Titus 2:9. See Mt 11:29 for Christ’s “yoke” (, from , to join).

Their own masters ( ). That is always where the shoe pinches. Our “despot” is this very Greek word, the strict correlative of slave (), while has a wider outlook. Old word only here, Titus 2:9; 2Tim 2:21; 1Pet 2:18 for human masters. Applied to God in Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; Acts 4:29 and to Christ in 2Pe 2:1.

The name of God ( ). See Ro 2:24. If the heathen could say that Christian slaves were not as dependable as non-Christian slaves. Negative purpose with and present passive subjunctive ().

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

As many servants as are under the yoke ( ] . Incorrect. Rather, as many as are under the yoke as bondservants. As bondservants is added in explanation of under the yoke, which implies a hard and disagreeable condition. Yoke is used only here of the state of slavery. In Gal 5:1; Act 14:10, of the Mosaic law. See on Mt 11:29.

Their own [ ] . Lit. private, personal, peculiar, as 1Co 3:8; 1Co 7:7. Sometimes strange, eccentric. Constrasted with dhmosiov public or koinov common. See Act 4:32. Sometimes without emphasis, substantially = possessive pronoun, just as Lat. proprius passes into suus or ejus, or oijkeiov belonging to one’s house into the simple one’s own. See on Gal 6:10, and comp. Mt 22:5; Mt 25:14. In LXX commonly with the emphatic sense. Very often in the phrase kat’ ijdian privately, as Mr 4:34; Luk 9:10; Gal 2:2, but nowhere in Pastorals.

Masters [] . Comp. Tit 2:9, and see on 2Pe 2:1. Not in Paul, who styles the master of slaves kuriov Lord. See Eph 6:9; Col 4:1.

Count [] . Implying a more conscious, a surer judgment, resting on more careful weighing of the facts. See Phi 2:3, 6. Be not blasphemed [ – ] . Or be evil spoken of. See on blasphemy, Mr 7:22, and be evil spoken of, Rom 14:16; 1Co 10:30. Paul uses the word, but not in the active voice as in the Pastorals.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

DESCRIPTION OF A GOOD MINISTER’S WORK

1) “Let as many servants as are under the yoke” (hosoi eisin hupo zugon douloi) “Let as many slaves or servants as are under a yoke.” This is a Christian exhortation to saved slaves or servants, who were saved or unsaved, Eph 6:5-8.

2) “Count their own masters worthy of all honour” (tous idious despotas pases times aksious egeisthosan) “Deem their own despotic masters (those who bought and paid for them) worthy of all honor,” or let them respect them as masters. The Christian doctrine and ethic of liberty did not espouse a social-economic anarchy against the practice of slavery; it sought to teach men to serve and honor God in every state of society, Col 3:22.

3) “That the name of God” (hina me to onoma tou theou) “in order that the name or authority of God.” God is not the author of confusion, and Christian concepts are not to bring explosive social overthrows in society, 1Co 14:33.

4) “And his doctrine be not blasphemed.” (kai e didaskalia blasphemetai) “And the teaching of him be not blasphemed, derided, or spoken against.” The issue of slaves and masters, like the social-economic racial issues of today, were to be approached in the light of man’s divine relationship to God, not to force an economic, social, domestic revolution among men by pressures of outward force and threats, Tit 2:9; 1Pe 2:18.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

It appears that, at the beginning of the gospel, slaves cheered their hearts, as if the signal had been given for their emancipation; for Paul labors hard, in all his writings, to repress that desire; and indeed the condition of slavery was so hard that we need not wonder that it was exceedingly hateful. Now, it is customary to seize, for the advantage of the flesh, everything that has the slightest appearance of being in our favor. Thus when they were told that we are all brethren, they instantly concluded that it was unreasonable that they should be the slaves of brethren. But although nothing of all this had come into their mind, still wretched men are always in need of consolation, that may allay the bitterness of their afflictions. Besides, they could not without difficulty be persuaded to bend their necks, willingly and cheerfully, to so harsh a yoke. Such, then, is the object of the present doctrine.

1 They who are slaves under the yoke Owing to the false opinion of his own excellence which every person entertains, there is no one who patiently endures that others should rule over him. They who cannot avoid the necessity do, indeed, reluctantly obey those who are above them; but inwardly they fret and rage, because they think that they suffer wrong. The Apostle cuts off, by a single word, all disputes of this kind, by demanding that all who live “under the yoke” shall submit to it willingly. He means that they must not inquire whether they deserve that lot or a better one; for it is enough that they are bound to this condition.

When he enjoins them to esteem worthy of all honor the masters whom they serve, he requires them not only to be faithful and diligent in performing their duties, but to regard and sincerely respect them as persons placed in a higher rank than themselves. No man renders either to a prince or to a master what he owes to them, unless, looking at the eminence to which God has raised them, he honor them, because he is subject to them; for, however unworthy of it they may often be, still that very authority which God bestows on them always entitles them to honor. Besides, no one willingly renders service or obedience to his master, unless he is convinced that he is bound to do so. Hence it follows, that subjection begins with that honor of which Paul wishes that they who rule should be accounted worthy.

That the name and doctrine of God may not be blasphemed We are always too ingenious in our behalf. Thus slaves, who have unbelieving masters, are ready enough with the objection, that it is unreasonable that they who serve the devil should have dominion over the children of God. But Paul throws back the argument to the opposite side, that they ought to obey unbelieving masters, in order that the name of God and the gospel may not be evil spoken of; as if God, whom we worship, incited us to rebellion, and as if the gospel rendered obstinate and disobedient those who ought to be subject to others.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

1Ti. 6:1. That the name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed.Masters who had slaves professing to be Christians and yet supercilious would curse them and their new faith.

1Ti. 6:2. Let them not despise them.Two uses of this word by our Lord will be its best interpretation. In Mat. 6:24 He too speaks of the servant who has two different masters, for one of whom he has dropped all estimation. In Mat. 18:10 Christ warns against thinking the little ones as unworthy of attention.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.1Ti. 6:1-2

Christianity and Servitude.

I. Respect must be shown to unbelieving masters.

1. Though the service is humiliating and unjust. As many servants as are under the yoke count their masters worthy of all honour (1Ti. 6:1). The servant of those days was a slave. The Roman Empire was about equally divided by freemen and slaves. Slavery was an ancient and widely spread institution, and was closely bound up with the social life of the times. All this was to be changed, and has been changed. Christianity has effected the revolution, not by appealing to and stirring up political passions, but by implanting principles in the expansion of which it is impossible for slavery to live. The Christian, though a slave, was taught to show respect to his master; and the injunction was perhaps necessary, as the servant in his newly found moral freedom might be tempted to regard himself as superior to his unbelieving master, and to develop an arrogant and rebellious spirit.

2. Respectful servitude will guard religion from reproach. That the name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed (1Ti. 6:1). The heathen master would be compelled to respect a religion that made his servant honest, industrious, obedient, respectful, and morally consistent. Many masters were won over to Christianity by the holy examples of their slaves.

II. Nor should less respect be shown towards believing masters.

1. Because of the equality of servant and master in Christian brotherhood. Let them not despise them because they are brethren (1Ti. 6:2). The servant might presume upon this equality and take unwarrantable liberties, and seek to justify even positive neglect and disobedience. Before God master and man are alike; before the world, and according to the contract existing between them, they are master and servant. In doing his duty conscientiously the servant is not only serving his earthly master, but also pleasing God.

2. Equality in Christian brotherhood is rather a stronger reason for fidelity in servitude. But rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit (1Ti. 6:2). The cultivation of the Christian spirit promotes a better understanding between master and servant. They learn to respect each other, and to discharge their mutual obligations with cordiality and justice.

III. Christianity enforces the sacredness of duty in servitude.These things teach and exhort. Religion must be carried into every department and relationship in life. However humble and trying our lot, it has its duties, and religion teaches us to find alleviation in every hardship by faithfully doing the duty of the moment. Duty can be satisfied with its doings, but love has never done enough. The dying Nelson said, Thank God, I have done my duty. The dying saint can only say, I am an unprofitable servant.

Lessons.

1. Christian liberty has its legitimate restraints.

2. Christianity teaches the true dignity of labour.

3. Practical Christianity will inevitably rectify the unjust inequalities between master and servant.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

1Ti. 6:1-2. Duties of servants.

I. Christian servants should prevent scandal to religion by showing respect to their masters as such (1Ti. 6:1).

II. Should not presume on the equal brotherhood which religion recognises between Christian masters and servants (1Ti. 6:2).

III. The participation in equal religious privileges should make the servant more conscientious and diligent (1Ti. 6:2).

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

4.

CARE OF SLAVES 1Ti. 6:1-2

Text 6:1, 2

1 Let as many as are servants under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and the doctrine be not blasphemed. 2 And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but let them serve them the rather, because they that partake of the benefit are believing and beloved. These things teach and exhort.

Thought Questions 6:1, 2

210.

Did Paul believe in slavery? If not, why not condemn it?

211.

What is the yoke of 1Ti. 6:1? Please attempt an explanation.

212.

How could the Christian slave count some masters worthy of honor when they were despots?

213.

Is Paul suggesting that slaves even take abuse from some masters? If so, why? If not, explain.

214.

Why would a Christian slave be tempted to despise a Christian master? What will prevent it?

215.

What is the benefit of 1Ti. 6:2? We urge you to advance an opinion.

216.

Would the principles here taught, ultimately abolish slavery? If so, explain how.

Paraphrase 6:1, 2

1 Let whatever Christian slaves are under the yoke of unbelievers, pay their own masters all respect and obedience, that the character of God whom we worship may not be calumniated, and the doctrine of the gospel may not be evil spoken of, as tending to destroy the political rights of mankind. See Eph. vi. 5.
2 And those Christian slaves who have believing masters, let them not despise them, fancying that they are their equals, because they are their brethren in Christ; for though all Christians are equal as to religious privileges, slaves are inferior to their masters in station. Wherefore, let them serve their masters more diligently, because they who enjoy the benefit of their service are believers and beloved of God. These things teach, and exhort the brethren to practice them.

Comment 6:1, 2

1Ti. 6:1. We come now to the final section of the care of the members of the church; this would not be complete without instruction for the vast slave population in the churches. Note that the word honor runs throughout: 1Ti. 5:3, 1Ti. 5:17, 1Ti. 6:1. Show all honora high respectfor your master. Paul uses a word for masters from which we have despot. Is this a veiled thrust at the principle of slavery?

The Christian slave is to have a genuine desire to please his master at whatever cost to himself. The name and teaching of God are far more important than the comfort of the slave. Under the yoke is simply another way of emphasizing the slaves position. If the Christian bond-servant can maintain an attitude of good-will at all times, however trying the circumstances, he will have a strong influence on his master, If Jehovah God and the gospel do not alter the conduct of slaves for good, then the master will be tempted to speak out against it. If the master can not read the power of the gospel in the life of his Christian slaves, he will have no interest in reading it elsewhere.

1Ti. 6:2. But what of those who have Christian masters? Surely there would be no problem herebut there isthe human heart is indeed deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. The temptation would be for the Christian slave to take advantage of his relationship to his master, as not only his master, but his brother. Paul suggests that if the Christian slave was faithful to an unbeliever, how much more would he be to a believer; this was a fine expression of wisdom. They that partake of the benefit is not a very clear expression. Who is to partake? and what is the benefit? It would seem Paul means to say that the believing masters would share in the benefit of the good work of believing slaves. The slave should serve exceptionally well because he loves his master as a Christian brother and wants his brother to prosper as well as himself. The Christian slave is happy to see the success in his masters business as a result of his own good work, because he loves his master as Christ has loved him. Paul suggests that such matters as appear in 1Ti. 5:17-25; 1Ti. 6:1-2 need to be constantly taught and urged.

Fact Questions 6:1, 2

163.

What is Pauls veiled thrust at the principles of slavery?

164.

The Christian slave is to please his master at whatever cost. Why?

165.

Is Paul asking the impossible in some cases? Discuss.

166.

Why would there be any problem between Christian slave and Christian master? What is it?

167.

How solve the problem?

168.

What is the benefit of 1Ti. 6:2?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

VI.

(1) Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour.From questions connected with the presbyters and others among the recognised ministers and officials of the church, St. Paul passes on to consider certain difficulties connected with a large and important section of the congregations to whom these presbyters were in the habit of ministeringthe Christian slaves.

It was perhaps the most perplexing of all the questions Christianity had to facethis one of slavery. It entered into all grades and ranks. It was common to all peoples and nations. The very fabric of society seemed knit and bound together by this miserable institution. War and commerce were equally responsible for slavery in the Old World. To attempt to uproot itto preach against itto represent it in public teaching as hateful to God, shameful to manwould have been to preach and to teach rebellion and revolution in its darkest and most violent form. It was indeed the curse of the world; but the Master and His chosen servants took their own course and their own time to clear it away. Jesus Christ and His disciples, such as St. Paul and St. John, left society as they found it, uprooting no ancient landmarks, alarming no ancient prejudices, content to live in the world as it was, and to do its work as they found ittrusting, by a new and lovely example, slowly and surely to raise men to a higher level, knowing well that at last, by force of unselfishness, loving self-denial, brave patience, the old cursessuch as slaverywould be driven from the world. Surely the result, so far, has not disappointed the hopes of the first teachers of Christianity.
This curse at least is disappearing fast from the face of the globe. St. Paul here is addressing, in the first place, Christian slaves of a Pagan master. Let these, if they love the Lord and would do honour to His holy teaching, in their relations to their earthly masters not presume upon their new knowledge, that with the Master in Heaven there was no respect of persons; that in Jesus Christ there was neither bond nor free, for all were one in Christ. Let these not dream for an instant that Christianity was to interfere with the existing social relations, and to put master and slave on an equality on earth. Let these, by their conduct to unbelieving masters, paying them all loving respect and honour, show how the new religion was teaching them to live.

That the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.There would indeed be a grave danger of this, if the many Christian slaves, instead of showing increased zeal for their masters service, should, as the result of the teaching of the new society they had joined, become morose, impatient of servitude, rebellious. Very soon in Pagan society would the name of that Redeemer they professed to love, and the beautiful doctrines He had preached, be evil spoken of, if the teaching were for one moment suspected of inculcating discontent or suggesting rebellion. An act, or course of acting, on the part of professed servants of God which gives occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, is ever reckoned in Holy Scripture as a sin of the deepest dye. Compare Nathans words to King David (2Sa. 12:14) and St. Pauls reproach to the Jews (Rom. 2:24).

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 6

HOW TO BE A SLAVE AND A CHRISTIAN ( 1Ti 6:1-2 )

6:1-2 Let all those who are slaves under the yoke hold their own masters to be worthy of all respect, in order that no one may have an opportunity to speak evil of the name of God and the Christian teaching. If they have masters who are believers, let them not try to take advantage of them because they are brothers, but rather let them render even better service, because those who lay claim to that service are believers and beloved.

Beneath the surface of this passage there are certain supremely important Christian principles for everyday life and work.

The Christian slave was in a peculiarly difficult position. If he was the slave of a heathen master, he might very easily make it clear that he regarded his master as bound for perdition and himself as the heir of salvation. His Christianity might well give him a feeling of intolerant superiority which would create an impossible situation. On the other hand, if his master was a Christian, the slave might be tempted to take advantage of the relationship and to trade upon it, using it as an excuse for producing inefficient work in the expectation of escaping all punishment. He might think that the fact that both he and his master were Christians entitled him to all kinds of special consideration. There was an obvious problem here. We must note two general things.

(i) In those early days the Church did not emerge as the would-be destroyer of slavery by violent and sudden means. And it was wise. There were something like 60,000,000 slaves in the Roman Empire. Simply because of their numbers they were always regarded as potential enemies. If ever there was a slave revolt it was put down with merciless force, because the Roman Empire could not afford to allow the slaves to rise. If a slave ran away and was caught, he was either executed or branded on the forehead with the letter F, which stood for fugitivus, which means runaway. There was indeed a Roman law which stated that if a master was murdered all his slaves could be examined under torture, and could indeed be put to death in a body. E. K. Simpson wisely writes: “Christianity’s spiritual campaign would have been fatally compromised by stirring the smouldering embers of class-hatred into a devouring flame, or opening an asylum for runaway slaves in its bosom.”

For the Church to have encouraged slaves to revolt against their masters would have been fatal. It would simply have caused civil war, mass murder, and the complete discredit of the Church. What happened was that as the centuries went on Christianity so permeated civilization that in the end the slaves were freed voluntarily and not by force. Here is a tremendous lesson. It is the proof that neither men nor the world nor society can be reformed by force and by legislation. The reform must come through the slow penetration of the Spirit of Christ into the human situation. Things have to happen in God’s time, not in ours. In the end the slow way is the sure way, and the way of violence always defeats itself.

(ii) There is here the further truth, that “spiritual equality does not efface civil distinctions.” It is a continual danger that a man may unconsciously regard his Christianity as an excuse for slackness and inefficiency. Because he and his master are both Christians, he may expect to be treated with special consideration. But the fact that both master and man are Christian does not release the employee from doing a good day’s work and earning his wage. The Christian is under the same obligation to submit to discipline and to earn his pay as any other man.

What then is the duty of the Christian slave as the Pastorals see it? It is to be a good slave. If he is not, if he is slack and careless, if he is disobedient and insolent, he merely supplies the world with ammunition to criticize the Church. The Christian workman must commend his Christianity by being a better workman than other people. In particular, his work will be done in a new spirit. He will not now think of himself as being unwillingly compelled to work; he will think of himself as rendering service to his master, to God and to his fellow-men. His aim will be, not to see how little can be forced out of him, but how much he can willingly do. As George Herbert had it:

“A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine:

Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,

Makes that and the action fine.”

FALSE TEACHERS AND FALSE TEACHING ( 1Ti 6:3-5 )

6:3-5 If any man offers a different kind of teaching, and does not apply himself to sound words (it is the words of our Lord Jesus Christ I mean) and to godly teaching, he has become inflated with pride. He is a man of no understanding; rather he has a diseased addiction to subtle speculations and battles of words, which can be only a source of envy, strife, the exchange of insults, evil suspicions, continual altercations of men whose minds are corrupt and who are destitute of the truth, men whose belief is that religion is a means of making gain.

The circumstances of life in the ancient world presented the false teacher with an opportunity which he was not slow to take. On the Christian side, the Church was full of wandering prophets, whose very way of life gave them a certain prestige. The Christian service was much more informal than it is now. Anyone who felt he had a message was free to give it; and the door was wide open to men who were out to propagate a false and misleading message. On the heathen side, there were men called sophists (compare G4680) , wise men, who made it their business, so to speak, to sell philosophy. They had two lines. They claimed for a fee to be able to teach men to argue cleverly; they were the men who with their smooth tongues and their adroit minds were skilled in “making the worse appear the better reason.” They had turned philosophy into a way of becoming rich. Their other line was to give demonstrations of public speaking. The Greek had always been fascinated by the spoken word; he loved an orator; and these wandering sophists went from town to town, giving their oratorical demonstrations. They went in for advertising on an intensive scale and even went the length of delivering by hand personal invitations to their displays. The most famous of them drew people literally by the thousand to their lectures; they were in their day the equivalent of the modern pop star. Philostratus tells us that Adrian, one of the most famous of them, had such a popular power that, when his messenger appeared with the news that he was to speak, even the senate and the circus emptied, and the whole population flocked to the Athenaeum to hear him. They had three great faults.

Their speeches were quite unreal. They would offer to speak on any subject, however remote and recondite and unlikely, that any member of the audience might propose. This is the kind of question they would argue; it is an actual example. A man goes into the citadel of a town to kill a tyrant who has been grinding down the people; not finding the tyrant, he kills the tyrant’s son; the tyrant comes in and sees his dead son with the sword in his body, and in his grief kills himself; the man then claims the reward for killing the tyrant and liberating the people; should he receive it?

Their thirst was for applause. Competition between them was a bitter and a cut-throat affair. Plutarch tells of a travelling sophist called Niger who came to a town in Galatia where a prominent orator resided. A competition was immediately arranged. Niger had to compete or lose his reputation. He was suffering from a fishbone in his throat and had difficulty in speaking; but for the sake of prestige he had to go on. Inflammation set in soon after, and in the end he died. Dio Chrysostom paints a picture of a public place in Corinth with all the different kinds of competitors in full blast: “You might hear many poor wretches of sophists shouting and abusing each other, and their disciples, as they call them, squabbling, and many writers of books reading their stupid compositions, and many poets singing their poems, and many jugglers exhibiting their marvels, and many soothsayers giving the meaning of prodigies, and a thousand rhetoricians twisting lawsuits, and no small number of traders driving their several trades.” There you have just that interchange of insults, that envy and strife, that constant wordy altercation of men with decadent minds that the writer of the Pastorals deplores. “A sophist,” wrote Philostratus, “is put out in an extempore speech by a serious-looking audience and tardy praise and no clapping.” “They are all agape,” said Dio Chrysostom, “for the murmur of the crowd…. Like men walking in the dark they move always in the direction of the clapping and the shouting.” Lucian writes: “If your friends see you breaking down, let them pay the price of the suppers you give them by stretching out their arms and giving you a chance of thinking of something to say in the intervals between the rounds of applause.” The ancient world well knew just the kind of false teacher who was invading the Church.

Their thirst was for praise, and their criterion was numbers. Epictetus has some vivid pictures of the sophist talking to his disciples after his performance. “‘Well, what did you think of me today?’ ‘Upon my life, sir, I thought you were admirable.’ ‘What did you think of my best passage?’ ‘Which was that?’ ‘Where I described Pan and the Nymphs.’ ‘Oh, it was excessively well done.'” “‘A much larger audience today, I think,’ says the sophist. ‘Yes, much larger,’ responds the disciple. ‘Five hundred, I should guess.’ ‘O, nonsense! It could not have been less than a thousand.’ ‘Why, that is more than Dio ever had. I wonder why it was? They appreciated what I said, too.’ ‘Beauty, sir, can move a stone.'” These performing sophists were “the pets of society.” They became senators, governors, ambassadors. When they died monuments were erected to them, with inscriptions such as, “The Queen of Cities to the King of Eloquence.”

The Greeks were intoxicated with the spoken word. Among them, if a man could speak, his fortune was made. It was against a background like that that the Church was growing up; and it is little wonder that this type of teacher invaded it. The Church gave him a new area in which to exercise his meretricious gifts and to gain a tinsel prestige and a not unprofitable following.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FALSE TEACHER ( 1Ti 6:3-5 continued)

Here in this passage are set out the characteristics of the false teacher.

(i) His first characteristic is conceit. His desire is not to display Christ, but to display himself There are still preachers and teachers who are more concerned to gain a following for themselves than for Jesus Christ, more concerned to press their own views than to bring to men the word of God. In a lecture on his old teacher A. B. Bruce, W. M. Macgregor said: “One of our own Highland ministers tells how he had been puzzled by seeing Bruce again and again during lectures take up a scrap of paper, look at it and then proceed. One day he caught at the chance of seeing what this paper contained, and discovered on it an indication of the words: ‘O, send out thy light and thy truth,’ and thus he realized with awe that into his classroom the professor brought the majesty and the hopefulness of worship.” The great teacher does not offer men his own farthing candle of illumination; he offers them the light and the truth of God.

(ii) His concern is with abstruse and recondite speculations. There is a kind of Christianity which is more concerned with argument than with life. To be a member of a discussion circle or a Bible study group and spend enjoyable hours in talk about doctrines does not necessarily make a Christian. J. S. Whale in his book Christian Doctrine has certain scathing things to say about this pleasant intellectualism: “We have as Valentine said of Thurio, ‘an exchequer of words, but no other treasure.’ Instead of putting off our shoes from our feet because the place whereon we stand is holy ground, we are taking nice photographs of the Burning Bush from suitable angles: we are chatting about theories of the Atonement with our feet on the mantelpiece, instead of kneeling down before the wounds of Christ.” As Luther had it: “He who merely studies the commandments of God (mandata Dei) is not greatly moved. But he who listens to God commanding (Deum mandantem), how can he fail to be terrified by majesty so great?” As Melanchthon had it: “To know Christ is not to speculate about the mode of his Incarnation, but to know his saving benefits.” Gregory of Nyssa drew a revealing picture of Constantinople in his day: “Constantinople is full of mechanics and slaves, who are all of them profound theologians, preaching in the shops and the streets. If you want a man to change a piece of silver, he informs you wherein the Son differs from the Father; if you ask the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Son is inferior to the Father; and if you enquire whether the bath is ready, the answer is that the Son is made out of nothing.” Subtle argumentation and glib theological statements do not make a Christian. That kind of thing may well be nothing other than a mode of escape from the challenge of Christian living.

(iii) The false teacher is a disturber of the peace. He is instinctively competitive; he is suspicious of all who differ from him; when he cannot win in an argument he hurls insults at his opponent’s theological position, and even at his character; in any argument the accent of his voice is bitterness and not love. He has never learned to speak the truth in love. The source of his bitterness is the exaltation of self; for his tendency is to regard any difference from or any criticism of his views as a personal insult.

(iv) The false teacher commercializes religion. He is out for profit. He looks on his teaching and preaching, not as a vocation, but as a career. One thing is certain–there is no place for careerists in the ministry of any Church. The Pastorals are quite clear that the labourer is worthy of his hire; but the motive of his work must be public service and not private gain. His passion is, not to get, but to spend and be spent in the service of Christ and of his fellow-men.

THE CROWN OF CONTENT ( 1Ti 6:6-8 )

6:6-8 And in truth godliness with contentment is great gain. We brought nothing into the world, and it is quite clear that we cannot take anything out of it either; but if we have food and shelter, we shall be content with them.

The word here used for contentment is autarkeia (0841). This was one of the great watchwords of the Stoic philosophers. By it they meant a complete self-sufficiency. They meant a frame of mind which was completely independent of all outward things, and which carried the secret of happiness within itself.

Contentment never comes from the possession of external things. As George Herbert wrote:

“For he that needs five thousand pounds to live

Is full as poor as he that needs but five.”

Contentment comes from an inward attitude to life. In the Third part of Henry the Sixth, Shakespeare draws a picture of the king wandering in the country places unknown. He meets two gamekeepers and tells them that he is a king. One of them asks him:

“But, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?” And the king gives a great answer:

“My crown is in my heart, not on my head;

Not deck’d with diamonds and Indian stones,

Nor to be seen; my crown is call’d content–

A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.”

Long ago the Greek philosophers had gripped the right end of the matter. Epicurus said of himself: “To whom little is not enough nothing is enough. Give me a barley cake and a glass of water and I am ready to rival Zeus for happiness.” And when someone asked him for the secret of happiness, his answer was: “Add not to a man’s possessions but take away from his desires.”

The great men have always been content with little. One of the sayings of the Jewish Rabbis was: “Who is rich? He that is contented with his lot.” Walter Lock quotes the kind of training on which a Jewish Rabbi engaged and the kind of life he lived: “This is the path of the Law. A morsel with salt shalt thou eat, thou shalt drink also water by measure, and shalt sleep upon the ground and live a life of trouble while thou toilest in the Law. If thou doest this, happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee –, happy shalt thou be in this world and it shall be well with thee in the world to come.” The Rabbi had to learn to be content with enough. E. F. Brown quotes a passage from the great preacher Lacordaire: “The rock of our present day is that no one knows how to live upon little. The great men of antiquity were generally poor…. It always seems to me that the retrenchment of useless expenditure, the laying aside of what one may call the relatively necessary, is the high road to Christian disentanglement of heart, just as it was to that of ancient vigour. The mind that has learned to appreciate the moral beauty of life, both as regards God and men, can scarcely be greatly moved by any outward reverse of fortune; and what our age wants most is the sight of a man, who might possess everything, being yet willingly contented with little. For my own part, humanly speaking, I wish for nothing. A great soul in a small house is the idea which has touched me more than any other.”

It is not that Christianity pleads for poverty. There is no special virtue in being poor, or in having a constant struggle to make ends meet. But it does plead for two things.

It pleads for the realization that it is never in the power of things to bring happiness. E. K. Simpson says: “Many a millionaire, after choking his soul with gold-dust, has died from melancholia.” Happiness always comes from personal relationships. All the things in the world will not make a man happy if he knows neither friendship nor love. The Christian knows that the secret of happiness lies, not in things, but in people.

It pleads for concentration upon the things which are permanent. We brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of it. The wise men of every age and faith have known this. “You cannot,” said Seneca, “take anything more out of the world than you brought into it.” The poet of the Greek anthology had it: “Naked I set foot on the earth; naked I shall go below the earth.” The Spanish proverb grimly puts it: “There are no pockets in a shroud.” E. K. Simpson comments: “Whatever a man amasses by the way is in the nature of luggage, no part of his truest personality, but something he leaves behind at the toll-bar of death.”

Two things alone a man can take to God. He can, and must, take himself; and therefore his great task is to build up a self he can take without shame to God. He can, and must, take that relationship with God into which he has entered in the days of his life. We have already seen that the secret of happiness lies in personal relationships, and the greatest of all personal relationships is the relationship to God. And the supreme thing that a man can take with him is the utter conviction that he goes to One who is the friend and lover of his soul.

Content comes when we escape the servitude to things, when we find our wealth in the love and the fellowship of men, and when we realize that our most precious possession is our friendship with God, made possible through Jesus Christ.

THE PERIL OF THE LOVE OF MONEY ( 1Ti 6:9-10 )

6:9-10 Those who wish to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many senseless and harmful desires for the forbidden things, desires which swamp men in a sea of ruin and total loss in time and in eternity. For the love of money is a root from which all evils spring; and some, in their reaching out after it, have been sadly led astray, and have transfixed themselves with many pains.

Here is one of the most misquoted sayings in the Bible. Scripture does not say that money is the root of all evil; it says that the love of money is the root of all evil. This is a truth of which the great classical thinkers were as conscious as the Christian teachers. “Love of money,” said Democritus, “is the metropolis of all evils.” Seneca speaks of “the desire for that which does not belong to us, from which every evil of the mind springs.” “The love of money,” said Phocylides, “is the mother of all evils.” Philo spoke of “love of money which is the starting-place of the greatest transgressions of the Law.” Athenaeus quotes a saying: “The belly’s pleasure is the beginning and root of all evil.”

Money in itself is neither good nor bad; but the love of it may lead to evil. With it a man may selfishly serve his own desires; with it he may answer the cry of his neighbours need. With it he may facilitate the path of wrong-doing; with it he may make it easier for someone else to live as God meant him to do. Money is not itself an evil, but it is a great responsibility. It is powerful to good and powerful to evil. What then are the special dangers involved in the love of money?

(i) The desire for money tends to be a thirst which is insatiable. There was a Roman proverbial saying that wealth is like sea-water; so far from quenching a man’s thirst, it intensifies it. The more he gets, the more he wants.

(ii) The desire for wealth is founded on an illusion. It is founded on the desire for security; but wealth cannot buy security. It cannot buy health, nor real love; and it cannot preserve from sorrow and from death. The security which is founded on material things is foredoomed to failure.

(iii) The desire for money tends to make a man selfish. If he is driven by the desire for wealth, it is nothing to him that someone has to lose in order that he may gain. The desire for wealth fixes a man’s thoughts upon himself, and others become merely means or obstacles in the path to his own enrichment. True, that need not happen; but in fact it often does.

(iv) Although the desire for wealth is based on the desire for security, it ends in nothing but anxiety. The more a man has to keep, the more he has to lose and, the tendency is for him to be haunted by the risk of loss. There is an old fable about a peasant who rendered a great service to a king who rewarded him with a gift of much money. For a time the man was thrilled, but the day came when he begged the king to take back his gift, for into his life had entered the hitherto unknown worry that he might lose what he had. John Bunyan was right:

“He that is down needs fear no fall,

He that is low, no pride;

He that is humble ever shall

Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have,

Little be it or much;

And, Lord, contentment still I crave,

Because Thou savest such.

Fullness to such a burden is

That go on pilgrimage;

Here little, and hereafter bliss,

Is best from age to age.”

(v) The love of money may easily lead a man into wrong ways of getting it, and therefore, in the end, into pain and remorse. That is true even physically. He may so drive his body in his passion to get, that he ruins his health. He may discover too late what damage his desire has done to others and be saddled with remorse.

To seek to be independent and prudently to provide for the future is a Christian duty; but to make the love of money the driving-force of life cannot ever be anything other than the most perilous of sins.

CHALLENGE TO TIMOTHY ( 1Ti 6:11-16 )

6:11-16 But you, O man of God, flee from these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life, to which you are called, now that you have witnessed a noble profession of your faith in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the sight of God, who makes all things alive, and in the sight of Christ Jesus, who, in the days of Pontius Pilate, witnessed his noble confession, that you keep the commandment, that you should be without spot and without blame, until the day when our Lord Jesus Christ appears, that appearance which in his own good times the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords will show, he who alone possesses immortality, he who dwells in the light that no man can approach, he whom no man has seen or ever can see, to whom be honour and everlasting power. Amen.

The letter comes to an end with a tremendous challenge to Timothy, a challenge all the greater because of the deliberate sonorous nobility of the words in which it is clothed.

Right at the outset Timothy is put upon his mettle. He is addressed as man of God. That is one of the great Old Testament titles. It is a title given to Moses. Deu 33:1 speaks of “Moses, the man of God.” The title of Psa 90:1-17 is, “A Prayer of Moses the man of God.” It is a title of the prophets and the messengers of God. God’s messenger to Eli is a man of God ( 1Sa 2:27). Samuel is described as a man of God ( 1Sa 9:6). Shemaiah, God’s messenger to Rehoboam, is a man of God ( 1Ki 12:22). John Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress calls Great-Grace “God’s Champion.”

Here is a title of honour. When the charge is given to Timothy, he is not reminded of his own weakness and sin, which might well have reduced him to pessimistic despair; rather he is challenged by the honour which is his, of being God’s man. It is the Christian way, not to depress a man by branding him as a lost and helpless sinner, but rather to uplift him by summoning him to be what he has got it in him to be. The Christian way is not to fling a man’s humiliating past in his face, but to set before him the splendour of his potential future. The very fact that Timothy was addressed as “Man of God” would make him square his shoulders and throw his head back as one who has received his commission from the King.

The virtues and noble qualities set before Timothy are not just heaped haphazardly together. There is an order in them. First, there comes “righteousness,” dikaiosune ( G1343) . This is defined as “giving both to men and to God their due.” It is the most comprehensive of the virtues; the righteous man is he who does his duty to God and to his fellow-men.

Second, there comes a group of three virtues which look towards God. Godliness, eusebeia ( G2150) , is the reverence of the man who never ceases to be aware that all life is lived in the presence of God. Faith, pistis ( G4102) , here means fidelity, and is the virtue of the man who, through all the chances and the changes of life, down even to the gates of death, is loyal to God. Love, agape ( G26) , is the virtue of the man who, even if he tried, could not forget what God has done for him nor the love of God to men.

Third, there comes the virtue which looks to the conduct of life. It is hupomone ( G5281) , The King James Version translates this patience; but hupomone ( G5281) never means the spirit which sits with folded hands and simply bears things, letting the experiences of life flow like a tide over it. It is victorious endurance. “It is unswerving constancy to faith and piety in spite of adversity and suffering.” It is the virtue which does not so much accept the experiences of life as conquers them.

Fourthly, there comes the virtue which looks to men. The Greek word is paupatheia. It is translated gentleness but is really untranslatable. It describes the spirit which never blazes into anger for its own wrongs but can be devastatingly angry for the wrongs of others. It describes the spirit which knows how to forgive and yet knows how to wage the battle of righteousness. It describes the spirit which walks at once in humility and yet in pride of its high calling from God. It describes the virtue by which at all times a man is enabled rightly to treat his fellow-men and rightly to regard himself.

MEMORIES WHICH INSPIRE ( 1Ti 6:11-16 continued)

As Timothy is challenged to the task of the future, he is inspired with the memories of the past.

(i) He is to remember his baptism and the vows he took there. In the circumstances of the early Church, baptism was inevitably adult baptism, for men were coming straight from heathenism to Christ. It was confession of faith and witness to all men that the baptised person had taken Jesus Christ as Saviour, Master and Lord. The earliest of all Christian confessions was the simple creed: “Jesus Christ is Lord” ( Rom 10:9; Php_2:11 ). But it has been suggested that behind these words to Timothy lies a confession of faith which said: “I believe in God the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Christ Jesus who suffered under Pontius Pilate and will return to judge; I believe in the Resurrection from the dead and in the life immortal.” It may well have been a creed like that to which Timothy gave his allegiance. So, then, first of all, he is reminded that he is a man who has given his pledge. The Christian is first and foremost a man who has pledged himself to Jesus Christ.

(ii) He is to remember that he has made the same confession of his faith as Jesus did. When Jesus stood before Pilate, Pilate said: “Are you the King of the Jews?” and Jesus answered: “You have said so” ( Luk 23:3). Jesus had witnessed that he was a King; and Timothy always had witnessed to the lordship of Christ. When the Christian confesses his faith, he does what his Master has already done; when he suffers for his faith, he undergoes what his Master has already undergone. When we are engaged on some great enterprise, we can say: “Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod,” but when we confess our faith before men, we can say even more; we can say: “I stand with Christ”; and surely this must lift up our hearts and inspire our lives.

(iii) He is to remember that Christ comes again. He is to remember that his life and work must be made fit for him to see. The Christian is not working to satisfy men; he is working to satisfy Christ. The question he must always ask himself is not: “Is this good enough to pass the judgment of men?” but: “Is it good enough to win the approval of Christ?”

(iv) Above all he is to remember God. And what a memory that is! He is to remember the One who is King of every king and Lord of every lord; the One who possesses the gift of life eternal to give to men; the One whose holiness and majesty are such that no man can ever dare look upon them. The Christian must ever remember God and say: “If God be for us, who can be against us?”

ADVICE TO THE RICH ( 1Ti 6:17-19 )

6:17-19 Charge those who are rich in this world’s goods not to be proud, and not set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who gives them all things richly to enjoy. Charge them to do good; to find their wealth in noble deeds; to be ready to share all that they have; to be men who never forget that they are members of a fellowship; to lay up for themselves the treasure of a fine foundation for the world to come. that they may lay hold on real life.

Sometimes we think of the early Church as composed entirely of poor people and slaves. Here we see that even as early as this it had its wealthy members. They are not condemned for being wealthy nor told to give all their wealth away; but they are told what not to do and what to do with it.

Their riches must not make them proud. They must not think themselves better than other people because they have more money than they. Nothing in this world gives any man the right to look down on another, least of all the possession of wealth. They must not set their hopes on wealth. In the chances and the changes of life a man may be wealthy today and a pauper tomorrow; and it is folly to set one’s hopes on what can so easily be lost.

They are told that they must use their wealth to do good; that they must ever be ready to share; and that they must remember that the Christian is a member of a fellowship. And they are told that such wise use of wealth will build for them a good foundation in the world to come. As someone put it: “What I kept, I lost; what I gave I have.”

There is a famous Jewish Rabbinic story. A man called Monobaz had inherited great wealth, but he was a good, a kindly and a generous man. In time of famine he gave away all his wealth to help the poor. His brothers came to him and said: “Your fathers laid up treasure, and added to the treasure that they had inherited from their fathers, and are you going to waste it all?” He answered: “My fathers laid up treasure below: I have laid it up above. My fathers laid up treasure of Mammon: I have laid up treasure of souls. My fathers laid up treasure for this world: I have laid up treasure for the world to come.”

Every time we could give and do not give lessens the wealth laid up for us in the world to come; every time we give increases the riches laid up for us when this life comes to an end.

The teaching of the Christian ethic is, not that wealth is a sin, but that it is a very great responsibility. If a man’s wealth ministers to nothing but his own pride and enriches no one but himself, it becomes his ruination, because it impoverishes his soul. But if he uses it to bring help and comfort to others, in becoming poorer, he really becomes richer. In time and in eternity “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”

A FAITH TO HAND ON ( 1Ti 6:20-21 )

6:20-21 O Timothy, guard the trust that has been entrusted to you. Avoid irreligious empty talking; and the paradoxes of that knowledge which has no right to be called knowledge, which some have professed, and by so doing have missed the target of the faith.

Grace be with you.

It may well be that the name Timothy is here used in the fullness of its meaning. It comes from two words, timan ( G5091) , to honour, and theos ( G2316) , God and literally means he who honours God. It may well be that this concluding passage begins by reminding Timothy of his name and urging him to be true to it.

The passage talks of the trust that has been entrusted to him. The Greek word for trust is paratheke ( G3866) , which literally means a deposit. It is the word for money deposited with a banker or with a friend. When such money was in time demanded back, it was a sacred duty to hand it back entire. Sometimes children were called a paratheke ( G3866) , a sacred trust. If the gods gave a man a child, it was his duty to present that child trained and equipped to the gods.

The Christian faith is like that, something which we received from our forefathers, and which we must pass on to our children. E. F. Brown quotes a famous passage from St. Vincent of Lerins: “What is meant by the deposit? (paratheke, G3866) . That which is committed to thee, not that which is invented by thee; that which thou hast received, not that which thou hast devised; a thing not of wit, but of learning; not of private assumption, but of public tradition; a thing brought to thee, not brought forth of thee; wherein thou must not be an author, but a keeper; not a leader, but a follower. Keep the deposit. Preserve the talent of the Catholic faith safe and undiminished; let that which is committed to thee remain with thee, and that deliver. Thou hast received gold, render gold.”

A man does well to remember that his duty is not only to himself, but also to his children and his children’s children. If in our day the Church were to become enfeebled; if the Christian ethic were to be more and more submerged in the world; if the Christian faith were to be twisted and distorted; it would not only be we who were the losers, those of generations still to come would be robbed of something infinitely precious. We are not only the possessors but also the trustees of the faith. That which we have received, we must also hand on.

Finally the Pastorals condemn those who, as the King James Version has it, have given themselves to “the oppositions of science falsely so-called.” First, we must note that here the word science is used in its original sense; it simply means knowledge (gnosis, G1108) . What is being condemned is a false intellectualism and a false stressing of human knowledge.

But what is meant by oppositions? The Greek word is antitheseis ( G477) . Very much later than this there was a heretic called Marcion who produced a book called The Antitheseis in which he quoted Old Testament texts and set beside them New Testament texts which contradicted them. This might very well mean: “Don’t waste your time seeking out contradictions in Scripture. Use the Scriptures to live by and not to argue about.” But there are two meanings more probable than that.

(i) The word antithesis ( G477) could mean a controversy; and this might mean: “Avoid controversies; don’t get yourself mixed up in useless and bitter arguments.” This would be a very relevant bit of advice to a Greek congregation in Ephesus. The Greek had a passion for going to law. He would even go to law with his own brother, just for the pleasure of it. This may well mean, “Don’t make the Church a battle-ground of theological arguments and debates. Christianity is not something to argue about, but something to live by.”

(ii) The word antithesis ( G477) can mean a rival thesis. This is the most likely meaning, because it suits Jew and Gentile alike. The scholastics in the later days used to argue about questions like: “How many angels can stand on the point of a needle?” The Jewish Rabbis would argue about hair-splitting points of the law for hours and days and even years. The Greeks were the same, only in a still more serious way. There was a school of Greek philosophers, and a very influential school it was, called the Academics. The Academics held that in the case of everything in the realm of human thought, you could by logical argument arrive at precisely opposite conclusions. They therefore concluded that there is no such thing as absolute truth; that always there were two hypotheses of equal weight. They went on to argue that, this being so, the wise man will never make up his mind about anything but will hold himself for ever in a state of suspended judgment. The effect was of course to paralyse all action and to reduce men to complete uncertainty. So Timothy is told: “Don’t waste your time in subtle arguments; don’t waste your time in ‘dialectical fencing.’ Don’t be too clever to be wise. Listen rather to the unequivocal voice of God than to the subtle disputations of over-clever minds.”

So the letter draws to a close with a warning which our own generation needs. Clever argument can never be made a substitute for Christian action. The duty of the Christian is not to sit in a study and weigh arguments but to live the Christian life in the dust and heat of the world. In the end it is not intellectual cleverness, but conduct and character which count.

Then comes the closing blessing–“Grace be with you.” The letter ends with the beauty of the grace of God.

-Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT)

FURTHER READING

Timothy

D. Guthrie, The Pastoral Epistles (TC; E)

W. Lock, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC; G)

E. F. Scott, The Pastoral Epistles (MC; E)

E. K. Simpson, The Pastoral Epistles

Abbreviations

CGT: Cambridge Greek Testament

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC: Moffatt Commentary

TC: Tyndale Commentary

E: English Text

G: Greek Text

-Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT)

Fuente: Barclay Daily Study Bible

c. To servants, 1Ti 6:1-2 , and to mercenary counter-teachers, 1Ti 6:3-10 .

1. Servants For the New Testament meaning of the Greek word see our note on Luk 7:2.

Under the yoke The servile yoke is a Greek phrase as old as Herodotus. Here it is used to characterize unmitigated Roman slavery, as described in our note on Luk 7:2, and as it stands in contrast under the believing masters.

Own Respectively.

All the honour Required by the existing law of the relation.

That not blasphemed The duty is not based on the rightfulness of the relation, but upon the disorder and reproach incurred from heathendom upon Christianity if the relation were enjoined to be summarily broken up by the servants. See Tit 2:10.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Let as many as are slaves under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and the doctrine be not blasphemed.’

All Christian slaves are to treat their masters with honour. In view of the fact that Christians are called on to show respect to all men that was only reasonable. It might suggest that some Christian slaves, recognising that they were sons of God and that their masters were not, had actually taken advantage of their easy conditions and behaved disrespectfully. But they were not to do so, for by it they would bring God’s Name into disrepute. And then it would soon become common knowledge that Christian slaves were difficult and untrustworthy, as a result of which all Christian slaves would suffer. For Paul’s further teaching on this topic see 1Co 7:20-24; Gal 3:28; Eph 6:5-9; Col 3:22-25; Col 4:1; Philemon all; 1Pe 2:13-25).

While most of us are not literally slaves today, many are slaves to their jobs. And the same principle applies. Christians, even if they are trade union leaders, should treat their employers with respect (and expect the same respect in return) and work diligently. Being rude or arrogant or slapdash is not a Christian virtue.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Principle Of Faithful Service Is Also To Apply To Slaves Who Become Christians, Who Are To Recognise That In Being Faithful To Their Earthly Master They Are Demonstrating Their Faithfulness to God ( 1Ti 6:1-2 ).

Those who know little about life in the 1st century AD ask why Paul did not openly and directly campaign against slavery. However, the fact is that the world at that time was based on slavery. It was as natural as breathing, and actually provided security for large numbers of people. Furthermore there were something like 60,000,000 slaves in the Roman Empire, and because of their numbers they were always regarded as potential enemies. So even the suggestion that all slaves be freed might have caused a rumbling dissension resulting in a slave revolt which would have been put down with merciless force. For the Roman Empire could not take the risk of a slave uprising. If a slave ran away and was caught, he was either executed or branded on the forehead with the letter F, which stood for fugitivus, which means runaway. There was indeed a Roman law which stated that if a master was murdered all his slaves could be examined under torture, and could be put to death in a body. Besides, slaves were often freer than ‘free-men’ and held important positions. No campaign to free slaves would have had any support from anywhere else. Campaigns against slavery that were later successful depended on a solid amount of support from like-minded people, and also from the common people, on the basis of the kind of atmosphere that Christianity had built up. Anyone campaigning that way in the 1st century AD would simply have been looked at with incredulity. Opponents would well have asked, ‘If all slaves were released where would they go and what would they do?’ The answer is that they would simply have starved, while the economy of the world would have collapsed. So anyone who attempted a direct anti-slavery campaign would have spent their time battering against a brick wall, even if they had not been permanently imprisoned. What Paul did instead was use the wiser and more successful way and undermine slavery by his positive teaching concerning freedom and equality. Among Christians ‘there is neither slave nor free– for they are all one in Christ Jesus’, he declared (Gal 3:28). In fact what he did was alter the moral attitude of people, and that eventually led to the banning of slavery, a campaign in which Christians played a huge part. Nor must we think of 1st century AD slavery in the same terms as slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many 1st century slaves rose to positions of great importance and were treated with great respect. They would actually have been the first to attack any anti-slavery campaigners.

So here Paul is not arguing about the rights and wrongs of slavery, which he recognises that he can do little about in the short term. He is dealing with what the attitude of a Christian slave should be towards his earthly master, probably in the light of difficulties and problems that had arisen, or were threatening to arise. For he had already given his instructions concerning masters and slaves in his previous letter to the Ephesians. He was probably aware that the masters were actually doing what he had requested, but that there had been an unfortunate reaction on the part of the slaves. They had begun to be disrespectful and even lazy (the fact that they could do so and get away with it serves to demonstrate the ease of their conditions). So Paul emphasises that they are not to be like that, but are to treat their masters with honour so that no disgrace come on the Name of God, and no discredit would come on Christianity, in such a way as to cause a great deal of harm to other Christian slaves.

And this was to be especially so where slaves had a Christian master. They must not take advantage of the fact but rather serve them the better because what they did would be benefiting a Christian. The fact that he gives no instruction concerning Christian masters may indicate that he was aware that in Ephesus the Christian masters treated their slaves well. He had certainly gives them instructions previously (Eph 6:9; Col 4:1).

Analysis.

Let as many as are slaves under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour (1Ti 6:1 a)

That the name of God and the doctrine be not blasphemed (1Ti 6:1 b).

And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brothers, but let them serve them the rather, because they who partake of the benefit are believing and beloved. These things teach and exhort (1Ti 6:2).

Note that in ‘a’ slaves are to count their masters as worthy of honour, and in the parallel they are not to despise masters who are believers. Central in ‘b’ is the fear lest the name of God and the doctrine be blasphemed.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Paul Now Gives A More Detailed Account of What Timothy’s Ministry Will Involve ( 1Ti 4:1 to 1Ti 6:10 ).

It is interesting how much the second half of this letter is patterned on the first. Both sections commence with an account of false teachers (1Ti 1:3-11; 1Ti 4:1-5). This is followed by a requirement for faithful service (Paul in 1Ti 1:12-15; Timothy in 1Ti 4:6-11) and for an example to be given to others (by Paul in 1Ti 1:16; by Timothy in 1Ti 4:12-16). Then follows a reference to the particular responsibilities of those in the church (men, women, responsibility of women of child-bearing age, overseers, servant (deacons) in 1Ti 2:1 to 1Ti 3:13; elder and younger men, older women, responsibility of women of child-bearing age, elders, bondservants in 1Ti 4:1 to 1Ti 6:2). It is a practical application to the individual church of the principles already enunciated.

Yet at the same time this next section is again in the form of a chiasmus, as follows:

Analysis.

a Warning against false teachers who seek to enforce asceticism. Rather men should receive what is good from the hand of God with thanksgiving (1Ti 4:1-7).

b Timothy has to exercise himself towards godliness and set his hope on the living God Who is the Protector/Saviour of all men and especially the Saviour of believers (1Ti 4:7 b-11).

c Timothy is to work out this salvation that God has given him by being an example to others and fully utilising in faithful teaching his God-given Gift, which was given by the laying on of hands (1Ti 4:12-16).

d Older Christian men and younger Christian men are to be seen as family and treated accordingly (1Ti 5:1).

e Older Christian women and younger Christian women are to be treated similarly (1Ti 5:2)

f The church is to ‘adopt’ older Christian widows who have no family expressing God’s care for the most helpless and the most needy (1Ti 5:3-8).

e A contrasting approach towards older and younger Christian widows. (1Ti 5:9-16).

d Timothy’s and the church’s responsibility towards the older men and Elders (1Ti 5:17-21).

c Paul gives instructions to Timothy about the importance of being discerning in the laying on of hands, pointing out that he himself must be pure in every way and must ensure that his appointees will be so also (1Ti 5:22-25).

b Christian slaves must be faithful to all their masters as though to God, and especially to those who believe (1Ti 6:1-2).

a Teachers who fail to teach these things and the doctrines which contribute to genuine godliness are false teachers, and are puffed up and led astray into false ideas, while those who follow godliness will be content and enjoy food and clothing from God in contrast with those whom riches destroy (1Ti 6:3-10).

Note that in ‘a’ false teachers are duly described and are to be rejected, while the godly give thanks because they receive their food from God and in the parallel the same applies. In ‘b’ Timothy has to be a faithful servant to God Who is the Protector Saviour of all men and especially Saviour towards those who believe, while in the parallel slaves are to be faithful towards all their masters, and especially towards those who believe. In ‘c’ Timothy is to full use the gift he received by the laying on of hands, and in the parallel is to be discerning on whom he lays hands. In ‘d’ older men and younger men are to be treated as family, and in the parallel the church’s responsibility towards older men and Elders is revealed. In ‘e’ older women and younger women are to be treated as family and in the parallel instructions are given concerning both. Centrally in ‘e’ (God puts in the centre what we pass over quickly as almost irrelevant) the helpless and needy widows are especially to be catered for. It is they who represent those whom God has always especially cared for, the ‘widows and fatherless’ (Exo 22:22; Deu 10:18; Deu 14:29; Deu 16:11; Deu 16:14; Deu 24:17-21; Deu 26:12-13; Deu 27:19; Job 22:9; Job 24:3; Psa 68:5; Psa 94:6; Psa 146:9; Isa 1:17; Isa 1:23; Isa 10:2; Jer 7:6; Jer 22:3; Eze 22:7; Zec 7:10; Mal 3:5). They should therefore be a central concern of the church.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Paul Addresses Slavery In 1Ti 6:1-2 Paul addresses the issue of slavery, but does so from the perspective of upholding Church order and doctrine. In his epistles to the Corinthians, Ephesians and Colossians Paul spoke to the church members on how to conduct themselves in these relationships. However, in 1 Timothy Paul bases these charges on the need to uphold the doctrine of God, which is the underlying theme of the Pastoral Epistles.

Slavery in the Ancient World – Slavery was a big part of the fabric of Roman society. There were an estimated sixty million slaves serving their masters in the Roman Empire, which had an estimated population of one hundred and twenty million people. Thus, half of the population was bound in slavery. The cruel Roman government enforced this bondage because the success of its economy was dependent upon the sweat of slave labour. Thus, Paul had to be careful not to appear as if he was calling for a revolution of emancipation of slavery. He would have quickly been thrown in prison. Yet, his Jewish background found him against it. His understand of the Gospel led him to the understanding that slavery was not God’s will for mankind. Thus, every time Paul addresses this issue, he does it with carefulness by drawing attention to the spiritual laws of freedom in Christ and servanthood to one another.

1Co 7:21, “Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.”

Eph 6:5-9, “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.”

Col 3:22, “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:”

1Pe 2:18, “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.”

Since the relationship between a slave and his owner was one of the more difficult issues that the early Church had to deal with, Paul wrote the short epistle of Philemon as a guideline to other churches in how to deal with this situation. It is important to understand that slavery was commonplace in the Roman Empire. Roman law favored the slave owners by considering the slaves nothing more than a piece of property to be bought and sold at will. They were beaten for minor offences and even killed for a number of reasons, such as running away.

In contrast, the Mosaic Law provided for humane treatment of slaves. James Borland and Jeffery Khoo provide a list of Scripture references to the treatment of slaves under the Old Testament Law.

“A Jewish slave could not be bound for more than six years, but was set free during the sabbatical year (Exo 21:2). A Jew who sold himself into slavery due to debt was to be freed in the year of Jubilee (Lev 25:39-43). Slaves were treated like household members (Lev 25:53) and became partakers of the covenant (Gen 17:27). Harming a slave resulted in his freedom (Exo 21:26-27), and if someone killed a slave he would be severely punished (Exo 21:20). An escaped slave was to be neither hunted nor returned to his master (Deu 23:15-16). Slaves could own possessions (Lev 25:47-55). And there were other laws granting slaves proper human rights.” [123]

[123] James A. Borland, The Epistle to Philemon, in The KJV Bible Commentary, eds. Edward E. Hindson and Woodrow M. Kroll (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Pub., 1994), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2004), “Introduction”; Jeffery Khoo, “Lecture Notes: Epistle to Philemon,” (Singapore: Far East Bible College) [on-line]; accessed 3 February 2010; available from http://www.febc.edu.sg/assets/pdfs/studyrresource/philemon.pdf; Internet.

Thus, we can conclude that Paul was not condoning slavery, but was rather attempting to give guidelines to the Churches on how to deal with a rather difficult issue in this culture. Although Paul was not going to change Roman law overnight, the Gospel of Jesus Christ called mankind to a higher calling, one of the Cross, which expresses forgiveness, humility, servanthood and love. Paul understood that he was not moving people to violate Roman law, but rather, to be good citizens of the Empire. He did not want to appear as if he was hiding a runaway slave from Roman officials, for the legal penalty for the slave was death. He must work within the bounds of both the Roman law as well as the divine laws of God. Thus, the epistle of Philemon reveals a tremendous amount of wisdom on Paul’s part to reconcile to believers without violating divine or Roman law. Bible scholars say that the early Church fathers took a very conservative view on slavery. But, since it was interwoven into the structure of the Roman Empire, it could not be abolished without a social revolution. This position that Paul took in his epistles regarding slavery reminds us of Jesus’ reply to the Jewish leaders when He said, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Mat 22:21)

1Ti 6:3-10 Warnings about Those Who Reject Godly Counsel In 1Ti 6:3-10 Paul warns young Timothy about those who reject sound doctrine.

Prosperity in Contentment – 1Ti 6:6-8 show us that God’s greatest blessing is contentment. However, 1Ti 6:9-10 shows us that the blessings of this world only bring sorrow. Note this same theme in Pro 10:22, “The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.”

Note the progression of events in 1Ti 6:9-10 which lead a man to destruction. The desire for earthly things brings a person into temptations. Once a person yields to these temptations he finds himself ensnared by those sins. The practice of these sins brings a person into bondage as he craves many foolish and hurtful lusts. Such addictions eventually leads to the destruction of the entire man; spirit, soul and body.

We see this same contrast between God’s blessings and the enticement of this world in Jas 1:13-18. This passage of Scripture gives us a similar description of how earthly desires progress from temptation and enticement, lust and finally destruction.

Jas 1:13-18, “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

Scripture References – Note similar verses:

Pro 19:27, “Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge.”

Rom 16:17, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.”

1Ti 6:3  If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;

1Ti 6:3 Comments – The phrase “even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ” refer to the foundational teachings that Jesus Christ laid down in the Gospels, and the phrase “to the doctrine which is according to godliness” could refer to the fact that Paul built upon these teachings in the nine Church Epistles, where he laid down the doctrines of the New Testament Church.

1Ti 6:4  He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,

1Ti 6:5  Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.

1Ti 6:5 Comments – These false teachers say that the Christian life is a way of earthly gain. In a similar manner, Satan accused Job of fearing God for what he could get from God (Job 1:9).

Job 1:9-11, “Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought ? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face .”

1Ti 6:6  But godliness with contentment is great gain.

1Ti 6:5-6 Comments – Paul’s Balance on Prosperity – Prosperity can be preached in many different ways. It is very Scriptural to financial preach prosperity within the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, some preachers have landed in the ditch on one side by condemning the prosperity message as a “name-it-claim-it-gospel,” saying that prosperity is not for everyone one. Others have landed in the ditch on the other side of the road by teaching that gain, or prosperity, is the indicator of godliness (verse 5). The balanced teaching on prosperity keeps our priorities clear by saying that a pure heart is the indicator of godliness, whether one moves into prosperity in this life or not (verse 6).

1Ti 6:7  For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

1Ti 6:8  And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

1Ti 6:8 Scripture References – Note a similar verse:

Heb 13:5, “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have : for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

1Ti 6:9  But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

1Ti 6:9 Comments – In teaching on 1Ti 6:9 Joyce Meyer said that lust can be defined as a longing for something to the extent that a person cannot be happy without it. [124] Thus, in 1Ti 6:9 Paul explains that when a person desires earthly riches, he sets himself in a position to fall in to temptations and snares. This verse describes a person who is not walking in godliness with contentment (1Ti 6:6), but rather in lustful desires.

[124] Joyce Meyer, Enjoying Everyday Life (Fenton, Missouri: Joyce Meyer Ministries), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), 21 January 2009, television program.

1Ti 6:10  For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

1Ti 6:10 “For the love of money is the root of all evil” – Illustrations:

1. Delilah sold Samson for eleven hundred pieces of silver.

Jdg 16:5, “And the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her, Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver .”

2. Judas sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.

Mat 26:15, “And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.”

1Ti 6:10 Comments – Kenneth Copeland said, “When fear comes in, money becomes the root of all evil.” [125] In other words, the love for money is an act of fear, of being afraid that God will not provide for His children, and this leads to covetousness and greed. But when the motive of love comes into one’s heart, then money becomes the supply of God’s provision.

[125] Kenneth Copeland, Believer’s Voice of Victory (Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Fort Worth, Texas), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.

Creflo Dollar said, “The love of money is having the wrong relationships with the things of this world.” [126]

[126] Creflo Dollar, “Sermon” (Fort Worth, Texas: Kenneth Copeland’s Southwest Believer’s Conference), 7 August 2007.

Scripture References – Note:

Mat 19:23, “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

1Ti 6:9-10 “hurtful lusts….pierced themselves through with many sorrows” Comments – One of the most painful experiences for a backslider who has returned to God is to see how much hurt one’s sin has caused in other people’s lives.

The heart is overcome many times with piercing sorrows and pains after one has known Jesus, drifted away and turned back. These backslidings were brought about through lust and covetousness. The pleasures of sin are but for a season (Heb 11:25).

Heb 11:25, “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;”

Scripture References – Note a similar passage:

Pro 23:4-5, “Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Slavery and Wealth: Paul Addresses the Roles of Slaves and the Rich within the Local Church – In 1Ti 6:1-19 Paul finally deals with the laity, particularly with two related subjects, which is the difficult issue of slavery within the local church members and with earthly riches; for it is the pursuit of earthly wealth that drives the corrupt institution of slavery. He gives responsibility to the rich and the poor members of every congregation. Paul firs discusses the duties of the slaves (1Ti 6:1-2), then the duties of the rich (1Ti 6:3-19).

After giving Timothy charges concerning the slaves within the local assembly (1Ti 6:1-2), Paul explains the dangers of greed and charges the rich. Those who reject Paul’s counsel regarding slavery do so because of greed for earthly gain (3-10). Thus, in 1Ti 6:11-16 Paul charges Timothy to pursue godliness instead of earthly gain. Finally, Paul follows these warnings with charges to them that do have riches to use their riches to honor God (1Ti 6:17-19).

Outline Here is a proposed outline:

1. Paul Addresses Slavery 1Ti 6:1-2

2. Warnings About Those Who Reject Godly Counsel 1Ti 6:3-10

3. Paul Warns Timothy to Pursue Righteousness 1Ti 6:11-16

4. Paul’s Instructions Regarding the Rich 1Ti 6:17-19

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Setting the Church In Order 1Ti 2:1 to 1Ti 6:19 is the body of the epistle in which Paul gives Timothy specific instructions on how to set the church in order. Young believers do not know how to conduct themselves unless they are taught how to do this; thus, Paul places a special emphasis on respect and reverence upon the house of God, because it is a place dedicated to God. A new believer has to learn how to conduct himself in church since it is a new and sacred experience for him.

After Timothy is given his commissions and told how to appoint leadership (1Ti 1:3-20), Paul gives him three things to do in order to set qualified and trained leadership over the church of Ephesus. First, Timothy is to establish this church by calling the congregation to corporate prayer, where godly men will be identified (1Ti 2:1-15). This instruction includes the role of women role in the church. In a new church with new converts, women can dress very immodestly, so Paul is telling Timothy to set these issues straight so that prayer is not hindered. (Note that Jesus set the temple in order by driving out the moneychangers and saying that God’s house must be established as a house of prayer [Mat 21:12-13 ].) These times of corporate prayer will help Timothy identify those with a pure heart. Second, Timothy was instructed to appoint and train elders and deacons by giving them certain qualifications to meet (1Ti 3:1 to 1Ti 4:16). Timothy will begin to look for those who qualify as leaders out of the faithful who follow him in corporate prayer and exhibit a pure heart, and appoint them as bishops and deacons (1Ti 3:1-13). Finally, he will train those whom he has chosen to be future leaders (1Ti 3:14 to 1Ti 4:16). Thus, the steps to becoming a church leader are to first become a man of prayer (1Ti 2:1-15). As the desire for the ministry grows, a person will allow the Lord to develop his character so that he can qualify for the office of a bishop (1Ti 3:1-13). Finally, this person is to train himself unto godliness (1Ti 3:14 to 1Ti 4:16). We see this same method of selecting and training leaders in the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. He left home and called many to follow Him. For those who did forsake all and followed Him, Jesus chose twelve, whom He then trained for the work of the ministry. The third aspect of setting the church in order is regarding those church members who do not aspire to leadership positions of bishops and deacons. Thus, Paul gives Timothy guidelines on how to set in order additional roles of each member of the congregation (1Ti 5:1 to 1Ti 6:19). The passage on corporate prayer (1Ti 2:1-15) will emphasize the spiritual aspect of the congregation as the members prepare their hearts before the Lord. The passage on the appointment and training of church leadership (1Ti 3:1 to 1Ti 4:16) will emphasize the mental aspect of the congregation as certain members train for the ministry. The passage on the role of additional members (1Ti 5:1 to 1Ti 6:19) will emphasize the physical aspect as they yield themselves to a godly lifestyle.

Outline Here is a proposed outline:

1. The First Order: Corporate & Personal Prayer 1Ti 2:1-15

2. The Second Order: Appointing & Training Church Leaders 1Ti 3:1 to 1Ti 4:16

3. The Third Order: the Roles of the Congregation 1Ti 5:1 to 1Ti 6:19

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Role of Additional Members of the Congregation: Emphasis on the Body Yielding to a Godly Lifestyle In 1Ti 5:1 to 1Ti 6:19 Paul teaches Timothy how to set in order and minister to the rest of the members of his congregation, those who do not qualify as bishops and deacons. Paul focuses upon the different age groups, the old and the young, to those holding different church offices, from the widows to the teachers, and to different social classes, the rich and the poor. Paul first deals with those who hold secondary church offices, which are the widows who dedicate themselves to prayer (1Ti 5:1-16), and the elders (1Ti 5:17-25). He then deals with the laity by focusing on the poor and the rich classes (1Ti 6:1-19). Thus, we see Paul addressing these groups of people in the order of honour they are bestowed by a society. Genuine widows are given the greatest honor, even in churches today, followed by church elders, then the poor, with the last being given to the rich.

Paul then teaches Timothy how to set in order and minister to the rest of the members of his congregation, those who will not qualify as bishops and deacons. Paul focuses upon the different age groups, the old and the young, to those holding different church offices, from the widows to the teachers, and to different social classes, the rich and the poor. Paul first deals with those who hold church offices, which are the widows who dedicate themselves to prayer (1Ti 5:1-16), and the elders (1Ti 5:17-25). He then deals with the laity by focusing on the poor and the rich classes (1Ti 6:1-19). Thus, we see Paul addressing these groups of people in the order of honour they are bestowed by a society. Genuine widows are given the greatest honor, even in churches today, followed by church elders, then the poor, with the last being given to the rich.

Outline Here is a proposed outline:

1. How to Set In Order the Widows 1Ti 5:1-16

2. How to Set In Order the Elders 1Ti 5:17-25

3. Paul Addresses Slavery and Wealth 1Ti 6:1-19

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Station of the Slaves.

v. 1. Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed.

v. 2. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather do them service because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.

As in other parts of the New Testament, the slave problem is also here dealt with simply and directly, leaving no room for misunderstandings: As many as are slaves under the yoke, let them regard their own masters worthy of all honor, lest the name of God and the doctrine be blasphemed. See Eph 6:5; Col 3:22; Tit 2:9; 1Pe 2:18. The apostle in this verse evidently has such slaves in mind as had heathen masters. These slaves were not free to do as they pleased, but were under the yoke, they were bound to their masters in absolute obedience. This submission, however, which the apostle refers to in a self-evident way, should not be an unwilling, grudging obedience. The slaves should rather regard those masters who were over them by God’s will and permission as worthy of all honor. The Fourth Commandment thus has its full force and meaning in this relationship and cannot be set aside. At the same time Paul has in mind the honor of the Word of God, which should be furthered by such willing obedience on the part of Christian slaves. In most cases a slave’s profession of Christianity could hardly remain hidden. In such an instance disobedience, obstinacy, stubbornness would be sure to reflect upon the doctrine confessed by the Christian servant and harm the cause of his Master.

But the apostle finds it necessary also to add a specific warning to such slaves as had Christian masters: But those that have believing masters should not despise them because they are brethren, but perform their service all the better because believers they are and beloved that partake of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. Knowing himself to be the equal of any Christian brother by virtue of the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, a Christian slave would be more likely to presume on this newly acquired theory of liberty, equality, and fraternity in relation to a Christian master than in relation to one that was a. heathen. He might even, in a false understanding of such passages as Gal 3:28; Col 3:11, get the idea that his master no longer had the right to exercise authority over him, and that he was no longer obliged to yield him obedience. This notion might even reach such absurd limits as to cause the slave to forget the respect due to his master and to treat him with a familiarity amounting to contempt. But the apostle teaches that the very opposite is true, that the service of Christian slaves should be all the more willing, all the more faithful, since the men that received their services were believing, beloved brothers in Christ and of Christ. See Eph 6:5-6. The apostle purposely adds an exhortation to Timothy to teach and exhort these things; he wanted to have every slave possess a clear understanding of God’s will in these matters, indicating, at the same time, that it was necessary to repeat such teaching time and again in order to make it effective.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

1Ti 6:1

Are servants for servants as are, A.V.; the doctrine for his doctrine, A.V. Servants; literally, slaves. That slaves formed a considerable portion of the first Christian Churches may be inferred from the frequency with which their duties are pressed upon them (see 1Co 7:21-22; 1Co 12:13; Eph 6:5-8; Col 3:11, Col 3:22; 1Pe 2:18 ( ); see also 1Co 1:27-29). It must have been an unspeakable comfort to the poor slave, whose worldly condition was hopeless and often miserable, to secure his place as one of Christ’s freemen, with the sure hope of attaining “the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Under the yoke; i.e. “the yoke of bondage” (Gal 5:1). Perhaps the phrase contains a touch of compassion for their state (comp. Act 15:10). How beautiful is the contrast suggested in Mat 11:29, Mat 11:30! Masters (); the proper word in relation to . The doctrine ( ); equivalent to “Christianity,” as taught by the apostles and their successors (see the frequent use of the word in the pastoral Epistles, though with different shades of meaning (1Ti 1:10; 1Ti 4:6, 1Ti 4:13, 1Ti 4:16; 1Ti 5:17; 2Ti 3:10; 2Ti 4:3; Tit 1:9; Tit 2:10, etc.). Blasphemed (compare the similar passage, Tit 2:5, where answers to here). does not necessarily mean “blaspheme” in its restricted sense, but as often means “to speak evil of,” “to defame,” and the like. If Christian slaves withheld the honor and respect due to their masters, it would be as sure to bring reproach upon the Christian doctrine as if it taught insubordination and rebellion.

1Ti 6:2

Let them serve them the rather for rather do them service, A.V.; that partake of the benefit are believing and beloved for are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit, A.V. They that have believing masters. The direction in the preceding verse applied to all slaves, though chiefly to what, as Alford says, was far the commonest ease, that of those who had unbelieving masters. But now he adds a caution with regard to the Christian slave of a Christian master. There was a danger lest the feeling that slaves and masters are brothers in Christ should unduly interfere with the respect which he owed him as his master. And so St. Paul addresses a word of special advice to such. Let them not despise them. Let not their spiritual equality with their masters lead them to underrate the worldly difference that separates them; or to think slightly of the authority of a master relatively to his slaves. But let them serve them the rather, because they that partake of the benefit are believing and beloved. There is a good deal of obscurity in this sentence, but it may be observed first that the grammatical rendering of the R.V. is clearly right, and that of the A.V. clearly wrong. “They that partake of the benefit” is beyond all doubt the subject, and not the predicate. Then the construction of the two sentences (this and the preceding one) makes it certain that the subject in this sentence ( ) are the same persons as the in the preceding sentence, because it is predicated of them both that they are , and of both that they are, in convertible terms, and . And this leads us, with nearly certainty, to the further conclusion that the , the beneficium, or “benefit,” spoken of is that especial servicethat service of love and good will running ahead of necessary duty, which the Christian slave gives to the Christian master; a sense which the very remarkable passage quoted by Alford from Seneca strikingly confirms. The only remaining difficulty, then, is the meaning “partake of” ascribed to But this is scarcely a difficulty. It is true that in the only two other passages in the New Testament where this verb occurs, and in its frequent use in the LXX., it has the sense of “helping” (Luk 1:54; Act 20:35); but there is nothing strange in this. The verb in the middle voice means to “lay hold of,” You may lay hold of for the purpose of helping, supporting, clinging to, laying claim to, holding in check, etc. (see Liddell and Scott). Here the masters lay hold of the benefit for the purpose of enjoying it. There is possibly an indication in the word that the masters actively and willingly accept itthey stretch out their hand to take it. There does not seem to be any sense of reciprocity, as some think, in the use of . The sense of the whole passage seems to be clearly, “Let not those who have believing masters think slightly of their authority because they are brethren; but let them do them extra service, beyond what they are obliged to do, for the very reason that those whom they will thus benefit are believing and beloved brethren.” Teach (). Observe the connection of this word with the of 1Ti 6:1, 1Ti 6:3, and elsewhere.

1Ti 6:3

Teacheth for teach, A.V.; a different doctrine for otherwise, A.V.; consenteth for consent, A.V.; sound for wholesome, A.V. Teacheth a different doctrine (); see above, 1Ti 1:3, note. Consenteth (); very common in the New Testament, in the literal sense of “coming to” or “approaching,” but only here in the metaphorical sense of “assenting to.” The steps seem to he, first, approaching a subject with the mind with a view of considering it; and then consenting to itcoming over to it. The term , a convert to Judaism, and the phrase from Irenaeus (‘Fragm.,’ 2.), quoted by Ellicott, , “They do not fall in with, or agree to, the doctrines of the Jews,” sufficiently illustrate the usage of the word here. Sound () see 1Ti 1:10, note. Godliness (); see 1Ti 2:2, note.

1Ti 6:4

Puffed up for proud, A.V.; questionings for questions, A.V.; disputes for strifes, A.V. He is puffed up (); see 1Ti 3:6, note. Doting (); here only in the New Testament, but found occasionally in the LXX. Applied in classical Greek to the mind and body, “to be in an unsound state.” Here it means “having a morbid love of” or “going mad about.” In this morbid love of questionings and disputes of words, they lose sight of all wholesome words and all godly doctrine. Questionings (); see 1Ti 1:6, note. It corresponds nearly to our word “controversies.” Disputes of words (); found only here. The verb is used in 2Ti 2:14. Would that the Church had always remembered St. Paul’s pithy condemnation of unfruitful controversies about words! Surmisings (); only here in the -New Testament. In classical Greek it means “suspicion,” or any under-thought. The verb occurs three times in the Acts”to deem, think, or suppose.” Here the “surmisings” are those uncharitable insinuations in which angry controversialists indulge towards one another.

1Ti 6:5

Wranglings for perverse disputings, A.V. and T.R.; corrupted in mind for of corrupt minds, A.V.; bereft for destitute, A.V.; godliness is a way of gain for gain is godliness, A.V. Wranglings (, R.T.; , T.R.). The R.T. has far the largest weight of authority in its favor (Ellicott). The substantive in Polybius means “provocation,” “collision,” “friction,” and the like. Hence (which is only found here) means “continued wranglings.” The substantive (English diatribe) means, among other things, a “discussion” or “argument.” The addition of gives the sense of a “perverse discussion,” or “disputing.” Bereft (). The difference between the A.V. “destitute” and the R.V. “bereft” is that the latter implies that they once had possession of the truth, but had lost it by their own fault. They had fallen away from the truth, and were twice dead. Godliness is a way of gain. The A.V., that gain is godliness, is clearly wrong, utterly confusing the subject with the predicate, and so destroying the connection between the clause and 1Ti 6:6. A way of gain (); only here and in 1Ti 6:6 in the New Testament. but found in Wis. 13:19; 14:2; Polybius, etc. It signifies “a source of gain,” “a means of malting money,” or, in one word, “a trade.” The same charge is brought against the heretical teachers (Tit 1:11). The cause in the A.V. and T.R., from such withdraw thyself, is not in the R.T.

1Ti 6:6

Godliness, etc. The apostle lakes up the sentiment which he had just condemned, and shows that in another sense it is most true. The godly man is rich indeed. For he wants nothing in this world but what God has given him, and has acquired riches which, unlike the riches of this world, he can take away with him (comp. Luk 12:33). The enumeration of his acquired treasures follows, after a parenthetical depreciation of those of the covetous man, in 1Ti 6:11. The thought, as so often in St. Paul, is a little intricate, and its flow checked by parenthetical side-thoughts. But it seems to be as follows: “But godliness is, in one sense, a source of great gain, and moreover brings contentment with itcontentment, I say, for since we brought nothing into the world, and can carry nothing out, we have good reason to be content with the necessaries of life, food and raiment. Indeed, those who strive for more, and pant after wealth, bring nothing but trouble upon themselves. For the love of money is the root of all evil, etc. Thou, therefore, O man of God, instead of reaching after worldly riches, procure the true wealth, and become rich in righteousness, godliness, faith,” etc. (1Ti 6:11). The phrase, , should be construed by making the couple with , so as to express that “godliness“ is both “gain” and “contentment“not as if qualified that would have been expressed by the collocation, . Contentment (). The word occurs elsewhere in the New Testament only in 2Co 9:8, where it is rendered, both in the R.V. and the A.V., “sufficiency.” The adjective , found in Php 4:11 (and common in classical Greek), is rendered “content.” It means “sufficient in or of itself”needing no external aidand is applied to persons, countries, cities, moral qualities, etc. The substantive is the condition of the person, or thing, which is .

1Ti 6:7

The for this, A.V.; for neither can we for and it is certain we can, A.V. and T.R.; anything for nothing, A.V. For neither, etc. The omission of in the R.T., though justified by many of the best manuscripts, makes it difficult to construe the sentence, unless, with Buttman, we consider as elliptical for , The R.V. “for neither” seems to imply that the truth, “neither can we carry anything out,” is a consequence of the previous truth that “we brought nothing into the world.” which is not true. The two truths are parallel, and the sentence would be perfectly clear without either or .

1Ti 6:8

But for and, A.V.; covering for raiment, A.V.; we shall be for let us be, A.V. Food (); here only in the New Testament, but common in the LXX., rare in classical Greek. Covering (); also a in the New Testament, not found in the LXX., and rare in classical Greek. The kindred words, and , with their derivatives, are used of the covering or shelter of clothes, or tents, or houses. St. Paul may therefore have used an uncommon word in order to comprise the two necessaries of raiment and house, though Huther thinks this “more than improbable.” The use of the word “covering” in the R.V. seems designed to favor this double application. Ellicott thinks the word “probably only refers to clothing.” Alford says, “Some take ‘ covering’ of both clothing and dwelling, perhaps rightly.” If one knew where St. Paul got the word from, one could form a more decided opinion as to his meaning. We shall be therewith content (). The proper meaning of followed by a dative is “to be content with” (Luk 3:14; Heb 13:5). There is probably a covert hortative force in the use of the future here.

1Ti 6:9

Desire to for will, A.V.; a temptation for temptation, A.V.; many for into many, A.V.; such as for which, A.V. A temptation. The reason of the insertion of the article before “temptation” in the R.V. seems to be that, as the three substantives all depend upon the one preposition , they ought all to be treated alike. But if so, the reasoning is not good, because “temptation” implies a state, not merely a single temptation. The prefixing of the article is therefore improper. It should be “temptation,” as in the A.V. and in Mat 6:13; Mat 26:41; Luk 22:40, etc. Snare (); as 1Ti 3:7, note. The concur-pence of the two words and show that the agency of Satan was in the writer’s mind. Several good manuscripts, Fathers, and versions, add the words after (Huther). Drown (); only here and Luk 5:7 in the New Testament. Found also in 2Ma Luk 12:4, and in Polybius”to sink,” transitive. Destruction and perdition ( ). The two words taken together imply utter ruin and destruction of body and soul. , very common in classical Greek, occurs in 1Co 5:5; 1Th 5:3; 2Th 1:9, and is limited in the first passage to the destruction of the body, by the words, . , less common in classical Greek, is of frequent use in the New Testament, and, when applied to persons, seems to be always used (except in Act 25:16) in the sense of “perdition” (Mat 7:13; Joh 17:12; Rom 9:22; Php 3:19; 2Th 2:3; Heb 10:39; 2Pe 3:7; Rev 17:3, etc.).

1Ti 6:10

A root for the root, A.V.; all kinds of for all, A.V.; some reaching after for while some coveted after, A.V.; have been led astray for they have erred, A.V.; have pierced for pierced, A.V. Love of money (); only here in the New Testament, but found in the LXX. and in classical Greek. The substantive is found in Luk 16:14 and 2Ti 3:2. A root. The root is better English. Moreover, the following (not ) necessitates the giving a definite sense to , though it has not the article; and Alford shows dearly that a word like , especially when placed as here in an emphatic position, does not require it. Alford also quotes a striking passage from Diog. Laert., in which he mentions a saying of the philosopher Diogenes that “the love of money ( ) is the metropolis, or home, .” Reaching after (). It has been justly remarked that the phrase is slightly inaccurate. What some reach after is not “the love of money,” but the money itself. To avoid this, Hofmann (quoted by Luther) makes the antecedent to , and the metaphor to be of a person turning out of his path to grasp a plant which turns out to he not desirable, but a root of bitterness. This is ingenious, but hardly to be accepted as the true interpretation. Pierced themselves through (); only here in the New Testament, and rare in classical Greek. But the simple verb , to “pierce through,” “transfix,” applied ‘especially to “spitting” meat, is very common in Homer, who also applies it metaphorically exactly as St. Paul does here, to grief or pain. , “pierced with pain” (‘Il.,’ 5:399).

1Ti 6:11

O man of God. The force of this address is very great. It indicates that the money-lovers just spoken of were not and could not be “men of God,” whatever they might profess; and it leads with singular strength to the opposite direction in which Timothy’s aspirations should point. The treasures which he must covet as “a man of God” were “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience meekness.” For the phrase, “man of God,” see 2Ti 3:17 and 2Pe 1:21. In the Old Testament it always applies to a prophet (Deu 33:1; Jdg 13:6; 1Sa 2:27; 1Ki 12:22; 2Ki 1:9; Jer 35:4; and a great many other passages). St. Paul uses the expression with especial reference to Timothy and his holy office, and here, perhaps, in contrast with the mentioned in 2Pe 1:9. Flee these things. Note the sharp contrast between “the men” of the world, who reach after, and the man of God, who avoids, . The expression, “these things,” is a little loose, but seems to apply to the love of money, and the desire to be rich, with all their attendant “foolish and hurtful lusts.” The man of God avoids the perdition and maul fold sorrows of the covetous, by avoiding the covetousness which is their root. Follow after (); pursue, in direct contrast with , flee from, avoid (see 2Ti 2:22). Meekness (). This rare word, found in Philo, but nowhere in the New Testament, is the reading of the R.T. (instead of the of the T.R.) and accepted by almost all critics on the authority of all the older manuscripts. It has no perceptible difference of meaning from , meekness or gentleness.

1Ti 6:12

The faith for faith, A.V.; the life eternal for eternal life, A.V.; wast for art also, A.V. and T.R.; didst confess the good confession for hast professed a good profession, A.V.; in the sight of for before, A.V. Fight the good fight. This is not quite a happy rendering. is the “contest” at the Olympic assembly for any of the prizes, in wrestling, chariot-racing, foot-racing, music, or what not. is to “carry on such a contest”. The comparison is different from that in 1Ti 1:18, .. ,” That thou mayest war the good warfare.” The faith. There is nothing to determine absolutely whether here means faith subjectively or “the faith” objectively, nor does it much matter. The result is the same; but the subjective sense seems the most appropriate. Lay hold, etc.; as the or prize of the contest (see 1Co 9:24, 1Co 9:25). Whereunto thou wast called. So St. Paul continually (Rom 1:1, Rom 1:6, Rom 1:7; Rom 8:28, Rom 8:30; 1Co 1:29; Eph 4:1; 1Th 2:12; and numerous other passages). He seems here to drop the metaphor, as in the following clause. Didst confess the good confession. The connection of this phrase with the call to eternal life, and the allusion to one special occasion on which Timothy “had confessed the good confession” of his faith in Jesus Christ, seems to point clearly to his baptism (see Mat 10:32; Joh 9:22; Joh 12:42; Heb 10:23). The phrase, “the good confession,” seems to have been technically applied to the baptismal confession of Christ (compare the other Church sayings, 1Ti 1:15; 1Ti 3:1; 1Ti 4:9; 2Ti 2:11; Tit 3:8). In the sight of many witnesses. The whole congregation of the Church, who were witnesses of his baptism (see the rubric prefixed to the Order of “Ministration of Public Baptism” in the Book of Common Prayer).

1Ti 6:13

I charge thee for I give thee charge, A.V.; of for before (in italics), A.V.; the for a, A.V. I charge thee. It has been well observed that the apostle’s language increases in solemnity as he approaches the end of the Epistle. This word is of frequent use in St. Paul’s Epistles (1Co 7:10; 1Th 4:11 : 2Th 3:4, 2Th 3:6, 2Th 3:10, 2Th 3:12; and above, 1Ti 3:1-16; 1Ti 4:11; 1Ti 5:7). In the sight of God, etc. (compare the adjuration in 1Ti 5:21). Who quickeneth, etc. The T.R. has . The R.T. has , with no difference of meaning. Both words are used in the LXX. as the rendering of the Pihel and Hiphil of . As an epithet of “God,” it sets before us the highest creative act of the Almighty as “the Lord, and the Giver of life;” and is equivalent to “the living God” (Mat 26:63), “the God of the spirits of all flesh” (Num 16:22). The existence of “life” is the one thing which baffles the ingenuity of science in its attempts to dispense with a Creator. The good confession refers to our Lord’s confession of himself as “the Christ, the Son of God,” in Mat 27:11; Luk 23:1-56. 3; Joh 18:36, Joh 18:37, which is analogous to the baptismal confession (Act 8:37 (T.R.); Act 16:31; Act 19:4, Act 19:5). The natural word to have followed was , as above follows ; but St. Paul substitutes the word of cognate meaning, , in order to keep the formula, .

1Ti 6:14

The for this, A.V. without reproach for unrebukable, A.V. The commandment ( ). The phrase is peculiar, and must have some special meaning. Perhaps, as Bishop Wordsworth expounds it, “the commandment” is that law of faith and duty to which Timothy vowed obedience at his baptism, and is parallel to “the good confession.” Some think that the command given in 1Ti 6:11, 1Ti 6:12 is referred to; and this is the meaning of the A.V. “this.” Without spot, without reproach. There is a difference of opinion among commentators, whether these two adjectives ( ) belong to the commandment or to the person, i.e. Timothy. The introduction of after ; the facts that , without any addition, means “to keep the commandments,” and that in the New Testament, and always are used of persons, not things (Jas 1:27; 1Pe 1:19; 2Pe 3:14; 1Ti 3:2, 1Ti 5:7); and the consideration that the idea of the person being found blameless in, or kept blameless unto, the coming of Christ. is a frequent one in the Epistles (Jud 24; 2Pe 3:14; 1Co 1:8; Col 1:22; 1Th 3:13; 1Th 5:23),seem to point strongly, if not conclusively, to the adjectives and here agreeing with , not with . The appearing ( ). The thought of the second advent of the Lord Jesus, always prominent in the mind of St. Paul (1Co 1:7, 1Co 1:8; 1Co 4:5; 1Co 15:23; Col 3:4; 1Th 3:13; 1Th 4:1-18.!5; 2Th 1:9, etc.), seems to have acquired fresh intensity amidst the troubles and dangers of the closing years of his life, both as an object of hope and as a motive of action (2Ti 1:10; 2Ti 2:12; 2Ti 4:1, 2Ti 4:8; Tit 2:13).

1Ti 6:15

Its own for his, A.V. This correction seems to be manifestly right. The same phrase is rendered in 1Ti 2:6 and Tit 1:3 “in due time,” in the A.V.; but in the R.Tit 2:6 is “its own times,” and in Tit 1:3 “his own seasons. In Gal 6:9 is also rendered “in due season,” in both the A.V. and the R.V. Such a phrase as must be taken everywhere in the same sense. It clearly means at the fitting or proper time, and corresponds to the , “the fullness of time,” in Gal 4:4. The two ideas are combined in Luk 1:20 ( ) and Luk 21:24 (comp. Eph 1:10). Shall show (). , “to show an appearing,” is a somewhat unusual phrase, and is more classical than scriptural. The verb and the object are not of cognate sense (as “to display a display,” or “to manifest a manifestation”), but the invisible God, God the Father, will, it is said, display the Epiphany of our Lord Jesus Christ. The wonder displayed and manifested to the world is the appearing of Christ in his glory. The Author of that manifestation is God. The blessed; , is only here and in 1Ti 1:11 (where see note) applied to God in Scripture. The blessed and only Potentate. The phrase is a remarkable one. (Potentate), which is only found elsewhere in the New Testament in Luk 1:52 and Act 8:27, is applied to God here only. It is, however, so applied in 2Ma Act 3:24; Act 12:15; Act 15:23, where we have , and ; in all which places, as here, the phrase is used to signify, by way of contrast, the superiority of the power of God over all earthly power. In the first of the above-cited passages the language is singularly like that here used by St. Paul. For it is said that , “the Prince (or Potentate) of all power made a great apparition,” or “appearing” ( ), for the overthrow of the blasphemer and persecutor Heliodorus. St. Paul must have had this in his mind, and compared the effect of “the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,” in overthrowing the Neros of the earth with the overthrow of Heliodorus. King of kings, and Lord of lords, etc. (compare the slightly different phrase in Roy. Act 17:14 and Act 19:16, applied to the Son). So in Psa 136:2, Psa 136:3, God is spoken of as “God of gods, and Lord of lords.”

1Ti 6:16

Light unapproachable for the light which no man can approach unto, A.V.; eternal for everlasting, A.V. Unapproachable (); only here in the New Testament, but found occasionally in. the later classics, corresponding to the more common . Whom no man hath seen, nor can see and Exo 33:20-23). The appearance of the “God of Israel” to Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, related in Exo 34:9-11, was that of the Son in anticipation of the Incarnation. The invisibility of the essential Godhead is also predicated in our Lord’s saying, “God is a Spirit” (Joh 4:24). This whole passage is a magnificent embodiment of the attributes of the living God, supreme blessedness and almighty power, universal dominion, and unchangeable being, inscrutable majesty, radiant holiness, anti glory inaccessible and unapproachable by his creatures, save through the mediation of his only begotten Son.

1Ti 6:17

This present for this, A.V.; have their hope set on the uncertainty of for trust in uncertain, A.V.; on God for in the living God, A.V. and T.R. Charge (); as in 1Ti 1:3; 1Ti 4:11; 1Ti 5:7; and in 1Ti 5:13, and elsewhere frequently. Rich in this present world. Had St. Paul in his mind the parable of Dives and Lazarus (comp. Luk 16:19, Luk 16:25)? That they be not high-minded ( ); elsewhere only in Rom 11:20. The words compounded with have mostly a bad sense”haughtiness,” “boastfulness,” and the like. The uncertainty (); here only in the New Testament, but used in the same sense in Polybius (see in 1Co 14:8; and in 1Co 9:6). The A.V., though less literal, expresses the sense much better than the R.V., which is hardly good English. Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; for enjoyment. The gifts are God’s. Trust, therefore, in the Giver, not in the gift. The gift is uncertain; the Giver liveth forever. (For the sentiment that God is the Giver of all good, comp. Jas 1:17; Psa 104:28; Psa 145:16, etc.)

1Ti 6:18

That they be ready for ready, A.V. Do good (; here only, for the more common ). That they be rich in good works (1Ti 5:10, note); not merely in the perishing riches of this present worldthe same sentiment as Mat 6:19-21; Luk 12:33 and Luk 12:21. Ready to distribute (); here only in the New Testament, and rarely in later classical Greek. The opposite, “dose-handed,” is The verb means “to give to others a share or portion of what one has” (Luk 3:11; Rom 1:11; Rom 12:8; Eph 4:28; 1Th 2:8). Willing to communicate (); here only in the New Testament, but found in classical Greek in a slightly different sense. “Communicative” is the exact equivalent, though in this wider use it is obsolete. We have the same precept in Heb 13:16, “To do good and to communicate forget not.” (For in the sense of “giving,” see Rom 12:13; Gal 6:6; Php 4:15; and for in the same sense, see Rom 15:26; 2Co 9:13; Heb 13:16.)

1Ti 6:19

The life which is life indeed for eternal life, A.V. and T.R. Laying up in store (); only here in the New Testament, but once in Wis. 3:3, and occasionally in classical Greek. A good foundation ( ). The idea of a foundation is always maintained in the use of , whether it is used literally or figuratively (Luk 11:48; Eph 2:20; Rev 21:14, etc.). There is, at first sight, a manifest confusion of metaphors in the phrase, “laying up in store a foundation.” Bishop Ellicott, following Wiesinger, understands “a wealth of good works as a foundation.” Alford sees no difficulty in considering the “foundation” us a treasure. Others have conjectured , “a stored treasure,” for . Others understand in the sense of , a deposit. Others take in the sense of “acquiring,” without reference to its etymology. But this is unlikely, the context being about the use of money, though in part favored by the use of in 2Pe 3:7. The reader must choose for himself either to adopt one of the above explanations, or to credit St. Paul with an unimportant confusion of metaphors. Anyhow, the doctrine is clear that wealth spent for God and his Church is repaid with interest, and becomes an abiding treasure. Life indeed ( ); so 1Ti 5:3, 1Ti 5:5, , “widows indeed;” and (Joh 8:36) , “free indeed,” in opposition to the freedom which the Jews claimed as the seed of Abraham.

1Ti 6:20

Guard for keep, A.V.; unto thee for to thy trust, A.V.; turning away from for avoiding, A.V.; the profane for profane and vain, A.V.; the knowledge which is falsely for science, falsely, A.V. Guard that which is committed unto thee; (, T.R.). Guard for keep is hardly an improvement. The meaning of “keep,” like that of , is to guard, keep watch over, and, by so doing, to preserve safe and uninjured. This meaning is well brought out in the familiar words of Psa 121:1-8., “He that keepeth thee will not slumber…. He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord himself is thy Keeper” (so too Psa 127:1; Gen 28:15, etc.). or , occurs elsewhere in the New Testament only in 2Ti 1:12, 2Ti 1:14, where the apostle uses it (in 2Ti 1:12) of his own soul, which he has committed to the safe and faithful keeping of the Lord Jesus Christ; but in 2Ti 1:14 in the same sense as here. “That good thing which was committed unto thee guard [‘keep,’ A.V.].” There does not seem to be any difference between and , which both mean “a deposit,” and are used indifferently in classical Greek, though the latter is the more common. The precept to Timothy here is to keep diligent and watchful guard over the faith committed to his trust; to preserve it unaltered and uncorrupt, so as to hand it down to his successors exactly the same as he had received it. Oh that the successors of the apostles had always kept this precept (see Ordination of Priests)! Turning away from (); only here in the middle voice, “turning from,” “avoiding,” with a transitive sense. In the passive voice it means “to turn out of the path,” as in 1Ti 1:6; 1Ti 5:15; 2Ti 4:4. The profane babblings (see 1Ti 4:7; 2Ti 2:16); ; only here and 2Ti 2:16, “the utterance of empty words,” “words of the lips” (2Ki 18:20). Oppositions (); here only in the New Testament. It is a term used in logic and in rhetoric by Plato, Aristotle, etc., for “oppositions” and “antitheses,” laying one doctrine by the side of another for comparison, or contrast, or refutation. It seems to allude to the particular method used by the heretics to establish their tenets, in opposition to the statements of the Church on particular pointssuch as the Law, the Resurrection, etc. The knowledge which is falsely so called. There is a very similar intimation of the growth of an empty philosophy, whose teaching was antagonistic to the teaching of Christ in Col 2:8, and with which St. Paul contrasts the true in Col 2:3. This was clearly the germ (called by Bishop Lightfoot “Gnostic Judaism”) of what was later more fully developed as the Gnostic heresy, which, of course, derived its name from , knowledge or science, to which they laid claim.

1Ti 6:21

You for thee, A.V. and T.R. The R.T. omits Amen. Professing () see 1Ti 2:10, note. Have erred (); 1Ti 1:6, note. Grace be with you. The authorities for and respectively are somewhat evenly balanced. The T.R. seems in itself preferable, as throughout St. Paul addresses Timothy personally, and as there are no salutations here, as in 2 Timothy and Titus (see 1Ti 1:18; 1Ti 3:14; 1Ti 4:6, etc.; 1Ti 6:11, 1Ti 6:20). This shorter form, , is used in the pastoral Epistles (2Ti 4:22; Tit 3:1-15 :35)for the fuller and more usual form, (Rom 16:20; 1Co 16:23; 2Th 3:18, and elsewhere). The short form also occurs in Heb 13:25. The words are a gracious, peaceful ending to the Epistle.

HOMILETICS

Heb 13:1, Heb 13:2.The doctrine of God.

Slaves, led doubtless by the miseries of their condition to seek the ennobling, comforting privileges of the gospel, formed a considerable portion of the first congregations of disciples (see the names in Rom 16:1-27.; 1Co 1:27, 1Co 1:25; Eph 6:5-8; Col 3:22-25; Tit 2:9; Php 1:10, Php 1:16; 1Pe 2:18, etc.). Hence so many exhortations addressed specially to them. In nothing, perhaps, does the Divine excellency of the gospel show itself more strikingly than in the adaptation of its precepts to such different classes of society, and in the wise moderation with which it met the social evils of life. The subjects of a Nero are bid to honor the king, the slave is told to count his master worthy of all honor; and the motive for this self-denying moderation is the paramount desire not to bring any reproach upon the gospel of Christ. The world shall not be able to say that Christianity is a breeder of confusion, or that the peaceable order of society is endangered by the fanaticism of the servants of Christ. And yet the manly self-respect of the slave is wonderfully increased by being reminded that he is the servant of Christ; or, again, by the thought of his spiritual freedom as a child of God; or, again, by his brotherhood with his master and partnership with him in the faith and love of the gospel of Christ. He has before him a career as noble and as dignified as his master, though that master were Caesar himself. And while he patiently submits to the peculiar trials of his bodily condition, he is transported into a region where bodily distinctions are of no accountwhere the petty differences of rich and poor, bond and free, are swallowed up, and melt away, before the common glory of the children of God and the common privileges of Christian fellowship. And yet all the while he maintains the respect and obedience of the slave to the master. Truly the doctrine of God is a wise, an excellent, and a worthy doctrine, and carries with it its own credentials, that it is from God.

1Ti 6:3-5

Heterodoxy. It is a great mistake to limit the notion of heterodoxy to the holding of wrong opinions in dogmatic theology. Heterodoxy is teaching anything otherwise than as the Word of God teaches it. Here they are declared to be heterodox who depart from the wholesome teaching of Christ concerning the duties of slaves to their masters, and use language in speaking to slaves which is provocative of strife and envy, of railings and suspicions. Such men, instead of being guided by a disinterested love of truth, are actuated by selfish motives. They seek to curry favor with those whose cause they espouse, and receive in money the reward of their patronage of the cause. And so we may generally discern between the orthodox and- the heterodox by the methods they pursue, and the results they attain. The one seeks to promote peace and contentment by gentle words and by counsels of love and patience, and has his reward in the happiness of those whom he advises. The other flatters, and inflames the passions of those whom he pretends to befriend; plays upon the bad parts of human nature; raises questions which tend to loosen the joints which bind society together; declaims and fumes and agitates, and receives in money or other selfish advantages the price of his mischievous patronage. Disinterested love is the characteristic of orthodox teaching, selfish gain that of the heterodox. Peace and contentment are the fruit of the one, strife and suspicion are the fruit of the other.

1Ti 6:6-21

The contrast. There is no more effectual way of bringing out the peculiar beauties and excellences of any system or character than by contrasting with it the opposite system or character. Let us do this in regard to the two characters which are here brought before us, and the uses of money by them respectively.

I. THE MONEY–LOVER. The love of money sits at the helm of his inner man. It is the spring of all his thoughts, desires, and actions. Observe what is his ruling motive, what takes the lead in his plans and schemes of life, and you will find that it is the desire to be rich. To be rich ranks in his estimation before being good or doing good; and personal goodness and benevolence towards others, if they have existed before the entering into the heart of the love of money, gradually fade and die away under its withering influence. As the thistles and rushes, the docks and the plantains, prevail, the good herbage disappears. A hard selfish character, indifferent to the feelings and wants of others, and ready to brush on one side every obstacle which stands in the way of getting, is the common result of the love of money. But in many cases it leads on into impiety and crime, and through them to sorrows and perdition. It was his greed for the wages of unrighteousness which urged Balsam on to his destruction; it was his greed for money that made Judas a thief, a traitor, and a murderer of his Lord. Many an heresiarch has adopted false doctrines and led schisms merely as a means of enriching himself at the expense of his followers; and every day we see crimes of the blackest dye springing from the lust of riches. In other cases the coveted possession of wealth is followed by inordinate pride and contempt of those who are not rich, by a feeling of superiority to all the restraints which bind other men, and by a headlong descent into the vices and self-indulgences to which money paves the way. In a word, then, the lover of money stands before us as at best a selfish mana man of low and narrow ends; one pandering to his own base desires; one sacrificing to an ignoble and futile purpose all the loftier parts of his own nature; one from whom his fellow-men get no good, and often get much harm; one whose toil and labor at the best end in emptiness, and very often lead him into sorrow and destruction. His progress is a continued debasement of himself, and moral bankruptcy is his end.

II. THE MAN OF GOD IS OF A DIFFERENT MOLD. He views his own nature and his own wants in their true light. He is a man, he is a moral agent, he is a child of God. His hunger and thirst are after the things that are needful for the life and the growth of his immortal soul, his very self. He is a man; he is one of those whom the Lord Jesus is not ashamed to call his brethren, and who has been made partaker of his Divine nature, and therefore, like his Divine Lord, he wishes to live, not for himself, but for his brethren, whom he loves even as Christ loved them and gave himself for them. And so, on the one hand, he lays himself out to enrich himself with those treasures which make a man rich toward Godrighteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness; and, on the other, he uses his worldly wealth for the comfort of the poor and needy; doing good, distributing freely of his substance for every good work, and admit-ring others to a share of the wealth that God has given him. It is very remarkable, too, how he both degrades and yet elevates wealth. He degrades it by depriving it of all its false value. He does not trust in it, because he knows its uncertainty; he does not desire it, because he knows its dangers; he does not boast of it, because he knows it adds nothing to his real worth. But he elevates it by making it an instrument of doing good to others, and by making it a provocative of love to man and of thankfulness to God; and though it is so fleeting and so uncertain in itself, he forces into it an element of eternity by consecrating it to God, and compelling it to bear witness on his behalf in the great day of judgment that he loved Christ and did good to those whom Christ loves.

To sum up, the money-lover, by putting a false value upon money, makes it a snare and an instrument of hurt to himself and others, and an eternal loss to his own soul; the man of God, by putting the true value upon money, makes it a joyful possession to himself and his brethren, a nourisher of unselfish virtue, and an eternal gain.

1Ti 6:11-16.The man of God.

The character of the man of God is here portrayed with a master’s hand. We may go back and contemplate it with a little more exactness. He is covetous, he is eager in the pursuit of good things; but the good things which he covets and pursues are the everlasting possessions of the soul. And what are these? Righteousnessthat great quality of God himself; that quality which makes eternal, unchangeable, right the sole and inflexible rule of conduct. Righteousnessthat condition of thought and will and purpose which does not fluctuate with the changing opinions and fashions of inconstant men, which does not vary according to the outward influences to which it is subject, which is not overborne by fear, or appetite, or persuasion, or interest; but abides steadfast, unaltered, the same under all circumstances and through all time. And with righteousness, which he has in common with God, he covets godliness, the proper relative condition of the rational creature towards the Creator. Godliness is that reverential, devout attitude towards God which we sometimes call piety, sometimes holiness, sometimes devotion. It comprehends the sentiments of fear, love, and reverence which a good man entertains toward God; and the whole conduct, such as worship, prayer, almsgiving, etc., which springs from those sentiments. And though it cannot be predicated of God that he is , it is an essential feature of the godly man, who therefore covets it as an integral part of the wealth of the soul. And then, by a natural association with this reverential attitude towards God described by “godliness,” there follows faith; the entire reliance of the soul upon God’s goodness, and specially on all his promisesthose promises which are yea and amen in Christ Jesus; faith which fastens on Jesus Christ as the sum and substance, the head and completeness, of God’s good will to man; as the infallible proof, which nothing can detract from, of God’s purpose of love to man; as the immovable rock of man’s salvation, which may not and cannot be moved forever. And, as by a necessary law, from this faith there flows forth love; love to God and love to man; love which, like righteousness, is an attribute which the man of God has in common with God; love which, in proportion to its pureness and its intensity, assimilates the man of God to God himself, and is therefore the most prized portion of his treasures. Nor must another essential virtue of the man of God be overlooked by him, and that is patience. Just as godliness and faith are qualities in the man of God relatively to God, so is patience a necessary quality relatively to the hindrances and impediments of the evil world in which he lives. The primary idea of is continuance“patient continuance,” as it is well rendered in the Authorized Version of Rom 2:7. The enmity of the world, the outward and inward temptations to evil, the weariness and tension induced by prolonged resistance, are constantly pressing upon the man of God and counseling cessation from a wearisome and (it is suggested) a fruitless struggle. He has, therefore, need of patience; it is only through faith and patience that he can obtain the promises. He must endure to the end if he would grasp the coveted salvation. Patience must mingle with has faith, patience must mingle with his hope, and patience must mingle with his love. There must be no fainting, no halting, no turning aside, no growing weary in well-doing. Tribulations may come, afflictions may press sore, provocations may be multiplied, and labors may be a heavy burden; but the man of God, with the sure hope of the coming of Christ to cheer and support him, will go steadily forward, will endure, will stand fast, unto the end. And as regards the provocations of men, he will endure them with meekness. Not only will he not turn back from his purpose on account of them, but he will not let his spirit be ruffled by them. He will still be kind to those who are unkind, and gentle with those who are rough. He will render good for evil, and blessing for cursing, if so be he may overcome evil with good, ever setting before him the blessed example of him “who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.” Thus fighting the good fight of faith, he lays hold and keeps hold of eternal life, and will be found without spot, unrebukable, in that great and blessed day of the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, “to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.”

HOMILIES BY T. CROSKERY

1Ti 6:1.The duties of dares to unbelieving masters.

The apostle next proceeds to deal with the distinctions of civil duty, and takes up the case of a very numerous But miserable class which appears to have been largely attracted to the gospel in primitive times.

I. THE HONOR DUE TO PAGAN MASTERS. “Whoever are under the yoke as bondservants, let them reckon their own masters worthy of all honor.”

1. The condition of the slaves was one of much hardship. There was practically no limit to the power of the masters over the slaves. They might be gentle and just, or capricious and cruel. The slaves had no remedy at law against harsh treatment, as they had no hope of escape from bondage.

2. Yet their liberty had not been so restricted that they had not the opportunity of hearing the gospel. There were Christian slaves. Their hard life was ameliorated, not merely by the blessed hopes of the gospel, but by the privilege of spiritual equality with their masters which was one of its distinguishing glories.

3. The gospel did not interfere with the duty of obedience which they owed to their masters. They were to give them all honornot merely outward subjection, but inward respect. Christianity did not undertake to overturn social relations. If it had done so, it would have been revolutionary in the last degree; it would have armed the whole forces of the Roman empire against it; it would itself have been drowned in blood; and it would have led to the merciless slaughter of the slaves themselves. Yet Christianity prepared the way from the very first for the complete abolition of slavery. The fact that with the great Master in heaven “there was no respect of persons,” and that “in Jesus Christ there was neither bond nor free, but all were one in Christ,” would not justify the slaves in repudiating their present subjection, while it held out the hope of their eventual emancipation. They must not, therefore, abuse their liberty under the gospel.

4. Yet there was a limit to the slave‘s obedience. He could only obey his master so far as was consistent with the laws of God and his gospel, consenting to suffer rather than outrage his conscience. Cases of this sort might arise, but they would not prejudice the gospel, like a simple revolt against existing relationships.

II. THE REASON FOR THE DUE HONOR GIVEN TO THEIR PAGAN MASTERS. “That the Name of God and his doctrine may not be blasphemed.”

1. There would be a serious danger of such a result if slaves were either to withhold due service to their masters or to repudiate all subjection. God and his doctrine would be dishonored in the eyes of their masters, because they would be regarded as sanctioning insubordination. Thus a deep and widespread prejudice would arise to prevent the gospel reaching their pagan masters.

2. It is thus possible for the meanest members of the Church to do honor to God and the gospel. The apostle contemplates their adorning “of the doctrine of God our Savior in all things” (Tit 2:10).

3. The same considerations apply to the case of domestic servants in our own day. The term translated here “slaves” is used with some latitude in the Scripture. It applies sometimes to persons entirely free, as to David in relation to Saul (1Sa 19:4), to Christians generally (Rom 6:16; 1Pe 2:16), to apostles, prophets, and ministers (Gal 1:10; 2Ti 2:24), and to the higher class of dependents

, and encouraged disobedience to parents. The tendency of their teaching would be to sow the seeds of discontent in the minds of the slaves, and its effects would be to plunge them into a contest with society which would have the unhappiest effects.

2. The opposition of this teaching to Divine truth.

(1) It was opposed to “wholesome words,” to words without poison or taint of corruption, such as would maintain social relations on a basis of healthy development.

(2) It was opposed to the words of Christ, either directly or through his apostles. He had dropped sayings of a suggestive character which could not but touch the minds of the slave class: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s;” “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth;” “Resist not evil;” “Love your enemies, pray for them which despitefully use you.”

(3) It was opposed to the doctrine of godliness. It was a strange thing for teachers in the Church to espouse doctrines opposed to the interests of godliness. The disobedience of slaves would commit them to a course of ungodly dishonoring of God and his gospel.

II. THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER OF THESE FALSE TEACHERS.

1. They were “besotted with pride.” They were utterly wanting in the humility of spirit which the gospel engenders, but were puffed up with an empty show of knowledge.

2. Yet they were ignorant. “Knowing nothing.” They had no true understanding of the social risks involved in their doctrine of emancipation, or of the true method of ameliorating the condition of the slaves.

3. They “doted about questions and disputes about words.” They had a diseased appetency for all sorts of profitless discussions turning upon the meanings of words, which had no tendency to promote godliness, but rather altercations and bad feeling of all sorts”from which cometh envy, strife, evil-speakings, wicked suspicions, incessant quarrels.” These controversial collisions sowed the seeds of all sorts of bitter hatred.

4. The moral deficiency of these false teachers. They were “men corrupted in their mind, destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is gain.”

(1) They had first corrupted the Word of God, and thus prepared the way for the debasement of their own mind, leading in turn to that pride and ignorance which were their most distinguishing qualities.

(2) They were “deprived of the truth.” It was theirs once, but they forfeited this precious treasure by their unfaithfulness and their corruption. It is a dangerous thing to tamper with the truth.

(3) They heard that “godliness was a source of gain.” They did not preach contentment to the slaves, or induce them to acquiesce with patience in their hard lot, but rather persuaded them to use religion as a means of worldly betterment. Such counsel would have disorganizing, disintegrating effects upon society. But it was, besides, a degradation of true religion. Godliness was not designed to be a merely lucrative business, or to be followed only so far as it subserved the promotion of worldly interests. Simon Magus and such men as “made merchandise” of the disciples are examples of this class. Such persons would “teach things which they ought not for the sake of base gain” (Tit 1:11).T.C.

1Ti 6:6-8.The real gain of true godliness.

The apostle, after his manner, expands his idea beyond the immediate occasion that led to it.

I. THE GAIN OF GODLINESS WITH CONTENTMENT. “But godliness with contentment is great gain.”

1. Godliness is a gain in itself, because it has “the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” Godly men come into happy and thriving circumstances, for they are taught to pursue their callings with due industry, foresight, and perseverance.

2. Godliness, allied to contentment, is great gain.

(1) This does not mean that contentment is a condition necessary to the gainful character of godliness, but is rather an effect of godliness and part of its substantial gain. It is a calm and sedate temper of mind about worldly interests. It is God’s wisdom and will not to give to all men alike, but the contented mind is not disquieted by this fact.

(2) The godly man is content with what he possesses; submits meekly to God’s will, and bears patiently the adverse dispensations of his providence. The godly heart is freed from the thirst for perishing treasures, because it possesses treasures of a higher and more enduring character.

II. THE REASON FOR THIS SENTIMENT. “For we brought nothing into the world, because neither are we able to take anything out of it.”

1. We are appointed by God to come naked into the world. We may be born heirs to vast possessions, but they do not become ours till we are actually born. Rich and poor alike bring nothing into the world.

2. This fact is a reason for the statement that we can carry nothing out of the world. It is between birth and death we can hold our wealth. The rich man cannot carry his estates with him into the grave. He will have no need of them in the next life.

3. There could be no contentment if we could take anything with us at death, because in that case the future would be dependent upon the present.

4. The lesson to be learned from these facts is that we ought not eagerly to grasp such essentially earthly and transitory treasures.

III. THE TRUE WISDOM OF CONTENTMENT. “But if we have food and raiment, with these let us be satisfied.” These are what Jacob desired, Agur prayed for, and Christ taught his disciples to make the subject of daily supplication. The contented godly have these gifts along with God’s blessing. The Lord does not encourage his people to enlarge their desires inordinately.T.C.

1Ti 6:9.The dangers of the eager haste to be rich.

I. THE EAGER PURSUIT OF THE WORLD IS TO BE SHUNNED. “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare.”

1. The apostle does not condemn the possession of riches, which have, in reality, no moral character; for they are only evil where they are badly used. Neither does he speak of rich men; for he would not condemn such men as Abraham, Joseph of Arimathsea, Gains, and others; nor such rich men as use their wealth righteously as good stewards of God.

2. He condemns the haste to be rich, not only because wealth is not necessary for a life of godly contentment, but because of its scrim and moral risks.

II. THE DANCERS OF THIS EAGER PURSUIT OF WEALTH. They “fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.”

1. There is a temptation to unjust gain which leads men into the snare of the devil. There is a sacrifice of principle, the abandonment of conscientious scruples, in the hurry to accumulate wealth.

2. The temptation in its turn makes way for many lusts which are “foolish,” because they are unreasonable, and exercised upon things that are quite undesirable; and which are “hurtful,” because they injure both body and soul, and all a man’s best interests.

3. These lusts in turn carry their own retribution. They “drown men in destruction and perdition.”

(1) This is more than moral degradation.

(2) It is a wreck of the body accompanied by the ruin of the immortal soulT.C.

1Ti 6:10.The root of all evil.

“For the love of money is the root of all evil.” This almost proverbial saying is intended to support the statement of the previous verse.

I. THE LOVE OF MONEY AS A ROOT OF EVIL.

1. The assertion is not concerning money, which, as we have seen, is neither good nor bad in itself, but concerning the love of money.

2. It is not asserted that there are not other roots of evil besides covetousness. This thought was not present to the apostle’s mind.

3. It is not meant that a covetous man will be entirely destitute of all virtuous feeling.

4. It means that a germ of all evil lies in one with the love of money; that there is no kind of evil to which a man may net be led through an absorbing greed for money. It is really a root-sin, for it leads to care, fear, malice, deceit, oppression, envy, bribery, perjury, contentiousness.

II. UNHAPPY EFFECTS OF THE LOVE OF MONEY. “Which some having coveted after have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

1. It led to apostasy. They made shipwreck of their Christian principles. They surrendered the faith. The good seed of the Word was choked by the deceitfulness of riches, and, like Demas, they forsook the Word, having loved this present world.

2. It involved the Tangs of conscience, to the destruction of their own happiness. They felt the piercings of that inward monitor who forebodes the future destruction.T.C.

1Ti 6:11.Personal admonition addressed to Timothy himself.

The apostle now turns from his warning to those desiring to be rich to the practical exhortation to strive for the true riches.

I. THE TITLE BY WHICH TIMOTHY IS ADDRESSED. “O man of God.”

1. It was the familiar title of the Old Testament prophets, and might appropriately apply to a New Testament evangelist like Timothy.

2. But in the New Testament it has a more general reference, applying as it does to all the faithful in Christ Jesus (2Ti 3:17). The name is very expressive. It signifies

(1) a man who belongs to God;

(2) who is dedicated to God;

(3) who finds in God, rather than in riches, his true portion;

(4) who lives for God’s glory (1Co 10:31).

II. THE WARNING ADDRESSED TO TIMOTHY. “Flee these things.” It might seem unnecessary to warn so devoted a Christian against the love of riches, with its destructive results; but Timothy was now in an important position in a wealthy city, which contained “rich’ men (1Ti 6:17), and may have been tempted by gold and ease and popularity to make trivial sacrifices to truth. The holiest heart is not without its inward subtleties of deceit.

III. THE POSITIVE EXHORTATION ADDRESSED TO TIMOTHY. “And follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meek-spiritedness.” These virtues group themselves into pairs.

1. Righteousness and godliness; referring to a general conformity to the Law of God in relation to the duties owing respectively to God and man, like the similar expressions”live righteously and godly”of Tit 2:12.

(1) Righteousness is

(a) not the “righteousness of God,” for that had been already attained by Timothy; but

(b) the doing of justice between man and man, which would be for the honor of religion among men. Any undue regard for riches would cause a swerve from righteousness.

(2) Godliness includes

(a) holiness of heart,

(b) holiness of life, in which lies the true gain for two worlds.

2. Faith and love. These are the two foundation-principles of the gospel.

(1) Faith is at once

(a) the instrument of our justification,

(b) the root-principle of Christian life, and

(c) the continuously sustaining principle of that life.

(2) Love is

(a) the immediate effect of faith, for “faith worketh by love” (Gal 5:6);

(b) it is the touchstone of true religion and the bond of perfectness;

(c) it is the spring of evangelical obedience, for it is “the fulfilling of the Law” (Rom 13:8);

(d) it is our protection in the battle of life, for it is “the breastplate of love” (1Th 5:8).

3. Patience, meek-spiritedness. These represent two principles which ought to operate in power in presence of gainsayers and enemies.T.C.

1Ti 6:12.The good fight and its results.

Instead of the struggle of the covetous for wealth, there ought to be the struggle of the faithful to lay hold on the prize of eternal life.

I. THE CHRISTIAN STRUGGLE. “Fight the good fight of faith.”

1. The enemies it, this warfare. The world, the flesh, and the devil; the principalities and powers; the false teachers, with their arts of seduction.

2. The warfare itself. It is “a good fight.”

(1) The term suggests that Christian life is not a mystic quietism, but an active effort against evil.

(2) It is a good fight, because

(a) it is in a good causefor God and truth and salvation;

(b) it is under a good CaptainJesus Christ, the Captain of our salvation;

(c) it has a good result”eternal life.”

3. The weapons in this warfare. “Faith.” It is “the shield of faith” (Eph 6:16). This is not a carnal, but a spiritual weapon. Faith represents, indeed, “the whole amour of God,” which is mighty for victory. It is faith that secures “the victory that overcometh the world” (1Jn 4:4, 1Jn 4:5).

II. THE END OF THE CHRISTIAN STRUGGLE. “Lay hold on eternal life.”

1. Eternal life is the prize, the crown, to be laid hold of by those who are faithful to death.

2. It is the object of our effectual calling. “To which thou wast called” by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit.

3. It is the subject of our public profession. And didst confess the good confession before many witnesses.” Evidently either at his baptism, or at his ordination to the ministry, when many witnesses would be present.

4. This eternal life is to be laid hold of.

(1) It is held forth as the prize of the high calling of God, as the recompense of reward.

(2) But the believer is to lay hold of it even now by faith, having a believing interest in it as a possession yet to be acquired in all its glorious fullness.T.C.

1Ti 6:13-16.The solemn charge pressed anew upon Timothy.

As he nears the end of the Epistle, the apostle, with a deeper solemnity of tone, repeats the charge he has given to his young disciple.

I. THE NATURE AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE CHARGE. “I charge thee that thou keep the commandment without spot and without reproach.”

1. The commandment is the Christian doctrine in its aspect as a rule of life and discipline.

2. It was to be kept with all purity and faithfulness“without spot and without reproach” so that it should be unstained by no error of life, or suffer from no reproach of unfaithfulness. He must preach the pure gospel sincerely, and his life must be so circumspect that his ministry should not be blamed by the Church here or by Christ hereafter.

II. THE SOLEMN APPEAL BY WHICH THE CHARGE IS SUSTAINED. “I give thee charge in the sight of God, who keepeth all things alive, and Christ Jesus, who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate.” The apostle, having referred to Timothy’s earlier confession before many witnesses, reminds him of the more tremendous presence of God himself, and of Christ Jesus.

1. God is represented here as Preserver, in allusion to the dangers of Timothy in the midst of Ephesian enemies.

2. Christ Jesus is referred to as an Example of unshaken courage and fidelity to truth in the presence of death.

III. THE CHARGE IS TO BE KEPT WITHOUT SPOT OR REPROACH TILL CHRIST‘S SECOND COMING. “Until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He was to be “faithful unto death,” yea, even unto the second advent.

1. It is according to apostolic usage to represent the end of Christian work as well as Christian expectation as terminating, not upon death, but upon the second advent. The complete redemption will then be fully realized.

2. It is not to be inferred from these words that the apostle expected the Lord‘s coming in his own lifetime. The second Thessalonian Epistle, written many years before, dispels such an impression. The words in 1Ti 6:15, “in his own times,” imply a long succession of cycles or changes.

3. The second advent is to be brought about by God himself. “Which in his own times he shall manifest, who is the blessed and only Potentate, King of kings, and Lord of lords.” This picture of the Divine Majesty was designed to encourage Timothy, who might hereafter be summoned to appear before the little kings of earth, by the thought of the immeasurable glory of the Potentate before whose throne all men must stand in the final judgment.

(1) He who is possessed of exhaustless powers and perfections is essentially immortal”who only hath immortality”because he is the Source of it in all who partake of it; for out of him all is death.

(2) He has his dwelling in the glory of light ineffable”dwelling in light unapproachable, whom no man ever saw or can see.”

(a) God is light (1Jn 1:5). He covereth himself with light as with a garment (Psa 104:4); and he is the Fountain of light.

(b) God is invisible. This is true, though “the pure in heart shall see God” (Mat 5:8), and though it be that without holiness “no man shall see the Lord” (Heb 12:14). God is invisible

() to the eye of sense,

() but he will be visible to the believer in the clear intellectual vision of the supernatural state.

4. All praise and honor are to be ascribed to God, “to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.” The doxology is the natural ending of such a solemn charge.T.C.

1Ti 6:17-19.A word of admonition and encouragement to the rich.

The counsel carries us back to what he had been saying in previous verses.

I. THE RICH ARE WARNED AGAINST A TWOFOLD DANGER. “To those who are rich in this present world give in charge not to be high-minded.” It is implied that there were rich men as well as poor slaves in the Church at Ephesus.

1. The danger of high-mindedness. A haughty disposition is often engendered by wealth. The rich may be tempted to look down with contempt on the poor, as if they, forsooth, were the special favorites of Heaven because they had been so highly favored with worldly substance.

2. The danger of trustiest in wealth. “Nor to set their hope upon the uncertainty of riches.”

(1) It is a great risk for a rich man to say to gold, “Thou art my hope; and to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence” (Job 31:24),

(2) Our tenure of wealth is very uncertain. It is uncertain

(a) because riches may take to themselves wings and flee away;

(b) because we may be taken away by death from the enjoyment of our possessions;

(c) because riches cannot satisfy the deep hunger of the human heart.

3. The safety of trusting in God. “But upon the living God, who giveth us all things richly for enjoyment.”

(1) God is the sole Giver of all we possess.

(2) He giveth to us all richly according to our need.

(3) He giveth it for our enjoyment, so that we may take comfort in his rich provision.

(4) As the living God, he is an unexhaustible Fountain of blessings, so that no uncertainty can ever attach to the supply.

II. THE RICH ARE ENCOURAGED TO MAKE A RIGHT USE OF THEIR WEALTH.

1. “That they do good.”

(1) Rich men may do evil to others by fraud or oppression, and evil to themselves by habits of luxury and intemperance.

(2) They are rather to abound in acts of beneficence to all men, and especially to the household of faith, after the example of him who “went about every day doing good” (Act 10:38).

2. “Rich in good works,” as if in opposition to the riches of this world. They are to abound in the doing of them, like Dorcas, who was “full of good works and almsdeeds.” Wealth of this sort is the least disappointing both here and hereafter, and has no uncertainty in its results.

3. “Ready to distribute.” Willing to give unasked; cheerful in the distribution of their favors; giving without grudging and without delay.

4. “Willing to communicate.” As if to recognize, not merely a common humanity, but a common Christianity with the poor. The rich ought to share their possessions with the poor.

III. ENCOURAGEMENTS TO THE DISCHARGE OF THESE DUTIES. “Laying up in store for themselves as a treasure a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold upon the true life.”

1. It is possible for rich believers to lay up treasure in heaven. This treasure is a foundation against the time to come.

(1) Not a foundation of merit, for we are only saved by the merits of Christ;

(2) but a foundation in heaven, solid, substantial, and durableunlike uncertain riches of earth; good in its nature and resultsunlike earthly riches, which often are the undoing of men. “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness” (Luk 16:9).

2. Our riches may have an influence on our true life hereafter. “That they may lay hold on the true life.”

(1) Not in the way of merit;

(2) but in the way of grace, fro’ the very rewards of the future are of grace;

(3) the end of all our effort is the true life, in contrast to the vain, transitory, short-sighted life of earth.T.C.

1Ti 6:20, 1Ti 6:21.Concluding exhortation and benediction.

The parting counsel of the apostle goes back upon the substance of all his past counsels. It includes a positive and a negative counsel.

I. A POSITIVE COUNSEL. “O Timothy, keep the deposit” entrusted to thee. This refers to the doctrine of the gospel. It is “the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jud 1:3).

1. The doctrine of the gospel is thus not something discovered by man, but delivered to man.

2. It is placed in the hands of Timothy as a trustee, to be kept for the use of others. It is a treasure in earthen vessels, to be jealously guarded against robbers and foes.

3. If it is kept, it will in turn keep us.

II. A NEGATIVE COUNSEL. “Avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called: which some professing erred concerning the faith.”

1. The duty of turning away from empty discourses and the ideas of a false knowledge.

(1) Such things were utterly profitless as to spiritual result.

(2) They were antagonistic to the doctrine of godliness; for they represented theories of knowledge put forth by false teachers, which ripened in due time into the bitter Gnosticism of later times. It was a knowledge that falsely arrogated to itself that name, for it was based on ignorance or denial of God’s truth.

2. The danger of such teachings.

(1) Some members of the Church were led to profess such doctrines, perhaps because they wore a seductive aspect of asceticism, or pretended to show a shorter cut to heaven.

(2) But they lost their way and “erred concerning the faith.” This false teaching undermined the true faith of the gospel.

(3) As the tense implies an event that occurred in the past, these persons were not now in the communion of the Ephesian Church.T.C.

HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM

1Ti 6:3.The health of religion.

“Wholesome words.” There is no word more representative of the spirit of the gospel than this word “wholesome.” It shows us that the gospel means health.

I. THEY ARE WHOLESOME BECAUSE THEY ARE HEALING WORDS. They heal breaches in families; they heal the division between God and the soul; they heal the heart itself. And in the vade-mecum of the Bible we find a cure for all the diseases of the inner man.

II. THEY ARE WHOLESOME WORDS AS CONTRASTED WITH OTHER LITERATURES. With much that is good in the best of authors, there is much that is harmful. All is not wholesome in Dante, or Goethe, or Shakespeare. It requires an infinite mind to inspire words that shall always and ever be wholesome; and it would be difficult to speak of any human literature that is wholesome every way. Some has in it too much romance and sentiment; some has too great a power upon the passions; some feeds the intellect and starves the heart.

III. THESE WORDS ABE WHOLESOME IN EVERY SPHERE. It is not too much to say of the gospel of Jesus Christ that it saves and sanctifies body, soul, and spirit. It has no word of encouragement to the unwashed monk, or to the ascetic who neglects the care of the body. It supplies a true culture to the mind, and feeds and nourishes all the graces of the heart. So it becomes a doctrine according to godliness.W.M.S.

1Ti 6:6.The wealth of religion.

“But godliness with contentment is great gain.” We learn from these words

I. THAT MEN ARE RICH IN WHAT THEY ARE. It is a mistake to think of riches as belonging merely to the estate. We may catalogue the possessions of the outward life, but they are only “things.” How many men learn too late that they are not rich in what they have! Godliness is the truest riches, because it is God-likeness; the image which no earthly artist can produce! The highest good conceivable is to be like God.

II. MEN ARE RICH IN WHAT THEY CAN DO WITHOUT. “With contentment.” Let us study, not so much what we may secure, as what we are able to enjoy existence without. Men multiply their cares often as they multiply their means; and some men, with competency in a cottage, have not been sorry that they lost a palace. “Contentment is great gain;” it sets the mind free from anxious care; it prevents the straining after false effect; it has more time to enjoy the flowers at its feet, instead of straining to secure the meadows of the far-away estate.

III. MEN MUST LEAVE EVERYTHING; THEY CAN CARRY NOTHING AWAY. That is certain; and yet the word must be read thoughtfully. Nothing save conscience and character and memory. Still the words are true, that we can carry nothing out; for these are not “things,” but part of our personality. The body returns to the dust, but the spiritto the God who gave it. Let this cheek all undue anxiety, and cure our foolish envy as we look around upon all the coveted positions of men. “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”W.M.S.

HOMILIES BY R. FINLAYSON

1Ti 6:1-10.Slaves and heretics.

I. DUTIES OF CHRISTIAN SLAVES.

1. Toward unbelieving masters. “Let as many as are servants under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the Name of God and the doctrine be not blasphemed.” Paul had to legislate for a social condition which was, to a considerable extent, different from ours. In the early Christian Churches there were not a few whose social condition was that of slaves. They are pointed to here as being under the yoke as servants. To service there was added the oppressive circumstance of being under the yoke. That is, they were like cattle with the yoke on themhaving no rights, any more than cattle, to bestow their labor where they liked, but only where their masters liked. It was a degradation of human beings, for which no apology could be made. Under Christianity the eyes of Christian slaves could not be altogether closed to the flagrant injustice inflicted on them. They would also see that, in this sonship and heirship of glory, they were really exalted above unbelieving masters. It would have been easy, with such materials, to have inflamed their minds against their masters. But Paul, as a wise legislator, understood better the obligations of Christianity. No inflammatory word does he address to them; he tells them, not of rights, but of duties. Their masters, notwithstanding their being identified with injustice, were still their own masters, i.e. men to whom in the providence of God they were subordinated. Let them be counted worthy of all honor, even as he has already said that the presbyters, or ecclesiastical rulers, are to be counted worthy of honor. And we need not wonder at this; for still, at the basis of things, they are the representatives of Divine authority. As suchand who are wholly entitled to be called worthy representatives?let them be counted worthy of all proper honor. Let them be treated thus, that the Name of God and the doctrine be not blasphemed. There was involved in their conduct the Name of God, i.e. of the true God, as distinguished from the false gods which their masters worshipped. There was also involved the teaching, i.e. what Christianity taught about things. If they were insubordinate, both would be evil spoken of. The heathen masters would think of Christianity as upturning the fundamental relations of things. We are apt to forget how much the Divine honor is involved in our conduct. We should give such a living representation of our religion as will give none occasion to blaspheme.

2. Toward believing masters. “And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but let them serve them the rather, because they that partake of the benefit are believing and beloved.” Men might be despotic masters, holders of slaves, and yet be Christians, their conscience not being educated upon that point. It was not said to them that they were to go and liberate their slaves. It was better that they should receive the essence of Christianity without their prejudices being raised on that point; correction on it, from the working of Christian influences, was sure to follow, with a slowness, however, that might leave many unenlightened of that generation of them. It seems to be implied that, though unenlightened, they gave their slaves Christian treatment, i.e. treated them as not under the yoke, in the avoidance of harshness and unreasonable exactions often associated with the yoke. This was rightly to be interpreted as a homage rendered to brotherhood in Christ. But let not slaves be led into a mistaken interpretation of brotherhood. It did not mean that respect was no longer due to their masters. The earthly relation, though not so deep as the new relation in Christ, still stood, as giving form to duty. Let them not despise them, i.e. refuse the respect due to superiors. And, instead of giving them less service, let it be the other way. Give more service, because they that get the benefit of it are of the same faith, and beloved as masters that have learned front Christ the law of kindness. Emphasizing what has been said. “These things teach and exhort.” There was to be both direction and enforcement.

II. HERETICS.

1. Standard in relation to which they are heretics. “If any man teacheth a different doctrine, and consenteth not to sound words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness.” The other doctrine is that which departs from the standard. This is contained in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Truth, and has the right to rule all minds. There is a healthy vigor in his words, not the sickliness that there was in the words of the heretical teachers. The doctrine contained in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ is that which is according to godliness. There is grounded in our nature, apart from all teachings, a certain religiosity. That is, we are made to have certain states of our soul toward God, such as reverence. As we cherish these states we are pious, godly. What our Lord taught was in accordance with the norm of godliness in our original constitution, and was fitted to effect godliness as a result. The condemnation of the heretics was, that in not consenting to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ they were going away to doctrines which were not fitted to promote piety.

2. Moral characterization.

(1) From the inflatedness of ignorance. “He is puffed up, knowing nothing.” It is only in Christ that we have the right point of view. If, therefore, we are not taught by him, we know nothing aright. Those who have true knowledge are humbled under a sense of what they do not know. The heretics who had not even a smattering of true knowledge were puffed up with conceit of the multitude of things which they knew.

(2) From the morbidness of sophistry. “But doting about questionings and disputes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, wranglings of men corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth.” Not consenting to sound words, they have diseased action. That in which they show themselves diseased is in busying themselves, not, like Christian inquirers, around realities, but, like the sophists with whom Socrates had to do, around questionings which become disputes of words. This disease of hair-splitting is attended with various evil consequences: envy toward those who evince superior skill, strife with those who will not admit the value of the distinctions, railings where there is not reason, evil surmisings where there is not charity, and frequent and more bitter collisions where the truth, not honestly dealt with, is forcibly taken away.

3. The special obnoxiousness of their teaching.

(1) This was in asserting that godliness was a way of gain. “Supposing that godliness is a way of gain.” This was evidently a stratagem on the part of the heretics. Suspected of a worldliness that was unbecoming their religious pretensions, they got over it by taking up the position that godliness was a gainful trade. They appealed to men to be religious for the sake of the worldly gain it would bring to them. It can be seen that the apostle regards the heretical maxim with contempt. It is a maxim from which many act who would not like to admit it in words. They keep up religious appearances, not because they have any love for religion, but because it would be damaging to them to appear irreligious.

(2) Godliness is a way of gain if associated with contentment. “But godliness with contentment is great gain.” “Elegantly, and not without ironical correction to a sense that is contrary, he gives a new turn to the same words” (Calvin). Godliness (what we have in relation to God) is great gain; but its gain lies in its producing a contented mind (in relation to ourselves). Where a man is contented it is as though he owned the whole world.

(3) Reasons for contentment. Our natural bareness. “For we brought nothing into the world, for neither can we carry anything out.” The same thought is expressed in Job 1:21 and in Ecc 5:15. Viewed at two points we are absolutely poor. There was a time when earthly good was not ours, and there will come a time when it will cease to be ours. We are not, then, to make an essential of what only pertains to our earthly state. We can do with little. “But having food and covering we shall be therewith content.” Something added to our bare natural condition we need while we are in this world, and it will not be wanting; but it does not need to be much. Food and covering, these will suffice for us. We can do with less than we imagine. Shakespeare tells us that

“The poorest man
Is in the poorest thing superfluous,
Demands for nature more than nature claims.”

“The wreck of our present day is that no one knows how to live upon little; the great men of antiquity were generally poor. The retrenchment of useless expenditure, the laying aside of what one may call the relatively necessary, is the high-road to Christian disentanglement of heart, just as it was to that of ancient vigor. A great soul in a small house is the idea which has always touched me more than any other” (Lacordaire). The sad result of the opposite state. “But they that desire to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition.” By them that desire to be rich we are to understand those who, instead of being contented with what they can enjoy with God’s blessing and what they can use for God’s glory, make riches their object in life. They fall into a state of mind that is seductive and fettering. And this unnatural craving for possession does not stand alone, but has many affiliated lusts, such as love for display, love for worldly company, love for the pleasures of the table. Of these no rational account can be given, and they are hurtful even to the extent of drowning men in misery, expressed by two very strong wordsdestruction and perdition. Confirmation of the last reason. Proverbial saying. “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” The proverb is intended to have a certain startling nature. Desire of money is not certainly the only root of evils, but it is conspicuously the root of evils. We need only think of the lies, thefts, oppressions, jealousies, murders, wars, lawsuits, sensuality, prayerlessness, that have been caused by it. The victims. “Which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” The apostle thinks of the ravages wrought on some he knew. Within the Christian circle, they unlawfully reached after gain. This led to their wandering from the faith, and to their being pierced through, as with a sword, with many sorrows; bitter reflections on the past, disappointment with what they had obtained, apprehensions of the future. These he would point to as beacons, warning off the rock of avarice.R.F.

1Ti 6:11-16.The Christian gladiator.

The gladiator was one who fought, in the arena, at the amphitheatre of an ancient city, such as the Colosseum at Rome, for the amusement of the public. It made life real and earnest to be compelled to enter the lists, in which the issue was generally victory or death.

“And now
The arena swims around himhe is gone?
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
He heard it, but he heeded nothis eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He recked not of the life he lost or prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay;
There were his young barbarians all at play
There was their Dacian mother! he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday.”

I. NEED OF PREPARATION. “But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.” We know what can be undergone by men of the lowest order, when they put themselves in training for entering the prize-ring. Accustomed to spend the greater part of their time in the public-house, they are found rigorously foregoing their pleasures and entailing upon themselves hard employment. In what these pugilists forego and endure, do they not put to blush many Christians, who cannot be said to forego much, or to give hard service for their religion? There is, we are here taught, what becomes the man of God, i.e. the highest type of manthe man who tries to work out the Divine idea of his life and to come to he God-like in his character. “O man of God, learn from these men of a low order. They flee their wonted pleasures; flee thou,” says the apostle in earnest address, “these things,” i.e. as appears from the context, those habits of mind which we call worldly, tendencies to sink higher things in the pursuit of worldly ends, money, enjoyment, position for ourselves, and for our children. Christians who may have no taste for what are regarded as coarse pleasures, may yet he worldly in their ideas and habits. Such worldliness is unworthy of the man of God; vulgar, demeaning in him. O man of God, flee thou worldliness, as thou wouldst a wild beast. Flee it, as certain to eat up thy true manliness. It may he said that more havoc has been wrought in the Church by worldliness than by intemperance. And the one is not so easily dealt with as the other. The intemperate man may be laid hold on, and aided out of his intemperance. But the worldly man may be in position in the Church; and who is likely to succeed in aiding him out of his worldliness? And so, while the one may be rescued, the other may continue to he the prey of destructive habits that are growing upon him. The other side of duty refers to the acquiring of good habits of mind that are required for the fight. And as the word for worldly habits is flee, so the word for good habits is pursue. It is implied that worldliness seeks us, and we need to get out of its way, to flee from it as from a wild beast. Good habits, on the other hand, retreat from us; they are apt to evade us, and we need to pursue them with all the keenness with which a ravenous wild beast pursues its prey. It is hard for us to come up to them, and to have them as our enjoyed possession. The good habits, so ill to grasp, which are needed for the fight by the man of God are particularized. First of all he must have righteousness, or the habit of going by rule. And along with this he must have godliness, or the habit of referring to God. Then he must have faith, which covers his defenselessness. Along with this he must have love, which supplies him with fire. He must also have patience, which enables him to hold out to the end. And along with this he must have meekness, which makes his spirit proof against all accumulation of wrong. In the eye of the world, these habits may seem unmanly; but, O man of God, be true to thyself, and pursue them; let them not escape from thee; by God’s decree they shall reward thy eager pursuit.

II. NATURE OF THE FIGHT. “Fight the good fight of the faith.” He that has the faith of a Christian is necessitated to fight, There is revealed to his faith a God in the heavens, who hates sin, and who also seeks the salvation of souls. In the light of this, which ought to be an increasing light, there is presented an exposure. He comes to see that there are in his flesh tendencies which are against God. He comes also to see that there is in the world, in its opinion and custom, much that is against God. As, then, he would stand by God, he must fight against the flesh and the worldagainst what would tempt to sin, from within and from without. It is a good fight, being for the cause of God, which is also the cause of man in his establishment in righteousness and love. It is a good fight, being grounded in the victory of Christ and carried on hopefully under his leadership. It is a fight into which the man of God can throw his undivided energies, his warmest enthusiasm. Many a fight which receives the plaudits of men has, in the strict review, only a seeming or superficial goodness. But the fight into which the man of God throws himself can stand the severest tests of goodness. Be it thine, then, O man of God, to fight the good fight of the faith.

III. THE PRICELESS PRIZE. “Lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called, and didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses.” The prize for which the gladiator fought was not all unsubstantial. It was life. It meant the enjoyment of liberty, return to his rude hut, his young barbarians, and their “Dacian mother.” Still that life had in it elements of unsatisfactoriness and decay. It was savage life, below the level of civilized life. Such as it was in its rude delights, it was not beyond accident and death. But the prize for which the Christian gladiator fights, is life eternal. This is not to be confounded with perpetuity of existence, which may be felt to be an intolerable burden. The importance of existence lies in its joyous elements, experience of healthful activity, and of communion with those we love. So the life, which is here presented as the prize, is that kind of existence in which there is a free, unrestrained play of our powers, and in which we have communion with the Father of our spirits and with the spirits of the just. And the life has such a principle in it, such subsistence in the living God, as to be placed above the reach of death, as only to be brought forth into all its joyousness by death. The counsel of the apostle is to lay hold on this priceless prize. O man of God, do not let it escape thee. Stretch forward to it with a feeling of its supreme desirableness. It is worthy of all the strain to which thou canst put thyself. The counsel of the apostle is supported by a reference to a marked period in the pastapparently entrance on the Christian life, or that which was expressive of it to Timothy, viz. his baptism. It was a period in which Divine action and human action met. It was God calling him to life eternal It was at the same time Timothy confessing a good confessionapparently saying that life eternal was his aim. Come persecution, come death, life eternal he would seek to gain. This confession he made in the sight of many witnesses, present on the occasion of his baptism, who could speak to the earnestness of spirit with which he entered on his Christian career. O man of God, fight, remembering thy Divine calling and thy solemn engagements.

IV. THE WITNESSES. “I charge thee in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and of Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession; that thou keep the commandment, without spot, without reproach.” The many witnesses just mentioned call up such a scene as was to be witnessed in the Coliseum. There was an assemblage of eighty-seven thousand people, tier above tier all round. As the gladiator stepped into the arena, he might well be awed by so vast and unwonted a crowd. But this would quickly give way to the feeling of what depended on the way in which he quitted himself. And there would not be absent from his mind the thought of the applause which would reward a victory. O man of God, thou art now in the arena, and there are many onlookers. They are watching how thou art quitting thyself in the fight of the faithwhether thou art realizing the seriousness of thy position, thy splendid opportunity. Their approval is worthy of being considered, worthy of being coveted by thee, and should help to nerve thee to the fight. But there was one pre-eminent personage who was expected to grace a Roman gladiatorial festival, viz. the emperor. As the gladiator entered, his eye would rest on the emperor and his attendants. And he would have a peculiar feeling in being called upon to fight under the eye of the august Caesar, to whom he would look up as to a very god. So, O man of God, there is one great Personage who is looking down on the arena in which thou art, and under whose eye thou art called upon to fight. It is not a Caesara man born and upheld and mortal like other men; but it is God, who quickeneth all thingsthe Substratum of all created existence, the almighty Upholder of men, the almighty Upholder of the universe with all its forms of life. There is another Personage, and yet not another. This is Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate wirelessed the good confession. “Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a King then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a King. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness of the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” “In these words we see the majesty and fearless exposure of Jesus. ‘I cannot and will not deny that I am a King. It is my office to declare the truth; it is by the influence of truth that I am to reign in the hearts of men, and I cannot shrink from asserting this most important truth, that I have the power and authority of a sovereign at once to rule and to defend my people. Let not this doctrine offend. Every one who is of the truth, who loves the light, and whose mind is open to conviction, heareth and acknowledgeth this and all my doctrines.’ These words, spoken at so interesting and trying a period, discover to us the elevation of our Savior in a very striking light. We see his mind unbroken by suffering. We see in him the firmest adherence to the doctrines he had formerly taught. We see in him a conscious dignity, a full conviction of the glory and power with which he was invested. He asserts his royal office, not from ostentation, not amidst a host of flatterers, but in the face of enemies; and when he made this solemn declaration his appearance bore little conformity, indeed, to the splendor of earthly monarchs.” There is a difference between the good confession of Timothy and the good confession of Christ indicated in the language. Timothy confessed his good confession, i.e. in the way of saying beforehand what he would do in the trial. Christ witnessed his good confession, i.e. authenticated it by making it in the immediate prospect of death. He went forth from Pilate’s judgment-hall and sealed his confession with his blood. He was thus the first and greatest of confessors. It adds much in the way of definiteness, that we can thus think of him. It also adds much in the way of bracing. There is a halo around the great Onlooker from his past. The presence in a battle of the hero of a hundred fights, of a Napoleon or Wellington, is worth some additional battalions. So, O man of God, be braced up to the fight, by the thought that thou art fighting under the eye of thy God, under the eye of thy Savior. And do not think of getting the prize surreptitiously, but only by fair means, keeping to the rules of the contest, what is here called keeping the commandment, so that no little spot is made on it, no little dishonor done to it. For, however little, it means so much taken away from the value of the prize. I charge thee, then, says the apostle, in these great presences keep the commandment.

V. FINAL EVENT. “Until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in its own times he shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power eternal. Amen.” The final event of the day, on the occasion of a great gladiatorial show, was the coming forward of Caesar, in circumstances of pomp, to crown, or otherwise reward, the victors. So the final event of time will be the coming forward of our Lord Jesus Christ (as from looking on) to crown the victors in the good fight of the faith. There is reference to the same event in 2Ti 4:7, 2Ti 4:8. It would be the proudest moment of a man’s life when he was called forth to receive the prize from the hand of his emperor. So it will be a moment of greatest satisfaction to the believer when he is called forth (as by the herald proclaiming his name before a great assemblage) to receive the crown from the hand of his Lord. He will not certainly be filled with self-satisfaction. He will feel that he is only a debtor to Christ, and his first impulse will be to cast his crown at the feet of his great Benefactor. This appearing God is to show, i.e. to effect and to bring forth into view. He is to show it in its own timesat present hidden, but clear to the mind of God, and to be shown when his purposes are ripe. He who is to effect the appearing is appropriately adored as the Potentate (the Wielder of power). Not less appropriately is he adored as the blessed or (better) the happy Potentate, i.e. self-happy, having all elements of happiness within himself, no void within his infinite existence to fill up, but not therefore disposed to keep happiness to himself, rather prompted, in his own experience of happiness, to bestow it on others, first in creation and then in redemption. It is the happy Wielder of power that is to bring about an event that is fraught with so much happiness to believers. He shall show it, for he is the only Potentate; none can dispute the name with him. There are Towers under him as there were rulers, with different names, under the emperor; but he is the King of kings and Lord of lordssovereign Disposer of all human and angelic representatives of power. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water: he turns it [however impetuous] whithersoever he will.” He shall show it in its own times; for, however distant those times, he shall live to do it, being the only One who hath immortality from himself, essential imperviousness to decay. He shall show it, who is himself inaccessible within a circle of light, and not only never seen by men but necessarily invisible to men, i.e. in the unveiled brightness of his glory. All honor and power eternal, then, be to this God. We may judge of what the appearing is to be that is to be effected by One in whose praise the apostle breaks forth in so lofty a strain. We may conclude that it is to be the grandest display of the honor and power of God. And what a privilege that the humble believervictor in the battle of lifeis to be called forth before an assembled universe, under the presidency of Christ and by the hand of Christ, to be crowned with the life eternal! Let every one add his Amen to the ascription of honor and power to God, as displayed in the appearing of Christ.R.F.

1Ti 6:17-21.Parting words.

I. WARNING TO THE RICH. “Charge them that are rich in this present world, that they be not high-minded, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” The apostle’s fear of worldliness in the Church still possesses him. He does not now regard those who wish to be rich, but those who are rich. He at once reminds them of the relative value of their riches, as extending only to this present world. He warns them against the danger of being high-minded, i.e. lifted up above others under a sense of their importance on account of their riches. He warns them also against the kindred danger, which separates, not so much from men as from God, viz. their setting their hope on their riches. “Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answered again, and said unto them, “Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God? The difficulty of the rich is that they are tempted to set their hope on their riches. One reason for their not doing so, is that their hope should not be set on an uncertainty such as riches is. The true Object of our hope is God, who is of a liberal disposition. He giveth us not merely the necessaries of life, but he giveth us richly all things. In his disposition we have a better guarantee for our not wanting, than in clutching to any riches. He giveth us things to enjoy, not to draw us away from our fellow-men, not to draw us away from himself, but to enjoy as his gifts, through which he would tell us of the kindness of his heart.

II. THE RIGHT COURSE FOR THEM. “That they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to communicate.” They were to seek to promote the happiness of others. As they were rich, they had it in their power, above others, to do beautiful actions. They were to be free in making distribution of what they had. They were to be ready to admit others to share with them. In a word, they were to counteract worldly habits of mind by cultivating habits of benevolence. There is the duty of giving the Lord the first fruits of our substance, a proportion of our income; there is here inculcated the cultivation of the disposition toward others that is to go along with that.

III. ADVANTAGE OF THE RIGHT COURSE. “Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed.” What they took from their plenty and gave for others they were not to lose, but were to have it as a treasure laid up for them. “Their estates will not die with them, but they will have joy and comfort of them in the other world, and have cause to bless God for them to all eternity” (Beveridge). The treasure is thought of as a good foundation, by resting on which they would lay hold on the life which was life indeed. The time is coming when this world will be taken away from beneath our feet. What have we sent before us into the next world, so as to keep us from sinking in the new condition of things, to bear us up so that we shall not earn, but receive, from Christ’s hand and through Christ’s merit, the life indeed? The answer here iswhat we have denied ourselves, what we have unselfishly sacrificed for others.

IV. CONCLUDING EARNEST ADDRESS TO TIMOTHY.

1. What he was to keep. “O Timothy, guard that which is committed unto thee.” The deposit is the doctrine delivered to Timothy to preach, as opposed to what follows. “We have an exclamation alike of foreknowledge and of fondness. For he foresaw future errors, which he mourned over beforehand. What does he mean by guarding the deposit? Guard it, says he, on account of thieves, on account of enemies who while men sleep may sow tares amidst the good seed. What is the deposit? It is that which was entrusted to thee, not found by thee; which thou hast received, not invented; a matter, not of genius, but of teaching; not of private usurpation, but of public tradition; a matter brought to thee, not put forth by thee; in which thou oughtest to be, not an enlarger, but a guardian; not an originator, but a disciple; not leading, but following. Keep, saith he, the deposit; preserve intact and inviolate the talent of the catholic faith. What has been entrusted to thee, let the same remain with thee; let that same be handed down by thee. Gold thou hast received, gold return. I should be sorry thou shouldst substitute ought else. I should be sorry that for gold thou shouldst substitute lead, impudently, or brass, fraudulently. I do not want the mere appearance of gold, but its actual reality. Not that there is to be no progress in religion, in Christ’s Church. Let there be so by all means, and the greatest progress; but, then, let it be real progress, not a change of faith. Let the intelligence of the whole Church and its individual members increase exceedingly, provided it be only on its own head, the doctrine being still the same.”

2. What he was to avoid. “Turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called; which some professing have erred concerning the faith.” The errors are called profane babblings, similarly to the characterization of them in 1Ti 1:6 and 1Ti 4:7. They are also called oppositions of a falsely named gnosis, i.e. to the true gnosis in the gospel. There were some defections on account of Gnostic tendencies even in the apostle’s day; and it was very much the design of this letter to warn his pupil against them.

V. BENEDICTION. “Grace be with you.” It seems better to regard the benediction for Timothy alone. He has been so busy in laying down ecclesiastical rules for the direction of Timothy as superintendent, that he has no space left for personal references, but closes abruptly with the briefest form of benediction.R.F.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

1Ti 6:1. Whether the law, “that the Jews should none of them remain slaves for life, withouttheirownconsent,”(Exod.xxi.2-6.) might, through the devices of Satan, give occasion to introduce something like it into the Christian church, or whatever gave rise to it, it appears, that the Judaizers absolved men from civil duties, and would have increased their party, by drawing slaves into the Christian church under the notion of their being thereby rendered freed men: in opposition to which the apostle enjoins slaves to continue to respect, and faithfully to serve, their own masters, whether Christians or not, unless they could obtain their freedom in a fair and legal manner. Timothy was to warn the Judaizers not to teach differently from the apostle in this particular; nor in any other to gratify the humours of their hearers in order to enrich themselves, 1Ti 6:1-16. That this discourse was levelled against such false teachers, appears not only from the beginning of 1Ti 6:3 but also from 1Ti 6:10-11 where he dehorts Timothy from following their example.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

1Ti 6:1-2 . Precept regarding the conduct of Christian slaves.

] is added to explain . Paul does not say simply , because he wishes to mark the oppressive circumstances of the condition of a slave. is not used elsewhere in the N. T. of the yoke of slavery (in Herodotus: ). The expression is not to be limited to those slaves who were oppressed more than usual by their masters, as Heydenreich thinks, quoting 1Pe 2:18 . It is clear from the clause . . ., as well as from the contrast in 1Ti 6:2 , that Paul is thinking here of the slaves who had heathen masters.

] is so far emphatic, that it directs attention to the circumstance of the personal relation more than would be done by the usual pronoun.

( i.e. of all honour which is due to them as masters) (f. , 1Ti 5:17 ); comp. the exhortations in Tit 2:9 ; Eph 6:5-8 ; Col 3:22-25 ; 1Pe 2:18 .

In confirmation, Paul adds . . .; comp. Tit 2:10 . The meaning is correctly given by Chrysostom: , , , .

] comp. Rom 2:24 .

] the gospel, as the doctrine prevailing among Christians. 1Ti 6:2 . ] The adversative shows that the apostle is here speaking of other slaves than in 1Ti 6:1 , viz., as he himself says, of those whose masters are , not keeping their slaves as , but treating them kindly and gently because of their . This last point is, indeed, not formally expressed here, but it is presupposed in .

is either to be joined with as an adjective, or to be taken as a substantive, defining it more precisely: “who have believers as masters.” The order of the words might give the preference to the latter view.

] denotes here conduct towards masters in which the honour due to them is not given.

] These words are not the ground of the previous exhortation; they are the ground on which the might be led to think their masters of little worth; not the slaves, but the masters, form the subject (de Wette, Wiesinger, van Oosterzee, and others).

] , equivalent to “ all the more .”

, . . .] With we must supply (Rom 1:7 ; comp. Rom 11:28 ): “beloved of God;” this is supported by the close connection with .

The subject is formed not by the slaves (Wetstein: intelligo non de dominis, sed de servis, qui dant operam, ut dominis beneficiant et bene de iis mereantur), still less by both slaves and masters (Matthies), but by the masters only. The only possible construction is this, that forms the subject, the predicate; for the article shows that the words . . . do not give a more precise definition of what precedes. Most recent expositors (de Wette, Wiesinger, van Oosterzee, Plitt, also hitherto in this commentary) understand by the kindness which the slaves show to their masters by faithful service, and explain as equivalent to “receive, accept;” but this explanation cannot be justified by usage. [198] In the N. T. the word occurs only in Luk 1:54 and Act 20:35 , in the sense of “accept of some one.” This sense it has also in classic Greek, when it refers to persons; in reference to things, it means: “carry on something eagerly,” also: “make oneself master of a thing.” Hofmann accordingly is not incorrect in translating: “devote themselves to kindness, making it their business.” If we keep strictly to this meaning, as indeed we must, then the words . . apply to the Christian masters in regard to their conduct towards their slaves, so that the meaning of the exhortation is: “ Serve (your masters) all the more, that they, devoting themselves to kindness towards you, are believers and beloved (of God).” So rightly Theophylact: , : ; so, too, Chrysostom, Grotius, Wegscheider, Leo, and others. De Wette, against this explanation, maintains that “it makes the predicate ‘believing, somewhat superfluous, because the masters, being kindly towards their slaves, are already showing their Christian faith in action.” He is wrong; for, on the one hand, towards slaves might be true even of heathen; and, on the other, Paul wishes to insist on the Christian belief of the masters as a motive for careful and faithful service. Hofmann is wrong in thinking that . does not depend on , but forms an independent clause in this sense, that the slaves who serve their masters willingly in distributing their alms, are beloved (viz. by their fellow-Christians). This view is opposed not only by the (for to what previous sentence is it to be attached?), but also by this, that whereas the are the slaves, is arbitrarily supplied with .

The apostle concludes the exhortations given in regard to the slaves with the words: , which Lachm. Buttm. and Tisch. wrongly refer to what follows; comp. 1Ti 4:11 , 1Ti 5:7 ; the right construction is given by de Wette, Wiesinger, van Oosterzee, and others.

[198] De Wette wrongly seeks to justify this meaning by saying that also means: “perceive with the senses,” and that in Porphyrias, De Abstin. i. 46, it means: . Though the Vulg. translates it: “qui beneficii participes sunt,” and Luther: “and are partakers of the benefit,” the word is taken in a sense foreign to it. The same is true of Heydenreich’s explanation: “ ” (Phi 1:7 ), wherein he also arbitrarily takes as equivalent to .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

XII
Various Prescripts, Warnings, and Exhortations

1Ti 6:1-21

A.The obligation of Christian slaves.Warning against false teachers.Praise of moderation, and warning against covetousness

1Ti 6:1-10

1Let as many servants as are [as many as are servants] under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. 2And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren;1 [,] but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit [who are partakers of the benefit]. These things teach and exhort. 3If any man teach otherwise, and consent2 not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; [,] 4He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, 5strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings3 of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness [godliness is a means of gain]: from such withdraw thyself.4 6But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain5 we can carry nothing out. 8And having food and raiment, let us be therewith [with these] content. 9But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10For the love of money is the [a] root of all evil: [,] which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1Ti 6:1. Let as many servants as are under the yoke, &c. [Under the yoke, as bondservants. is not the subject, but an explanatory predicate; Ellicott, in loco.W.] The Apostle begins in this chapter to give counsel for various classes in the community, as he has before set forth whatever is required of its overseers and officers. At the outset he directs Timothy as to the duty of those members of the church who belong to the condition of slaves (1Ti 6:1-2). It was not strange that such persons should think themselves placed, by their Christian profession, in a changed relation toward both their heathen and their converted masters. They might pervert the doctrine of a Christian freedom, or they might find in the Jewish law, by which slaves were released every seventieth or Sabbatic year, some reason to withdraw, sooner or later, wholly or partly, from the yoke. It was therefore necessary to urge on them the duty of a constant subordination (comp. Eph 6:5; Col 3:22; Tit 2:1; Tit 2:9-10; 1Pe 2:18). Christianity does not abolish slavery at once, in opposition to law; but, on the contrary, the bondmen must, through their true Christian conduct, offer a living letter of commendation, to be read by all, of the true and living character of Christianity. To further this end, the Apostle counsels how Christian slaves (1Ti 6:1) are to demean themselves toward unbelieving (1Ti 6:2) and believing masters.Let as many as are servants under the yoke. Not referring directly to such as were treated with special severity, but, in general, to the oppressive character of slavery.Count their own masters worthy of all honor. Almost the same literal injunction given in regard of the presbyter, in 1Ti 5:11. The Apostle points to a , which dwells in the heart, and is thence exhibited in the words, demeanor, conduct.That the name of Godof the true God, whom the Christian slaves honored, in contrast with their idolatrous mastersand the doctrineviz., of God (comp. Tit 2:10), the divine gospelbe not blasphemed; which would doubtless be the case should the Christian slaves be guilty of disorderly action. In another place (Rom 2:24) the Apostle accuses the Jews, because through them the name of God was blasphemed among the heathen; and it was counted the greatest sin of David (2Sa 12:14), that he had made the enemies of God to blaspheme. The warning of the text is designed to prevent a like danger.

1Ti 6:2. And they exhort. Christian slaves, who, on the other hand, have the privilege of believing masters, might easily forget that they who, as believers, were their brethren, yet had another relation as their superiors, and might thus withhold the honor due to them. The Apostle strongly opposes this exaggerated view of Christian freedom and equality.They that have believing masters[see Trench, Synon., 28, on the distinction between and . The former signifies the relation to those who have been bought, who are owned as property; the latter the family headship, the relation of the man to wife and children. It is to be observed that in his other Epistles St. Paul uses as the general title.W.]( is placed before emphatically) let them not despise them, because they are brethren;i.e., the masters. Such a contempt is meant here as would wholly, or in part, lose sight of the natural difference between master and slave. There is no respect of persons before God; but before man the divisions of social rank must be held in due regard.But rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved. It is almost unexplainable, that both these last objections should have been thought to refer either to the slaves (Wetstein), or to masters and slaves together (Matthies). It is plain that the Apostle here expressly distinguishes the masters, and in such wise, indeed, as to persuade the slaves to honor and revere them. As believers in Christ and beloved of God, the masters can claim peculiarly the respect of their Christian bondmen. It is a harder question, what the Apostle means by the words: partakers of the benefit, ; [qui participes sunt; Vulgate.W.] We might, perhaps, suppose that = signifying the blessing of Christianity (comp. Rom 1:7; thus Heydenreich and others). But this thought is already expressed in . and , and would thus be only an empty tautology. It is then better to understand, by , the faithful service of the slaves, so that the sense should be: slaves ought so much more to serve believing masters, because they who receive such service are believers and beloved. The remembrance that a true service, done from a Christian principle, would be a benefit to the believing masters, was indeed well calculated to persuade Christian slaves.These things teach and exhort. A direct reference, as in 1Ti 4:11; 1Ti 5:7, to what has been said just before.

[This exposition, while it seems true to the letter, is untrue to the principle of Christianity. Undoubtedly St. Paul did not attempt to abolish slavery. But when it is inferred from this that the moral action of the primitive Church gives us the complete standard for all time, it is a petitio principii. The Church of that day was composed of men who had no political or civil ties outside their little body; to them, all else was the world of heathendom. It was enough for St. Paul to inculcate the law of love, and leave the larger question of Roman slavery to the future. But when Christianity became the religion of the State, and its believers citizens, there arose a new, definite sphere of social duty outside the church relationship. It may, indeed, be proven from this passage, that slavery is not absolutely and in all cases a sin, like lying or stealing; that, like polygamy, it may be one of the phases of social growth. But to say that, because Christian philanthropy did not then touch it, it may now claim the sanction of Christianity, is monstrous.We might, indeed, draw from this very passage one of the strongest arguments against the modern apologist. St. Paul does not counsel masters to be kind, but slaves not to despite their masters, because they are brethren. The tone of the whole proves that slavery in that Christian community was hardly a yoke at all. What would the slaveholders of our Christian time think of a bishop who should mildly beg bondmen to treat a master with respect, not scorn him, because he was a brother?But we take here the largest ground. To say that Christianity is to-day confined within the limits of St. Pauls action, is to say that in 1800 years it has wrought no change in the world it came to reform. It is to say, that it is behind Judaism at that very time; for slavery, under the teaching of humane Rabbis, had in St. Pauls day almost wholly vanished from Palestine. It is to narrow Scripture; it is to narrow Christian ethics; it is to narrow Christian history. Civilization has, step by step, been fulfilling the first prophecy of the Lord, that He came to break every yoke. As early as the code of Justinian, we have the statement of the maxim, Cum jure naturali omnes liberi nascerentur; Cod. Just., lib. i. tit. 5. It was a social law which the early Christian himself had not grasped: it was the new growth of social ethics. Christian jurisprudence and Christian philanthropy hare only interpreted it. We may well demand, at this day, that Scriptural criticism shall no longer make the word of God the apologist of social wrong.W.]6

1Ti 6:3. If any man teach otherwise, &c. The Apostle proceeds from the slaves to the false teachers. The connection of his thoughts seems this: that the false teachers have proposed dangerous maxims in regard of Christian freedom and order, which might, if they spread further, mislead the bondmen. We may thus understand the definitely of corrupt maxims concerning the topics just discussed, although we may add that the Apostle takes occasion here, as in other passages of these Epistles, to point out and oppose false doctrines in general. Their character is here described, and their condemnation given with a fulness of language that might seem somewhat irrelevant, if we do not consider how dangerous such false teachers were, and how sad their corrupting influence on many.And consent not. This more definite expression now marks the false teachers as men who were directly hostile to the gospel doctrine, which is enjoined by St. Paul as the fountain and touchstone of the truth.Consent not ( ), naturally signifies that acceptance, in a spiritual view, which leads of itself to agreement (accedere opinioni, alicui accedere). The words of the Lord are spoken of as wholesome, in contrast with the diseased character of the false doctrines (comp. , 1Ti 6:4); and the truth of the gospel is here named as according to godliness ( .), to show the indivisible unity between Christian truth and morality, in consequence of which any, who has mistaken the latter, has already in himself the sentence of his condemnation. [Not qu ad pietatem ducit, but qu pietati consentanea est; Ellicott.W.] Since Christianity directly quickens and demands godliness, a lax morality cannot have union with it The Apostle now proceeds, 1Ti 6:4-5, to show the sources and effects of each grievous error.

1Ti 6:4. He is proud strifes of words. A darkened understanding is the first characteristic which St. Paul ascribes to such an errorist (); he is beclouded, wholly blinded, from his proud conceit (comp. Eph 4:18); knowing nothing [aright]; the result of the former vice. He who is blinded in his view of the whole, cannot possibly look at particulars from a right point of sight. To judge truly the special truths of Christianity, must require, in some measure, a knowledge of its whole character. To this sad state of the mind there is added a yet more melancholy state of the heart.But doting about questions and strifes of words, ., . . . The proposition declares the objects in regard to which this disease is manifest The false teacher is unhappily busied with and . He is tormented with the pursuit of those beyond the good and needful limit; and while he perhaps believes that he may attain the right result, he opens for himself and others a source of deep wretchedness. What else can be the end of all these strifes? (see below.)Whereof cometh, &c., , sc. .Envy, strife, railings; not directly against God (Chrysostom), but rather against other men.Evil surmisings. Suspiciones mal, per quas ii, qui non statim omnia assentiuntur, invidi putantur; Bengel.

1Ti 6:5. Perverse disputings; , according to the common reading, to which, however, another () deserves the preference (see Tischendorf). The first denotes useless disputation, the other, growing hostilities and conflicts (comp. Winer, Gramm., p. 92).Men of corrupt minds, destitute of the truth. The Apostle states here the deepest ground of this blindness, which he has described in 1Ti 6:4. Here, too, the corrupt heart is, in his view, the abyss out of which proceeds the darkness which obscures the spiritual vision. This and the preceding participial clause denote, therefore, that the errorists were before unperverted, and in possession of the truth; but both these royal jewels have been forfeited, and, according to 1Ti 4:1, through demoniacal influence; Huther. As a signal proof of the extent of this perversion, the Apostle adds the following.Supposing that gain is godliness. This trait completes the sketch of the false teachers, who thus appear as unprincipled hypocrites, abusing the spiritual gifts they had received to their selfish ends (comp. 2Ti 3:5). is not here the objective religion, which is (1Ti 6:3), but godliness in a subjective sense, the religious spirit, or piety. This was regarded by the heretics as , a source of secular gain. They put on the guise of godly, conscientious men, from pure selfishness. A show of Christian life was in their view a lucrative business (Tit 1:11, a trade; Luther); and they may be thus called an order of Jesuits before Loyola, since they followed in this the rule, that the end sanctifies the means. The contempt of the Apostle for such worthless men is seen in his choice of words; and Timothy hardly needed the express exhortation, From such withdraw thyself, which is not in the original text (see Critical notes).

[There is a singular likeness between this sketch of the false teachers, and the Sophists so keenly portrayed in Plato as the opponents of Socrates. Their philosophy was a mere dialectic hair-splitting, without any moral trutha , a word-fighting; and the of this Epistle answer exactly to the captious, questioning style of the Greek schools. As a last feature, they were , and boasted that they sold their wisdom to the youth of Athens. See Gorgias, c. 7; Protag., c. 3. It was the same empty, immoral sophistomania, cropping out in this refined Jewish-Christian shape.W.]

1Ti 6:6. But godliness with contentment is great gain. It might be thought that the Apostle denied godliness to be in any sense a . To correct so wrong an inference from his words, he would show how far godliness gives true success; and this leads him to a full view, reaching to the end of 1Ti 6:10, of the Christian contentment . Godliness is the very reality, although in another and higher sense, which these errorists pervertWith contentment. If it be closely joined with contentment, then it is a nobler gain. In this concise and weighty meaning the Apostle expresses both these main ideas, that godliness makes us content, and to be content is the highest good. Eleganter, non sine ironic correctione in contrarium sensum, eadem verba mox retorquet, ac si dixisset; perperam illi et nequiter, qui venalem habent Christi doctrinam, quasi vere pietas esset qustus. Ideo autem sic vocat, quod plenam et absolutam beatitudinem nobis affert. Ita vero felicitas in pietate sita est, hc vero sufficientia est veluti quoddam auctorium; Calvin.

1Ti 6:7. For we brought nothing into this world. In this and the following verses the Apostle shows the many grounds of this Christian . The first lies in the very nature of those worldly things for whose possession the unsatisfied man strives. They are not our lawful property, but a loan, received at our birth, to be soon surrendered at the first summons. As we brought nothing into this world (comp. Job 1:21), it is certain we can carry nothing out (comp. Psa 49:17-18; Luk 12:15-21). The absence of in A. F. G., 1Ti 6:17, seems to us a mere error of the MSS., since this word can hardly be dispensed with. It is hence justly restored by Tischendorf, in his 7th edition, although he had before erased it.

1Ti 6:8. And having food and raiment, let us, &c. A second reason for contentment, because men have fewer real wants than they commonly suppose.Having food and raiment, ; both words .: that which serves for the nourishment and clothing of the body; under the latter, shelter also should be understood. , habentes, implicate affirmatur, nos habituros esse; Bengel.Let us be therewith content, . The future may here be considered perhaps as an exhortation. (Let us then be content; Luther). It is simpler, however, to take it in the ordinary sense, as that which may be reasonably expected. The folly of discontent is thus at once recognized.

1Ti 6:9. But they that will be rich, &c. A third reason of , the sad result of the opposite state. (The Vulgate is logically right, but not strictly grammatical, nam qui volunt, &c.)That will be;, not . Bengel justly says: Hc voluntas animi su sorte contenti, inimica, non ips opes, quas idcirco divites non jubentur abjicere (1Ti 6:17-19).Fall into temptation; that is, into the temptation to increase their worldly goods in an unjust way.And a snare, . They are thereby fettered, and led captive by evil; with what results, appears directly after.And many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. The last two words strengthen each other, and may perhaps be distinguished by applying the former to the destruction of the body, the latter to the perdition of the soul. It is arbitrary, in any case, to refer them wholly to moral corruption (De Wette), into which they are already so sunken as to be incapable of any further degree; or to eternal perdition (Huther), because that is only the complete manifestation of what is aleady begun on earth. The here and hereafter in this warning of St. Paul must not be wilfully disjoined. But that he has not spoken too strongly here, is proved by the next verse.

[The force of the compound form ., and the more abstract termination of the latter word, perhaps, give a hint that a climactic force is intended; is destruction in a general sense, whether of body or soul; intensifies it, by pointing mainly to the latter; Ellicott, in loco.W.]

1Ti 6:10. For the love of money is the root of all evil. The omission of the article before should be understood. [A root; Alford, Conybeare and Howson; see, however, Ellicott for the other view.W.] St. Paul does not say that the root of all evil is the desire of money, in which case this would be here represented as the source of all other sinsa view opposed as well to sound sense as to daily experiencebut he only enumerates together the springing out of the ; although it is as true that the same can be said of other sins; ambition, lust, indeed every evil passion which masters mankind. Yet it must be acknowledged that there is no sin which so entirely rules, influences, and hardens men against every better feeling, as this. (This is contrary to De Wette in loco.) This love of money () not merely signifies the lust for gaining money in all possible ways, but the desire of keeping it at every cost.Which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith;.sc. . As this last is an , it must be granted that the connection of thought seems not quite correct, since, in a strict sense, the money itself, not the love of it, is the object of such toilsome effort. The sense is, however, clear enough; and it is therefore needless to explain in the sense of deditum esse; Matthies. Whoever thirsts after money, seeks at the same time to satisfy his passion with his whole power, and thus he wanders from true Christian faith (comp. 1Ti 1:6; 1Ti 1:19), and has pierced himself through with many sorrows. The , here imaged as a sword piercing the soul (Luk 2:35), and leaving a deep wound, are the pangs of conscience which the covetous feel when their eyes are opened to the shameful means they have used toward the end. They are, further, the forewarning of that whereof the Apostle has spoken in the previous verses. Personal recollections of this or that covetous man may have risen to his mind. Instead of , transfixerunt, some critics have a reading on which the Vulgate translation rests (inseruerunt), signifying that they have surrounded their life with pain, as with a hedge of thorns. It is clear, however, that the Recepta, which critically is far better sustained, gives us likewise a much stronger sense.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The injunction of the Apostle in regard of slavery is important, because it defines, simply and exactly, the relation of Christianity to it. The gospel sustains indeed the principle of the new philanthropy, servitium humani generis flagitium; and condemns all abuse of the slave by the master. But on the other hand, where bondage exists, it will in no way release the slave from his duty to his master. It prepares the way for a better condition, but it does not abolish this as by a magic stroke; Freedom, equality, fraternity, in the revolutionary sense of the word, are positively an unchristian sentiment; and the boundary line is here sharply drawn between revolution and reformation. The freedom to which the Lord calls his disciples is not an egoistic, individual one, which severs all bonds, but the freedom to do good in our allotted sphere, and to serve others through love.

[This sentence has in it a weighty side of Christian truth, but it may be made that half-truth which is whole error. The gospel morality does not teach mere political equality; it does not upturn the just distinctions of social rank; but, while it first purifies the heart, it seeks also to abolish unsocial caste. It does not teach the slave to revolt; but it does pronounce slavery an institution debasing both to mind and body, and at war with the growth of Christianity. An Epictetus may be inwardly free in bonds; but his virtue does not justify servitude. The quietism here taught, which severs the Church of Christ from social philanthropy, like Simeon the Stylite in the desert, has too often proved itself the worst egoism, that of a selfish or an emasculated piety.W.]

2. Here the Apostle commends a practical godliness, in his hostility to all strifes of words. Dicat autem aliquis, unde discernam qustiones utiles ab inutilibus? Respondeo, norma est fundamentum, ut Paulus inquit (1Co 3:11). Complectitur autem fundamentum scripta prophetica et apostolica, et illustre discrimen est legis et evangelii. Item justitia fidei et operum. Item veri cultus, a Deo instituti et falsi cultus ab hominibus instituti, etc. Intra has metas coercend sunt cogitationes, et frenanda est curiositas, et prorsus fugiend sunt ill pestes, ostentatio argutiorum, sophistomania et amor contentionis; Melanchthon, on 1Ti 6:3.

3. The warning of the Apostle against avarice recalls the impressive words of the Lord, especially in the parable, Luk 12:15-21. Compare also with this the excellent sermon of Ad. Monod, Lami de largent, Paris, 1843; handled in part like the essay of Harris, Mammon, or Covetousness the Sin of the Church. It is clear, from Php 4:11-13, how far Paul himself had advanced in the art of the Christian .

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Christianity and slavery.The love of freedom, and the service of love.Woe to him through whom the offence cometh (Mat 18:7).The Christian and the unchristian communism.The old heresies in many respects types of the new.Arrogance and ignorance go commonly hand in hand.

1Ti 6:3-5. Heresy: (1) Its characteristics; (2) its sources; (3) its results.Error, the caricature of truth.The connection of godliness and contentment. Godliness (1) makes content; (2) brings great gain.Three motives to contentment: (1) We really possess nothing (1Ti 6:7); (2) we really need nothing (1Ti 6:8); (3) we become poorer in happiness the richer we become in worldly things (1Ti 6:9-10).Avarice a root of all evil: (1) As every cardinal sin; (2) more than any other cardinal sins.Avarice the most utter egoism, in its diametrical hostility to the gospel of love.The many examples from sacred and secular history which confirm the power of avarice.The friend of Mammon his own enemy.

Starke: Anton: Man is inclined to leap beyond his sphere; but such aims are unwise (Rom 12:16; Sir 3:19).Spiritual brotherhood overturns no civil organization (Mat 16:24).The false men of the world think religion harmful. Nay, it is great gain. But the enemy knows how to blind them (Rom 13:1, et seq.)Langes Opus: A false, seducing doctrine and a corrupt spirit always go together, specially in perverted teachers. For as they are unenlightened, understanding and will are both evil (1Ti 6:4).Cramer: The devil has no more direct way of doing injury to the Church, than to become a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets (1Ki 22:22). He begins with insolence; then come strife of words, hate, slander, envy, and one misfortune on another, so that an incurable injury is brought upon the Church of God (Psa 133:1).Starke: Whoever is godly, hath God; whoso hath God, hath all good.Unhappy miser, restless with his heap, and never owning enough!Nothing can more humble man, and help him to renounce the vanity of the world, than when he reflects aright on his entrance into, and his exit from the world (Job 1:21). We need food and covering for the body; God has promised both, if we do His will; yet He has not promised luxury. Let those who have that, be grateful, and all others contented (Gen 28:20).Osiander: The avaricious man wants what he has, as well as what he has not.Avarice is an evil mother, and has many hateful daughters.Avarice can as little coexist with faith, as can any other ruling vices.Avarice is fearful, not only because the Divine condemnation rests on it (1Co 5:11; Eph 5:5; Col 3:5), but because no vice so masters the soul, and keeps it from conversion.

Heubner: Pastors should not neglect to look specially after servants.Meditation on death is a safeguard against avarice.The Christian limitation of our wants.Discontent is a source of discouragement.Avarice is already a lapse from Christianity. The avaricious is his own tormentor.

Lisco (1Ti 6:1-2): How Christian liberty proves itself the true, by obedience (1Ti 6:3; 1Ti 6:10).Godliness: (1) In relation to false doctrines; (2) to worldly goods.The incompatibility of avarice with godliness.The wealth of the godly spirit.K. J. Klemm: The great prize of the Christian.Gerok: A contented spirit great gain: (1) Shields us from the snares of the devil; (2) teaches us to strive after heavenly wealth; (3) gladdens the brief time of life; (4) prepares us to die.Marezoll: Encouragement and aid to contentment.Dietzsch: How incalculable a good is contentment in regard of our worldly possessions.

Von Gerlach (1Ti 6:5): The gospel casts a wondrous light, to warm and illuminate man; but if it fail through his own sin, then that light thrown back from him flings its rays on the world, and dazzles him with deceitful images, till he loses at last the trace of truth, although he eagerly follows after its shadows. Sin remains undestroyed in his heart, and fleshly desires take advantage of the confusion. Such were the heretics of old, and such the Gnostics of all time.

[Pascal, Penses, i., p. 1 Timothy 6 : The discontent of man.Our desires flatter us with the image of a happy condition, because they add to what we have, the pleasures we have not; but when we reach these, we are no happier, for we then have still new desires for a happiness beyond them.

Dr. South, Sermons: Godliness is gain. To exhort men to be religious, is only, in other words, to exhort them to pleasurea pleasure high, rational, and angelical, with no sting, no loathing, no remorses, or bitter farewells; neither liable to accident, nor exposed to injury. And when age itself shall begin to remind us of mortality, yet then the pleasure of the mind shall be in its full youth, vigor, and freshness. A palsy may as well shake an oak, or a fever dry up a fountain, as shake or impair the delight of conscience. For it lies within; it centres in the heart; it grows into the very substance of the soul, so that a man never outlives it; and for this cause, because he cannot outlive himself.W.]

Footnotes:

[1]1Ti 6:2.[The words are wanting in the Sinaiticus.E. H.]

[2]1Ti 6:3.[The Sinaiticus, in contrast with the other witnesses, has .E. H.]

[3]1Ti 6:5.[Instead of the received reading, all the authorities have .E. H.]

[4]1Ti 6:5.According to A. D. F. G., and others, these words are to be regarded as a spurious addition, and are consequently left out by Tischendorf. They are not in the Sinaiticus [nor in Lachmann.E. H.].

[5]1Ti 6:7.[: no competent authority for this word, although retained by Tischendorf. It is omitted by Lachmann; nor is it in the Sinaiticus.E. H.]

[6][On the relation of Paul to slavery, comp. also the remarks of the Am. Ed. in Com. on Ep. to Philemon.P. S.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

The Apostle is prosecuting, in this Chapter, his Exhortation to Timothy concerning Church government. And having noticed several wise Regulations on this Subject with others, closeth his Epistle with praying for Grace to be with him.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

(1) Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. (2) And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. (3) If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; (4) He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, (5) Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. (6) But godliness with contentment is great gain. (7) For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. (8) And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. (9) But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. (10) For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

The corruption of human nature which hath produced all the evils of life, very early in the world, among other deadly fruits, produced that abominable traffic the Slave trade, and which, awful to relate, hath continued from one generation to another, even to the present hour.

This chapter opens with directions to both servants and masters concerning their mutual behavior to each other, in those instances where sovereign grace hath called a child of God from either department. It is hardly possible to conceive what effects have followed the conversion of the heart to God, in cases where masters have been called by grace, who were before concerned in this nefarious practice. Oh! the change when God changeth the heart!

The Apostle hath beautifully closed this paragraph, in showing the folly, as well as wickedness of coveting more than the common necessaries of life; and by that humbling truth, of bringing nothing into the world, and the consciousness of carrying nothing out. It is a similar expression to that of Job. Naked (said he) came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither. Job 1:21 . Oh! who that considers his original nakedness and helplessness, when corning first from the womb of the earth, or from the womb of his mother, and the humbling state to which he will shortly return, to the same poverty and insensibility again, would be anxious to load himself with golden clay, or croud between those periods of entering and returning from the world, anxieties for anything, but the one thing needful. Precious Jesus! be thou my portion, for durable riches and righteousness are only with thee. Having thee, thou dear Lord! thou wilt cause me, indeed, to inherit substance, and thou wilt all, and be thyself all my treasure. Pro 8:18-21 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

1Ti 6:4

‘I cannot bring myself to take much interest in all the controversies that are going on,’ Max Mller wrote in 1865, ‘in the Church of England. No doubt the points at issue are great, and appeal to our hearts and minds, but the spirit in which they are treated seems to me so very small. How few men on either side give you the impression that they write face to face with God, and not face to face with men and the small powers that be.’

False Suppositions in Life

1Ti 6:5

‘Supposing that gain is godliness.’ You never need go to any other text for the remainder of your pulpit lives. ‘Supposing that gain is godliness’ false suppositions in life; twisted, crooked, awkward minds that are always getting hold of things by the wrong end. You know them? Yes, I do getting into a corkscrew kind of mind, out of which a straightforward answer never came. There is no straight line in a corkscrew. ‘Supposing that gain is godliness,’ or that godliness is gain getting confused. What was he preaching about today? ‘The text was, I think, “Supposing that godliness was gain,” or, “supposing that gain is godliness,” or something of that kind.’ You will never make a Christian out of such people, they do not know what they are talking about. They have no clear ideas, no straightforward thought. Well, I do not know, I am sure, whether to blame them; for what can a man do if he has been born with a mind that has no centre and with a mind that has no circumference, a corkscrew mind, a twisting, perverting, half-forgetting, confusing mind? That is the difficulty. Why, perhaps there are not more than two people who will know what the text was when the sermon is done. ‘Oh, yes, something about well if no, no, there is no if in it ‘that godliness is gain, that gain is godliness’. They have no straightforward ideas, they are living in confusion. Better have only two ideas and know what they are than have a dozen and hold them chaotically, confusedly, and absurdly. Now that is where so many people get wrong. They know fifty things in a half sort of way. They begin a sentence, and expect you to finish it the most tormenting company I ever go into. They know half a proverb, and say, ‘Now, you see, that proverb “a bird in the bush a bird in the bush” you know what I mean’. No, I don’t, and you don’t Why don’t people get some clear idea of what Jesus Christ wants to be at? ‘The Son of Man is come into the world to seek and to save that which is lost.’ Why not do that, hold to that, keep that as the pure jewel, the very jewel of the Divine heart? No, I can’t get on with you; you want to know about evolution, which no man can tell you much about, and you want to know about heredity, and you want to know the whole pack of cards, and a pack of nonsense. Why don’t you stick to the Gospel, the one grand eternal line salvation by the Cross? Don’t be clever, don’t be too clever; there will be no living with you if you become much cleverer in your own estimation.

I. Now, the Apostle says, they have got the true words, gain and godliness, godliness and gain, whether to put the one first or the other first, they do not know. They must therefore make up their minds; they must be right in the first line, and then they may be right in the last line. But godliness who can define it? Nobody. What is the full word? Godlikeness. Ah, that makes a new word, not only a new orthography, but a new grammar. Godlikeness. Now the Apostle says, ‘Bodily exercise’ counting things, putting things back again, hanging them up, taking them down, rubbing, scrubbing, lacerations; he says, ‘Now, dear friends, I have been watching you, hear me, “Bodily exercise profiteth”‘ what does the New Testament say? ‘profiteth little’? No, no; it does say that, but that is not right. ‘Bodily exercise profiteth a little.’ See, there is something in it, it profiteth a little, it is a kind of beginning, a kind of pledge and earnest; but you must go further, you have got a little profit, but godliness the rising of God over the whole character, the brooding and throbbing of God in the whole soul that makes men and guarantees heaven.

II. False suppositions are vicious arguments; false suppositions turn men away from the right point of view, from the right goal, and torture and confuse the mind. Have you got that idea? The elders in Christ know it well, but I want all the young souls, and groping, fumbling people, to get hold of that, and having got hold of it, keep it; it will serve you in all your discussions, controversies, and misunderstandings.

Now shall I give you an instance or two of these false suppositions? I will, if you please.

(1) A woman was crying, sobbing, looking round, and, seeing a man, was afraid; and she, ‘supposing him to be the gardener’. False suppositions in life again; they meet you at every turn. Yet no gardener ever looked quite like that. No. But I suppose he is the gardener. Well, what will you say to him? ‘Oh, Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where. They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. Oh, Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will go to Him, and if He cannot speak to me, I will speak to Him.’ Ah, there are always people who are seeking dead Christs. Only paint them a Christ, and you have no idea how far they will travel to see the painting. They cannot imagine that the Christ of God is alive for evermore. Now you must get a right idea of life. Why, a man once said to us in my house, ‘You know, the idea, the bare idea, of worshipping the Virgin Mary, worshipping a dead woman!’ ‘No,’ said my wife, ‘the Virgin Mary is not dead.’ That is right grand. Christ is not dead; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not dead. God is the God of the living, and not of the dead. You can get wrong by limiting and narrowing things, and supposing that thirty or forty or seventy years terminate a man’s life. There is no dead Christ. When we seek Him, we must seek Him as a living Christ, and so seeking Him we shall find Him.

(2) There comes another false supposition, which I have always thought very curious and preached about it twenty times or more. There was a great commotion on the hillside, or in the city or elsewhere, and there was the usual comment upon it ever since the days when Samuel was about to be born, ever since the day when Hannah did this [silently moving the lips], ‘You see Hannah, she is drunk, you see how it is, look at her lips’. And so they said on this occasion ‘They are drunk’. And one said, ‘No, no, these are not drunken, as ye suppose’ the same word, ‘suppose’ ‘seeing it is but the third hour of the day’. No, you must go deeper, you must find a larger and fuller explanation of this; this is nothing less than the Spirit of God working in its wonderful way. Now, believe that, and you will cover the whole ground. Oh, it is so easy to say people are drunk, it comes naturally to beautiful, innocent, guileless human nature. Oh, when shall we have the man that comes with broad interpretations, grand definitions, and that lifts up the occasion to its right level? When will that man come? He will himself be counted drunk. Until the Church gets drunk in that way, that particular special way, the Church will make no impression upon the world. So long as the Church is one of a number of institutions, she will be respectable, and she will have her little day and cease to be. She must be drunk, not with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, and then she will come into close grips with the devil, and fling him to the dust and trample on him. Be earnest, be alive.

III. Then what have we to do, preacher? I tell you what we have to do: you have got to cleanse the mind of all false suppositions. Now I must get into every corner of your mind, and get these suppositions out out! It is so difficult to get a supposition out; a supposition is like a prejudice. No man ever really got hold of a prejudice and pulled it and threw it into the fire. Now you must get rid of all these false suppositions. When you came into the Church what was your motive? ‘Well, of course, I have been very much disappointed, you know; I thought that if I entered the Church in any of its communions, I should have peace and joy, and get rid of the enemy.’ Oh, no! he never was such an enemy as when you prayed your last, greatest prayer; he hated you then. Some of the great Apostles have said, they that will live godly shall suffer persecution, expect persecution. What persecution have I endured for Christ’s sake? None; I have worked on the sunny side of the wall; my shame is reserved for the day of judgment.

Joseph Parker.

Reference. VI. 5. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 202.

1Ti 6:6 , etc.

In an age when fortunes are made, either by pleasing vast numbers of persons, and those for the most part half-taught and rude of habit, or else by pleasing those who have amassed fortunes and nothing else the pursuit of fortune is the ruin of art. I may be asked, what practical measures I would advocate to remedy this state of things, a state of things which seems but another illustration of the old saying that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’…. The only true remedy is that contained in the Apostle’s words to Timothy: ‘They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition’. And it is as true for the artist or the poet today as it was for the divine and the disciple, as it was true for the Apostle’s own son in the faith, whom he had left in Ephesus: ‘But then, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness’. Men hear these words in church on Sunday, and for the next six days in the week they go to ‘change and to their office, and contend for the turn of the market like hungry tigers at the hour of meal. ‘They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts.’ And no snare is so cunning as that spread for those that will be rich in fame and money by their skill in art.

Frederic Harrison, Realities and Ideals, pp. 332 f.

Reference. VI. 6. R. G. Soans, Sermons for the Young, p. 30.

1Ti 6:7

‘Constantine,’ says Dean Stanley ( History of Eastern Church, VI.), ‘usually preached on the general system of the Christian revelation; the follies of paganism; the unity and providence of God; the scheme of redemption; the judgment; and then attacked fiercely the avarice and rapacity of the courtiers, who cheered lustily, but did nothing of what he had told them. On one occasion he caught hold of one of them and drawing on the ground with his spear the figure of a man, said: “In this space is contained all that you will carry with you after death”.’

1Ti 6:7-10

The way to visit a palace is to take your Testament and read the Epistles as you walk about. Never does the insignificance of all human splendours diminish to such a degree at such a time.

B. R. Haydon.

Reference. VI. 8. J. S. Boone, Sermons, p. 265.

1Ti 6:9

Where you are, remember that you are in the very centre of the barbaric mercantile system of England, whose rule is, ‘They that make haste to be rich,’ instead of ‘piercing themselves through with many sorrows,’ do their best as wise and prudent citizens. Remember that that is a lie; and without offending any one (and the most solemn truths can be spoken without offence, for men in England are very kind-hearted and reasonable), tell them so, and fight against the sins of a commercial city.

Kingsley, to a Liverpool Clergyman.

References. VI. 9. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 24; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 381. VI. 9, 10. T. Barker, Plain Sermons, p. 26. VI. 9-11. A. Jenkinson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p. 156. VI. 10. E. A. Bray, Sermons, vol. i. p. 262. R. C. Trench, Sermons New and Old, p. 60. VI. 12. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvii. No. 2226. F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p. 305. D. W. Whittle, ibid. vol. lvi. p. 254. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiii. No. 1946. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p. 248. T. F. Crosse, Sermons, p. 114. O. Bronson, Sermons, p. 245. J. H. Jowett, British Congregationalist (New Series), No. 106, p. 122. VI. 12-14. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Timothy, p. 370. VI. 12-19. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 203. VI. 13. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 261; ibid. (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 218; ibid. (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 267. VI. 14. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. x. p. 109. VI. 16. Ibid. vol. i. p. 34; ibid. vol. iii. p. 402.

Spirituality and Civilisation

1Ti 6:1

In a time of abounding wealth, of leisure and opportunity, of manifold luxury and fashion, novelty and pleasure, it is of the first importance that we understand our relation to the opulent civilisation which marks our age.

I. Let us then observe that the Christian life is a comprehensive and catholic life. The Christian is free to enter into all possible relations with the world: seeing everything, using everything, enjoying everything. It is not the genius of our spiritual faith to narrow the earthly life, but to make it as wide as possible. Some teachers maintain that it is the highest wisdom to narrow life as much as possible, to bring into it as few things and interests as possible, to reduce it to as few sensations as possible. I venture to say that this is exactly contrary to the genius of the Christian faith. The world is accustomed to regard spiritually minded men as specially narrow, as fanatically morbid and exclusive. Let us not be misunderstood. We are as broad as nature; all her pipes are in our organ, all her strings are in our harp.

II. But the catholic life can be realised only through the limitations laid down in the context: ‘Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may hold on eternal life’. (1) Note how this applies to the physical life. Nothing is more common than the notion that a spiritual faith does injustice to our animal nature, and discourages us in relation to the whole range of carnal pleasure. But in truth it is only through the discipline of our corporeal life, such a discipline as the text suggests, that we can enjoy the fulness of the possibilities of our physique. (2) Note how the higher law applies to wealth, fashion, and luxury. Let us clearly and fully recognise the legitimacy of the affluence of the times. Let us not proscribe these things of taste and splendour, but insist that they shall be conditioned by godliness, righteousness, and disinterestedness. (3) Finally, a word as to the bearing of our text upon our intellectual, aesthetic, and sentimental life. Here, once again, we recognise that God ‘giveth us all things richly to enjoy’.

But whilst Christianity sanctions this glowing and delightful universe, it insists upon the supremacy of the spiritual and ethical elements.

W. L. Watkinson, The Blind Spot, p. 135.

References. VI. 17. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 390. VI. 18, 19. James Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (9th Series), p. 9.

The Reality of the Spiritual Life

1Ti 6:19

In speaking of a life that is ‘life indeed,’ St. Paul implies that all life is not such, but that many live a false life. In the conviction of the Apostle, the true life, the life indeed, is the spiritual life. Can we, in this perplexing pilgrimage of life, distinguish between the true and the false? Several tests will demonstrate the reality of the spiritual life.

I. The Persistence of the Spiritual Instinct. Despite the most frantic efforts we cannot rid ourselves of the consciousness of the spiritual universe. If our faith in the spiritual world were a mere hallucination, a perception without an object, it would of necessity ever become more attenuated and less influential. The scientist assures us of this. Creatures never retain organs of any sort that are useless. The spiritual instinct is the most inveterate and influential of all our instincts.

II. The Irrationality of Human Life without the Spiritual Idea. If we are to regard the universe as rational, and human life as serious and satisfactory, the spiritual idea is essential. There is no logic in life except we give it the larger interpretation; it is a melancholy enigma, and only that, until we recognise its spiritual ideas and laws, its transcendent ideals and hopes.

III. The Deep Satisfaction of those who Cherish the Spiritual Hope. It has been said by a cynical philosopher that man is simply a lucky bubble on the protoplasmic pot. But if he is nothing more than a bubble, blown by the breath of blind chance and pricked by the hand of blind death, he will steadily and reasonably refuse to believe that he is a ‘lucky’ bubble. It is altogether another thing with the spiritual man. (1) We may affirm that in the truest sense the Lord Jesus revealed to us the spiritual world. Christ, by flashing upon us the great vision of the Divine, the perfect and the eternal, awoke in us the latent spiritual instinct; it is He who founded that active, passionate, fruitful, spirituality which created the modern world, and in which lies the hope of the race. (2) In Christ alone do we find ability to live the spiritual life. A Jewish legend affirms that if an angel spends seven days on the earth it becomes gross and opaque and loses the use of its wings. We all know the debasing power of the worldly environment. The heavenly virtue is our supreme salvation against the whole treacherous, debasing environment.

W. L. Watkinson, The Bane and the Antidote, p. 57.

References. VI. 19. G. S. Barrett, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. p. 312. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiii. No. 1946. W. L. Watkinson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p. 214. R. F. Horton, The Hidden God, p. 145. W. L. Watkinson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 228. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Timothy, p. 379.

Timothy’s Life and Mission

1Ti 6:20

The text comes to us in one of the Epistles written by St. Paul to his tried friend and companion Timothy, and what do we know about that apostolic man?

I. His Infancy. He was the son, like the great St. Augustine, of a religious mother and a heathen father, and by the care of his mother, Eunice, he was trained from a child in the knowledge of ‘the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus’. Now, St Paul, of course, there is speaking of the Old Testament, because the New Testament did not as yet exist It is a very familiar and a very charming picture, that of Timothy at his mother’s knee learning his first lessons in the Book of Life. But we ought not to think only of the grace and the tenderness of this little vignette of an old-world family party. See rather what it has to teach us.

(a) It is the right and the duty of parents to instil into their children that fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom according to the dictates of their consciences. But there is another point and much more important. What Timothy read with his mother was the Old Testament Scriptures, and we see what St. Paul says of those.

(b) The ancient Hebrew Scriptures are able to make men wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Through faith, the Apostle says, and he means that in themselves they are not adequate because they were written long before the coming of the Gospel and to prepare the way of the Gospel, and that they are therefore inferior to the Gospel, just as the twilight of the dawning is inferior to the full splendour of the sun; but if a man have faith, if the spirit of Christ Jesus is in his heart, if, therefore, he knows already Him towards Whom the Jews were being led through shadows and through symbols, then he can see the finger of God in every page. He can see that these old Scriptures are imperfect, and he can see where they are imperfect, and yet at the same time he can see how they are instinct with the growing light of God, while at the same time he blesses God for the fuller light in which he stands. Now is not that what St. Paul means, and does it not answer a great number of questions that are perpetually asked, and that trouble men’s minds? Look upon the Old Testament as the Gospel of the infancy, and you will find that many a perplexity dies away quite of its own accord.

II. His Ordination. Timothy became the friend and the companion of St. Paul, and finally he was selected to be one of the great officers of the Church, or, as we say, he was ordained. It is important to recall the text which tells us about that fact to your memory. ‘Neglect,’ the Apostle says, ‘neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophesy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery’; and in another notable passage which we may couple with this whether it refers to the same incident or to that later time when be was specially set in charge of the Church of Ephesus St. Paul says, ‘Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands’. Well, there you have first of all the prophet, the inspired layman, the representative of the Church whose voice was the voice of God, and through whom the Holy Ghost spoke, saying, ‘Separate unto Me this man or that for the work of My ministry’. Prophecy, in the narrower sense of the word at any rate, has ceased, but in the place of the prophets stand all good Christian people. It has always been their part, and should be more emphatically and confessedly their part to bear their testimony.

III. His Work. The reason why Timothy was sent to Ephesus was that the Church there was torn by idle and profane questions. A question is idle when it cannot be answered, and therefore ought not to be asked, and it is profane when it causes strife instead of ministering to godliness, when it leads men to think more of their own devices and less of the sovereign grace of God. There were many such questions in the primitive Church. Timothy was despatched to that scene of contention not to plunge joyously into the fray, but to preach that there is one God and one Mediator between God and man. In that simple Gospel St. Paul knew that there was grace and mercy and peace.

References. VI. 20. G. Body, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 233. W. M. Sinclair, Difficulties of our Day, p. 18. VI. 20, 21. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 21.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

VIII

ADMINISTRATION OF INTERNAL CHURCH AFFAIRS (CONCLUDED)

1Ti 6:1-21

The former discussion on these chapters covered all of 1Ti 5 except 1Ti 5:21 and 1Ti 5:23 , which will be grouped with other matters in chapter 6, and made the last item of discussion on the book.

Our last chapter closed with the proof that hasty ordination by churches, ignoring the fact that the sins of secretive men are not evident on first acquaintance but crop out later, and other disqualifications, is one ground of difficulty in securing a pension sufficient for the worthier class of aged and worn-out ministers. Not every preacher deserves a pension when old. If he has been lazy, unstudious, of doubtful moral character, not devoted, there is no reason that the church should pension him. Pension rests on desert and meritorious service. If he be in want and suffering, then it is a case for charity which rightly has no regard to worthiness. Charity, like sunshine and rain, outflows alike to the just and the unjust.

Slaves and masters (1Ti 6:1-2 ). In the chapter on Philemon we have already considered at length Christianity’s attitude to the then worldwide institution of slavery, so it is unnecessary here to go over the ground again. The remark applies here as well as there that rabid fanatics on the slavery question never did endorse, and were incapable of appreciating the heavenly wisdom of the New Testament attitude toward any method of dealing with this vast and complicated problem.

The severest tests to which Christianity has ever been subjected have been in healing the wounds and rectifying the blunders of their rash handling of this matter. Indeed, their misdirected zeal and injudicious remedies have created problems more insoluble than slavery itself. The shining of stars affords a steadier light and more healthful influence than firebrands followed by ashes and darkness.

Heterodox teachers (1Ti 6:3-8 ). Heresy in theory is bad enough, but it becomes frightful when reduced to practice. Unquestionably from the context the words of this scathing paragraph (1Ti 6:3-8 ) apply primarily to the fanatics dissenting from the teaching of the preceding paragraph on Christian slaves and masters. Let us consider the words: “If any man teacheth a different doctrine, and consenteth not to sound words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is puffed up, knowing nothing, but doting about questionings and disputes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, wranglings of men corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth, supposing that godliness is a way of gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain: for we brought nothing into the world, neither can we carry anything out; but having food and covering we shall be therewith content” (1Ti 6:3-8 ).

Understand that the fanatical teaching here condemned is not limited to one side of the question of slavery. The proslavery fanatic who ignores that in Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free, and the boundless mercy of the gospel to all slaves, its regenerating and uplifting power, and who takes his position for the gain in it, is on a par with the antislavery fanatic who, for political ends, takes the other side. The incentive is gain in the case of both. Each in his section takes the position that gives him the biggest audience, the popular favor, the most votes, the quickest promotion, and the biggest salaries. When preachers, for a like motive on this or any other subject, depart from New Testament teachings or spirit, the result is unspeakably deplorable. For his own selfish ends he projects not Christ, but himself in the limelight of publicity and unhealthy sensationalism.

Thus “supposing that godliness is a way of gain,” “he is puffed up, knowing nothing, but doting about questionings and disputes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, wranglings of men corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth.” Ah, me! if we could only remember that the “kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation.” The brass band is louder than “the still small voice.” We need to hear again the lesson of Elijah at Sinai: “What doest thou here, Elijah?” There came a mighty wind, “but Jehovah was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but Jehovah was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but Jehovah was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” When Elijah heard that he wrapped his face in his mantle. The mightiest forces in nature and grace are noiseless and unobtrusive. We hear thunder, but not gravitation. Intangible moonbeams lift the ocean seventy feet high in the Bay of Fundy, but we never hear the groaning of the machinery. There is gain, of a kind, in godliness with contentment, but it is seldom financial.

The man minded to be rich (1Ti 6:9-10 ). Hear the words: “But they that are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil; which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

These are terrible words, and true as terrible. “Minded” means the dominant desire and will. Riches is the goal, the chief concern. All other things are subordinated. Love of home, wife, and children; love of country; and health, happiness, purity, honor, righteousness, humanity, justice, mercy; and thoughts of God and heaven and hell are trampled under foot.

No voyage was ever made over more treacherous seas; no trail was ever more thickset with dangers. The chances of ultimate escape are almost nil. Temptations assail him, snares entrap him; lusts, foolish and hurtful, burn him. It is the case of a swimmer in the rapids above the falls, or skirting the suction of a whirlpool how can he escape drowning? The case is even more desperate because the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. From it may come lying, murder, lust, embezzlement, theft, robbery, or any other evil against humanity and blasphemy or any other sacrilege against God.

See the malice of the syndicate that invested money in the soothsaying damsel at Philippi when Paul cast out the demon that made her profitable and “her masters saw that the hope of their gain was gone” (Act 16:16-20 ) ; and the malice of the craftsman’s ring at Ephesus when Paul’s preaching against idols broke up the business by which they had their wealth and “brought it into disrepute” (Act 19:23-34 ). There is no hate more intolerant and murderous than the hate of an interrupted evil business. In truth the lowest, meanest, basest, cruelest, beastliest, ghastliest, deadliest form of idolatry is the worship of mammon. Pirates and highwaymen have been gallant, brave, chivalrous, plying their business openly and risking their lives. The lover of money skulks in his methods, which are timid, treacherous, secretive, underhand, relentless. There is neither chivalry, mercy, friendship, honor nor fairness in his method when it comes to a crucial test. He is a web-spinning spider, preying on the weak and unwary. His course is most hurtful to himself; the foundation logs of his character succumb to dry rot. The milk of human kindness dries up; the soul is starved; he pierces himself with many sorrows. And when his shrunken soul, rattling like a dry pea in the pod, is forcibly evicted from his crumbling body, it is buried naked, hungry, thirsty, bankrupt, into an eternity of torment, where memory plays dirges, remorse is an unlying worm, apprehension a gatherer of eternal storms to beat mercilessly on his helpless head and dried-up heart.

Them that are rich (1Ti 6:17-19 ). This is different from “minded to be rich.” There may be no fault in possessing riches. Wealth may come by inheritance, by honest industry and economy, by judicious investments, or by diligent attention to business. Indeed, God, in love, has bestowed riches on many good men. Yea, he has set but one limit to the amount of lawful wealth one may possess, to wit: that his financial prosperity shall never exceed the prosperity of his soul (3Jn 1:2 ) : “Even as thy soul prospereth.” He is all right when riches increase if he set not his heart upon them.

But our present inquiry is: What the duty of the pastor to rich church members? Here it is: “Charge them that are rich in this present world, that they be not highminded, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold of the life which is life indeed.” But it is worthy of detailed consideration.

1Ti 6:17 : “Charge them that are rich in this present world that they be not highminded”; in other words, proud or haughty. It is almost impossible for weak persons to be rich and not be proud over it; they look down on people who are not rich. Particularly is this the case with what we call the “new rich,” people who have suddenly sprung into wealth, say a man who has discovered an oil field, or patented an invention, or made a “corner” on wheat, cattle, hogs, or cotton, and suddenly becomes a millionaire. The self-sufficiency of that class is almost indescribable; they look down with contempt upon people who have not a great deal of money. One who has been a gentleman through several generations Oliver Wendell Holmes says it takes three generations to make a gentleman ignores that kind of rich people. The hardest struggle for the new rich is to get recognition from the old families.

“Nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches.” It is difficult for one of the new rich to put his hope on anything else. If in one night we could strip him of his wealth, it would appear what a coarse, common mortal he is. He has nothing to recommend him except his money. “The uncertainty of riches:” uncertainty is a characteristic of wealth. It takes wings and flies away; it is subject to fire, earthquake, pestilence, panic, and a multitude of other contingencies. It is a pitiable thing to see an immortal creature setting his hope upon such an uncertain thing as wealth. “But on God.” If his hope is set on God, there is certainty.

Whosoever has God is rich indeed, if he has nothing else in the world. Whosoever hath not God is poor indeed, if he has everything else in the world.

Let our hope “be set on God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.”

Now we come to the positive part: “That they do good; that they be rich in good works.” If one wants to be rich, here is the way: be rich in good works. “That they be ready to distribute.” I have preached on this charge to the rich a number of times, and have always told them that every agent out after money is solemnly impressed with the fact that the rich man is not ready: he tells us about certain investments not yet profitable, or others so pending that he does not know how he stands yet, And is not ready to distribute, nor willing to communicate. We don’t often find them ready.

A rich man ought to have his affairs in hand, so that he is ready all the time to do good with his money, laying up in store for himself treasures against the time to come. The rich man will lecture the poor man on account of his lack of provision: “Why don’t you save up something for a rainy day?” When perhaps of all men in the world he has laid up the least for a “rainy day.”

“That they may lay hold of the life which is life indeed.” This life they are living is not life; it is a miserable existence. The thought here is the same presented in Luk 16 , where the rich man, dressed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day, makes no provision for the future. When death came and stripped him of everything he had, he went over into another country and found nothing there which he had transferred. He had not made friends by the use of Mammon. He had not used his money so as to secure any heavenly reward. A man who invests his money in preachers, churches, schools, colleges, humanity, charity, it goes on working for him, laying up stores to his credit on the other side of the river.

Suppose a man had to leave the United States and go to a foreign country. His object would be to convert his property here into the property of that country. If his American money did not pass over there, to exchange it for money of that country; to exchange his realty here for realty there. The only thing we can do in the way of exchanging is by good deeds, transferring what we have to the other side. I am not discussing salvation; that is determined by other things entirely. I am discussing the question of rewards in the world to come.

In delivering an oration on the death of Spurgeon in the city of Nashville, I drew this picture: “Mr. Phillips said of Napoleon, when he died: ‘He is fallen.’ I say of Spurgeon: ‘He is risen.’ ” I described in fancy the abundant entrance of Spurgeon into the heavenly home, the friends he had made by his unselfish use of means here on earth. Up there he met the orphan children whom he had cared for and sheltered, the aged widows whom he had comforted and cheered in their dying hours, the young preachers he had taken care of in college and supplied with libraries, and who had gone out on the fields as missionaries and died before Spurgeon died, who were all waiting and watching for him to come, and were ready to meet him. That is the thought Paul is trying to impress upon Timothy with reference to the rich.

THE FOUR CHARGES OF TIMOTHY 1Ti 5:21 ; 1Ti 5:23 ; 1Ti 6:11-16 ; 1Ti 6:20-21

First charge to Timothy: “I charge thee in the sight of God and Jesus Christ and the elect angels, that in conducting the internal affairs of the church, thou observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing by partiality.” Paul could make a young man intensely solemn when he impressed on him that he stood in God’s sight, with the eye of Jesus upon him, as a spectacle to the angels. “When you are conducting the affairs of the church do nothing through prejudice or partiality.”

Once let it appear that the pastor is a partisan in the affairs of the church; that he favors certain members of the church, then he is stripped of his power with the congregation. “Prejudice” in its etymological meaning, is to judge before hand. Say there is a division in the church: The pastor listens while A and B tell their side of the case; C and D he had not heard. Then he occupies the seat of moderator with a prejudgment in his mind; for some, against some, and he greatly damages himself.

The second charge. “Be no longer a drinker of water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.” .From this charge we learn two important lessons:

1. That alcoholic stimulants may be prescribed, in small quantities, for sick people. Timothy was a total-abstinence man. Paul shows him a distinction between a beverage and a medicine. But it is not fair to Paul to stretch “a little wine” as a medicine to make it cover a barrel of whiskey as a beverage.

2. The fact that Paul did not miraculously heal himself and Timothy, nor resort to a faith cure, but did keep near him Luke, the physician, and did prescribe a medicine to Timothy, is proof positive that we, as a rule, must rely on ordinary human means for health and healing.

Third charge, 1Ti 6:11 : “Flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and meekness.” Certain things we must flee from; all we can do is to run from them, e.g., love of money, which we have just discussed. We should run from that as we would run from a rattlesnake. It is not cowardice, but we had better get out of his way as quick as possible. Flee from the love of money, covetousness, anger. When we see them coming, we can gain nothing by meeting them; so we had better run. But there are certain other things we must chase: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, meekness. Whenever we see their tracks, let us follow.

The next item of the charge: “Fight the good fight of faith.” If the reader will compare this exhortation with what Paul says of himself in the second letter to Timothy (1Ti 4:7 ) : “I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith,” and then with what he says in the letter to the Philippians, third chapter: “Forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before; I press onward to the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ,” he will see that Paul has exemplified the very things he tells Timothy to do. What Paul has exemplified in his life, that he charges on Timothy: “The teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a warfare, and the preacher must make a fight for all of it, illustrating the truth in his life, preaching the truth with great earnestness to his people, and resisting every temptation to substitute some other thing for the doctrines. Stand for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Then, we must work out our sanctification; work out what God works in, pressing on to lay hold of the things for which Jesus laid hold of us, and then keep the faith.

Fourth charge. “Timothy, guard that which is committed unto thee.” The deposit of faith which God placed with the church, and in the preacher through the church, is the most sacred deposit of either time or eternity, and whoever trifles with it, whoever thinks he can surrender a part of it with impunity, makes the mistake of his life.

It is as if a father should call his son to him, open a leather case and say, “My son, in this case is the history of the family, and the precious jewels of the family that have been accumulated from 400 years back. Your mother, your grandmother, and your great grandmother wore these jewels. They are connected with all the festivities of the family history. I deposit these precious heirlooms with you. Guard them, my son, and see that the one who comes after you finds not one of the jewels missing, not one substituted for taste.” A boy receiving such a charge as that from a father, who would forget his stewardship, and think that it was his to dispose of these jewels for his own pleasure, swap them off for others to suit his taste, would be an unworthy son of a noble family.

How incomparably greater is this charge to Timothy I This deposit of the truth all the wealth of the world could not buy. This truth all the wisdom of the world could never have discovered. God revealed it to Paul, and he delivered it to Timothy. It is delivered with a view of transmission to those who come after. Keep it inviolate, and transmit it in its entirety. How seldom do we find a preacher with that sense of honor and responsibility for the divine truth deposited with him. He is not at liberty to preach whatever he pleases. He is speaking for God.

Let me illustrate the thought in another way: The United States Government sends an ambassador to a foreign country with special instructions, tells him what the issue is between the two countries, and says, “Now when you get over there and come up against those sharp diplomats of other nations, you are to say what we tell you to gay; you are not to vary from the instructions one hair’s breadth.” That man cannot there make a treaty according to his idea of it. An ambassador cannot move a step beyond his instructions. If in the negotiations some of the things which his country demands are found to be impracticable, he must adjourn the meeting, write home for instructions, and when he gets the new instructions he can step forward again.

“Do thou speak the words that I put in thy mouth” is what God always said to the prophets. “Deliver my message. You need not apologize for it; it will take care of itself. What you are to do is to deliver the message, just as it comes to you, and you may rest assured that it will accomplish more than if you try to fix it up palatably.” God did not send us out as apothecaries to put sugar in his medicine, nor to coat his pills. Our business is to put forth the words of the Almighty.

In one of Scott’s novels, the thought is brilliantly brought out: The brave Knight of Crevecour goes from the Duke of Burgundy with certain messages to Louis of France. When he steps into the presence of the King of France he is not ashamed, because he stands there not for himself but for the Duke of Burgundy. When he has been approached to change certain things in his message, he takes off his mailed gauntlet, and throwing it down on the floor says, “That is what I am commissioned to do, as a defiance to this court, if you do not accept the terms of my message. I cannot change a letter of it.”

That is the attitude of the preacher. It is in Paul’s thought when he calls Timothy’s attention to the relation of his Christian experience: “Lay hold of life eternal whereunto thou wast called, and didst confess a good confession in the sight of many witnesses.” In other words, “Go back to your conversation; what did you do when you came before the church? There were many witnesses present, and you came out openly with the statement that you were a lost sinner, saved by the grace of God by simple faith in Jesus Christ, and that your sins were remitted through the shedding of his blood on the cross. That was your confession. Stand up to it now. Don’t go back on it.”

In order to impress the more the idea of a public committal, he quotes Christ’s confession when brought before Pilate, the stern Roman procurator, who said to Christ, “Do you know that I have power to set you at liberty, or to take your life?” Christ said, “You have no power except what is given you. I am a king, but my kingdom is not of this world.” There Christ witnessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate.

Whatever may be the fate or circumstances of life, let the ambassador keep this thought always in mind: That he stands for the Saviour; in the parlor, on the streets, behind the counter, on the farm, in amusements, and with whomsoever, in the presence of whatsoever enemies, he is the witness to a good confession. That is the charge to Timothy. I have read the lives of many men. One of my favorite classes of reading is biography. I have never read a biography of another man that impressed me like Paul’s as set forth by himself. I have never found anywhere a man so conscientious, whose life was so consecrated, whose eye was so single, whose ideal of duty was so high. Always he stands like an everlasting rock upon the truth of Jesus Christ.

QUESTIONS

1. On what earlier letter have we considered at length Christianity’s attitude toward the institution of slavery?

2. What class of people never endorsed nor appreciated New Testament teaching on this point?

3. What heavy burden has their misdirected zeal imposed on both Christianity and the state?

4. Show how a vicious incentive discounted the labors of these fanatics whether anti or pro-slavery men, and how the same motive in a preacher or any other matter brings deplorable results to him and the community.

5. What lesson from our Lord and from the life of Elijah opposes this loud method?

6. Illustrate the fact that the mightiest forces are not noisy,

7. What the meaning of “minded to be rich”?

8. Show how the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

9. Illustrate the danger to the man himself.

10. Cite two cases from Acts to show that there is no hate more in- tolerant and murderous than an interrupted evil business.

11. In whose favor and why is the contrast between the pirate and the miser?

12. Give the outcome of the lover of money.

13. Why the great difference between “minded to be rich” and “them that are rich”?

14. What passage the only limit to the amount of wealth that may be lawfully acquired?

15. Give the elements negative and positive of the charge to the rich,

16. What the importance of the charge to Timothy at 1Ti 5:21 ?

17. What two important lessons may be learned from the charge at 1Ti 5:23 ?

18. In the charge at 1Ti 6:11 what must the preacher run from and what must he chase?

19. Cite proof texts to show that Paul himself exemplified the charge: “Fight the good fight of the faith.”

20. In the last charge (1Ti 6:20-21 ) what was committed to Timothy and with what contrasted?

21. When did Timothy make the “good confession” and when did our Lord?

22. Illustrate from one of Scott’s romances, telling which one, he necessity for an ambassador to be faithful to the message entrusted to him.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.

Ver. 1. Count their own masters ] And not under a pretence of Christian liberty, and because in Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free, seek to shake off the yoke of obedience that God hath hung upon their necks. See 1Pe 2:18 .

That the name of God and his doctrine, &c. ] Be traduced as a doctrine of liberty. Heathens lay at the catch,1Pe 2:121Pe 2:12 , spying and prying (as the word there signifies), and imputing all public judgments to Christian miscarriages. Nunc male audiunt castiganturque vulgo Christiani (saith Lactantius, de opif. Dei ad Demet.) quod aliter quam sapientibus convenit, vivent, et vitia sub obtentu nominis celent. Christians are very hardly spoken of to this very day, because their conversation is not as becometh the gospel of Christ, but they think to cover their faults with the fig leaves of profession.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

1 .] Let as many as are slaves under the yoke (I have adopted the rendering of De W. and Huther, attaching to the predicate, as the simpler construction. The other, ‘ as many slaves as are under the yoke ,’ making emphatic as distinguishing either 1) those treated hardly , or 2) those who were under unbelieving masters , has undoubtedly something to be said for it, but does not seem to me so likely, from the arrangement of the words. Had been intended to bring out any distinction, it would have more naturally preceded . I take then as the predicate: ‘bondsmen under yoke’) hold their own ( , as in Eph 5:22 , al., to bring out and emphasize the relation; see note there) masters worthy of all (fitting) honour, that the name of God and his doctrine (cf. Tit 2:10 , where, writing on the same subject, he admonishes slaves . Hence it would appear that the article here is possessive, and . corresponding to ) be not spoken evil of (Chrys. gives the sense well: , , , . This verse obviously applies only to those slaves who had unbelieving masters. This is brought out by the reason given, and by the contrast in the next verse, not by any formal opposition in terms. The account to be given of the absence of such opposition is, that this verse contains the general exhortation, the case of Christian slaves under unbelieving masters being by far the most common. The exception is treated in the next verse).

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

1Ti 6:1-2 . The duty of Christian slaves to heathen and Christian masters respectively.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

1Ti 6:1 . The politico-social problem of the first ages of Christianity was the relation of freemen to slaves, just as the corresponding problem before the Church in our own day is the relation of the white to the coloured races. The grand truth of the brotherhood of man is the revolutionary fire which Christ came to cast upon earth. Fire, if it is to minister to civilisation, must be so controlled as to be directed. So with the social ethics of Christianity; the extent to which their logical consequences are pressed must be calculated by common sense. One of the great dangers to the interests of the Church in early times was the teaching of the gospel on liberty and equality, crude and unqualified by consideration of the other natural social conditions, also divinely ordered, which Christianity was called to leaven, not wholly to displace.

The slave problem also meets us in Eph 6:5 , Col 3:22 , Tit 2:9 , Philem. 1Pe 2:18 . In each place it is dealt with consistently, practically, Christianly.

The difficulty in this verse is . The contrast in 1Ti 6:2 , . . . seems to prove that a is one that belongs to a heathen master. The R.V. is consistent with this view, Let as many as are servants under the yoke . The heathen estimate of a slave differed in degree, not in kind, from their estimate of cattle; a Christian master could not regard his slaves as .

: The force of was so much weakened in later Greek that it is doubtful if it amounts here to more than . See on 1Ti 3:4 .

is more strictly the correlative of than is , and is used in this sense in reff. except Luk 2:29 . St. Paul has in his other epistles (Rom 14:4 ; Gal 4:1 ; Eph 6:5 ; Eph 6:9 ; Col 3:22 ; Col 4:1 ); but, as Wace acutely remarks, in all these passages there is a reference to the Divine which gives the term a special appropriateness.

, worthy of the greatest respect .

: The phrase “blaspheme the name of God” comes from Isa 52:5 ( cf. Eze 36:20-23 ). See Rom 2:24 , 2Pe 2:2 . See note on 1Ti 6:14 . The corresponding passage in Tit 2:10 , , supports Alford’s contention that the article here is equivalent to a possessive pronoun, His doctrine . On the other hand, the phrase does not need any explanation; the doctrine would be quite analogous to St. Paul’s use elsewhere when speaking of the Christian faith. For , see note on 1Ti 1:10 .

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

1 Timothy Chapter 6

From matters of ecclesiastical and moral order the transition is easy and becoming to the due feelings and conduct of slaves, a burning question for the house of God on earth where materials lay so abundant for mischief at the hands of men rash, heady, and unbroken. Some have yielded to their subjective notions bred in the unhealthy swamps of modern licence, and, with no appreciation of the apostle’s gracious wisdom any more than of his stern disallowance of self-assertion, dare to question the inspired claim of the passage or even its genuine Pauline character. Suffice it to say that to the believer every word is as seasonable and wholesome in itself as the importance of the exhortation is plain for that time and any other. Nor is one without hope of sufficiently indicating its value as we weigh it clause by clause in its bearing for our day on souls who owe domestic service, where the pressure of bondage no longer exists.

“Let as many as are bondmen under yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and the teaching be not reviled. And those that have believing masters, let them not despise [them] because they are brethren, but the more let them serve, because they that partake of the good service are faithful and beloved. These things teach and exhort. If any one teach differently, and accede not to sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is according to godliness (piety), he is puffed up, knowing nothing, but sick about questionings and word-disputes, out of which cometh envy, strife, revilings, evil suspicions, wranglings of men corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth, supposing that godliness (piety) is gain” (vers. 1-5).

The law given by Moses had done much to mitigate slavery in Israel, and this not merely as to a Hebrew sold for debt or selling himself through poverty. A year of release came round speedily, after which his abiding servitude was quite voluntary, with a blessed Antitype in view familiar to the instructed Christian. The old and still prevailing British boast is but an echo of the command that a slave who escaped among them should not be delivered to his master but was free to live unoppressed and free, where he pleased in their midst (Deu 23:15 , Deu 23:16 ). This was not however in regard to his social position merely, but still more to his religious status. In this the law of Moses stands in contrast with other codes, yea, with selfish and haughty Christendom. For Jewish slaves were entitled among other privileges to circumcision, enjoyed expressly the Sabbatical rest – indisputably a boon to none more than to them, and had their place at the solemn assemblies of the year, joining in the feasts like others, and in the fruits of the sabbath of the land every seventh year, as well as in the universal joy and liberty of the jubilee. Still it is fully allowed that the law made nothing perfect, as everywhere else so here also; and that in view of Jewish or human hardheartedness not a little under the law was tolerated which was far from God’s mind, till He came Who is the truth in grace. Christ changed all, and the bondman became His freedman, as the freeman rejoices and is honoured in being His bondman. There can now be neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, no male and female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus. Circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian: what matters one or other now? Christ is all things and in all. All is grounded on His death and resurrection Who, ascended into heaven, has formed an entirely new and heavenly relationship, of which the Holy Spirit actually come is the power.

Such is the Christian teaching, and no class seems to have reaped the blessing more bountifully in God’s grace than the slaves who heard the gospel. Here we have most wholesome precepts to which Timothy was called to give heed, and this in view of false teachers, ever ready to abuse the truth for their lusts, as political leaders too have done from time to time in the world’s history.

The first verse, as a maxim of the widest sphere, urges as many as were under yoke as bondmen to deem their own masters worthy of all honour. Some might cry up other masters, others might dislike or disparage their own: neither spirit is of faith or becomes the Christian; and a slave, if a Christian, is no less responsible than another to reflect and live Christ. It is no question what their own masters might be, Jew or heathen, vain or proud, immoral or self-righteous, mean, ambitious, or what not. If God’s providence had cast their lot under the obligations of bondmen, they were responsible to Him for counting them worthy of all honour, not because they deserved this or that praise, but simply as being their own masters. The possession of eternal life, redemption, and glory in prospect, was meant as it is calculated to lift the heart into moral elevation; inasmuch as this can only be truly the case through the sense of sovereign grace on God’s part to a guilty sinner, saved at the infinite cost of His blood Who has thus secured the blessing, and waiting for Him to come, one knew not how soon, to consummate his heavenly hope.

It is not often the Rhemish Version can justly lay claim to exactness, but here through adhering to the Vulgate it may. All the older English seem to me to have failed, as well as the Authorized Version, in not regarding “servants” or slaves as part of the predicate. And so I understand the Pesch. Syr., though somewhat vague, whilst the Philoxenian reflects the more ordinary view. This gives undue prominence to “being under yoke,” whereas the true force is but complemental. It seems to be only a full description of all in bondage, not the peculiar case of some; and hence the general duty of all such fellows. How solemn for the inconsiderate and unwatchful Christian in such a position to remember that his failure toward his master causes God and His truth to be evil spoken of! To light minds their conscious knowledge might expose to a slighting of their own masters more or less destitute or even opposed. But doing the truth in all lowliness and honouring each his own master is the simple, true, and efficient way of bringing glory to God and the truth.

Next come the special circumstances of such as had believing masters. This privilege might seem to promise only comfort and blessing; and doubtless the difference of the atmosphere would be great. But every position has its snares and difficulties; and both masters and servants, if believers, would be as apt to expect a great deal mutually, as sometimes to be sorely disappointed. Hence the apostle guards with care the exception: “And let those that have faithful masters not despise them, because they are brethren, but the more serve, because those that partake of the benefit are faithful and beloved.” It is needless to remark that the Rhemish with Wiclif is nearer the truth, not the other English translations which since Tyndale treat the last clause as part of the predicate

This beyond just controversy the article forbids, the force of which they overlooked. On the other hand Beza, Bengel, et al. are quite mistaken in the thought that the article with points to God’s beneficence in Christ, which would make here the poorest sense possible. The article is really by implication due, as often happens, to the previous phrase, . Faith does exalt the lowly and humble the proud; but it does not misuse communion in the Spirit to equality in the flesh. Rather would it teach the believers because they know this or that, instead of despising their masters, to render the more service, because those that reap their good service are believing and beloved. And there was then, as now, urgent need to impress these lessons on souls, particularly on such as are in the subject-relationship. With these the apostle uniformly begins, when as in Ephesians and Colossians he exhorts both. A carnal acquaintance with the gospel readily falls in with the selfishness of the humbler class which shuts out Christ, and breeds socialism, the basest caricature in Christendom.

But it seems a strange division which severs that which follows from the foregoing, by taking “These things teach and exhort,” either as the beginning of a new paragraph, like Green, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Webster and Wilkinson, Westcott and Hort, Bengel, Matthaei, or as the end of the previous one, like Ellicott and the Revised Version. It is better with Alford, Bloomfield, et al., to regard this as an unbroken context; and the more as the denunciatory warning which now commences stands in more evident contrariety to the exhortation just concluded. “If any one teach differently [or play the strange teacher] and accede not to sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is according to godliness, he is puffed up, knowing nothing, but sick about questionings, and word-disputes, out of which cometh envy, strife, revilings, evil suspicions, wranglings of men corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth, supposing that godliness is gain” (vers. 3-5).

Thus plainly does the apostle prepare his younger colleague to watch against the strange teaching that would undermine the truth in these things, and substitute the proud and reckless will of man under fair pretences.

Some may think it strange that the apostle should speak so decidedly to Timothy; but let them weigh the moral judgment which this eminently sober servant of the Lord pronounces under the immediate power of the inspiring Spirit. None that fears God will tax him with undue severity; yet does he unqualifiedly condemn any man who taught a different teaching from what has been laid down. To undermine the relation of a servant to a master was heinous in his eyes, and not less so because fair pretexts and high-sounding professions were put forward. For the duty of subjection flows from the relation; and it is strengthened, not relaxed, by the faith of those concerned. In every case supposed those under yoke are assumed to be believers: else they would not fall under the apostle’s scope. In the latter case those in authority are represented as believers. In no case is a disrespectful, still less a rebellious, spirit tolerated; but every approach to it is repudiated as dishonouring God and the truth.

Nor is this all. For to teach otherwise is not to accede* to sound words, even the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the teaching that is according to godliness. The Spirit of God descried socialistic principles impending, if not then at work, which drew out so sweeping and unsparing a rebuke. Can one conceive any censure more suited to check and destroy such a tendency? Who that knows what it is to be a sinner, owing every mercy to grace in Christ, would dare to persevere in a line of direct antagonism to His words Who is the Lord of all and the ordained Judge of quick and dead? Who so satisfied with his own theories and pleadings as to despise the apostolic declaration that his doctrine was incompatible with that which is according to godliness? There is such a thing as, after knowing the way of righteousness, turning back from the holy commandment delivered to us. No true-hearted saint would trifle with so awful an admonition from such a quarter. He who would persist in trusting his own heart, spite of it, must reap the bitter fruit in the ruin not only of his testimony but of his soul; for God is not mocked, if man deceives himself. Corrupt teaching is of the enemy, and, if unjudged in the light that grace gives to expose it, cannot but issue in the worst results, especially for such as teach error where Christ is named, and consequently all are responsible to set forth Him Who is the Truth.

* Bentley’s conjecture is singularly confirmed by the Sinai MS. which reads (with an itacism). Still there is no sufficient reason to abandon the common text supported by all other authorities.

Here too there is no excuse on the score of abstruse thought or of delicate shades of expression. It is a question of fundamental morality, or, as the apostle puts it, “the teaching that is according to godliness.” How blessed for us that Christ covers all truth, the highest and the humblest alike, our heavenly privileges and our most commonplace responsibilities! Nor is anything more perilous than the vaunting spirit that treats these ordinary proprieties of every day as of no moment, in its one-sided zeal for union with Christ on high or the special glories of the Spirit’s ministration. It is clear that our apostle gives no quarter to such shortsightedness; and the less where it is arrogant and vituperative as it is rash and shallow. He is himself the best example of a teaching which rests on foundations morally broad and deep, on which alone can be safely built that which melts into the light and glory of God’s presence.

Hear how the apostle lashes the offender: “He is puffed up, knowing nothing, but sick about questionings and word-disputes.” Is it not a faithful likeness of mind at work without conscience or heart, where Christ is only made the means of exalting the church, instead of the church subserving His glory?

We are sanctified by the, not by a, truth; but human one-sidedness (which ever boasts of its measure as being all that is worth hearing, and so much the more, the narrower it is) is but the knowledge that puffs up. Think of Paul or even Timothy glorying in their friends as the men of intelligence in contrast with Peter or Apollos and with those who appreciated either! No; they left such vain comparisons to the carnal Corinthians. Love builds up. This was the apostle’s aim even in his withering exposure of the true character of this empty inflated teaching, which availed itself of the richest grace and highest truth to set aside the plain duties of every day in human relationships. And a great mercy it is, when simple souls who understand little else take their stand on the Christ they know, rejecting the sacrifice of common morals, whatever the showy pretensions which accompany or even extenuate such laxity. Their conscience, not yet depraved, assures them that it cannot be of God to treat grave sin lightly, while cultivating extreme zeal for ecclesiastical pretension or yielding to excessive pre-occupation with our peculiar and heavenly privileges. Partial views are but “knowledge,” apt to minister directly to the egotism that cherishes only those who hold with self exclusively, to the disparagement, not only of saints less informed, but of those who, better taught and subject to Christ, cleave to the truth unreservedly.

With self-judgment are we best kept both in the sense of our littleness and in love to all the saints, instead of being puffed up in self-complacency and contempt of brethren generally. It is the budding of Gnosticism which is thus nipped by the apostle in more than one passage of the Epistle, though the evil afterwards assumed a far more subtle and malignant shape. But, whatever its form, it is the inevitable enemy that dogs the steps of the truth, ever claiming the highest value for its own chosen line, but none the less betraying its alien source and nature, not only by its pride and party-working, but by its palpable neglect of the teaching that is according to piety. This the truth promotes because it is the revelation of Christ to the soul, and in Him Who fills all things we learn practically as well as dogmatically that, as there is nothing too great for us who are by grace made one with Him, so there is nothing too small for God Who went down to the dust of death in the person of His Son. The most despicable position on earth through the grace of Christ becomes the fairest field for magnifying Him in our body, whether by life or by death.

And equally sorrowful is the fruit: “whereof (out of which) cometh envy, strife, revilings (or blasphemies), wicked (evil) suspicions, wranglings of men corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth, supposing that godliness (piety) is gain.” They are the unmistakable works of the flesh excited by the hopes of turning piety to a selfish account. Far different is it when faith is at work through love! There the fruit of the Spirit cannot be hid in love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance (Gal 5:22 , Gal 5:23 ); for Christ is the object, not self veiled under deceptive appearances, which on that account is only the more loathsome to God, and which therefore breaks out ere long into confusion and every evil work.

The last clause of verse 5 in the common text and the Authorized Version is rejected by all critics as destitute of adequate authority, though the Syrr. et al., favour the insertion. It seems to correspond with the last clause of 2Ti 3:5 , which is unquestionably genuine, though not in exactly the same terms. Here the exhortation is out of place: for it is only the hypothetic case of some one guilty of insinuating the false principles in question; whereas in the Second Epistle it is an evil state that is positively predicated with directions how to act then. Further, the insertion in this First Epistle interrupts the connection of the apostle’s words, as any one can see in the context before us.

The selfish evil of making piety a means of gain has been fully exposed. It is really to turn Christ’s name to the account of present and worldly interests; it is an abuse of grace, an abandonment of truth, save in profession, and also a taking forethought for the flesh in order to satisfy its lusts; it is as alien as can be conceived from all that the Holy Spirit is now working on earth to the glory of God the Father.

“But piety with contentment is,” says the apostle with emphasis, “great gain. For we have brought nothing into the world; because neither can we carry anything out. But having food and covering we shall be therewith satisfied” (vers. 6-8).

Piety as a cloak of covetousness, piety paraded in order to rise in the earth and acquire wealth, is a reversal of that which is everywhere in scripture shown to be a genuinely Christian expectation. When the Corinthians betrayed the desire thus to make the best of both worlds, the apostle reproved them in terms cuttingly ironical: “Already ye are filled full, already ye are rich, ye reign as kings without us; and I would indeed that ye did reign that we also might reign with you. For methinks God hath set forth us the apostles last as men sentenced to death; for we are made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are in honour, but we are despised. Even to this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place, being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat; we are become as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things unto this day” (1Co 4:8-13 ). This speech of his was in grace, but it was unmistakably seasoned with salt. He could not but blame, but it was in loving admonition that they might be sound in the faith and saved from ruinous practice flowing from false principle.

The true course is that which is urged later by the apostle in 1Co 7:29-31 : “But this I say, brethren, the time that remaineth is shortened; in order that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep as weeping not; and they that rejoice as rejoicing not, and they that buy as not possessing; and they that use this world as not using it to the full; for the fashion of this world passeth away.” We are but pilgrims and strangers, passing through a world to which we no longer belong; we are of the Father, His gift to Christ, Whose witnesses we are now called to be, as we wait for His coming to be with Him and to share the glorious inheritance along with Him. It is His will to assign us our lot meanwhile; and piety would own with thankfulness His disposal of us, whether as a test of our subjection of heart or as a sphere of serving Him from day to day. For there is nothing right for our souls where He has not His place. It is not enough that there be “contentment.” This alone would be but a heathen sentiment; as in fact not a few pagan authors have expressed it prettily, though (it is to be feared) it was rather what they could see to become man than what they really made good in their daily conversation. The Stoics who most affected such language were hard rather than happy men. Even had they succeeded in practice, how far short of Christ was their self-complacent contentment!

What is here declared to be a great means of gain is “piety” with contentment. This is a state wholly opposed to the pagan self-reliance which leaves out God and dependence on Him. “Piety” cherishes confidence in Him, and looks up to Him habitually, as to One Who does not and cannot fail in His gracious consideration of every need, difficulty, and danger, all being naked and laid bare to His eyes with Whom we have to do. With piety “contentment”* is the fruit of knowing His love and the assurance of His will as good, acceptable, and perfect. As the same apostle said to the Christian Hebrews, “Let your conversation (or conduct) be without love of money, satisfied with present circumstances, for Himself hath said, I will never leave thee, neither will I forsake thee: so that taking courage, we may say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid: what will man do with met;” (Heb 13:5 , Heb 13:6 ). It is the same principle at bottom; but here it is the harm for one’s own spirit that the apostle warns against rather than the apprehension of mischief from others, which he would remove from the believers of the circumcision. Piety with contentment is great gain.

* The Peschito Syr. seems to take in the-objective sense of “our sufficiency,” or the use of it, a sense no doubt possible, and as in 2Co 9:8 legitimate, but here inconsistent with the scope of this passage.

This he illustrates and enforces by the homely yet all the more impressive facts of man’s beginning and end here below; which all can see, but on which only men of faith act: “For nothing have we brought into the world, because neither can we carry anything out” (ver. 7) This is urged with such characteristic brevity and compressed ruggedness that one need not wonder if words once brought in to explain have crept into the text of not a few manuscripts. These apparent interpolations differ. In one of the earliest (D. or the Clermont MS.) which contains an addition prevalent in the West, “[it is] true” appears; and so it substantially stands in the Vulgate, Gothic, et al. Among the Greek early writers as in several late uncials and the mass of cursives, “[it is] manifest” is the word (“known” in the Syr. being perhaps fairly equivalent). The oldest authorities do not allow or for , but give as the text what is here translated; which turns man’s entrance into the world with nothing into the solemn reminder that thus it will be at the close, so that the two-fold truth may bear on the believer throughout his course. Compare Job 1:21 , which is an anciently expressed sentiment, and as simple as sure. But piety with “contentment,” alone makes its weight felt and forms the walk in accordance with the truth.

“But having food and covering we shall be therewith content (satisfied)” (ver. 8). The words translated food and covering are both in the plural which may indicate the variety in each case provided of God. The “covering” too is not limited to clothing, and should not be so translated, as it takes in dwelling as well. The future seems more forcible than the exhortatory tense, and better suits the passive voice. Little reliance can be placed even on the oldest and best MSS. which too often interchange the long with the short vowels, as in this case. The critics generally of late incline to the future.

Let the Christian reader study also the words of our Lord in Mat 6:19-34 , and delight his soul in the incomparable fulness and dignity of that blessed discourse.

With the godly contentment of the Christian, the apostle next contrasts the restless, sorrowful, and perilous path of covetousness in its mildest form. It is a worldly lust to be judged and disallowed like any other.

“But those that desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and many unwise and hurtful lusts, such as sink men into destruction and perdition. For a root of all evil is the love of money, which some eagerly seeking were led astray from the faith and pierced themselves through with many pains” (vers. 9, 10).

As usual, under a plain and unostentatious exterior, the language of the apostle bears the witness and conveys the power of divine wisdom. It is not here the possession of wealth which stands in the soul’s way. This the Lord had laid bare in the rich young ruler who went away sorrowful, because he valued his great wealth too highly to follow Christ at all cost. Moses suffered what the suffering and glorified Son of man never sanctions. The law made nothing perfect. The introduction of a better hope not only gives us to draw near to God instead of maintaining the old distance, but in Christ detects and judges the flesh and the world as enmity against God. Outward advantage becomes a spiritual obstacle. Man is evil; and God alone is good; and the cross becomes the door of salvation from a God to Whom all things are possible, if they that have riches enter with difficulty the kingdom of God. And all things are possible to him that believeth. For faith makes Christ all, which the young man did not: else he had not gone away with a fallen countenance from Him Who never fails to give peace to the most tried believer, and fills with joy the most forlorn.

Here it is the far more common class whose purpose it is to become rich. What does such a desire betray? Discontent with the calling in which one is called; distrust of God’s will, goodness, and wisdom in His dealings with each; the same unbroken, unjudged thirst for the things after which the Gentiles seek. Does not our heavenly Father know what we have need of, and what He deems fitting for us? The word of our Lord is, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not dig through nor steal; for where thy treasure is, there will be also thy heart” (Mat 6:19-21 ). Child of God, where is thy treasure? Is it Christ in heaven? If so, happy art thou! If it is wealth or distinction, the Lord warns, There also will be thy heart. What can be more false and beguiling than the fond fancy that prevails among many in direct contradiction of Christ, that, while the life is absorbed in the struggle for riches, the heart is not there but is true to Him! It is not for want of solemn admonition that a Christian can thus stray. The character, the state, is proved in what we are set on and live for from day to day. “If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body will be bright.” And if the whole body in one be found dark, is it not because the eye is evil? “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great the darkness!” (Mat 6:23 ). So the Lord detected the source and motive, and exposed the blindness that results.

The apostle here dwells briefly on the effects of such a purpose however veiled. They fall into temptation and a snare and many unwise and hurtful lusts, such as sink men into destruction and perdition. But oh! the unbelief of believers where an object other than Christ and opposed to His will and glory carries them away! It is not the riches themselves which are the worst danger, though thereby the path is made more difficult; but the lack of faith that counts them the Lord’s, not our own, and that therefore seeks only to be faithful as a steward according to His mind and to be blessed in doing His will. It is our own will or purpose that is so often wrong and to be dreaded most.

To fall into temptation is quite different from being tempted. The fact of being tempted is trying; but blessed is he that endures temptation. The Lord Himself knows what sore temptations mean, none so much. For as God cannot be tempted by evil things, and Himself tempts no one, thus neither was the Second Man (however the first was at once to his own ruin and that of the race) unto God’s dishonour. But Christ suffered whilst being tempted, instead of weakly yielding to present gratification and lying down afterwards in unavailing sorrow. Temptation in His case, however complete, was apart from sin; whereas Adam was drawn away and enticed by lust with all its bitter results. Christ had no sinful temptations within, as we have. He never fell, never entered into temptation, as He warns us to pray against. To “enter” is fatal, as we see in Peter’s case, though through the Lord’s intercession his faith did not fail absolutely, and, when turned back or restored, he was used to confirm his brethren.

“A snare”* goes yet farther than temptation, and supposes the deceived soul caught in the net of the enemy, whence only the grace and power of the Lord can extricate.

* Not a few MSS. (three of them uncials), versions, etc., add “of the devil:” but this is superfluous if not narrow, no doubt due to 1Ti 3:7

Further, the desire of riches is not alone, but is also the parent of “many unwise and hurtful lusts.” It feeds vanity. It engenders pride. It ministers to selfishness. It suggests and promotes ambition, and so may be the means of corrupting others. How truly we hear of many unwise and hurtful lusts in its train!

As the way is sad and evil, the end (and here it is shown fully) is unspeakably wretched: “Such as (or, seeing these lusts) sink men into destruction and perdition.” Of course this is said of “men,” not of “saints;” but not the least terrible examples are of those who took their place and were once perhaps without question recognized among the confessors of Christ. The more we may know and possess, the less hopeful and the more unconscientious is our departure, when it comes, from what becomes His name. Their course and end mark such only as “men.” “Destruction” is the general description of their ruin; “perdition” is still more awfully precise. It is part of the snare and folly to presume on the bearing of the Lord’s name as if it must preserve those under it from the baneful consequences of the unbelief which slights the word and gives loose rein to the will. But God is not mocked, and those who sow to the flesh must reap corruption. The end of these things is death, and not the less but the more irreclaimably. where the word which should be living becomes a dead dogma, under which God’s calls to holiness, in disallowance of self and the world, are not heard, and the unwary soul drops into a more and more hardened hypocrisy. Who has not known such instances? Are they exhausted? Is your soul or mine to pay no heed?

“For a root of evil is the love of money, which some, being eager after, were seduced from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many pains (pangs)”. This is a solemn but not too sweeping sentence, which we all should ponder; though some more than others, as the apostle implies, are exposed to the poison. Wealth practically means the possession of much more than we need for ourselves or for the poor from day to day, of what is over and above godly use, of what therefore can only be for show or indulgence, for lavishness or for hoarding.

The language of men betrays their mammon-worship. They conceive money, and the love of it, a root of “goods.” God pronounces it a root of “evils”; and not merely possible but actual , the evils that exist, subtle or important, of the flesh and of the mind. So the Lord had admonished the disciples against the cares of the age, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things, entering in (Mar 13:32 ).

Christianity is no doubt of faith and the “faith;” but, when real, it is a life more than a creed. It is Christ living in each believer, as the apostle says of himself as a saint, not officially, so as to be a sample of the household of faith (Phi 1:21 ). But so deadly a root of evils is the love of money that its seductive influence from the faith is singled out for the forefront of resulting danger. And this may help to explain the strength of the language in Eph 5:5 where a covetous person is styled an idolater, as in Col 3:5 covetousness is declared to be idolatry. Be it that there employed goes beyond here used; still the latter is at least included in that unsatisfied greed which becomes pre-eminently an absorbing idolatrous passion that excludes true homage to the true God.

But the apostle in no way limits the mischief to causing souls to wander from the faith, though surely nothing can be more disastrous. The eager pursuit of money is wont to pierce its votaries through with many pangs or pains. It is hard in that case to avoid deceit here, dissimulation there, hard words and ways to one, soft to another, taking selfish advantage of men and things and times, without account of heart or circumstances, and still less of Christ before God. It is not only failure but success that inflicts the many pangs; yea, the most successful in general have their disappointments, and therefore all the keener.

Still it is hardly exact, I think, to say “the” root, though one knows what has been pleaded on its behalf; because “the” implies naturally an exclusive force, and the love of money, deep and wide as it may be, is not the only root of all men’s evils. But our language hardly admits of a simply anarthrous usage like the Greek, and therefore we make use of the indefinite article, though it may be feeble.

In contrast with those who, through that root of evils, not more wounded themselves than they dishonoured the Lord, Timothy is now exhorted to cultivate all that is suited to and worthy of His name.

“But thou, O man of God, fee these things, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, meekness of spirit.* Combat the good combat of faith; lay hold on the life eternal whereunto thou wast called, and didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses. I charge [thee] in the sight of God that preserveth (keepeth alive) all things, and Christ Jesus that witnessed before Pontius Pilate the good confession, that thou keep the commandment, spotless, irreproachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; which in its own times He shall show, the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable, Whom none of men saw nor can see; to Whom, be honour and might eternal. Amen” (vers. 11-16).

* The older reading seems stronger than the ordinary , meekness.

“also” only in some inferior witnesses

“thee” is not in the best copies.

Authorities are divided between two words that are like, the Sinaitic with the less weighty witnesses supporting the Text. Rec., but A D F G P the critical text.

“Man of God” is a phrase of common occurrence from the Pentateuch, and throughout the historical books of Old Testament scripture. Continually applied to a prophet, it regards him as one identified with the interests and character of God in deed and in truth, though of course liable to failure, and thereon to suffer chastening. In the New Testament it is found nowhere save in the two Epistles to Timothy, here predicated of the one addressed in order to stimulate and warn; in the Second Epistle open to all who in an evil day make good in faithful and holy devotedness to God what is implied in it.

Timothy as a man of God is called to shun the worldly lusts, foolish and hurtful, against which the apostle had been warning. It is vain to affect zeal for what is good, if so dangerous a snare be indulged, source as it is of all evils. But persevering avoidance of evil can hardly be, unless there be also the zealous pursuit of righteousness and godliness, of faith and love, of endurance and meekness of spirit. Practical consistency with one’s relationship is indispensable, as is reverent affection Godward, the light of the unseen let in on the present and the activity of the heart in what is good, the spirit made up to bear evil, and this with meekness, not with resentment and impatience. Such is the morally beautiful path traced here for his young fellow-labourer by one who knew it familiarly and deeply, though its perfection be found only in our Lord Jesus here below.

But more than this is called for, if He is to be magnified in our body, whether by life or by death. The figures are taken as often from the games so familiar to that day. “Combat the good combat of the faith.” Flesh or sight would seek only present things. Christ must be in view.

“Lay hold on eternal life whereunto thou wast called and didst confess the good confession before many witnesses.” As in “fleeing” and “pursuing,” the work is regarded as expressly continuous: not so in “laying hold” of the eternal life. It is a single act, and duration is excluded from the thought, all being summed up in its completion, like the waking up righteously once for all in 1Co 15:34 compared with the habit of not sinning. It is the prize at the end of which faith could have laid hold now, as the good confession is a thing done, not of course done with, nor on the other hand in process of doing. It is the simple act in itself, which is expressed in the aorist, as ought to be well-known. The Authorized Version is doubly wrong in “hast” professed, and “a” good confession. The Vulgate may be supposed to have influenced all from Wiclif downwards. The endeavour to bring in the whole ministry of Timothy as covered by a good confession, as Calvin contends, seems as unfounded as, and only less objectionable than, the strange “oblation” imputed to the phrase by the author of the “Unbloody Sacrifice” (i. 223, ed. of Anglo-Cath. Library). Into what vagaries men wander who slight the truth of Christ for objects of their own!

The apostle rises next to a solemn admonition in this connection, as he does towards the close of his Second Epistle. “Quickening,” or creating however, is not the thought, but “keeping alive.” Here all the older English versions like most others have followed the received reading; not that which suits the context, which has also the better authorities. How Dean Alford could adopt the right reading but give a rendering which suits the wrong, seems unaccountable; but so it is. The usage in the New Testament as in the LXX distinctly points to saving alive or preserving; and here “all things”, not persons, are in question, though some go so far as to teach the contrary. God, Who is the source of life, is also the preserver of all things: on this he who espouses His cause in a hostile scene can reckon and needs to reckon.

Besides, there is One no longer seen, to Whom faith looks with assurance, for not consolation only but also for unfailing support: “Christ Jesus that witnessed before Pontius Pilate the good confession.” He is on high to succour His servants, but He was here as none else “the faithful Witness,” the good Confessor. What cheer to the spirit of him who might flag through timorous counsels or the demoralization of compromise, that dire and corrupting pest for the mouth and heart when evil thickens among the faithful on earth! He has to follow His steps in this as in all things; and if he knows his weakness, as surely he will increasingly in the arduous combat, he has but to spread it before His sight Whose grace suffices and Whose strength is made perfect in weakness. What a joy and honour consciously to witness the “good confession” where our Lord did so before us, He without what we have so abundantly, and with such aggravation as none ever had or can have again!

To have the truth is of capital moment; and this can only be by faith of God’s word. “By the word of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer” (Psa 17:4 ). Thus only can we escape the lie of the enemy who deceives the whole world. But another thing there is, only second – that confession or witness which our lips and lives owe to Him Whose grace has given us the truth; and this not only though chiefly to His honour, but in love according to His will for those that lie as the world does in the wicked one. that they may be sanctified and saved. Before Pontius Pilate, the overwhelming fact came out that (not only did the Gentiles know not the truth, but) the Jews would not have it when before their eyes and ears livingly in Him Who, while the Messiah, was infinitely more. The chosen nation was as unbelieving as the nations generally, and hence as more guilty, so also more unrelentingly cruel unto blood, though it were the blood of Him Who was Jehovah’s Fellow. Jesus confessed Himself not only King of a kingdom not of this world, but born and come to bear witness of the truth that every one who is of the truth might hear His voice. As the Jews alleged, He made Himself equal with God; He was, He is, the Only-Begotten Son of the Father. No wonder even hard-hearted Pilate was afraid, till Caesar’s, the world’s, friendship was seen to be at stake: and so, like the Jews who tempted him, he perished in enmity to God. Such is the end of all indeed, who, as they believe not with the heart to righteousness, confess not with the mouth to salvation, though in this passage no doubt “good confession” is more precise.

The charge to Timothy was “to keep the injunction (or commandment) spotless, irreproachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is important to notice the accuracy of the thought as well as of the language; and the more so, as erudite ignorance takes the unhallowed licence every now and then of apologizing for scripture, as if even the apostle’s Epistles were deficient in the exactitude which the schools, as they think, alone possess and impart.

But the unction from the Holy One gives quite another character and precision from that which is fed by the midnight oil of human training. This alone forms in the believer the mind of Christ, which, in its surface and in its depths, is alike beyond the wisdom of this age. Take as an instance the epiphany or “appearing” of our Lord (ver. 14) which is never confounded with His “presence” () or “coming:” the one being bound up with questions of our responsibility in service or testimony, as in the case before us, the other as simply and regularly (unless specifically modified* otherwise) presenting our hope in all the fulness of divine grace. It will greatly help the Christian student to search the two words and contrast their connections throughout the New Testament.

* As for example, the presence or coming of “the Son of man” brings in His judicial aspect, and is therefore necessarily tantamount to His “appearing” or “day.”

On the great and instructive theme of the Lord’s return, whether to receive His own to be with Himself above, or to display them already with Him when He comes in judgment of the quick for the kingdom, the distinction becomes evident on examination, as it is of the deepest moment in conducing to an intelligent grasp of revealed truth or of God’s counsels and ways. In sovereign grace Christ will come to gather us together on high to be with Himself for ever; but He will appear also to put down all evil and reign in righteousness; and when He is manifested, we shall be manifested with Him in glory. The object and character differ as much as the time: where grace in its due heavenly power is meant, it is His “coming” to fulfil our hopes: where government and responsibility are in question, it is His “appearing,” “manifestation,” or “day,” as any soul subject to the word may ascertain in searching the scriptures.

And such is the clear connection here, not only as introducing His “appearing” but as following it: “which in its own times He shall show, the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings (lit., of those that reign) and Lord of lords” (lit., of those that exercise lordship). None can deny that as Timothy’s responsibility was involved directly in the words preceding, so in these the display of the Lord’s glory is no less distinct; neither of which appears to be the thought where His coming for our translation on high is revealed. One might add its “own times” or seasons as naturally and characteristically mentioned along with His appearing; whereas no such language ever accompanies the gathering of the saints to meet the Lord above. His appearing ushers in the kingdom, as in 2Ti 4:1 . In its course, first and last, :He will judge living and dead. But this is clearly government rather than grace; at least it is not grace in its heavenly fulness but in contrast with it.

It is not denied that even those who are one with Christ, members of His body, His bride, are also to be viewed as servants to receive each his own reward according to his own labour. And hence the apostle speaks of the saints, responsible for each gift to be used in Christ’s service now, awaiting “the revelation” of our Lord Jesus Christ Who shall also confirm them to the end, unimpeachable in the “day” of our Lord Jesus Christ (1Co 1:8 ). But here again we see how responsibility brings in the “day,” etc., whereas grace in its heavenly privileges is ever linked with His “coming” and “presence.” As Christ has to do with both, so shall we; but they are quite different; and it is ruinous to the truth, if we, contrary to the word of God, confound things that are there kept invariably distinct, though occasionally but rarely both may be stated together.

We may notice that even our Lord Himself is here brought forward in just the same way, as Jesus Christ the righteous owned and displayed by God in the glory of that great day. The Spirit speaks of His unseeable and inaccessible glory: our Lord Jesus Christ is the One Whose appearing will manifest God’s glory before the universe in its own seasons.

This manifestation it is which gives occasion for the striking doxology which closes the section, where God as such is presented as He “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable, Whom none of men hath seen nor can see; to Whom be honour and might everlasting, Amen.” On the other hand, “the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh (not Israel only) shall see it together” (Isa 40:5 ). But it will be in the appearing of our Lord that God will show His various glories, He “Who only hath immortality,” in and by Him Who died and rose and lives again for evermore, the King of those that reign and the Lord of those that rule, in the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who, Himself God and Lord, deigned by His abasement unto the death of the cross to lay a new basis in a ruined world, so that grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

All testimony of faith is now seemingly as vain as was the good confession of Jesus our Lord; but His appearing will be the display of divine power, glory, and righteousness to the confusion of all that doubt as well as of proud rebels. Ere that day man will have shown his “rights” to be unmitigated wrongs, and his liberty, equality, and fraternity (vile, false, and selfish as they ever were) to be only the prelude to the most galling slavery of man and Satan that the world ever saw. God will show our Lord’s appearing in its own due times, not merely for the overthrow of apostate wickedness, but for the establishment, in the peace and blessing of man bowing to Jesus, of His own honour and might eternal. May our portion be with the present substantiating energy of faith which the apostle desired for his dear young fellow-servant! It is all revealed by His word to act not only on: his soul but on ours.

Besides, the apostle lays it on Timothy to enjoin the wealthy saints in solemn and searching tones, the counterpart of which it was uncalled for to give to the poor, who never fail to find uninspired abundance of exhortation. The rich are apt to pass easy muster, not because they have not special difficulties and dangers, but because both poor and rich and even those who should be above either are disposed to be less outspoken with them than is well for all and to the Lord’s praise. But not so did Paul walk or direct his fellow-servant.

“Those rich in the present age charge not to be high-minded nor to set their hope on uncertainty of riches, but on a* God That affordeth us all things richly for enjoyment; to do good, to be rich in good works, to be liberal in distributing, ready to communicate, laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may lay hold of (on) the real life” (vers. 17-19).

* “Living” is here added by inferior authorities (and so Text. Rec.), which favour also, rather than .

The ordinary reading is “eternal” as in the lesser witnesses and Text. Rec.; the primary (Vv. as well as MSS.) give “that which is really life.”

As our Lord designated wealth “the mammon of unrighteousness,” in the same spirit are the wealthy here characterized as “rich in the present age.” It was certainly not to exalt in their eyes or in those of others what the flesh is sure to overvalue, while it hides the great responsibility of those who have it. Yet there is no fanatical credit given to the garb or habit of poverty, no sanctimonious eschewing of ordinary food or shelter among the abodes of men, still less is there a hint of the superior worth of the monastic life. These anilities were reserved for the deeper gulfs of superstition. But those who are rich in the present age (“this present evil age,” as the same apostle stamps it in Gal 1:4 ) have need especially to be on their guard, and to hear, not the voice of flattery so likely to be at hand, but the solemn admonition of the Holy Spirit, that they be not poor toward God in view of “the day of eternity” (2Pe 3:18 ). Certainly riches toward God consist neither in lavishing on oneself or one’s own, any more than in laying up for either.

Charge them then, says he, “not to be high-minded.” What so readily or so generally generates haughtiness as the possession of money, The Lord in the parable (Luk 16:1-9 ) already referred to lays the axe to the root, when He calls on the disciples to make to themselves friends with, or out of, the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it fails they may be received into the eternal tabernacles. The grand principle, He insists, is faithfulness in that which is another’s (God’s), Who will commit to us in glory the true riches – our own and much too, if faithful here and now in a very little. Self-appropriation was the ruinous theory or practice (or both) for the rich man that lifted up his eyes in Hades, being in torment, and forgot that, in a sinful world which breaks the law and rejects the Messiah, wealth is no true sign of God’s favour.

In effect the Lord would have His own sacrifice the present in view of the future, counting that not their own but His, and therefore with all the freedom and cheerfulness that He loves in a giver, with their eyes set on that which seems His only which He will give to be their own with Him for ever. Does this seem folly to any who flatter themselves that they are wise and prudent! What will your wisdom and prudence prove in that day? Our true wisdom as Christians is moulded by the cross of Christ. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. Following Christ is the surest cure of highmindedness, as it ensures also the scorn of the world. “Men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself” (Psa 49:18 ): what do they feel at the walk of one who can truly say, “To me to live is Christ” (Phi 1:21 )?

But there is a danger kindred to highmindedness which is next warned against: “nor set their hope on uncertainty of riches.” On this too many a philosopher of old moralized in vain: not that his words did not sound wise and grand, but that their effect was powerless; for he was either a selfish hypocrite who decried wealth in others to get it for himself as much as possible, or he denounced wealth with a cynical haughtiness of mind more extreme than in any man of wealth. Well then does the apostle first warn against highmindedness, and next on building one’s hopes on the stability of what so quickly takes wings and flies away, whence the possessor is so often summoned in the midst of his self-aggrandizing plans. “Uncertainty of riches” indeed: how true and expressive!

One is never quite right, however, without what is positive; and hence the apostle urges that those addressed should have their hope set, not on a foundation so sandy, “but on God That affordeth us all things richly for enjoyment.” There cannot be conceived a sentence more completely condemning the spirit of asceticism, which is fairer in appearance than the love of ease and luxury. But they are only forms of selfishness, however opposed: neither savours of God, Who has not left Himself without witness of His goodness toward men, even among the heathen allowed to go on their own ways. Surely it is not less among His own family of grace, though He may for higher ends give them the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, being conformed unto His death. But He is none the less the God of all grace, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. And as to real superiority over all circumstances, where there was no wealth of the present age, who could testify better than the apostle? A prisoner in Rome, yet able to write thence, “I have learned in whatsoever state I am therein to be content. I know how to be abased, and know also how to abound: in everything and in all things I am initiated both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer want. I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me. . . .And my God shall fulfil every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phi 4:11-19 ). The ungrudging and bountiful Giver of all loves a heart that responds to His grace, as far from legality as from licence.

But He looks also for activity in good on the part of the godly rich, as He Himself is unwearied in good (Act 14:17 ). Hence follows the call “to do good, to be rich in good works.” There is an important shade between the two acts, although it is not easy to express the difference except in a paraphrase. By the first ( ) is meant doing, works of kindness or goodness to others; by being “rich in good works ( ) is meant abounding in fair, upright, works, comely in themselves: the first relatively, and the second absolutely, good works. And very important it is to note how both are pressed in close connection here and elsewhere, for men in general laud the one which affects man, and forget or disparage what is of yet greater moment, what is good in itself before God. Flowing from faith and love, how acceptable are both!

Even this does not express all the generous outgoing of heart the apostle would have the rich exhorted to seek. He adds, as if he could not remember the poor enough, “to be liberal in distributing, ready to communicate,” which, I presume, goes beyond cases of pressing need, where calls arise peculiarly suitable for men of ample means, as in the varied circumstances of the Lord’s work and witness. How many opportunities of promoting His glory, which are not of a kind one would like to lay as a burden on the assembly as a whole! “Charge the rich in the present age.” There is a divine way for all; and those whose privilege it is especially can hear His voice, as the apostle takes care that they shall.

But there is also encouragement specially significant and cheering to those in view: “laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may lay hold on the real life” (ver. 19). Here again we may see the close correspondence with Luk 16:11 where “the true” is re-echoed by the last remarkable expression of the apostle, “that which is really life.”

Anxiety for ourselves is one of the snares carefully shut out by our Lord from the disciples: were it even “for the morrow,” it is unworthy of confidence in the Father’s provident love. He knows that we have need of food and raiment, and He will surely provide. We have to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, with the assurance that all these things shall be added unto us (Mat 6:33 ). So the apostle bids us in nothing to be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let our requests be made known unto God (Phi 4:6 ).

Here he enjoins on the rich saints to lay up in store for themselves a good foundation for the time to come by their generous giving to others. It may not seem good common sense, but it is the surer way of grace in faith. To be consistent with Christ is to treasure up for ourselves, and all the better when so done that the left hand knows not what the right hand does. For that our Father sees in secret is a cardinal truth in Christian practice, as it is also to have by-and-by reward with Him Who is in heaven. Let us then with patience wait for it, as here laying up for ourselves a good foundation for the future, that we may lay hold on the life that is life in earnest. What is now so misjudged even by saints not only slips but disappoints, just because it is not habitually to live Christ, which, if it have its brightness in glory, has here its reality of exercise and enjoyment too.

The conclusion is a solemn appeal, which was never more seasonable than at this moment, when the vanity of scientific speculations misleads souls increasingly to despise revelation.

“O Timothy, keep the deposit, turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of the falsely-named knowledge, in professing which some missed the mark concerning the faith. Grace [be] with you*” (vers. 20, 21).

* The critical reading (the plural) seems confirmed, contrary to what at first sight would appear natural, by the end of the Second Epistle, where after the benediction to Timothy individually, we certainly close with without question of . Those with him if not all the saints at large are in view.

“The deposit” here, as in 2Ti 1:14 , means the truth entrusted by God through His chosen instruments, divine revelation conveyed in words taught of the Holy Spirit, the pattern of sound words which Timothy heard from Paul among many witnesses. It is neither the soul nor its salvation on the one hand, nor yet on the other the ministerial office, nor even the grace of the Spirit. It is the perfect communication of what God is in nature, ways, relationship, and counsels. This revelation alone gave, as inspiration now alone secures. It is not only the material of ministry, but its safe-guard, as it is of those to whom it is ministered; for grace would vouchsafe to all an unerring standard. This the church, the assembly, is not nor in the nature of things can be: the church is not the truth, but its pillar and base, as the truth calls out each member of Christ, forming and fashioning the whole. There only among men is the truth plainly inscribed and maintained. Where else is the word of God responsibly attested or presented here below?

Doubtless Timothy had a special place according to the favour shown, the truth unreservedly made known, the position given, and the charge and work assigned, as we see from the first to the last of this Epistle. But if we may not overstep our measure or intrude into the peculiar duties of that honoured colleague of the apostle, we are no less bound in our place to guard that truth which is now entrusted to our keeping. It is the declared tower of safety in these last days of deception and self-will – to acknowledge and receive every scripture as being inspired of God.

But along with adhesion and subjection to the truth goes the necessity of watching against the false. And so Timothy is exhorted to turn away from “the profane babblings and oppositions of the falsely-named knowledge.” What more thoroughly undermines the power of the truth confessed than the allowance of theories which flatter man, occupy the creature, and, as they ignore or debase God and His Son, so will be found at last really to deny both? “This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent” (Joh 17:3 ). All must be false where the true state of man is unfelt, and where consequently the real character and intervention of God because of that state is left out; for the intervention of God to triumph in His grace over sin and Satan has formed relationships on which our duties depend. “The falsely-named knowledge” attempts to fill the void which unbelief ever finds because it does not really know God and His Son, possessing it only with its profane vapourings and antitheses. It cannot face the stern fact of utter ruin by sin; it shirks therefore the revelation of pure grace and of a righteousness which is God’s and which can justify the ungodly when man was proved to have none for Him. If it introduces Christ at all, which may often be and largely too, it is not as the Saviour of the lost to God’s glory, and as the Judge of all who believe not and so are unjust and have done evil, but only as the flower that adorns the race and bears witness to the moral perfectness of which humanity is capable.

God revealed in man, Christ rejected even to the death of the cross, yet in that cross an efficacious sacrifice for the guiltiest by faith of Him; and now man in Christ accepted in the holiest, and sending down the Holy Spirit to make all that is believed good to those that believe – this is the truth which defeats those babblings and oppositions. And as the centre of it all is He Who was manifested in the flesh, a divine person yet man, the truth is perfectly suited to each soul, Jew or Gentile, barbarian or Scythian, bond or free. It is independent of ruin or development, of learning or the lack of it, forming the believer inwardly and outwardly according to its own character by the Holy Spirit, Who sets Christ as the object and pattern before the eye of faith.

No wonder then that the apostle was not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. And the gospel is not, as is so often thought, a mere display of mercy irrespective of God’s moral glory; for therein is revealed God’s righteousness by faith unto faith. The law was God’s just claim on man; the gospel is the glad tidings of salvation as the fruit of Christ’s death and resurrection, and therein of God’s undertaking for man and delivering him that believes. It is God’s, not man’s, righteousness, and hence is is revealed to faith, so as to be as open to the Greek as to the Jew, faith (not law) being the only source and way and principle of blessing for a lost sinner.

In this Epistle, however, it is not our privileges as God’s children or as members of Christ’s body that we see developed, but the broad and deep foundations of the divine nature and glory as the Saviour God dealing with all mankind through the mediation of Christ. And, in keeping with this, it is not here the heavenly wealth and beauty of the church, but its moral order as the responsible witness and true defender of the faith before the world, the misuse of the law being denounced, and the profane fables and logomachies of man’s imagination yet more, which, if they begin by promising showy and superior sanctity, soon betray their worthlessness and worse by grievous moral laxity. Hence the importance given throughout to everyday duty which the grace and truth which came by Jesus strongly enforces, while making the yoke easy and the burden light.

“The falsely-named knowledge” always subjects God and His revelation to the mind of man. Thus man acquires the place as far as possible of judge ever agreeable to his self-importance, and withal necessary to veil from himself his own guilty and ruined estate in the sight of God. Nay more, in the fulness of his presumption, he avails himself of the human medium to deny inspiration in any true force, so as to sit in judgment upon that word which, our Lord declares, shall judge him at the last day (Joh 12:48 ). Thus, in criticizing what God is in the communication of scripture, Who He is gets utterly lost; and sinful man in effect sets up, perhaps without suspecting what he does or its heinous sin, to judge God Himself!

The manner in which God is now and then presented in this Epistle appears to be directly suited to meet and expose such airy and daring speculations, which developed later into all the many vagaries of Gnosticism, sometimes subtle and bewildering, at others low and licentious, but always destructive delusions. The King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, only God, and with that, one God, one Mediator also between God and men, Christ Jesus a man, Who gave Himself a ransom for all; God the Creator and Giver of every creature, the living God the Preserver of all, specially of the faithful; God Who preserves all things in life, Who is about to display the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, whilst He dwells in light unapproachable, Whom no man has seen nor can see – God so revealed consigns to their own nothingness the profane babblings and oppositions of the falsely-named knowledge; as the humble and godly walk produced points to its excellent and wise and holy source, in contrast with the degrading ways which falsehood entails, and on none more surely than on those who once called on the name of the Lord.

Here accordingly the apostle briefly touches on the effect of this spurious knowledge: “in professing which some missed the mark [or erred] concerning the faith.” It is sad to know men loving darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. But there is a deeper sorrow over those who once seemed to run well, thus fatally erring about the faith, not only the victims of folly and evil, but dishonouring blindly the Name which is above every name.

“Grace be with you;” so the most ancient copies say, though one might have expected “thee” as in most manuscripts and some of weight. But compare the closing words of the Second Epistle. There it is the more striking, because they follow a strictly individual prayer that the Lord should be with Timothy’s spirit. Yet I am not aware of a single MS. there that favours the singular, and scarce any version save the Peschito Syriac. The comparison appears to confirm the judgment of Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, as to the close of the First Epistle. The benediction is of few words, but, as ever, weighty. Timothy did surely need grace, and the grace of the Lord would be sufficient for him; but it is the common need, the unfailing support, of all others, who therefore are not forgotten, even in a confidential communication to a tried fellow-servant.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 1Ti 6:1-2

1All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against. 2Those 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 benefit are believers and beloved. Teach and preach these principles.

1Ti 6:1 “All who are under the yoke as slaves” Christianity adapted itself to the culture of its day in regards to slavery. Two-thirds of the Roman world were slaves. It was the truth, justice, and love of God in the gospel that eventually brought slavery to an end. Paul chose to deal with human attitudes in their cultural situation instead of a violent overthrow of that cultural situation (much like he did the societal role of women).

SPECIAL TOPIC: PAUL’S ADMONITIONS TO SLAVES

“to regard their own masters as worthy of honor” Apparently 1Ti 6:1 refers to Christian slaves serving non-Christian masters, while 1Ti 6:2 refers to Christian slaves serving Christian masters. A Christian slave is to act toward believers and unbelievers in such a way as to bring honor to God and the gospel of Jesus Christ (cf. Eph 6:6-7). 1Ti 6:1 has the same orientation as 1Ti 3:2; 1Ti 3:7; 1Ti 3:10; 1Ti 5:7-8; 1Ti 5:14; and Tit 2:5, which means “no handle for criticism.” Also see 1Ti 6:14 of this same chapter.

1Ti 6:2 “Those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them” This is literally “look down,”which is a present active imperative with the negative particle, implying stop an act already in process. This phrase relates to the doctrinal concept that everything we as believers do must be of the highest quality for Christ’s sake (cf. 1Co 10:31; Eph 6:6-7; Col 3:17; 1Pe 4:11).

The term “masters” is not the normal term for slave owner, kurios (cf. Eph 6:5; Eph 6:9; Col 3:22; Col 4:1), but despots. It is usually used of God the Father and the Son, but in the Pastoral Letters it is used regularly for earthly slave masters (cf. 1Ti 6:1-2; 2Ti 2:21; Tit 2:9). Paul may have used a different scribe.

“Teach and preach these principles” These are two present active imperatives, which implies a continual obligation (cf. 1Ti 4:11). This phrase can conclude the previous admonition (cf. NASB, NKJV) or introduce what follows (cf. NRSV, TEV, NJB).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

servants. App-190.

under. App-104.

masters. App-98.

that in order that. Greek. hina. God. App-98.

not. App-105.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

1.] Let as many as are slaves under the yoke (I have adopted the rendering of De W. and Huther, attaching to the predicate, as the simpler construction. The other, as many slaves as are under the yoke, making emphatic as distinguishing either 1) those treated hardly, or 2) those who were under unbelieving masters, has undoubtedly something to be said for it, but does not seem to me so likely, from the arrangement of the words. Had been intended to bring out any distinction, it would have more naturally preceded . I take then as the predicate: bondsmen under yoke) hold their own (, as in Eph 5:22, al., to bring out and emphasize the relation; see note there) masters worthy of all (fitting) honour, that the name of God and his doctrine (cf. Tit 2:10, where, writing on the same subject, he admonishes slaves . Hence it would appear that the article here is possessive, and . corresponding to ) be not spoken evil of (Chrys. gives the sense well: , , , . This verse obviously applies only to those slaves who had unbelieving masters. This is brought out by the reason given, and by the contrast in the next verse, not by any formal opposition in terms. The account to be given of the absence of such opposition is, that this verse contains the general exhortation, the case of Christian slaves under unbelieving masters being by far the most common. The exception is treated in the next verse).

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Chapter 6

Now Paul turns to the subject of servants in chapter six.

Let as many servants as are under the yoke ( 1Ti 6:1 )

That is, to a master.

count their own masters worthy of all honour ( 1Ti 6:1 ),

Now this is actually the word “slave.” And in that day, slavery was a very common practice. And Paul said, If you are a slave, then count your master worthy of all honor or respect.

that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed ( 1Ti 6:1 ).

In our day and age, it is so important for us as Christians to be above reproach in our work and in our work habits, because people are expecting more from you as a Christian than they expect from a normal person. It may be that everyone is fudging on his breaktime and is, you know, taking a half-hour for break when fifteen minutes is allowed. If you’re a Christian, you should take fifteen minutes, though the others are taking a half-hour. Now if the other is so, you’re taking a half-hour and the others are taking fifteen minutes, you say, well, you know, I’m a Christian; they’ll say, Hey, supposed to be a Christian, look at that. And many times by our actions and by our attitudes, we cause the name of Jesus to be blasphemed. And that’s tragic.

That was the thing that Nathan nailed David with, after David’s experience with Bathsheba. He had said to David, “David, you’ve caused the enemies of God to blaspheme” ( 2Sa 12:14 ). You’ve given occasion to the enemies of God to lay blame against Christianity or against Jesus Christ because of your slovenliness. More is expected of you because you are a Christian. Produce more, Paul is saying.

If you have a master who is a believer, then don’t despise them, because that they are your brothers; but rather service to them, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the same benefit. These things [Paul said] teach and exhort ( 1Ti 6:2 ).

So basically the servant was as a Christian, to be exemplary in his service, whether he had an unbelieving or a believing master. Now if you had a believing master, he may sort of resent the fact that he still is requiring this of me. After all, we’re brothers in Christ and we are believers, you know. But Paul is just exhorting them to have the respect and honor of their masters.

If any man teach otherwise, and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness ( 1Ti 6:3 );

Paul uses this word “godliness” some six times; I believe it is in this epistle. He talks a lot about godliness. “Great is the mystery of godliness:” you remember last Sunday’s message. “God was manifest in the flesh” ( 1Ti 3:16 ), and all. Now again, “If someone teaches otherwise, and does not consent to the wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness.” And that’s the purpose that we might be like God, that we might be godly in our actions.

That person who is teaching otherwise,

Is proud, he knows nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof comes envy, strife, railings, and evil surmisings, the perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth ( 1Ti 6:4-5 ),

And what is their main thesis?

supposing that godliness is a way to gain ( 1Ti 6:5 ):

Paul said this is one of the worst heresies.

withdraw yourself from such a person ( 1Ti 6:5 ).

You see, here is a slave who is saying, Hey, I’ve a godly master so you know he ought to make it easier on me. It’s a way for me to gain. Here is a master who’s saying, Oh, I have a godly servant, you know, I can trust him and I can put him in a position of trust because he is godly. I can use that for my gain, for my benefit.

So many people are following this heresy. There are many people who are advocating this heresy. You know, if you want to be rich, if you want to drive a Cadillac, just receive the Lord and have enough faith. Go out in faith, put the down payment on the thing, put a deposit on it, you know. Believe and trust the Lord to make the payments. Godliness is a way for prosperity. God wants you to have the best. You’re the King’s kids and God wants you to live like the King’s kid. Go out and go for it. Indulge your lust. God wants you to have everything. Godliness is a way to gain.

“Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds. They’re destitute of the truth, from such withdraw yourself.” The truth is,

godliness with contentment that’s great gain ( 1Ti 6:6 ).

That’s really being rich. The person who never has enough, who is always wanting more, is not really rich. I know a man who has over a hundred and fifty million dollars, over a hundred million deposited in certificates of deposit in the bank. He keeps that for the acquisition of new breweries that might come on the market. This man works sixteen hours a day, sixteen to eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, never takes a day off, never takes a vacation; drives himself. He’s not rich, he’s poor, that’s not really being rich. What is really rich? The man who is godly and is content, a man who doesn’t have a need. That’s the man who is rich; he’s got everything he wants. That’s real riches, that contentment with what I have.

And so Paul speaks about contentment. He said,

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we’re not going to carry anything out ( 1Ti 6:7 ).

When you die, you’re going to do just exactly what everyone before you has done; you’re going to leave everything here. You’re not going to take a cent with you. “Naked I came into the world, naked I’m going out of the world” ( Job 1:21 ). I brought nothing in; I’m going to carry nothing out.

And [therefore] having food and raiment let us be therewith content ( 1Ti 6:8 ).

How many people have brought themselves into really great poverty because they’re never satisfied with what they have? Always wanting something more. And that discontentment has brought many people to bankruptcy. “Having food or raiment be content.” You have food, you have clothes, praise the Lord! Be content.

But they that will be rich ( 1Ti 6:9 )

If this is your goal, if this is your drive, if this is your purpose in life, “they that will be rich” will

fall into temptations and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts or desires, which drown men in destruction and perdition ( 1Ti 6:9 ).

The wealthy person has far many more temptations than I have. Because of his wealth, the opportunities are there of doing so many more things. I don’t have to worry about a lot of things because I don’t have the money to do them; I’m not tempted by them, I can’t afford them. But a wealthy person runs into all kinds of temptations that you never dreamed about. So “they that will be rich will fall into these snares, the temptations, many foolish, hurtful desires, which just drown men in destruction.”

For the love of money is the root of all evil ( 1Ti 6:10 ):

That’s quite a statement. Notice, he does not say, “Money is the root of all evil.” And you’ve often heard it quoted that way, haven’t you? That’s not what he says. Money is not evil; it’s not good. It all depends on your attitude towards money. And “the love of money is the root of all evil.”

James said “from whence comes the fightings and the wars” ( Jas 4:1 ). Does it come from man’s own lust, the desires? Love of money, the greed, behind all of the wars and strivings and jealousies and all within the world, the love of money, the root of all evil. And so you can take the evil and you can trace it all back and it comes back to greed, the love of money. And the world is in the mess that it is today because of greed.

It is not that we are running out of natural resources. It isn’t that the world isn’t big enough to accommodate the population. It isn’t that we could not feed everybody. The problem with the world is how men are spending the money. Last year throughout the world, there was over one trillion dollars spent for the defense budgets in the nations of the world, for buying war equipment to destroy other men; over one trillion dollars. Had we spent one trillion dollars last year in agricultural development, there would not be a single hungry person on the face of the earth; instead of the fact, that two-thirds of the world are living on starvation diets tonight, not enough food.

It isn’t that we can’t produce enough food, it isn’t that there isn’t enough arable ground and so forth, it’s a misdirection; the greed of man. It’s more profitable to make bombs than to plant corn. And so the greed of man, the love of money; that’s the root of the evil. If it weren’t for the love of money, we would have no drug problems today. What’s behind the drug problem? What’s behind all of these drug smuggling and so forth? What’s behind it all? The love of money. If we did not have the love of money, there would be no prostitution today. Were it not for the love of money, think of how many evils would be eliminated from our earth. The love of money is the root of all evil.

which while some have coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows ( 1Ti 6:10 ).

An interesting observation because the lie that we believe is just the opposite. The common deception is if I just had enough money, I would be happy. Paul is saying that these who have achieved, turning from the truth, erring from the truth, have brought themselves into great sorrows. And interestingly enough, the most wealthy men I know are also at the same time the most miserable men that I know. Interesting, isn’t it?

I have them invite me out to lunch. They pour out their stories of woe, misery, loneliness. One fellow was sharing with me how he didn’t know if anybody truly loved him or not. All of these women throwing themselves at him, but he said I don’t know if they really love me or not. He’s married three of them so far and they’ve all taken him for a pretty good ride. And now he’s in a real dilemma. Since the last one left and made out pretty well in the courts, there’s a lot of others who are thinking, My, I’d like to retire, too. Live with a guy for six months and retire, you know. He said, I don’t know if they really love me or not. Miserable. Doesn’t know true love. How can I know if they really love me? Sad, isn’t it? The guy’s so wealthy. He doesn’t know if anybody really loves him or not or they’re just after him for his bucks. Are they friendly just because he has bucks? Are they hoping to cash in on his bankroll? Poor fellow.

I have a cousin who’s so rich as far as money goes. The poor fellow is over in the Philippines somewhere with a butterfly net chasing butterflies through the jungles. That’s how he spends his life, chasing butterflies through the jungles. Worth millions of dollars, he’s never worked a day in his life, but life is a bore, life is a drag. The only excitement he has is chasing butterflies. Poor fellow. Next to him I’m rich.

But thou, O man of God, flee these things ( 1Ti 6:11 );

Flee what? The love of money.

follow after righteousness ( 1Ti 6:11 ),

Pursue after righteousness. Don’t pursue after wealth, after being rich; pursue rather after righteousness.

godliness ( 1Ti 6:11 ),

There is that word again.

faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold to eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses ( 1Ti 6:11-12 ).

So it all comes down to what is the center of your life. If money, the desire for money, the desire for gain is at the center of your life, then you’re going to be a miserable person. If God is at the center of your life, you’re going to be rich, your life is going to be blessed, your life is going to be full. So put God at the center of your life, put righteousness at the center of your life, godliness at the center of your life, that you might really be a rich person. Enjoy the true riches, the eternal riches.

Because one of the tragic things about my poor cousin is the only one he has to leave his money to is an idiot cousin, his daughter. It’s tragic, isn’t it? But she’s already got so many millions, you know, but she lives in a care home in Ojai. She’s not able to take care of herself. Her grandmother died recently and left her another seven million dollars but it’s all under trusteeship while she just sits there in the home and puts peanut butter on Ritz crackers. That’s tragic, isn’t it?

I went to visit her and she said, Oh, I have this special recipe, I want to, I want to fix for you this special recipe. She brings out all these Ritz crackers with peanut butter. Oh, she made these up herself, you know. Poor child, my heart goes out to her. I really, my heart does go out to her. I wouldn’t trade places with her for anything, with all of the bucks that she has, or my other cousin. I wouldn’t trade with him for anything with all of the bucks he has. I wouldn’t want to be running around some jungle in the Philippines tonight, you know, chasing butterflies.

God at the center of your life; it’s a life that is content, a life that is happy, a life that is rich, a life that is full.

I give you charge [he said] in the sight of God, who makes all things alive, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession ( 1Ti 6:13 );

“Pilate said, Art thou a king then? And Jesus said, To this end was I born and for this cause I came to the world” ( Joh 18:33 , Joh 18:37 ). Good confession before Pontius Pilate. So this is going to be heavy, heavy duty charge. “I charge you before God, who makes all things alive, before Jesus Christ,”

That you keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ ( 1Ti 6:14 ):

Now he gave them this commandment; what was it? To make God the center of your life, to seek after righteousness and godliness. I charge you before God, do this until the Lord comes again. Keep Him at the center of your heart and life. What did Jesus say about this? He said, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and everything else will be taken care of” ( Mat 6:33 ).

You see, man’s life exists on two plains, the vertical and the horizontal. The vertical plain is your relationship with God and that is the axis upon which your life revolves. If your relationship with God is out of kilter, then your relationship with your fellowman is going to be out of kilter, out of balance. And this is the problem in our world today. People are trying to live a well-balanced life and they are struggling and striving to have a well-balanced life, to have a well-balanced relationship with others. And they’re fighting constantly to find this balance in relationships, spending millions going to the psychologist and psychiatrist trying to find the balance. The reason why the life is out of balance, the reason why your relationships are out of balance, is that your relationship with God is out of balance. The vertical axis of your life is off center.

Now Paul is giving to Timothy fantastic advice. Put God at the center of your life. Godliness, righteousness, put these things at the center of your being. I charge you before God, do this until Jesus comes. Because if the center of your life is right, if your relationship with God is right, then you will be a very rich person, because it will affect every other relationship in your life. They will all be right if your relationship with God is right. You’ll have a right relationship with the devil; you’ll defeat him everytime you meet him because your relationship with God is right. You’ll have a right relationship with your possessions, for you will know that they are really God’s, and only entrusted to you and you’ll use them wisely. You’ll have a right relationship with your fellowmen, sharing, loving, giving.

God at the center, the vertical axis, the horizontal automatically falls into place. You cannot correct the horizontal axis by working on the horizontal. I mean, you can’t correct the horizontal plain by working on the horizontal plain. I’m going to work on this relationship. While you’re working on this relationship, you’re messing up five more. Spending too much time trying to get this relationship right and everything else is going wrong. So you finally get this one right and you turn around and oh man, everybody else, oh help. So you grab a hold of another. I’m going to work on this relationship. While you’re getting that one corrected, another goes out of balance.

And so you spend your whole life trying to get balanced here, you know, when in reality you need to come back to the vertical axis, get your relationship with God. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things would be taken care of.” They’ll all be added to you. So that is why Paul is so forceful in charging Timothy to get your life right with God. Put God at the center. Seek after righteousness and godliness. For when Jesus comes,

In his time he shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen ( 1Ti 6:15-16 ).

So Jesus when He comes is going to show who the true, the only God is. “The only and blessed Potentate, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, who dwells in a light which no man can approach; whom no man hath seen.” In John, the first chapter, we read, “No man hath seen God at any time; but the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has manifested him” ( Joh 1:18 ). But Jesus will show us then who is the only true God.

Now you see, riches are not a true God. They are a false God, but they are the god of many people. Many people are worshipping wealth; it’s the center of their life. And you don’t have to be wealthy to have it at the center of your life. In fact, it probably is a problem that is almost more endemic to poor people than it is to wealthy people, because poor people so often live under the illusion that wealth would be the solution to all their problems. Wealthy people know that that’s not so, but poor people think that it would be so. All my problems would be solved by wealth. So the love of money can actually be a stronger drive in a poor person than in a rich person. It is not a true God. It is a false god. When Jesus appears, He will show us who is the true God. “The only Potentate, King of kings and Lord of lords.”

And so he said, Timothy,

Charge those that are rich in this world, that they not be highminded, nor trust in the uncertainty of riches, but teach them to trust in the living God ( 1Ti 6:17 ),

This whole area now is on who is your god? Riches your god, the desire for money your god, it’s at the heart of your being. Or are you living a godly life, a righteous life, serving the only true and the living God? “Charge those that are rich in the things of this world, in the worldly things, that they not be highminded, and don’t trust in your riches, they are uncertain, but trust rather in the living God,”

who gives us richly all things to enjoy ( 1Ti 6:17 );

I love that. God gives to us richly all things to enjoy. All the money in the world can’t buy the thrill of sitting on the beach and watching the sun set behind Catalina Island. And just enjoying the sky that lights up in brilliant color. And just sitting there and communing with God; what a rich experience that is. What a rich experience it is to walk through the forest and smell the pine needle and hear the waterfalls and the singing brooks and the blue jays and the chatter of the squirrel. God has given to us richly all things to enjoy. God wants you to enjoy life. God wants you to have the fullness of joy in your life. And He has given you the laws by which, the rules by which you can have a life that is filled with joy.

Our problem is that we don’t always agree with God. We think that many times God has set rules that are too restrictive, that they are holding me back from joy or from something that would be pleasurable or exciting. And I find myself rebelling against the law of God saying, God, you’re not right, you know, it isn’t fair to deny me that because if I could only do that, then I would really have joy and happiness. But everytime we defy the law of God, we find it brings misery and sorrow to ourself.

God has given us the rules of happiness and the rules of joy. “Happy is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But whose delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law does he meditate day and night. Where he will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, bringing forth fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; whatever he does will prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the day of judgment” ( Psa 1:1-5 ). Oh the happy man is the man who has put God at the center of his life because when God is at the center of my life, I can then enjoy all that God has given to me. I can enjoy it fully. For God has “given to me all things richly, freely, richly to enjoy.”

And so, “Charge those that are rich,”

That they do good, and that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, and willing to give to those that are in need ( 1Ti 6:18 );

The word “communicate” is that of communicating of help unto the needy. For in so doing, they will be

Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life ( 1Ti 6:19 ).

Jesus gave a parable that has been a problem for many people to understand. The parable was of a servant who found out he was going to get fired. His master said, Okay, make an accounting of everything, you know, you’re fired. Servant says, Hey, what am I going to do? I’m ashamed to beg. I don’t want to dig ditches. I know what I’ll do. And he started calling in the creditors. How much do you owe my boss? I owe him a hundred measures of meal. Here, let me have your bill. Scratch out a hundred. Fifty. Called in another creditor, how much do you owe my boss? Oh, a hundred barrels of oil. Here, fifty. And he cut all of the bills in half figuring as soon as he’s fired, he’ll go and say, Hey, remember how I wiped out fifty barrels of oil off your bill? I need a little bit. Could you help me? He was taking advantage of his present situation to set himself up for the future. He knew he wasn’t going to always be in this position of helping himself for the future; it’s going to be short-lived. He was going to be fired in a week, so, you know, take advantage of my present position to hedge for the future.

Now Jesus said, The Lord commended the unjust steward. And that’s where the parable runs into difficulty. Commended him? He ought to have condemned him. He should have thrown him in jail. He commended the unjust steward for Jesus said, The children of this generation are wiser than the children of light. Therefore, make use of the unrighteousness of mammon; that when you die, you might be received into the everlasting habitations ( Luk 16:1-9 ).

What was He talking about? Right now, I have the opportunities of laying up for myself treasures in heaven. I will not always have this opportunity. The day is coming when I will die. After I die, I will have no further opportunity of laying up for myself an eternal heavenly store. That opportunity is only now while I am here.

Jesus said, “Make use of the unrighteousness of mammon.” You see, your money, your dollar is not worth anything in heaven. It’s not worth very much here, but it’s worth nothing in heaven. If you could take them there, if you could carry them out, if when you die you could take a suitcase full, when you get to the gates say, Hey, Peter, look what I brought, you know. Show me the nicest room you’ve got. Peter will say, What’s that junk? Your money is not current in heaven. Here I brought all this gold. No, throw it in the street. Let it mix with the rest of the pavement. We use that stuff for asphalt up here.

So, my only opportunity of laying up an eternal heavenly store is now. So “charge those that are rich that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they are ready to distribute to the needy, and to help those that are in need.” That they might lay up for themselves a store in heaven, a good foundation against the time to come that they might enter into that eternal kingdom. “Laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not corrupt or decay, thieves cannot break through and steal” ( Mat 6:20 ).

So rich on earth, poor in heaven. How long you going to be on earth? Hundred years? How long you going to be in heaven? Poor on earth, rich in heaven. Who’s better off? So I don’t have much. So it is tough. I have all I need. I’m happy. I’m satisfied. I don’t have any real needs or real wants. I’m rich. But more than that, hey, the eternal riches. Rich eternally.

Issues that I debated years ago when I was debating between a career as a medical doctor or as a minister. Where do I want my riches? Now or forever? It makes good sense to me to be rich eternally more than to be rich temporally. It makes better sense for me to lay up my riches in heaven where I might enjoy them world without end, than to try and amass riches now, which can only bring misery and strife and unrest. The true riches.

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and vain babblings, and the oppositions of science falsely so called ( 1Ti 6:20 ):

You want to know what is the greatest science falsely so called in the world today? Evolution. They call it science but it’s falsely called science. There’s nothing scientific about the evolutionary theory. It’s science falsely so called. Vain babblings, profane and vain babblings. Paul said avoid them, Timothy.

Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen ( 1Ti 6:21 ).

Paul’s first letter to Timothy.

Father, we thank You for the good counsel. May we take heed, and Lord, may we indeed seek to put Christ at the center of our lives, godliness at the center of our being. Keep us, Lord, from the delusion and the lie of the enemy that would say that godliness is a way to riches. But God, may we not have riches as the motive and the center, the master passion of our lives knowing that the love of money is the root of evil, has destroyed so many people. Oh God, give us wisdom to put You first. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

May the Lord give you a blessed week and may you go out and begin to enjoy all things richly that He has given to you. Begin to enjoy those eternal riches that you have as a child of God. May God help you to just sort of slow down from this mad drive for more and just begin to enjoy what you have. May He give you some blue skies to observe, clouds. Get on down to the beach. Sit there and just watch it and commune with God. Enjoy what God has given to you. And may your life be enriched and blessed as you walk in fellowship with Him, God at the center. In Jesus’ name. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

1Ti 6:1. ) under the yoke, viz. of heathen masters. The antithesis is, but, 1Ti 6:2. Service therefore, in the case of believers, is not a yoke.-, their own) Let them not turn from them, and attach themselves to others. Confusion [confounding of the existing order of things] is forbidden.-, honour) although they are without, i.e. not Christians. The opposite, despise, occurs presently.-, worthy) although they be without virtue [any remarkable merit].-, let them count) with affection, and in their actual conduct.- , that not) For the masters would say, that this was the cause of their contumacious disrespect; comp. Tit 2:5.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

1Ti 6:1

Let as many as are servants under the yoke-[Human slavery was one of the most perplexing questions the gospel of Jesus Christ had to face. It was common to all peoples and nations, and entered into all grades and ranks of society. In the old world war and commerce were equally responsible for its existence. To attempt to eradicate it by preaching against it as hateful to God and degrading to man would have produced rebellion and revolution in its darkest and most violent form. Christ did not propose to break up such relations by violence. He recognized the relationship, regulated it, and put in operation principles that in their workings would so mold public sentiment as to break down all evil relations and sinful institutions.] A very grievous type of slavery existed throughout all the countries of Asia and Europe at the time of the introduction of the Christian religion. The relation of both masters and servants was recognized by the apostles. Here Paul is instructing Timothy how he should teach servants to conduct themselves toward their masters. Under the yoke means in slavery.

count their own masters worthy of all honor,-They were not to think for a moment that Christianity was to interfere with the existing social relations and put master and slave on an equality on earth, but they were to show respect and honor to their own masters.

that the name of God and the doctrine be not blasphemed.-That no reproach be brought upon the name of God whom the servants worshiped. On the other hand, the fidelity of the Christian servant in the discharge of all the duties laid on him by the master should commend his religion to his master.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The final injunction of the apostle concerning Timothy’s duty toward his flock had to do with his dealing with Christian slaves. The master must not treat them with contempt. They are to recognize that the slaves are serving Christ, and so make their service the opportunity of testimony to the power of the’ Gospel. Service will be rendered more readily and faithfully because impulsed by love.

The apostle then reverted to the prime occasion of Timothy’s appointment to Ephesus, which was the presence and action of false teachers. To these he referred in scathing words. In this connection occurs a sentence which flashes a fierce light into the inner working of the minds of these teachers as the apostle refers to them as “supposing that godliness is a way of gain.” To this evil the apostle opposes the great truth that “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” The contrasting ideas are arresting. According to these false teachers, godliness is a means of gaining much. According to Paul, godliness is the gain of being content with little.

An appeal is then made to Timothy, who is addressed, “O man of God.” The note of the appeal is threefold, “flee,” “follow,” “fight.” He is to flee the things of evil, to follow those of truth, and thus to fight the good fight of faith. The strength for the conflict is found in the life eternal. Moreover, there is to be a great epiphany, when the supreme and absolute Lordship of Jesus is to be revealed. That is to be the supreme inspiration of service and of conflict.

The final charge to Timothy brought to the mind of the apostle the peril which threatened those who were rich. He describes the true attitude of the Christian man possessed of wealth, showing

(1) his true state of mind,

(2) his proper use of wealth, and

(3) the secret strength of realization. The epistle closed in an outburst of personal appeal full of force and beauty.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

6:1, 2. The relation of slaves to their masters.

Paraphrase. This duty of proper respect holds good also of the relation of slaves to their masters. Some slaves will have heathen masters who make their life a burden to them; yet teach them to show all respect to such, lest the name of God and our teaching should be brought into disrepute. Others will have Christian masters: let such not fail in due respect, on the pretext that Christianity treats them and their masters as brothers; nay, let them serve them all the better on the very ground that those who share the good service are Christians and so dear to themselves.

Cf. 1Co 7:21, Eph 6:5, Col 3:22, Phm 1:10-17, Tit 2:9, Tit 2:10, Tit 2:1 P 2:18-25 (perhaps known to our author). Didache, 4, 11; Ign. ad Polyc. 4 (apparently based on this- , ). Eg. C.O. p. 148; Hipp. Canon 63; Can. Apost. 81; Apost. Const. iv. 12, viii. 31.

The treatment here points to an early date. No question is raised about using Church funds for emancipation (as in Ignatius), or of the relation of a slave who was to be baptized (Eg. C.O.; Hipp. Can.; Ap. Const.) or to be ordained (Can. Apost.) to his master. The writer has only to deal with the danger of Christian liberty and brotherhood being abused; cf. 2:2 note, Gal 3:28, 1Co 11:2-16, and especially 1 P 2:11-18 (with Horts notes). He meets it by laying stress on the respect due to all social positions (cf. 5:3, 17, 1 P 2:17 ), and on the higher law of love which binds Christians; cf. Gal 5:13 . The treatment falls in with the growth in the best heathen thought of the duty of a better treatment of slaves by their masters; Seneca, Ep. 47, unus omnium parens mundus est (= ). Epict. i. 13, : cf. Dill. Roman Society from Nero, p. 117; Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, 1. pp. 208-11 (Eng. tr.): and of the power of slaves to confer not only service and duty, but freewill benefits upon their masters, Seneca, De Benefic. iii. 18-22.

1. ] perhaps not applied here to all slaves, but only to such as being under heathen masters feel their slavery as a yoke:cf. 1 P 2:18; Apost. Const. iv. 12; Hippol. Can. 63, si est heri idololatr servus.

…] from Isa 52:5 (of the heathen), quoted by St. Paul, Rom 2:24. Notice the higher effect of such conduct in Tit 2:10 .

2. . : the reason for , not for .: cf. Pro 23:22 .

. . . ] The punctuation of these words and the exact reference of each word are uncertain, but the balance of the sentence seems to show that takes up and is parallel to , and therefore must refer to the masters; and this probably carries with it the rest of the sentence, because the masters who receive the benefit of their better service are believers and beloved. But W.-H. (mg.) punctuate , , . (but let the slaves, who take part in the benefit, serve all the better because the masters are believers and beloved), and Wohlenberg punctuates , (let those who have believing masters not despise them because they themselves are in Christ brothers to their masters; but let them serve all the better because their masters are believers, and those who take part in conferring kindness (as they would do by serving better) are always beloved); but this destroys the parallelism between and .

] taking part in. It might either be taking part in conferring or taking part in receiving (cf. Mart. Polyc. 15, ), and this suits the context best.

] possibly the divine , the unspeakable gift of 2Co 9:15 those who share the blessing of redemption. Cf. Clem. Alex. Protrept. 111. 1, : 112. 1, . . . , , , : Liturg. Jacobi ap. Brightman, L. E. and W., p. 41, . Compare the frequent application of it in the Papyri to the of an Emperor to his people (M.M. s.v.); and for the ground of the appeal 1 P 3:7 .

Perhaps more probably the human kindness, not of the masters (Chrys. Thdt. Pelagius, von Soden, Dibelius)-as this is scarcely implied in the context-but of the slaves as shown by their better service (Hofmann, Wohlenberg, Field, etc.). Seneca, in a noble passage, de Beneficiis, iii. 18-21, discusses the question whether a slave can confer a beneficium on a master, and decides that he can: quidquid est quod servilis officii formulam excedit, quod non ex imperio sed ex voluntate prstatur, beneficium est. The Christian writer assumes it without discussion. Yet even if this is the central meaning, the thought of the divine may lie in the background: cf. Ep. Diogn. x. 6, . . . , . . . , .

] they share their faith and have become beloved-no longer feared-by themselves: perhaps also with the suggestion beloved of God.

3-21. Conclusion. Final warning and exhortation, returning to the thought and often to the very words of 1:3-20; but there the stress was on the character of the teaching, here on the character of the teachers. Two contrasts underlie the whole: (a) The faithful and unfaithful teacher: the latter loving novelty and controversy, with his eye set on material gain; the former pursuing spiritual aims, loyal to the teaching he has received, with his eye set on the coming of the Lord and on the life eternal. (b) The true and false attitude to riches: the desire for wealth, the source of all evil and the ruin of teachers; the true use of wealth leading to a wealth of good deeds here and eternal life hereafter.

The words of the Lord Jesus Christ3 form the standard for the teaching, and His words about contentment and the danger of the desire of riches (Mat 6:24-34, Mar 10:23-25, Luk 12:15-21, Luk 16:19-31) may lie at the back of the second contrast, though there is not sufficient verbal similarity to prove a literary dependence.

3-10. Paraphrase. I go back to the warning with which I began. If any teacher sets himself up to teach novel doctrines and does not loyally adhere to sound words-I mean words that come from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself-and to the teaching which is true to real religion, such an ones head has been turned: he has no real knowledge: he is like a delirious patient feverishly excited over this small point and that, fighting with words as his only weapons; and the result is envy, strife, abuse of other teachers, ill-natured suspicions, incessant friction between men whose minds have been confused and who have been deprived of the truth they once knew; they have come to think of religion wholly as a source of gain. Aye, and religion is a source of true gain, if combined with a contented spirit: and we ought to be contented, for we can carry nothing with us when we leave the world, and that is why we brought nothing with us when we came into it. Nay, if we have food for our lifetime and a shelter and clothing, that will be enough for us. Whereas those who set their heart on becoming rich fall into temptations, into dangerous positions, into many desires which are foolish and worse than foolish, fatal, for they lead men to shipwreck and plunge them into death and destruction. For the love of money is proverbially the root from which the whole host of evils springs: and already some teachers through their craving for money have wandered from the safe path of the faith and have fallen pierced through with many a pang and many a sorrow.

3. .] 1:3 note. applies himself to; cf. Epict. iv. 11. 24, (Dibelius); but the present tense implies constant application and approach to the words of a living and speaking master, and for one already a teacher some word denoting abiding in would be more natural. Hence Bentley conj. from 1:4, and Tischendorf reads ; cf. Introd. p. xxxvii. Was the original reading ?

] possibly the teaching about the Lord, cf. II 1:8, but more probably the teaching of the Lord. There is possibly an allusion to some collection of His sayings, cf. 5:18 note, Act 20:35.

] 3:6 note. suggested by . : he is not yet dead (5:6) but is in a dangerous state, on the way to death 9; cf. Plut. de Laud. propr. p. 546 f. (Wetstein), Chrys. de Sacerd. iv. 3, . , cf. 1:4 note. (cf. II 2:14) hair-splitting-fights in which words are the weapons and perhaps also the object; there is no reality behind them.

] for the singular cf. 1:20, II 2:18; Moulton, Gr. i. p. 58. For a similar formula cf. Didache, c. 3, 2, 3, 4, 5, . . . . . . . . . . . . , which suggests that we should here read or with D d g m62.

] not here of God, but of their rival teachers. . , cf. Ecclus 3:24 .

5. ] (conflictationes, Vulg.) persistent collisions; cf. Polyb. ii. p. 172, .

. ] cf. II 3:8, Tit 1:15; , cf. 5:17, 18, II 2:6, Tit 1:11, and (Wetstein) Seneca, Ep. 108, qui philosophiam velut aliquod artificium venale didicerunt. All the following truths can be illustrated almost verbally from classical writers (cf. Wetstein throughout), and they suggest a conscious modelling on the best Greek teaching.

6. ] sufficientia, Vulg.; quod sufficit, Aug.; but the meaning is probably not, if he has sufficient (which is stated in 8), but if combined with contentment; cf. Php 4:11, Pro 13:11, : Ps. Sol v 18-20, Pirke Aboth iv. 3. Who is rich? He that is contented with his lot.

The training of a Jewish Rabbi might be even more exacting. This is the path of the Torah. A morsel with salt shalt thou eat, thou shalt drink also water by measure, and shall sleep upon the ground and live a life of trouble while thou toilest in the Torah. If thou doest this, happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee: happy shalt thou be in this world and it shall be well with thee in the world to come. Pirke Aboth iv. 4 (Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels, c. xiv.).

] cf. 4:8: not only because it makes him happy with the little that he has; cf.

Contentment is a constant feast,

Hes richest who requires the least (Barnes),

but because he is able to enjoy all Gods gifts as gifts to himself; cf. Pro 17:6a, : Tob 4:21, 1Co 3:23 . OGIS. 38314 . The best comment on the verse will be found in T. Trahernes Meditations, Century 1.

7. Perhaps based on Job 1:21 : cf. Philo, de off. Vict., p. 256. 12, , but it had become almost proverbial; cf. also Ecclus 5:14; Seneca, Ep. 102, non licet plus efferre quam intuleris; Ovid, Trist. v. 14. 12, Nil feret ad manes divitis umbra suos (Wetstein). Suggests carrying out in burial, Act 5:6.

(if genuine, but cf. W.-H App. where H. suggests that it is an accidental repetition of in ), perhaps introducing the quotation for the proverb says, or implying the Divine ordering of birth as a preparation for the life of a stranger and sojourner on this earth who has to pass through death to his abiding city. Hillard treats as neuter of and translates wherefore, comparing Eur. Hec. 13, : cf. , 2Co 2:3, Gal 2:10. Parry, more probably, conjectures , not to speak of being able to carry anything out; cf. Introd. p. xxxvii.

8. ] perhaps throughout life (), (quibus tegamur, Vulg.), clothing (cf. Gen 28:20 . . . : Diog. Laert. vi. 105 of the Cynics, ) (Dibelius): perhaps also shelter, homes; cf. Ecclus 29:21 , , and Philo, de Vita Cont., p. 477. 16, (Wetstein); Epict. Enchir. 33, , , , , , , Marcus Aur. v. 6. 30, quoted on p. xvi.

9. ] for the metaphor, cf. 1:19, and de Aleatoribus, 1, aleatores se in lacum mortis immergunt; 6, ale tabula est diaboli venabulum et delicti vulnus insanabile. The whole treatise is a comment on this verse.

. .] cf. 1Co 5:5, 2Th 1:9, 1Th 5:3. The combination (found here only) is emphatic, loss for time and eternity.

10. ] not a root, which would suggest that the writer was thinking of other possible roots (which no doubt there are, e.g. jealousy, St. Cyprian, de zelo ac livore, 6; pride, Aug. in Joh. xxv. 16), but the root (cf. Field, Ot. Norvic. ad loc.).

] again proverbial, cf. Test. XII. Patr., Judah, c. 19, and the Greek saying attributed sometimes to Bion, sometimes to Democritus, , Diog. Laert. vi. 50; Seneca, de Clem. 2. 1, alieni cupiditate, ex qua omne animi malum oritur. Ps.-Phocyl. 42, (Wetstein and Dibelius). So Philo, De Judice, c. 3, warns a judge against being . The combination of this with v. 7 in Polyc. ad Phil. c. 4 suggests literary dependence on the epistle.

] both actual evils and the pangs of remorse. For the metaphor, cf. Pro 7:23-27. For illustrations, Mar 10:22 : Act 5:1-10. For a similar condemnation of wealthy Ephesus, cf. Pseudo-Heracl. Ep. 8. It is in his address to elders of Ephesus that St. Paul insists that he had coveted no mans silver or gold or apparel, Act 20:33.

11-16. Paraphrase. But you, who are Gods own prophet with a message from Him, turn your back on all such desires and empty discussions: nay, press forward to gain true righteousness, true piety, loyalty, love, endurance, and a patient forbearing temper. Persevere in the noblest of all contests, that of the faith; lay hold once and for all on that eternal life to which you were called-ay, and there were many who witnessed the noble profession of faith that you then made. So then I charge you as in the sight of that God who is the source and sustainer of life to all that lives, and in the sight of Christ Jesus who Himself when at the bar of the Roman Governor made His noble profession, that you carefully keep the command He gave us free from all stain and all reproach, until the day of the appearing of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which at the right moment He will unveil to the world, who is the blessed, nay, the One only Sovereign, the King over all who rule kingdoms, the Lord of all who hold lordship over their fellows, He who alone hath in Himself immortality, who dwelleth in light to which none can approach, whom no eye of man ever looked upon, no nor can look upon-to whom be all honour and sovereignty for ever. Amen.

Note the stress on life throughout the section. . . . . . . . . . , drawing the contrast with the doom of the false teachers 9.

11. ] here and II 3:17 only in N.T. In the O.T. applied to Moses (Psa 90:1, Deu 33:1) and to prophets (1 S 2:27), cf. 2 P 1:21 (v.l.). Here the thought is either that of the prophet with a command to carry out, cf. 14, a message to deliver (cf. 20), or more widely (cf. II 3:17 note) of one who is Gods soldier, The Kings Champion (Pilgrims Progress, of one Great-Grace), one whose whole life is lifted above worldly aims and devoted to Gods service, non divitiarum homo sed Dei (Pelagius); cf. Clem. Alex. Quis Dives, c. 41, where the rich man is advised to submit to the guidance of some man of God; and Philo, de gigant. 61, , . . . (Dibelius). The phrase is found in Pagan magical formul (Ngeli, p. 49).

] cf. II 2:22. The virtues chosen are the central Christian virtues, first towards God, then towards men ( . . . ), and those specially needed for enduring trial (.) the opposition of false teachers (., cf. II 2:25, and contrast 4, 5 supra).

] here only in N.T. but found in Philo, de Abr. 37; Ign. Trall. 8, : the inner spirit of which is the outcome (mansuetudinem, Vulg.; tranquillitatem animi, Ambros.). Ambrosiaster draws out the incompatibility of the love of money with each of these virtues (quomodo autem fieri potest ut avarus fidelis sit, qui operibus negat quod verbis fateri videtur? unde autem amator fraternitatis, cujus manus sunt avid? quomodo vero patiens qui semper ad aliena se tendit? aut quatenus quietem animi possit habere, qui die nocteque aviditate cupiditatis incenditur?); Liddon, the way in which these would destroy that love.

12. ] cf. 4:10, II 4:7 note.

] The time is almost certainly the same as that of , i.e. baptism. That would have been his public confession (cf. Rom 10:9) of faith in Christ. The phrase . . is applied to the confession of a martyr at his death in Martyr. Ign. Antiochene Acts, c. 4.

13. Cf. 5:21. Here the appeal is to God and Christ as those in whom he had professed faith at Baptism, who are strong enough to support him in all persecution, and who will judge him at the final judgment.

There may be a semi-quotation of some Baptismal form-faith in God, maker of all things, and in Jesus Christ, as King who is to come again.

] used in LXX = (i) to give life (1 S 2:6 , Symm. Gen 3:23 , Symm. = Eve. mother of all living, Encyc. Bibl. i. p. 61); (ii) to save alive, Exo 1:17-22, Jdg 8:19 etc. Hence the thought here may include (1) God who is the source of all life (cf. Neh 9:6 ), with a reminiscence of 4:4. In this meaning it will be parallel to the credal expansions of the Baptismal formula; cf. Justin M. Apol. i. 61, : Iren. c. Hr. i. 10, : Tert. de Proescr. 36, unum Deum novit, creatorem universitatis. In Pap. Lond. 121529 it is used of the Sun, (M. M. s.v.). (ii) God who can protect you in all danger and persecution; cf. 12 and 16; , Chrys.

. .] not in the time of, though that is supported by Ign. Trall. 9, Smyrn. 1, and expanded in Magn. 11 into II. II.: but there stress is laid on the historical reality of the facts, which is not in question here; here it is part of an appeal for courage, and corresponds to of Timothys own confession, hence in the presence of, at the bar of.

. ] The noble profession of His Messiahship and the nature of His Kingdom. . would have been more natural, but he wishes to mark the essential identity of the confession which Timothy might soon have to maintain with the Lords own confession (Hort on Rev 1:2) and with that which he had already made 12.

14. ] The charge given thee at baptism, cf. 2 Clem. 8, : perhaps also more widely the whole Christian commands; cf. 1:4 , 1:18. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Cat. v. 13) paraphrases it .

] possibly agreeing with (cf. Jam 1:27, Jam 1:2 P 3:14), but probably with ; cf. Job 15:16 (Symm.) of the heavens, Eph 5:27 of the Church. The commands must be kept clear, not explained away, and yet presented with such tact as not to cause offence.

] cf. Tit 2:11 note. The thought of the dawning of light which will test the ministers work and character is prominent here; cf. 15, 1Co 4:5.

15. ] cf. Tit 1:3 note. This description of God is full of O.T. reminiscences and is perhaps based on some doxology in use in the synagogue. The stress is laid on the supremacy of God over earthly rulers ( , Chrys.): on His sole possession of life 12, 13, and on His superhuman Majesty. These qualities were brought out in the O.T. in contrast to the heathen gods, here also in contrast to earthly kings, especially to the growing cult of the Roman Emperors. Dibelius quotes the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, jura per genium domini nostri imperatoris, Cognosco dominum meum, regem regum et imperatorem omnium gentium. The Greek metaphysical conception of God may also influence the description (cf. 1:11 note).

] cf. 1:11; , cf. 1:17, 2 Mac 1:24 : 2 Mac 12:15 , Ecclus 46:5 .

. . …] Deu 10:17, Dan 4:34, Rev 17:14, Rev 19:16, Enoch 9:4; Cf. sup. 1:17 note. There is perhaps an implied contrast with Pontius Pilate, the temporary, the unjust, delegate; cf. Martyr. Polyc. 21 of Polycarps martyrdom, , .

16. ] cf. 1:17; Philo, de sacrif. Abelis, c. 30, (Bernard); cf. Wisd 15:3 : Deissmann, B.S., p. 293.

] based on Exo 33:17-23. , used by Philo of Mount Sinai, . . . , de vita Mosis, iii. 2.

] cf. Exo 33:20, Joh 1:18.

] cf. 1:17. The thought of the First and of the Second Advent alike suggests a doxology to his mind.

17-19. Advice to the rich.

Paraphrase. I have warned teachers against the desire for riches; but there are other members in your church rich in this worlds good, and they will need your guidance. Bid them not to be purse-proud or conceited, not to set their hopes for hereafter on so uncertain a reed as riches, but on God; and Him they should try to imitate; for He has all the riches of the whole world, and He gives them out liberally to us men that we may enjoy them thoroughly; so they should do good like Him; they should have for their riches a store of good deeds: they should be quick to give to others, ready to share with their friends: in this way they store up true treasures for themselves which form a firm foundation on which they can build for the future; such use of wealth will help them to lay hold of the only life that is worthy of the name.

The paragraph is awkwardly placed here, breaking the connexion between 16 and 20; von Soden suggests that it has been accidentally misplaced, and should come after 2; but it is natural advice to a church in a rich city like Ephesus (cf. Act 19:25, which shows that St. Pauls teaching had been attacked there, as endangering the wealth of the trade); the thought may have been suggested by 9, 10; and it is more appropriate after these verses than they would be after it. There may be also consciously a link with 11-16 in the thought of eternal life (cf. note there). That thought suggests to the writers mind the special danger in which the rich are of losing eternal life 19.

The thought and language may be based on Our Lords words, cf. Mat 6:19, Luk 12:16-21, Luk 16:9. But the thoughts of the uncertainty of riches, of the treasure laid up in heaven by good use of wealth here, even that of the imitation of God in the use of wealth are thoroughly Jewish (cf. Philo, de Josepho, c. 43, and Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels, c. xiv.), and found in pagan thought; cf. the epitaph in Or. Henz. 6042, bene fac, hoc tecum feres. So Dill, Roman Society from Nero, p. 190, Seneca enforces the duty of universal kindness and helpfulness by the example of God, who is bounteous and merciful even to the evil-doer (de Benef. iv. 5, iv. 26, iv. 28), and p. 232, Herodes used to say that the true use of money was to succour the needs of others; riches which were guarded with a niggard hand were only dead wealth. Clement of Alexandrias Quis Dives Salvetur is an interesting commentary on the section (especially c. 16), but shows no knowledge of it.

17. ] cf. Jer 9:23, Rom 11:20, Rom 12:16, Jam 1:9-11, Jam 2:1-5 Clem. Alex. Quis Dives, 1, . As was among the Greeks a term of reproach but in the Bible a virtue, so was a term of praise and becomes a reproach (Wohlenberg from Hofmann).

] cf. 1Co 15:19 : Job 31:24 . The perfect tense either looks back to the beginning of the rich mans hopes, or possibly anticipates his feelings at the : Alas, alas, I have placed my hopes on that which has failed me! cf. II 4:8 .

] Cf. Jam 1:10, Anthol. Gr. i. 80, 19:

,

,

. (Wetstein.)

] stronger than , 4:3. There is a true apolaustic life, but it comes from realizing that the simple blessings of nature ( , , , , Chrys.) are gifts to each from God; cf. Trahernes Meditations, and Didache 10. .

18. ] like God Himself, Act 14:17 . . . .

, ] The distinction is not clear; either, quick to give away to others in charity (singulatim, Bengel), cf. Rom 12:8, Eph 4:28, 1Co 13:3, and ready to share with ones friends that which is ones own (cum multis, Bengel), e.g. at the , cf. Gal 6:6, Heb 13:16; or, ., of action, open-handed, cf. . , Apost. K.O. 19; , of demeanour and temper, gracious, with true sense of human fellowship, the antithesis of , cf. Rom 12:16; so Chrys. Thdt. , and so frequently in Plutarch, who couples it with and . For the Churchs use of money, cf. Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, Eng. tr. 1. ii. c. 3.

19. .] cf. Mar 10:21, Mat 6:20. The thoughts of the true treasure and the true foundation lie close together in the Sermon on the Mount; cf. Apost. K.O.. 21, (? leg. ) . Tob 4:9 , suggests the emendation (conj. Bos.) for , or simply (Hitchcock, Expositor, Oct. 1919); cf. Ign. ad Pol. 2, .

.] cf.12. This true life would be laid hold of here and now, as they enter into the true life of love, cf. Joh 17:3. , cf. 5:3; Clem. Alex. Quis Dives, 7, . 8, : Philo, de Decal. 2, .

An interesting Rabbinic illustration is found in Bab. Bath. 11a. It happened to Monobaz that he dispersed his wealth and the wealth of his fathers on alms in time of famine. His brethren gathered round him and said, Thy fathers laid up treasure and added to their fathers store, and dost thou waste it all? He answered, My fathers laid up treasure below; I have laid it up above. My fathers laid up treasure of Mammon; I have laid up treasure of souls. My fathers laid up treasure for this world; I have laid up treasure for the world to come.

20, 21. Conclusion. Very probably added by St. Paul with his own hand, 2Th 3:17, summing up the thoughts of 1:3-11, 4:1-10, 6:3-10.

Paraphrase. O Timothy, it is to you that I must look. Remember the truth is a sacred trust which Christ has left with us, and He will come to ask it back. Keep it then jealously; avoid all empty argumentations, all balancing of casuistical problems: they have nothing to do with religion, they add nothing to it, they spoil its simplicity, though some who falsely claim to special knowledge lay stress on them. These teachers, though they assert their proficiency in knowledge, have wholly missed the central truths.

May Gods grace be with you all.

20. .] cf. 11, 1:18 notes. ; cf. II 1:12 note; and for this application, Didache 4. 13, : Dem. c. Meid. p. 572, , , . . . . : Philo, de ebriet. 52, (Wohlenberg). An exact exegesis of each word in this verse will be found in Vincent. Lerin. Commonitorium, 22.

] 1:6, 5:15, II 4:4; cf. II 2:16 . . . This last passage makes it probable that the meaning is not turning your back on those who so talk, but refusing to adopt their methods.

.] cf. 4:7; . II 2:16 only; cf. , 1:6; , 6:4 note; , Isa 8:19.

] parallel to , and under the construction of ; hence not (i) oppositions, controversies, turn aside from opponents and do not argue with them; cf. II 2:25 : supra, 1:10 : 5:14 : Job 32:3 (so Chrys., Holtzmann, von Soden); but (ii) rival theses (= ), sets of antitheses (cf. Lucian, Mort. D. x. 373, . . . (Harrison, P.E. p. 165)); either the Gnostic contrasts between the O.T. and the New, which found their fullest expression in Marcions Antitheses, cf. Tert. adv. M. i. 19, iv. 1, opus ex contrarietatum oppositionibus Antitheses cognominatum et ad separationem legis et evangelii coactum; but this is not consistent with the stress on the Jewish law implied in 1:6-10: or, more probably, the endless contrasts of decisions, founded on endless distinctions, which played so large a part in the casuistry of the scribes as interpreters of the law (Hort, Judaistic Christianity, p. 140). It is identical with the tradition of the elders which the Lord denounced, and of which St. Paul had been zealous before his conversion (Mar 7:3, Gal 1:14), afterwards embodied in the Halacha; cf. 4:7, II 3:8 note.

. (contrast , Wisd 7:17). The opponents must have claimed a special knowledge, but this might apply to the early stages of Gnosticism; cf. 1Co 8:2, 1Co 8:3 , : or to the Rabbinical pride in knowledge, Luk 11:52, Rom 2:20.

21. ] cf. 2:10: , 1:6.

] as in II and Tit the blessing is for the whole Church; but there is considerable MSS support for : cf. Introd. p. xxxvii.

W.-H The New Testament in Greek, with Introduction and Appendix, by Westcott and Hort, Cambridge, 1881.

OGIS. Orientis Grci Inscriptiones Select, ed. W. Dittenberger, 1903-1905.

Ngeli Das Wortschatz des Apostels Paulus, von T. Ngeli, 1905.

Apost. K.O. Apostolische Kirchen-Ordnung, in Texte und Untersuchungen, ii. 5.

Fuente: International Critical Commentary New Testament

Godliness Is True Gain

1Ti 6:1-10

The Apostle gives rules for the treatment of the slaves who rendered service in the households of that time. If the slave was in the household of a heathen master, he must honor and glorify Christ by being respectful and obedient; but if the master was a Christian, and therefore a brother in the Lord, he was still required to yield courteous and willing service. Service rendered for the love of God must not be inferior to that rendered from fear of man.

There were many false teachers in the early Church, the chief aim of whom was to make money. They were proud and distempered, jealous and suspicious, juggling with words and given to splitting hairs. Godliness truly is great gain. It makes us content with what we have, and it opens to us stores of blessedness which the wealth of a Croesus could not buy. It is good to have just what is necessary. More than that breeds anxiety. Let us leave the provision for our needs with God. He is pledged to give food and covering, the latter including shelter. Not money, but the love of it opens the sluices and floodgates of the soul, through which wash the destroying waters of passion that drown men in destruction and perdition. Remember that you can carry nothing out of this world except your character.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Chapter 13 Contentment Versus Covetousness

1Ti 6:1-10

Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows, (vv. 1-10)

The outstanding verse of this section is the sixth: But godliness with contentment is great gain. The Apostle is stressing the importance of contentment as opposed to that spirit of covetousness which so characterizes men of the world and is often found even among the children of God.

We need to remember that many of the early Christians were bondmen. Conditions of society that prevailed at that time were such that there were more slaves in the Roman Empire than there were free men. Even when the gospel began to be disseminated widely throughout the Empire we do not read of any movement on the part of Christian leaders seeking to overturn the institution of slavery, and that for a very good reason. Political circumstances and economic conditions were such in that ancient, pagan world that those in bondage as slaves to Christian masters were in a far better position than they could possibly have been if they had been freed and turned out to shift for themselves. But gradually throughout the centuries that followed as the nations received the gospel, the slaves were freed. Slavery was an accepted economic condition when Paul wrote to Timothy, and many of the early Christians were under bondage. So when the Apostle speaks of servants here, it is not hired servants as such that he has in mind, but as many servants as are under the yoke.

He exhorts these slaves to contentment. One might say that they had very little with which to be contented, but Paul would have them able to say as he himself did, I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content (Php 4:11). He found that Christ was sufficient for all circumstances, and, thank God, it is just as true today! We live in a time of great restlessness. Consider the strife between capital and labor with which our own nation is confronted. We never would have to face anything like this if Christian principles prevailed between the employer and the employee. But the spirit dominant generally is that of every man for himself, each attempting to get all he can for himself and to give as little work as possible in return. Christian men and women should be careful to follow the spirit of the admonition given here, Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.

A Christian employee should not be content to give less than honest work for the payment he receives, and he should look up to and respect those whom he serves. If it happens that he is working for a Christian, then he is not to take advantage of the fact that both are members of the body of Christ. They that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren. It is so easy to expect more than one has a right to demand because the one who employs him is a Christian. The fact that both are Christians is not to change the attitude of the employee into one of self-will and independence of spirit, but should rather lead each to be considerate of the other. The very fact that the employer is also a believer is one reason why the other should do his part faithfully and give the very best possible service for the money he is receiving, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.

Paul next draws attention to the fact that what he has just said is in full accord with the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself took the servants place. He said, I am among you as He that serveth (Luk 22:27). He warned His disciples against all self-seeking. He said, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve (Luk 22:25-26). He also said that He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mat 20:28). When He found His disciples disputing among themselves as to who should be greatest He said, Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant (Mat 20:27). And so the Apostle says here, If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing.

Where do we find the words of our Lord Jesus Christ? In the four Gospels. To me it is a shocking thing when Christian teachers seem to relegate to a former dispensation the practical instruction given by the Lord while He was on earth as though it had no weight for Christians today. What the Lord Jesus Christ taught when He was here in person ought to guide us in our behavior one toward another and in our attitude toward God. I have often heard it said that the Sermon on the Mount is not for Christians. Undoubtedly, it was given primarily to the remnant of Israel, Gods earthly people. It is instruction for the Jewish disciples of Christ while waiting for the setting up of the kingdom. But on the other hand we should not overlook the fact that the Lord Jesus said that every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it (Mat 7:26-27). But, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock (Mat 7:24-25). The whosoever here is just as universal as the whosoever in Joh 3:16. Our Lord was speaking to His people throughout all the years while waiting for His return from heaven.

If a man denies the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions [sick about questions]. Have you ever met any of these people who were sick about questions? They take one or two little points and are always hammering away on them. No matter what text they start with when they attempt to preach they always come back to their favorite theme. They get their minds fixed on some peculiar views and cannot seem to consider anything else.

I remember an old man when I was a lad who would rise to speak at every opportunity. He had only one topic, and that was that Judas was not present at the Lords Supper. No matter what the subject under discussion might be he would break in with: Brethren, I want to show you that Judas was not present at the Lords Supper. We got so tired of it that we dreaded to see or hear him. I do not believe that Judas was at the Lords Supper, but I would hate to have no other topic except that about which to talk.

Notice this expression: Doting [or sick] about questions. It is a great mistake to get one or two things in the mind and constantly dwell upon them. As a result of this there comes envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings [quarrellings] of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.

If these malcontents can show that they have a number of adherents they are convinced that the Lord is with them: From such, the Apostle says, withdraw thyself.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. We have already seen in going through this epistle that godliness is literally godlikeness-that is, true piety. Godliness is great gain. We have received blessings, temporal and spiritual, from God, and our hearts should be going out to Him in gratitude. We should not be characterized by a spirit of restlessness. It is this spirit that dominates men of the world. You have heard of the Quaker who wanted to teach a lesson to his neighbors. So he had a large sign put up on a vacant lot next to his house, and on the sign he had these words painted: I will give the deed to this lot to anyone who is absolutely contented. Any applicant was directed to apply next door. There was a man living in that community who had great wealth, and he drove by, saw the sign, stopped, and said to himself, My old Quaker friend wants to give away his lot to anyone who is absolutely contented. If there is anyone in the community that ought to be contented it Isa 1:1 have everything I could wish for. So he went to the Quakers house and knocked on the door.

The Quaker came to the door, and the man said, I see you want to give that lot to anyone who is contented.

Yes, said the Quaker.

I think I can say that I am absolutely contented, the man said. I will be glad if you will make the deed out to me.

Friend, if thee is contented, what does thee want with my lot? the Quaker asked.

This spirit of covetousness is noticeable in men of the world. The Jewish Talmud says that man is born with his hands clenched, but he dies with his hands wide open. Coming into the world he is trying to grasp everything, but going out he has to give up everything.

For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich [they that are characterized by covetousness, who are determined to be rich, who make that their one great object in life] fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil. It should read, a root of all evil.

There are some men who do not love money and yet are the victims of many other evil passions. But what the Apostle is telling us here is that once the love of money finds lodgment in the heart of man every known evil may be grafted on to it.

Years ago when I was in California I was setting out a small orchard, and the nurseryman who sold me some fruit trees said to me, You have a great many gophers. It is going to be hard to keep the ground clear of them. But, he said, Ill give you some trees that are grafted on bitter peach roots. The gophers will not touch these.

So he brought the trees grafted onto the bitter peach roots. I had quite a little orchard: cherries, several kinds of plums, two or three kinds of apricots, several kinds of peaches, almonds, and so forth, but they were all grafted onto the bitter peach roots. As I saw them being planted I thought of this text, The love of money is a root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

So let us thank God for the grace that He has given us through Jesus Christ our Lord and has put within our hearts the desire to glorify Him. He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (Rom 8:32). God gladly gives to the one who has already received His Son. Just as the love of money in the heart is a root of all evil, so when the love of Christ comes into the heart, everything good may be grafted onto that.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

1Ti 6:12

The Apostle’s Exhortation with Regard to Eternal Life.

There is a deep and solemn interest which always attaches to the last words of a fellow-creature; more especially is this the case if he who is departing out of life has long been eminent for his piety and devotion. The words of the text were spoken when St. Paul knew that his departure was at hand. Addressing his beloved Timothy, with a full realisation of all the trials of the past, and having the anticipation of his approaching martyrdom, with his dying breath he counsels Timothy, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life.”

I. Note the object here presented, “eternal life.” Eternal life is an expression used in God’s Word to denote the happiness and the glory of heaven. We are not to limit the meaning of this expression to the one idea of never-ending duration. On the contrary, eternal life is a term used to denote all the happiness, all the glory, all the dignity which God can confer on a redeemed creature in eternity. All that you can conceive of heavenly blessedness, all that Scripture sets forth to us of the happiness reserved for the saints in the life to come,-all is comprehended and included within this brief, comprehensive phrase, eternal life. Of that eternal life we know comparatively little as to its real nature. The happiness of heaven is for the most part in God’s Word set forth to us either negatively, or by the help of imagery, borrowed from earthly things. I observe (1) that eternal life will comprehend the perfect knowledge of God. We have the authority of our Lord Himself for saying this. “This is eternal life to know Thee the only God.” (2) Eternal life means perfected resemblance to Christ. In proportion as the Gospel of Christ gains its legitimate hold upon any man, in that degree he is brought into the Saviour’s image. (3) Eternal life will consist in the companionship with ail the blessed, with all the saints of God from Abel, the first martyr, down to the saints that shall be brought forth to complete the spiritual edifice.

II. Note the exhortation with regard to eternal life, “lay hold upon it.” This is an exhortation which summons to present, to immediate effort. How are we to lay hold on eternal life? I reply at once, Believe on the Son of God, trust in His power, confide in His love, rely on His wisdom, seek to partake of His grace. So shall you lay hold on eternal life. (2) Next, I would say, Cherish the influences of the Holy Spirit, cherish them by secret prayer; cherish them by holy meditation; cherish them by constant study of the Inspired Word; cherish them in the use of all the appointed means of grace. (3) And lastly, I would say, Would you lay hold on eternal life? Live for eternity. Propose to yourself as the great object for which you are sent into this world, to win the prize of everlasting life.

Bishop Bickersteth, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 54.

1Ti 6:12

Man’s Great Duty.

I. Consider our need of eternal life. Sin has brought death into this world; and we are all of us involved in the calamity and buried in the ruins of the fall. We may not have sinned as others have done: that is very possible. But though we have sinned less than others, we cannot be saved by merit; even as, thank God, though we have sinned more than others we may be saved by mercy. Those who speak of great and little, of few and many sins, seem to forget that man’s ruin was the work of one moment and of one sin. The weight of only one sin sank this great world into perdition; and now all of us, all men, lie under the same sentence of condemnation. Extinguishing every hope of salvation through works, and sounding as ominous of evil in men’s ears as the cracking of ice beneath our feet, or the roar of an avalanche, or the grating of a keel on the sunken reef, or the hammer that wakens the felon from dreams of life and liberty, that sentence is this: “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.”

II. Consider what we have to do to obtain eternal life. Nothing in one sense more difficult, yet in another, easier-a wish, a word, a look, and it is ours. You have only to wish, and, as if struck by a magician’s rod, the walls of your prison-house open. You are free.

III. Consider more particularly what we have to do to obtain eternal life. By the aid of the Spirit, and through the exercise of faith, you are to-lay hold on the Saviour; and laying hold on Him, though it were in the hour of the most imminent destruction, and in the very jaws of death, you lay hold of life-of eternal life.

IV. Consider when we are to lay hold of eternal life. When, but now? Christ promises it today; not tomorrow. Accept it so long as it is in your offer; seize it so long as it is within your reach.

T. Guthrie, The Way to Life, p. 1.

References: 1Ti 6:12.-Homilist, 3rd series, vol. i., p. go; vol. ix., p. 45; Clerical Library: Outline Sermons for Children, p. 256; Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 295; G. W. Conder, Ibid., vol. vii., p. 280; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xii., p. 184. 1Ti 6:14, 1Ti 6:15.-F. W. Farrar, Ibid., vol. xxviii., p. 67. 1Ti 6:15, 1Ti 6:16.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 216. 1Ti 6:16.-H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 123; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 336; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 383.

1Ti 6:17

Human Affection raised, not destroyed, by the Gospel.

I. The Apostle sets before us, in the text, two applications of the same human affection. He bids us not to trust in uncertain riches, but to trust in the living God. He assumes that there is in the heart of man the tendency to dependence upon something beyond itself, yet intimately connected with itself; and above all, upon that wealth, which is the pledge and representative of all earthly enjoyment, and which is thus the great mediator between the heart and the world that attracts it. He assumes that this trusting impulse exists, and He would not destroy but reform it. He would exhibit the true and eternal object for a tendency in itself indestructible; and would intimate that there is prepared for the just desires of the soul a sphere of being, adequate to these desires, and from which the present detains us only as the counterfeit and mockery of it. On the one hand, “uncertain riches”; on the other, the parallel announcement, that “God giveth us richly all things to enjoy.”

II. Trust not in uncertain riches, but trust in the living God. Preserve unbroken every element of your affections; they are all alike the property of Heaven. Be ambitious, but ambitious of the eternal heritage. Let avarice be yours, but avarice of celestial treasures. Covet esteem, but esteem in the mind of God, of the circles of the blessed. Yearn after sympathy, but seek it where alone it is unfailing, in Him whose essence from eternity is love, and who became man that He might humanise that awfulness of celestial love to the tenderness of a brother’s. “Charge them that are rich in this world” that they interpose not a veil between themselves and the Father of their spirits, or suffer the clouds and vapours of earth to sully or eclipse the beams of this eternal sun.

III. Our earthly objects of pursuit are themselves clad by hope with colours that rightfully belong only to their celestial rivals; our ordinary earthly longings themselves strain after a really heavenly happiness, while they miss so miserably the way to reach it. The votary of earthly wealth does, in fact, with all the energies of his nature, strain after that very security of unchangeable bliss which we preach; but, mistaking the illusory phantom, weds his whole soul to the fictitious heaven, which the powers of evil have clothed in colours stolen from the skies. The soul made for heaven is lost among heaven’s shadows upon earth; it feigns the heaven it cannot find, and casts around the miserable companions of its exile, the attributes that belong to the God it was born to adore. Lay not out your rich capital of faith and hope and love and admiration, upon the poor precarious investments the world at best can offer you; impress upon your heart the conviction that not one of all this host of energies but was primarily designed for heaven to open the full tide of your affections to that world where alone they can find repose.

W. Archer Butler, Sermons, p. 270.

References: 1Ti 6:17.-Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 137. 1Ti 6:18.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 244. 1Ti 6:19.-G. S. Barrett, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxv., p. 179; Smart, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 105. 1Ti 6:20.-Church of England Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 49.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 6

1. Concerning servants (1Ti 6:1-2)

2. Concerning those who oppose (1Ti 6:3-5)

3. Concerning contentment and temptation (1Ti 6:6-10)

4. The final exhortations (1Ti 6:11-21)

1Ti 6:1-2

Servants (slaves) who had pagan masters were to count them worthy of all honor, and thus bear a good testimony for the truth, that the Name of God and the teaching be not blasphemed. Theirs was a blessed opportunity to show forth the excellencies of Him whom they served, and who once served in obedience and submission on earth. If their masters were believers, and master and slave worshipped together, there was danger that a slave might forget his place and become insolent. The apostolic exhortation guards against this.

1Ti 6:3-5

These things Timothy was to teach and exhort. If anyone opposed these instructions, if he did not give his consent to wholesome words, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ and to the teaching which is according to godliness, he showed thereby that he knew not the real power of godliness. He gives evidence of pride of heart, that he is destitute of the truth, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strife of words. And from such a state of soul cometh as a result envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of depraved minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness. This is a good description of a good portion of professing Christendom.

1Ti 6:6-10

While the class of people who have the form of godliness and deny its power, make piety a means of gain in earthly things, which is condemned, the apostle speaks of true piety, or as it is called in the Authorized Version, godliness, with contentment as a great gain. True piety, in walking with God, having a good conscience, gives contentment, no matter what earthly circumstances are. A believer who seeks the things above should no longer cling to earthly things, knowing that we brought nothing into the world nor carry anything out. If the eternal things, that promised glory, are ever real before the soul, then each will be content with having the necessary things, food and raiment. And how very true are the words which follow, as not a few have found out. But they that desire to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare, and many foolish and hurtful lusts, which plunge men into destruction and ruin. For the love of money is the root of every evil; which, while some coveted after, they have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. Money itself is not evil, but the love of it is the fearful thing. No further comment is needed on these words. Examples of this evil are all about us in the professing church, and lovers of money and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God are constantly increasing. Surely they heap treasure together for the last days. Weeping and wailing will follow (Jam 5:3).

1Ti 6:11-21

The man of God is to flee these things. If he does not it will rob him of his good conscience, his true piety and contentment. The thing to be coveted for the child of God, who belongs to the house of God, is not money, but righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. To covet this is to be the daily business of a Christian. While the believer has to turn his back upon the world and its filthy lucre, he is also to fight the good fight of the faith, and to lay hold on eternal life. This life is, as we have seen from the Gospel of John, a personal possession. It does therefore not mean the obtaining of eternal life; that is the gift of God. It must be laid hold on in faith, entered into and enjoyed. Many possess eternal life, but a practical laying hold on all that it implies and that is connected with it, is what they need. Timothy, in this respect, had confessed a good confession before many witnesses. Once more the charge before God, the Creator-God, who preserveth all things, and before Christ Jesus, the great and faithful Witness, to keep all spotless and irreproachable until His appearing.

The Lord Jesus is coming again. Note what is said of that coming, which (His appearing) in its own time the blessed and only Ruler shall show, the King of those that reign, and Lord of those that exercise lordship; who only has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor is able to see; to whom be honor and eternal might. Amen (J.N. Darbys translation). Those who deny the immortality of the human soul and who teach that man has no longer endless being, but dies like the beast, use the words that God only has immortality as their star-text, to affirm their error. God only hath immortality in Himself; it is His essential possession. He is the Source of it. The statement does not teach that man has not immortality, but that God only hath immortality in His Being; man has received it from Him.

We but quote the final exhortations. Charge those that are rich in this present age not to be high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God (the Creator and Preserver of all) who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. And then another warning against the errors: O Timothy, keep that which is committed unto thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and opposition of science falsely so-called, which some professing have erred concerning the faith (Gnosticism – and its Satanic offspring, Christian Science so-called).

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

servants: Deu 28:48, Isa 47:6, Isa 58:6, Mat 11:9, Mat 11:30, Act 15:10, 1Co 7:21, 1Co 7:22, Gal 5:1

count: Gen 16:9, Gen 24:2, Gen 24:12, Gen 24:27, Gen 24:35-67, 2Ki 5:2, 2Ki 5:3, 2Ki 5:13, Mal 1:6, Act 10:7, Act 10:22, Eph 6:5-8, Col 3:22-25, Tit 2:9, 1Pe 2:17-20

that the: 1Ti 5:14, Gen 13:7, Gen 13:8, 2Sa 12:14, Neh 9:5, Isa 52:5, Eze 36:20, Eze 36:23, Luk 17:1, Rom 2:24, 1Co 10:32, Tit 2:5, Tit 2:8, Tit 2:10, 1Pe 2:12, 1Pe 3:16

Reciprocal: Gen 16:8 – Sarai’s maid Gen 39:2 – house Exo 4:18 – Let me go Mat 18:7 – unto Mat 28:20 – them Luk 7:8 – and he goeth Rom 13:7 – honour to 1Pe 2:18 – be

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

IN THE APOSTOLIC age, as now, the gospel won many of its triumphs among the poor, hence not a few servants, or slaves, were found in the church. Chapter 6 opens with instructions which show the way of godliness as it applies to them. Slavery is foreign to Christianity yet inasmuch as the rectifying of earthly wrongs was not the Lords object in His first coming, (See, Luk 12:14) and is only to be accomplished when He comes again, the will of God for His people now is to accept the conditions which characterize their times, and in them adorn the doctrine and honour His name.

Servants have the lower place, then let them be marked by subjection and the honouring of their masters, and should these themselves be believers far from it being a reason for slighting them or belittling their authority it would only furnish the slave with an additional reason for serving them faithfully. These instructions the Apostle calls the doctrine which is according to godliness, for they were wholesome words as given by the Lord Himself.

The present age is marked by a very considerable uprising against authority even in Christian circles. The thing itself is not new for it was in evidence when this epistle was written. There were men teaching things which were in contradiction of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, even in the first century; it is not surprising therefore that such abound in these later times. The Apostle writes very plainly about these opponents. He unmasks their true character. They were marked by pride and ignorance. How often these two things go together! The less a man knows of God and of himself the more he imagines he has something to boast in. The true knowledge of God and of himself at once dispels his pride.

Verse 1Ti 6:4 also makes plain what is the effect of repudiating the authority of the Lord. Questions and strifes of words come to the fore. This of course is inevitable, since if the Lords authority is set aside it all becomes a question of opinion; and if so one mans opinion is as good as another, and argumentative and verbal strife may be carried on almost ad infinitum, and all kinds of envy and strife flourish.

Men who thus dispute show themselves to have corrupt minds and to be destitute of the truth, and that which underlies their proud thoughts is the idea that personal gain is the real end of godliness-that a man is only godly for what he can get out of it. If that is their idea then of course they would not advocate a slave rendering such service as is enjoined in verse 1Ti 6:2, since any gain from that would accrue to his master and not to himself. The truth is that not gain but God is the end of godliness, though as the Apostle so strikingly adds, godliness with contentment is great gain. To walk as in the presence of the living God with a simple trust in His goodness and with contentment of heart is very great gain of a spiritual sort.

We have to recognize that we are but life tenants of all that we possess. We entered the world with nothing; we go out with nothing. God may indeed give us much for our enjoyment but on the other hand we should be contented with just the necessaries of life-food and raiment. This sets a high standard before us; one that but few of us come up to, though the Apostle himself did. The exhortation of verse 1Ti 6:8 is much needed by us all in these days.

On all hands are people who earnestly desire to become rich; the making of money is to them the chief end of life. The Christian may all too easily become infected with this spirit to his great loss. Verse 1Ti 6:9 does not speak of those that are rich, as does verse 1Ti 6:17, but of those that will be rich or desire to be rich, that is, they set it before them as the object to be pursued. Such become ensnared by many lusts, which in the case of the man of the world plunge him into destruction and ruin. This is so whether they succeed in their aim and amass wealth or whether they do not, for the coveting of money it is that turns men aside from the faith and pierces them through with sorrows, and not the acquisition and misuse of it only. The love of money is declared to be the root of every kind of evil. It is not that every bit of evil in the world can be traced to the love of money, but that the love of money is a root from which on various occasions every description of evil springs.

The appeal to Timothy in verses 1Ti 6:11-14 sets before us the will of God for the believer, which is wholly apart from and opposed to the idea that gain is godliness with its consequent love of money. Timothy is here addressed as a man of God. The meaning of this term is evident if we observe its use in Scripture. It signifies a man who stands with God and acts for God in days of emergency when the majority of those who are professedly His people are proving faithless to His cause.

The man of God then, or for the matter of that, all true believers are to flee all these evil things that follow in the train of the love of money and they are to pursue the things which are the fruit of the Spirit. Six lovely features are enumerated which hang together like a cluster of fruit; beginning with righteousness, which ever has to be to the fore in a world of unrighteousness and sin, and ending with meekness, which is the very opposite of what we are by nature, for it concerns our spirit as righteousness concerns our acts.

If we make such things as these our pursuit we shall at once become conscious of opposition. There is plenty of opposition in the pursuit of money for we live in a competitive world. Money-making becomes usually a fight, in some cases a fight of a pretty sordid kind. It is a fight also if we pursue these things that please God, only this time it is a fight of faith, for our opponents now will be the world, the flesh and the devil, and nothing but faith in the living God will prevail against these.

Moreover these excellent things are the working out into expression of that eternal life which is the portion of the believer on the Son of God. The life is ours as is made so abundantly plain in the writings of the Apostle John, yet we are exhorted to lay hold of it, for it is a dependent life, Christ being its Source and Object, and we lay hold of it in laying hold by faith of Him and of all those things which find their centre in Him. The men of the world lay hold of earthly gain, or of as much of it as they can compress into their fists. We are called to eternal life, and are to lay hold of it by going in for all those things in which from a practical standpoint it consists.

Timothy had made a good profession and now he is solemnly charged in the sight of God, who is the Source of all life, and of the Lord Jesus, who was the great Confessor of truth before the highest circles of the world, to walk according to these instructions in an untarnished way until the moment when the servants responsibility shall cease.

The time is coming when the Lord Jesus Christ shall shine forth in His glory and then the faithful servant shall see the happy fruit of faithfulness and of the good confession rendered. That time is fixed by the blessed and only Potentate whose purposes nothing can frustrate, who dwells in faceless splendour beyond the reach of mortal eye.

Notice the full and complete way in which Scripture identifies the Lord Jesus and God. In these verses (14-16) it is not easy to discern which of the two is spoken of. It appears however that in this Scripture it is God who is King of kings and Lord of lords, who is going to show forth the Lord Jesus in His glory when the time is come. In Rev 19:16 it is without a doubt the Lord Jesus who is King of kings and Lord of lords.

Observe also the force of the words, who only hath immortality, for there are not wanting those who attempt to press them into service, as supporting the denial of immortality to the soul of man and the teaching of annihilation. Their meaning is of course that God alone has immortality in an essential and unqualified way. If creatures possess it they have it as derived from Him. Did it mean that as to actual fact God only is immortal we should have of course to accept the ultimate extinction of all the saints and even of the holy angels. Read in that way the words mean too much even for the annihilationist.

Having ascribed honour and power everlasting to the immortal, invisible God, before whom Timothy was to walk far removed from the spirit and ways of those whose main object was the acquisition of riches, the Apostle turns in verse 1Ti 6:17 to give instructions as to those believers who are rich in this world. His words indicate first of all the dangers attached to the possession of wealth. It has a tendency to generate high-mindedness and to divert the possessor from trust in God to trust in money. The worldly man of wealth naturally fancies himself greatly and feels himself secure against the ordinary troubles and struggles of humanity. The wealthy Christian must not imagine that his money entitles him to dominate the church of God and lord it over his fellow-believers.

Secondly Paul shows us the privileges attaching to wealth. It may be used in the service of God, in the help of His people; and thus he who starts by being rich in money may end in being rich in good works, and this is wealth of a more enduring kind. Earthly riches are uncertain, and he who lays it up in store for himself may find his store sadly depleted just when most needed. He who uses his riches in the service of God is laying up in store a good foundation of reward in eternity and meanwhile his trust is in the living God, who after all does not deny us what is good but gives it to us richly for our enjoyment. It is just those who hold and use their possessions as stewards responsible to God that can be trusted to enjoy Gods good gifts without misusing them.

We saw that trust in the living God is the very essence of godliness when we were looking at 1Ti 4:10. The expression occurs again in verse 1Ti 6:17 here. Rich believers are to be godly and to bend their energies not to the laying hold of larger things in this world but to the laying hold of eternal life, or that which is really life. The latter is probably the correct reading. Real life is not found in money and the pleasures it procures (See, v. 1Ti 6:6.) but in the knowledge and service of God.

The closing charge to Timothy is very striking. To him had been entrusted as a deposit the knowledge and maintenance of the revealed truth of God, as stated more fully in 2Ti 3:14-17. This he was to jealously guard for it would be imperilled, on the one hand by profane and vain babblings-doubtless foolish teachings akin to the profane and old wives fables of 1Ti 4:7 -and on the other hand by science falsely so called. These words plainly infer that true science exists which is in complete harmony with revelation. They plainly state that there was even 2000 years ago a mix-named science which opposed revelation. It was largely composed of the speculations of the philosophers. The mix-named science of today also is composed of partial knowledge based on imperfect or inaccurate observations with a very large admixture of speculation often of the wildest kind. If that kind of science be professed the faith is missed altogether.

As to all this the instructions are very simple. Avoid the babblings and AVOID the mis-named science no less than the babblings. We shall need grace from God to do this. Hence the closing words, Grace be with thee Amen.

Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary

1Ti 6:1. A great portion of the people in the Roman Empire were slaves when the Gospel was brought into the world. Neither Christ nor his apostles tried to interfere with the status of master and slave, but only to regulate the proper conduct of each to the other. The salvation through Christ was offered to slaves as well as to masters, and this verse is addressed to the slaves who had accepted it. Yoke is used figuratively, and Robinson says the word means “an emblem of servitude.” Some slaves might think more highly of themselves than they should on account of laving been given the privilege of becoming Christians. Such conduct would be blamed by their masters on the name and doctrine (teaching) of God, which would cause them to blaspheme (speak evil) of the divine cause. On the other hand, since the Lord requires servants to obey their masters, if they are careful to manifest all the more respect for them after becoming Christians, it will speak well for the religion which their servants have embraced, and possibly might even Induce them to become Christians also, being thereby convinced that the faith which the servants have espoused is bound to be desirable, seeing it has improved the service and disposition of their slaves.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

1Ti 6:1. The subject of Church discipline in the strict sense of the word had been finished. But social questions of no small difficulty remained to be dealt with, and these St. Paul, with the wide experience which made him perceive the falsehood of extremes, and which we trace in 1Co 7:20-23, Eph 6:5-9, Col 3:22 to Col 4:1, now proceeds to discuss.

As many servants as axe under the yoke. The English suggests the thought that the last words add a mark of distinction differencing some servants as slaves from others, either as being worse treated, or as having unbelieving masters. In the Greek, however, the order stands as are under a yoke as slaves, the first word being the more generic of the two.

His doctrine. It is clear from this and Tit 2:10, that the influence of Christianity on the slave population of the Roman Empire was popularly regarded as a crucial test. Was a slave more honest, sober, truthful, generally a better servant, after his conversion? One can fancy the kind of language, half abuse and half blasphemy, which would be freely used when the answer to that question was in the negative.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Our apostle having, in the preceding chapters, instructed Timothy to give the necessary directions for the performances of several relative duties, in this chapter he particularly directs him to instruct Christian servants to the acceptable performance of that great duty of obedience which they owe to their respective masters, whether infidels or Christians.

Christianity frees persons from sinful slavery or bondage, but not from civil servitude and subjection. Religion does not level persons, but allows of an inequality amongst men, superiors and inferiors; and as it gives the former a power to command, so it lays the latter under an obligation to obey.

Observe, 2. The general duty required of all servants towards their masters, and that is, to give them all the honour and obedience which is due in that relation: let them account their masters worthy of all honour.

What masters?

1. Their infidel and unbelieving masters; they are required to carry it dutifully and respectfully towards them.

2. Their believing or Christian masters: they should not despise them because they are brethren; for Christian brotherhood consists with inequality of place and relation, and with subjection of one person to another: but they ought to serve such masters the more readily and cheerfully, because brethren beloved of God, and partakers of the benefit, namely, of redemption by Christ, and of the sanctifying grace of God.

Observe lastly, The grand argument which St. Paul uses to enforce the duty of obedience upon all servants, That the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed; that is, the men of the world will reproach religion, revile Christianity, and say that it teaches, or allows at least, that men be stubborn and disobedient.

Where note, That the poorest and meanest professor of Christianity may do much good or much hurt to religion: some might be ready to say “Alas, what credit or discredit can a poor servant do to religion? Much every way: he may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour, Tit 2:9 by his Christian behaviour; and the name of God, and his doctrine, may be blasphemed by him, if he be negligent in his duty.

None are so inconsiderable but they are capable of serving the great ends of religion, and may honour God in some measure; and are capable of being honoured by him upon earth, and with him in the highest heavens.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

There were millions of slaves in the Roman empire at the time Paul wrote this letter. Those converted to Christ were urged to be good servants giving proper respect to their masters. If they were offered their freedom, they should certainly take it and only be a slave to the Lord ( 1Co 7:21-24 ). If they remained in a man’s service, they should submit to their masters as to the Lord ( Col 3:22-24 ). Some might think of making their work look good on the surface while in reality doing a half-hearted job, but Christians serve the Lord in everything they do ( 1Ti 6:1 ; Eph 6:5-8 ).

It was possible for a Christian to be a master of slaves, as in the case of Philemon ( Phm 1:8-16 ). Further, he might have slaves who became Christians, as in the case of Onesimus. Such slaves might reason that we are all one in Christ and there is neither bond nor free ( Gal 3:28 ). In the spiritual sense, they would have been correct, but spiritual relations do not change physical relations entirely. Wives must still be subject to their own husbands and slaves must be subject to their masters. Now, as Paul went on to say, it should be a greater joy to work under someone and benefit them through your service because a fellow Christian, brother, receives the good from the work you perform ( 1Ti 6:2 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

1Ti 6:1-2. Because the law of Moses (Exo 21:2) did not allow Israelites to be made slaves for life, without their own consent, it seems the Judaizing teachers, with a view to allure slaves to their party, encouraged them in disobeying the commands, of their masters. This doctrine the apostle condemns here, as in his other epistles, (1Co 7:20-22; Col 3:22,) by enjoining Christian slaves to obey their masters, whether believers or unbelievers. Let servants Or slaves, rather; (see on Eph 6:5, and Col 3:22;) under the yoke Of heathen masters; count them worthy of all honour All the honour due from a servant to a master, and show it by their obedience and respectful behaviour. That the name of God God himself; and his doctrine The doctrine of the gospel; be not blasphemed That is, evil spoken of, as tending to destroy the political rights of mankind. And they that have believing masters Which for any to have is a great privilege; let them not despise them Pay them the less honour or obedience; because they are brethren In Christ, believers; and in that respect on a level with them. They that live in a religious community know the danger of this, and that greater grace is requisite to bear with the faults of a brother than of a man of the world, or even of an infidel. But rather do them service

Serve them so much the more diligently; because they are faithful Or believers, as may be rendered; and beloved Of God; partakers of the benefit The common salvation. Instead of encouraging slaves to disobedience, the gospel makes them more faithful and conscientious. And by sweetening the temper of masters, and inspiring them with benevolence, it renders the condition of slaves more tolerable than formerly. For, in proportion as masters imbibe the true spirit of the gospel, they will treat their slaves with humanity, and even give them their freedom, when their services merit such a favour. Macknight. These things teach and exhort Thus Paul the aged gives young Timothy a charge to dwell upon practical holiness. Less experienced teachers are apt to neglect the superstructure, while they lay the foundation. But of so great importance did St. Paul see it to enforce obedience to Christ, as well as to preach faith in his blood, that after urging the life of faith on professors, (1Ti 6:12,) he even adds another charge for the strict observance of it, 1Ti 6:13, &c.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

1 Timothy Chapter 6

The apostle then goes equally into detail with regard to servants, that is, slaves. They were to respect their masters, in order that the doctrine of the Lord should not be blasphemed. When the masters were believers, there was naturally more familiarity, for they were one in Christ, and thence the danger (for the flesh is crafty) that the servants might not treat their masters with the respect due to them. The apostle guards against this abuse of Christian love, and of the just intimacy and confidence which ought to exist between brethren; but which, on the contrary, was a motive for the servant to render all honour to his master, by treating him with more love and with the same respect.

It was necessary that the apostle should be firm. All other instruction-all refusal to receive the wholesome words of Christian doctrine, the words of Christ and the doctrine which is according to practical godliness-proceeded from the flesh, from human pride in those who wished to take advantage of godliness, and make it a means of gain. From such persons Timothy was to turn away. Godliness was indeed gain, if they were contented with what they had; and the Christian, who does not belong to this world, if he has food and raiment, ought to be content therewith. He brought nothing into this world, and will certainly carry nothing out of it. And the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil. Seduced by this covetousness, some had wandered away from Christian faith and had pierced their hearts with sorrow. The desire to be rich was the path of snares and temptation, of foolish and hurtful lusts. Timothy was to flee these things, as a man of God. This is always the thought here: he was in the world on the part of God; he represented Him for his part in the work. He was therefore to follow after other things than earthly riches-the character of a man of God-righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness: these were the things which, in man, presented God to the world and glorified Him.

Meanwhile there was conflict: he must fight the good fight of faith. If any one represents God in the world, there must be warfare, because the enemy is there. The energy of faith was also necessary, in order to lay hold of eternal life in the midst of the seduction and difficulties which the things that are seen presented. God, moreover, had called Timothy to this, and he had made a good confession before many witnesses.

Finally, the apostle charges him most solemnly in the presence of God, the Source of life for all things and of Christ Jesus who had Himself borne witness without wavering before the powers of this world, placing him under the responsibility of keeping the commandment without spot, unrebukable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It will be noticed here that, as Paul had not spoken in the epistle of the privileges of the assembly, but of its responsibility, so neither does he here speak of its being caught up but of its manifestation, when the fruits of faithfulness (or of failure in it) will be gathered, and every one be in his place in the visible glory according to his work. All are like Christ, all enter into His joy; but to sit at His right and left hand in His kingdom is the portion of those for whom it is prepared by His Father, who bestows it according to the work which He has granted each to perform, giving him power to accomplish it, although in grace He reckons it as our own.

Christ Himself is here viewed as the faithful man (ver. 13), whom God will manifest in glory before all creatures at the time ordained in His counsels.

All here is responsibility before the world, or glory as the result of that responsibility. The supreme, invisible God is maintained in His majesty; and He presents the Lord Jesus Christ in the creation as its centre, and repository of His glory – He who dwells in light inaccessible, whom, in His divine essence, man has not seen and cannot see.

This character of the epistle is very remarkable. Nowhere else is the inaccessible majesty of God, as God, thus presented. His character is often the subject of instruction and manifestation. Here He alone has essential immortality. He dwells in inaccessible light. He is ever invisible to the eyes of men. He alone has power. He has dominion over all who reign. It is God in the abstraction of His essence, in the proper immutability of His being, in the rights of His majesty, veiled to all men.

Now Christ will be the centre of the visible glory. Having part in the divine glory before the world was, He displays, in the human nature in which He took part, this glory, which is rendered visible in Him, causing His own to participate in His joy and in all that He has in this character; but here, He is manifested by God, and in order that all should acknowledge Him. [9] And it is our responsibility, faithfulness to which will be manifested in that day, which is here set before us. However small may be our share of responsibility, it is of such a God as this that we are the representatives on earth. Such is the God before whom we are to walk, and whose majesty we are to respect immediately in our conduct, and also in our relations to all that He has made.

The apostle concludes his exhortation to Timothy by engaging him to warn the rich not to rest on the uncertainty of riches, but on the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. It is still the supreme and Creator-God who is before our eyes. Moreover, they were to be rich in good works, and ready to give; to be rich in those dispositions which would be of value, which would lay up a store (this is but a figure) against the time to come; and to lay hold of that which really is life. The apostle repeats his urgent exhortation to Timothy to keep that which had been committed to him, to avoid profane and vain babblings, holding fast the sound and sanctifying truth, and to have nothing to do with oppositions of human science, which pretended to penetrate into divine things as though they were subject to its knowledge. This was the origin of the fall of many with regard to Christian faith.

I do not doubt that, in the manner in which the apostle here sets God before us, he refers to the foolish imaginations to which, under the influence of the enemy, men were abandoning themselves. Thus he speaks of these with relation to the majesty of His Being as the one only God in whom is all fullness, and with regard to the sobriety of practical morality, which keeps the heart under the influence of that truth, and apart from the false and vain speculations in which the pride of man indulged itself. He maintained souls by the majesty of the only God in the practical sobriety in which peace dwells.

Soon will the veil be drawn aside by the appearing of Jesus, whom the Almighty God will display to the world.

Footnotes for 1 Timothy Chapter 6

9: In Rev 19:1-21 He is King of kings and Lord of lords. Here He who is so manifests Him. So in Dan 7:1-28. The Son of man is brought to the Ancient of days, but in the same chapter the Ancient of days comes.

Fuente: John Darby’s Synopsis of the New Testament

1Ti 6:1-2. Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, by obeying their commands, for in civil society we are all servants, and have duties which must be discharged. If reverence be not paid to the orders of the master, christianity will be blasphemed. If a servant have a believing master, he is still a servant; and it will be a double shame for him to be punished for idleness or disobedience, or in anywise not doing his best for his master, as though he was working for himself. See on Eph 6:5-7.

1Ti 6:3-5. If any man teach otherwise, he will excite insurrections among the slaves, who frequently revolt against their masters. God is a God of order: proud and perverse teachers disturb that order; and while losing themselves in violent disputations, they forget that the true spirit of religion is meekness and forbearance.

1Ti 6:6-8. Godliness with contentment is great gain. True godliness consists in our being like God, bearing his image, having the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, and seeking in all things to do his will. This, combined with contentment, its natural attendant, will not only relieve the mind of all worldly ambition and inordinate anxieties, but produce a serenity, a peace that passeth all understanding, a gain far exceeding that of earthly riches. I lead in the way of righteousness, says heavenly wisdom, and in the midst of the paths of judgment, that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance, and I will fill their treasures. Pro 8:20-21. Why then encourage the love of money? What can riches do for us? Man wants but little, and short are the days of his pilgrimage. A contented mind with our providential lot is the greatest portion we can enjoy on earth.

1Ti 6:9. They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare. Such were St. Pauls ideas of the Grecian speculators, with their limited means of trade and commerce. What would he now think of British speculators, who have the world at their command? It may be said that they employ the poor, acquire wealth, and enrich the country. But after the villa, the carriage, and footmen are acquired, what becomes of faith, of conscience, of religion? These are in great danger. On the other hand, what becomes of thousands who by blind speculations ruin themselves and their friends? Then after defrauding the public by a bad failure, their countenance is depressed, their mansion enjoyed by another, and a moral anguish preys upon their vitals. So circumstanced, they often seek relief by a voluntary exile, and leave their character and their debts behind. How preferable to rise gradually, like a tree, to riches and honour, with an honest and contented mind.

The admonition however is not directed against riches, nor against the acquisition of wealth, but against such as will be rich at all events, regardless of the means, or not over scrupulous in what way they gain their wealth; men who can sacrifice every moral and honourable principle, be guilty of deceit, and overreaching their neighbour, for the sake of filthy lucre. Many such there are, who in their reckless pursuit of worldly gain, are content to barter away their own souls, and sink themselves into endless perdition and despair.

1Ti 6:10. The love of money is the root of all evil. Not the possession, but the love of money, is the sin here denounced. Persons may enjoy much of this world, and yet not set their hearts upon it, as was the case with Abraham, David, and many others. Those who possess no property may nevertheless covet it, and make it the chief object of pursuit. All temporal blessings have their use, and become sinful only when over-valued or misapplied. The fault lies in making them an end, or a leading object, rather than the means of good. If worldly riches be appropriated merely to our own benefit, to multiply our enjoyments, or to gratify the pride of life, rather than serving the Lord and promoting the interests of piety and benevolence, they become a great evil, and fearfully encrease the condemnation of the possessor.

So common, so prevalent is the love of money among all classes, and even among the professors of religion, that our Lord found occasion to admonish his followers to take heed and beware of covetousness; and the apostle, considering the extensive influence of this baneful principle, denounces it as the root of all evil, there being scarcely any sin to which men have not been prompted by the love of money. It has extinguished every principle of common honesty, and created the necessity for penal laws for the protection of person and property. Whence come wars and fightings, and the tragic history of ages and generations, but from the love of conquest and the possession of gain. What has extinguished the principles of humanity, of natural affection, and produced division in families, and separated chief friends? What has given rise to the horrid Slave trade, dealing in the persons and the souls of men? What has corrupted religion, to render it subservient to worldly policy, and transformed the primitive church into a scarlet-coloured beast with seven heads and ten horns? Did not Judas sell his Master for the love of money? Did not Demas forsake the truth, because he loved the present world? Shall not this root of all evil be cut down and utterly exterminated from the christian church, where it has too long flourished, too long been connived at, or passed over without censure, and without remorse, while far inferior evils, mere venal offences, have been excinded by the axe, and by the arm of ecclesiastical authority.

1Ti 6:11. But thou, oh man of God, servant of Jehovah Elohim, flee these things. Entangle not thyself with worldly acquisitions and pursuits, but learn of speculators, who follow mammon, to follow after righteousness, the true riches which the Lord rains down upon his people. Follow after godliness, which will ennoble the mind, and hallow it in all the work of the ministry. Follow after faith, a confidence in God thy Saviour, that he will be with thee, and prosper thy work. Follow after love, earnestly desiring the salvation of all men, and rejoicing in their prosperity. Follow after patience, for provocations will arise daily, and these must not divert thee from thy work. Follow after meekness; be not rash in censuring others, but labour to keep and guard the christian temper.

1Ti 6:13-14. I give thee charge in the sight of God. The high trust of the gospel is connected with a dread responsibility. Paul speaks in earnest about the gospel which he had preached at the risk of life, and for which the Saviour had died. Such also was the Lords charge to Ezekiel, that he should be a faithful watchman: chap. 3. Timothy must preserve the truth committed to him without spot of sin, or heresy in doctrine, or relaxation in discipline; the commandment left by the Saviour on his ascension, the commandment which no man can change till the Lord shall come in the clouds of heaven. This is the sacrament sealed with his blood, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

1Ti 6:15. The blessed and only Potentate. The doctrine of a supreme divinity was generally taught in the heathen mythology, though mixed up with the fable of inferior gods.

Jupiter omnipotens, Regum rex ipse Demque, Progenitor, genetrixque Dem, Deus unus et omnes. Valerius Solanus apud Varro. Almighty Jupiter, the king of kings, And gods, progenitor and genitrix, Father and mother of the other gods, One God, and all that is.

1Ti 6:16. Who only hath immortality, originally and essentially. Hence he is exclusively and with infinite propriety stiled the true and living God. The Father hath life in himself, said our Lord to the jews, and hath given to the Son to have life in himself, by an ineffable generation. Joh 5:26. Of the Son it is also said, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. Joh 1:4. He is that eternal Word of Life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us. 1Jn 1:1-2. Eternal life dwells essentially in Christ, in virtue of the hypostatic union of the divine and human nature. He is the Lord, the Prince of life, the fountain of all existence, and the giver of eternal life to all that believe in him. No creature is ever said to have life in himself, though life and immortality may be conferred as a free gift.

Dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto. The Gnostics believed that God was a darkness which beclouded all conception, an eternal darkness. In opposition to this, the apostle more joyously represents him as dwelling in light, beyond all conception and approach. He is not inaccessible, as were the kings of Assyria, but is openly revealed in his holy word, and may now be approached by the Mediator, though his essence is unsearchable, and cannot be approached.

1Ti 6:17. Charge them that are rich, that they be not high-minded. Many of the Greeks had been ennobled by the Macedonian kings, and some of them had embraced the gospel. Other christians in those cities of Asia were also rich and encreased with merchandize. The human heart had need to be prompted to humility and charity, by the example of Christ, and all the rewards of the world to come.

REFLECTIONS.

The charge of St. Paul to Timothy his son is sublime, impressive, and striking beyond any example in profane writings. The subject is of everlasting moment, embracing the salvation of Timothy, and of those that heard him. It is to observe the whole gospel commandment, comprising every doctrine, precept, and charge of Christ and his apostles. He charged him to keep it in this day of conflict, in which he was called to fight the good fight of faith, to keep this commandment and code of truth, as many would ultimately depart from the faith. He charged him before God, who quickeneth all things, and from whom alone Timothy must expect life and salvation. He charged him before Jesus Christ, who kept his Fathers commandments, and who witnessed a good confession of his regal sovereignty before Pontius Pilate, the grand point which would touch his life. In a word, he charged him to keep his commandment until the appearing of Christ. And all this was done in reference to Timothys sufferings from pagan princes or magistrates, as appears from Christs making manifest himself as the only Potentate, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. Rev 19:16.

Here the Lord Christ differs essentially from all other kings. They reign but a short time; but immortality, eternal power and godhead, are his prerogatives. They may be approached by their subjects seated on the throne of state; but the Lord is surrounded with glory to which no man can or ever did approach. Yea, Moses and Isaiah saw him but in the visions of his incarnate nature. Let us therefore keep his charge immaculate, that we may one day see him as he is.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

1Ti 6:1-2 a. Slaves.Christianity freed slaves by evolution rather than revolution. A grave social peril would have arisen in the first century had slaves misinterpreted their liberty in Christ (pp. 649f.). Timothy must guard against this (cf. Col 3:22, Eph 6:5, 1Pe 2:18). The Gospels honour demands loyalty even to heathen masters (Tit 2:9 f.). If those who would benefit by the slaves fuller service are fellow-believers, they should be served the more loyally.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

It may be noted that in this epistle the relationships of husband and wives, children and parents, are not mentioned, as are the questions of elders, widows, and now servants. For family ties are not at all the subject here, but godly order as to the assembly, therefore that which is more before the public eye. Bondslaves were, of course, in a position that God never intended for man, but introduced by men’s perverse wills. What was the Christian slave, therefore to do? Bitterness of rebellion against “the establishment” would accomplish no good end. Nor was he even to run away, as did Onesimus before his conversion, and was sent back after Paul brought him to the Lord (Phm 1:10-17). Some may feel this to be hard treatment, but we must learn to bow, not to sin, but to the governmental results that have plagued the world because of sin – even though we feel them unjust and objectionable.

The slave, therefore, was to count his master as worthy of all honor – no doubt not an easy thing for a slave to do; but this subject spirit was essential in order that the name of God and His doctrine should not be blamed for a rebellious attitude on his part; and others, therefore, heap dishonor 111)011 the One he professed to serve. If the master were a believer, the slave might be inclined to despise him for the fact that he actually promoted the principle of slavery; while he himself was a brother. But no, the slave was all the more responsible to do his master service because the master was “faithful and beloved, partaker of the benefit.” A true regard for another believer is always pressed upon us, for, let us remember, they too are “God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.” And to learn to serve well is one of the blessed glories of true Christianity. “These things teach and exhort”: they are of no small importance.

The spirit abroad today, so highly publicized and advocated, of self-expression, self-assertion, self-determination, resistance against authority, is hereby solemnly condemned, and those who teach it, Scripture does not hesitate to characterize with a dreadful denunciation. For this teaching is directly antagonistic to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus Christ – words, in fact, carried out in His own life of pure obedience and subjection to proper authority – words which are of true power in maintaining righteousness in the midst of abounding unrighteousness – doctrine consistent with godliness.

The man who teaches otherwise is “puffed up”: his own self-importance has inflated him: self-judgment he has not learned, as one who has seen himself as in the light of the cross of Christ, a sinner condemned and worthless. He is “sick about questions and strifes of words.” He has no spiritual health, for though he may love to argue about the logic and virtue of human rights, he is flatly ignoring the rights of God. This leads to envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings. It gives occasion only to the strong activity of the flesh, with its confusion and corruption – no rest, no peace, no quiet calmness as in the presence of God. Such doctrine would encourage a servant to envy his master, then to strive, then to rail against his master-or any authority then to surmise the worst things about him. How repulsive is this entire concept of self-willed men!

But they are adept at manipulating and wrangling, which, of course, is noisy quarreling, because their minds are corrupted: the truth is really foreign to them: they are empty, yet consider that material gain is godliness. Timothy is told to withdraw himself from such: they must not be given the satisfaction of his disputing with them, but must be left alone. It is, of course, the teachers of this kind of thing to whom Paul refers, not to those likely to be misled by them; for the sheep must, of course, be protected.

Verse 6 gives the precious positive side of this matter. If the two things are present, godliness and contentment, this is a great gain. Contentment alone could not be this, for it would then be that in which the flesh would glory; but godliness must come first, and be the root cause of contentment. Paul was himself a true example of this. Compare Php 4:11-13. If Christ is truly the Object of the soul, will this not produce a contented spirit? And it is a most pertinent reminder for us that in entering the world we had nothing, and in leaving it we shall take nothing. Why then grasp all that we can, as though it is this upon which we depend? How many are like the apostle Paul in this matter, honestly content with the simple necessities of life? This should be no small exercise to our souls, and specially in a civilization that today places great emphasis on material comforts and luxuries. How subtle a snare this becomes to any of us who may be attracted by it!

In verse 9 it is not the riches or the money that is condemned, but the will to be rich and the love of money. One who has nothing may still will to be rich, and if so is on dangerous ground. And it is possible for one who has riches to be preserved from setting his heart upon riches, and instead to be rich in good works, using his wealth for the Lord, to relieve the need of others compare verses 17 and 18). But the love of money is simply a sign of lusting after those

things which may be bought with money. When this is so, it is a great mercy for many a man that he does not get the money he wants, for it would only lead him into more sin. These are the very things that drown men in destruction and perdition. A believer certainly will have no such end, but he is yet seriously warned against any polluting of himself with those things that cause the ungodly to perish. Let us guard continually against the selfishness of our own hearts. The expression here is properly translated, “The love of money is a root of every evil,” that is, that it is a root that bears all manner of evil, not that it is the only root. Covetousness will lead one far astray from the faith, and some had already been so overcome, piercing themselves through with many sorrows. It will always defeat its own ends.

In verse 11 is the only occasion in the New Testament where one is called a “man of God.” Doubtless there were others also, but Scripture only sparingly uses the expression, which surely involves a character of faithfulness in the representation of God. This was true of Timothy, yet being of a timid nature, he doubtless needed the encouragement of being so addressed; and he is strongly exhorted to be true to character. “Flee these things” is an urgent admonition: the danger of them should drive the soul far from even contact with them. In this case the believer is not to “fight,” but to “flee”: it is a danger to be completely avoided.

But along with this is the positive character of faith: “Follow after righteousness.” Righteousness has been said to be “consistency with relationship”: and this involves serious exercise to maintain conduct in accord with any relationship in which one may be placed. Then, “godliness,” which evidences a habit of communion with God. “Faith” is the confidence that depends upon His faithfulness in every circumstance. “Love” is the very energy and warmth of the

nature of God, that which is shed abroad in the believer’s heart by the Holy Spirit, bringing a genuine concern for the good of others. How deeply “patience” is needed in connection with all of this: it can bear long in cheerful continuance and quietness, and must be over and over again impressed upon us. And “meekness” is an essential addition to this also, that character of lowly submission that insists not upon personal rights. How contrary are all these things to mere natural conceptions and practice! They cannot be followed without serious self-judgment and exercise of soul. May our God and Father give us more to know this in experience.

But if we are first to “flee,” then to “follow,” it is also necessary to “fight.” We are given no path of ease, and no room for indolence. Indifference is really shameful defeat. Faith will stand up to the battle. Not that this is mere fighting against people, least of all against the saints of God. But the fight must be against every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (2Co 10:4-5). Eph 6:1-24 shows this to be against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places (v. 12), that is, every kind of Satanic influence that would drive one off the ground of faith, down to an earthly level, a level of rationalism and present self-interest, a level of personal pride and earthly advantage. Let us fight resolutely against all such wretched tendencies in our own hearts and rather make a living faith the ruling principle of our lives. This is worth fighting for. It is the only way to “lay hold on eternal life.” For though every redeemed soul possesses this matchless gift of eternal life, yet to lay hold of it is another matter, a matter of making it a practical reality in daily life. Timothy had been called to this, as is every believer; but of him also it could be said that he had confessed a good confession before many witnesses: let him remain true to this honorable stand.

In verse 13 another charge, peculiarly solemn, is given to Timothy: it is “before God, who preserves all things in life,, (Darby Trans.), not only creating life, but continually sustaining it in all His creation. How needful a reminder to impress upon us the fact of our continual dependence, moment by moment, upon Himself, and that those to whom one bears witness are also as fully dependent upon the same life sustaining God. But also the charge is “before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession.” Here was God’s true Representative in the world, standing before the man who represents the world. How precious and clear His witness, though His words were few. He bore witness to the truth: His kingdom was not of this world; but He was a King indeed, God’s King, high above all that was merely temporal: He sought no prominence in this world, but the glory of His Father (Joh 18:33-37). This gives precious character to the commandment Timothy is told to keep “without spot, unrebukeable.” There is to be no lapse, no tarnishing of this testimony, so as to leave him open to rebuke; for it is in view of the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And He would, in duly appointed time, show in His own person, the glory of God, the blessed and only Potentate, King of kings and Lord of lords. To us who are saved, such glory manifested in the person of Christ is a blessed reality now; but the full display of it to all creation we may with patience and confidence await unashamed meanwhile to bear a true witness for Him, though it may be that even falsehood is in public authority now. It is He only, the Eternal, who has immortality: others who receive it do so only as a communication from Himself 1Co 15:53-54). Intrinsically it is His alone. He dwells in light unapproachable, not in darkness, but in light infinitely brighter than creature eyes can endure. Honor and power everlasting are His alone: the heart that gladly subscribes to this ascription to Him, will bear willingly a place in which he himself is given no honor or power.

If there are those among Christians who do possess some apparent measure of honor or power now, being rich in this world, Timothy is to charge them to guard against the natural pride that uses such things to exalt the flesh; and also against the evident danger of trusting in riches. Constant exercise must be maintained to trust in the Living God, He who gives richly all things to enjoy. If this trust is real, then it will reflect His own character of unselfish giving. Positive good was to be done with what they possessed: let them be rich in good works, not merely in possessions; ready on any occasion of need, to distribute, gladly willing to share what God has entrusted to them. This is true investment, a laying up in store a good foundation against the time to come: it is true wisdom in view of the future; and it is present true enjoyment of what is really life, a real grasp of true living.

With so serious and vital themes engaging him, the apostle cannot but be deeply affected to urge upon his beloved child in the faith the firmness of proving faithful in the trust of God’s Possessions. The entrusted deposit is the truth of God committed to us for the present age. As the treasures brought from Babylon were weighed both before and after the journey to Jerusalem (Ezr 8:24-34), nothing to be missing; so we must expect a close check of all with which we have been entrusted, and zealously keep in purity what actually belongs to God. Mere profane and empty babblings are to be avoided, for what we have is precious and real, and we must not waste time on unprofitable speculations and things that claim to be intellectual and appealing to human pride, yet are actually void of true spiritual good. Today the world is full of this kind of thing. Young men may be too easily deceived into thinking this to be a helpful addition to Christianity, while actually it will prove not only of no profit, but positively damaging to spiritual growth and blessing. So Timothy is warned, and we must not ourselves ignore such a warning: it is needed. Those who adopt such things have “missed the faith.” We must resist to the very end every determined effort of Satan to bring Christianity down to an earthly level, whether it be by means of the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, or the pride of life. If the epistle seems to end on a negative note, let us all the more take heed.

Yet, the last word is beautifully positive, “Grace be with thee.” In grace, the pure favor of God, is the power for meeting and rising above all the opposition that may ever present itself. And it is available for the personal joy, blessing and strength of the individual, not only, as in other epistles, for the collective company of the saints. Let us but identify ourselves with Timothy’s needs and exercises, and the value of this epistle we shall learn in vital experience.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 1

Under the yoke; the yoke of bondage.–Be not blasphemed; that is, that reproach be not brought upon the cause of Christ.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

6 Warnings against Pride of the Flesh and Instruction in Piety

(1 Timothy 6)

The apostle has warned us against religious flesh that apostatises from the truth and adopts asceticism (1 Timothy 4); and against worldly flesh, leading to wantonness and self-indulgence (1 Timothy 5); now, in the closing chapter, we are warned against the pride of the flesh that covets money and worldly advantage. To meet these evils the apostle again presses upon us practical piety (verses 3, 5, 6, 11).

In the course of his exhortation the apostle brings before us the Christian slave (verses 1, 2); the proud and ignorant professor of Christianity (verses 3-8); the backslider, enticed by the riches of the world (verses 9, 10); the man of God (verses 11, 12); Christ, the perfect Example (verses 13-16); the believer who is rich in this world (verses 17-19); and the professed scientist (verses 20, 21).

(a) Christian slaves (verses 1, 2)

(V. 1). The chapter fitly opens with instruction for the Christian slave. Such might attempt to use Christianity as a means of improving his social position. The institution of slavery may, indeed, be entirely contrary to the spirit of Christianity. Nevertheless, the great object of the house of God is not to set the world right, nor to advance the worldly interests of those who form the house, but to maintain the glory of the Name of God and to witness to, and support, the truth. The Christian slave, then, was to show all honour to his unbelieving master, that there might be nothing in his conduct that could justly cast a slur upon the Name of the One who dwells in the house, or that would deny the truth that the house of God is to maintain.

(V. 2). The apostle gives a special warning to the Christian slave with a believing master. The fact that his master was a brother in the Lord was not to be used to set aside the respect that was due from a servant to a master. Any lack in this proper respect would be an attempt on the part of the slave to use Christianity to raise his social position, thus seeking his own worldly advantage.

In the assembly the slave and the master were on common ground, equal before the Lord. There, indeed, the slave might by reason of his spirituality, or gift, be more prominent than his earthly master. Let believing slaves, however, beware lest they are tempted to abuse the privileges of the assembly by making them a ground for undue familiarity to their masters in the every-day affairs of life. So far from growing slack in their duties to masters who were believers, they were rather to render them service because they were faithful and beloved and partakers of Christian benefits.

(b)The ignorant professor, destitute of the truth (verses 3-8)

(V. 3). Clearly, then, Christianity is not a system for the advancement of our social position in this world. It is true that the believer, as he passes through this world, is to do good, and that the presence of the Christian and right Christian conduct must have a beneficial effect. Nevertheless, the great object of the house of God is not to improve the world, but to witness to the grace of God in order that men may be saved out of the world which, in spite of civilisation and any social improvements, is going on to judgment.

Apparently, in those early days there were those who taught otherwise. They viewed Christianity merely as a means for improving the social conditions of men and women, thus making this world a better and a brighter place. Probably they were teaching that the converted slave, having come under the Lordship of Christ, could consider himself free from his earthly master. Such views, however, were contrary to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching which is according to piety.

Thus, again, the apostle brings in piety as the safeguard against the abuse of our Christian privileges. Piety walks in the fear of God, trusting in the living God, who is the Preserver of all men. Thus walking we should be preserved from seeking to use Christianity simply as a means of improving our worldly position.

(Vv. 4, 5). Having shown that piety is the safeguard against the abuse of Christianity, the apostle states that the one who teaches otherwise is moved by the pride of the flesh. Pride that trusts in self, and seeks to maintain one’s self-importance, is utterly opposed to piety that trusts in God and seeks His glory.

Behind this pride there is ignorance of the mind of the Lord as conveyed in His words. This ignorance of the Lord’s mind arises from allowing the human mind to be occupied with the endless questions raised by men and strifes about words. Wholly indifferent to the moral power of the Christian faith working in the soul and leading to the life of piety, men treat Christianity as if it were a matter of questions and disputes of words.

Such disputes of words, instead of strengthening piety, only give occasion for the manifestation of the works of the flesh. The pride that seeks to exalt self by these endless questions must inevitably lead to envy, for the proud man can brook no rival. Naturally the flesh will strive against the one of whom it is envious. Thus envy leads to strife, and striving against another will lead to injurious words about him. The knowledge that injurious words are being uttered will raise evil suspicions and constant quarrellings. Such is the evil crop that arises from envy. There is no greater power for evil among the saints of God than the allowance of envy in the heart. Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but, says the preacher, who is able to stand before envy? It was envy that led to the first murder in this world; and it was envy that led to the greatest murder in this world. Pilate knew that for envy they had delivered Him (Mat 27:18).

Alas! this envy may show itself among the true people of the Lord. Here the apostle traces it back to the pride of a heart that is corrupt and destitute of the truth of Christianity. The underlying motive with such is earthly gain; hence they hold that gain is the end of piety. In other words, they teach that Christianity is merely a means of improving our condition and adding to our worldly advantage. This we know, from the history of Job, is really a suggestion of the devil. Job was a pious man and one that feared God, but, says Satan, Doth Job fear God for nought? Satan’s vile suggestion is that no such thing as godliness exists, and that if a man makes a profession of piety, it is not that he fears God, or cares for God, but simply that he knows it pays and is to his worldly advantage. Satan says to God, Put forth Thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face. The Lord allows this horrible lie of the devil to be thoroughly exposed. Satan is allowed to strip Job of all that he has, and, in result, Satan is exposed as a liar. Instead of cursing God, Job fell down before the LORD and worshipped, saying, The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the LORD (Job 1:8-12; Job 1:20; Job 1:21).

(Vv. 6-8). Thus the truth, as well as the experience of the people of God, proves not only that piety is gain but, when accompanied with contentment that trusts God, it is great gain. We brought nothing into the world, and whatever possessions we may acquire as we pass through the world, it is evident that we can carry nothing out. Having food and covering – and the slave had these things – let us therewith be content.

(c) The backslider enticed by the riches of the world (verses 9, 10)

In contrast with godly contentment there is the restlessness of those who desire to be rich. Wealth has its snares as the apostle shows a little later, but it is not necessarily the possession of wealth that ruins the soul, but the desire to be rich (N.T.). It has been pointed out that this word desire includes the idea of purpose. The danger is that the believer, instead of being content to earn his living, may set himself with purpose of heart to be rich. Thus riches become an object instead of the Lord. Better for us to cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart (Act 11:23).

The apostle warns us against the evils that result from the desire to gain riches. All are tempted, but the one that desires to be rich will fall into the temptation and find himself caught in some hidden snare of the enemy. Moreover, the desire to be rich opens the way to foolish and hurtful lusts, for it panders to the vanity and pride of the flesh, ministering to selfishness and ambition. These are the things that plunge men into destruction and ruin. Thus it is not simply money, but the love of money that is the root of every evil. How solemn that it is possible for the believer to be drawn into the very things that bring destruction and ruin upon the men of the world. Even in the days of the apostle some had coveted after riches, only to wander from the faith and pierce themselves through with many sorrows.

(d) The man of God (verses 11, 12)

(V. 11). In contrast with the backslider that wanders from the faith, the apostle sets before us the characteristics of the man of God. In the New Testament the expression man of God only occurs in the Epistles to Timothy. Here it is definitely applied to Timothy; in the Second Epistle it is applied to all who, in an evil day, walk in faithful obedience to the word of God (2Ti 3:17). There are things from which the man of God has to flee; things that he is exhorted to follow; things for which he is called to fight; there is something to lay hold of; and something to be confessed.

The man of God will flee from the foolish and hurtful lusts of which the apostle has been speaking. It is not enough, however, to avoid evil; there must be the pursuit of good. Therefore the man of God is to follow after righteousness, piety, faith, love, endurance, meekness of spirit (N.T.). However others may act, the man of God will seek to walk in consistency with his relationships to others as brethren; this is righteousness. But this righteousness to others is taken up in the holy fear that realises our relationships to God, and what is due to God; this is piety. Further, the man of God will pursue faith that has Christ for its Object, and love that goes out to his brethren, bearing evil and insults with quiet endurance and meekness, instead of impatience and resentment.

(V. 12). Further, the man of God will not be content with fleeing from evil and following certain great moral qualities. These things are, indeed, of the first importance, but the man of God is not content with the formation of a beautiful character individually, while indifferent to the maintenance of the truth of Christianity. He realises that the great truths of Christianity will meet with unceasing and deadly opposition of the devil and he will not shrink from the conflict for the faith.

Moreover, in contending for the faith, the man of God will not forget the eternal life which, though he possesses, in all its fulness, lies before him. He is to lay hold of it in present enjoyment as his sustaining hope.

Lastly, if the man of God flees from evil, follows good, fights for the faith and lays hold of eternal life, he will be one who in his life makes a good confession before others. He becomes a living witness to the truths that he professes.

(e) The perfect Example (verses 13-16)

To encourage us to keep this charge, the apostle reminds us that we live in the sight of One who preserves all things in life (N.T.). Can He not then preserve His own, however severe the conflict they may have to pass through? Moreover, if we are called to faithfulness, let us not forget we are under the eye of One who has been before us in the conflict, and who, in the presence of the contradiction of sinners, of envy and insult, acted in absolute faithfulness to God, maintaining the truth in patience and meekness, and thus witnessed a good confession.

Moreover, faithfulness will have its reward. The commandment is, therefore, to be kept spotless and irreproachable, until the appearing of Jesus Christ. The glory of His appearing will bring with it an answer to any little faithfulness on our part, as, indeed, it will be the glorious answer to the perfect faithfulness of Christ. Then, indeed, when the One men reviled, insulted and crucified is displayed in glory, there will be not only a full answer to all His faithfulness, but a full display of all that God is. It will be manifest to all the world what is already revealed to faith, that, in the Person of Christ, God is revealed as the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, the One who, in the majesty of His Deity, alone has essential immortality, and who dwells in inaccessible light.

Those who form the house of God may fail to witness for God; the man of God may only display God in measure, but in Christ there will be the full display of God for His everlasting glory.

(f) The rich in this world (verses 17-19)

The apostle has a special exhortation for believers who are rich in this world. Such are beset by two dangers. Firstly, there is the tendency of riches to lead the possessors to assume an air of highmindedness, thinking themselves to be superior to others because of their riches. Secondly, there is the natural tendency to trust in the riches that at best are uncertain.

The safeguard against these snares is found in trusting in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. However rich a man may be, he cannot buy the things that God gives. However poor, he can receive and enjoy what God gives.

Trusting in the living God, who is the Giver of all good, will enable the rich man also to become a giver. But God loves a cheerful giver; hence the rich man is exhorted to be ready to distribute and willing to communicate. Thus acting he will be laying by a good store in view of future blessing, instead of laying up riches for this present age. The man who lays up for the time to come will lay hold of that which is really life, in contrast with the life of pleasure and self-indulgence that earthly riches might secure.

(g) The professed scientist (verses 20, 21)

Finally, we are warned to keep the entrusted deposit. The whole truth of Christianity has been given to the saints as a trust to be held in the face of every opposition. Here we are specially warned against the opposition of the theories of men, which prove to be utterly false by subjecting God, His creation and His revelation to the mind of man, instead of being subject to God and His world. Presumptuously occupied with their infidel theories they have missed the faith.

Fuente: Smith’s Writings on 24 Books of the Bible

CHAPTER 26

SERVICE WITH A SMILE

Our text mentions some that were under a yoke. The yoke has been a common tool for controlling work animals for many centuries.

Encyclopedia Britannica (CDROM version) mentions: “wooden bar or frame used to join draft animals at the heads or necks so that they pull together.

“Control of a team of yoked beasts was difficult. Furthermore, ancient yokes pressed against a hard-pulling animal’s windpipe, choking it. The invention of the horse collar solved this problem and led to the replacement of oxen by horses. In some areas of the world, however, oxen still are yoked together much as they were in medieval Europe.”

Frontier School of the Bible for many years used the yoke as a symbol for the school. Not only did it depict the setting of the school, in ranch country, but it also symbolized the thought of being in a yoke with God in living our Christian lives.

We will be looking at BEING A WORKING SERVANT in verse one and BEING A LOVING SERVANT in verse two.

Lev 26:13 pictures what we see in our text. “I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.” The Israelites were in servatude for many years – now god had freed them.

I. BE A WORKING SERVANT

1Ti 6:1. Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and [his] doctrine be not blasphemed.

The first point to be made is that this passage is not to be used to validate slavery, nor is it to be used to validate abolition of slavery. The verse is simply teaching how to act if you are a slave. It assumes that some are slaves – since Paul knew there were slaves in the society around him, he desires to give them teaching on how they should behave as Christians.

The Roman empire sported more than sixty million slaves, so if anyone reading Paul’s letter had thought he was attempting to abolish slavery they are very mistaken – if Paul wanted to preach slavery was wrong he would have died much sooner than he did. The Roman empire would not have stood for that sort of language very long. Furthermore God was not leading Paul in making a statement for or against slavery – only for servants living honorably.

Some suggest that close to half the Roman Empire were slaves of one sort or another. Many were removed from their countries to Rome and other centers of control to serve the empire. Others were just enslaved within their own country.

Stedman points out an important fact: “But the truth is that, though Scripture does not denounce slavery, neither does it approve of it. There is no defense of slavery in Scripture; there is no attempt made to perpetuate it in any degree. In fact, although there were sixty million slaves in the Roman Empire at the time this letter was written, by the end of the second century slavery had widely disappeared, largely because of the impact of Christian teaching and influence of Christians throughout the Empire.”

He goes on to say “The process was never to be one of armed revolt, even of strikes or boycotts or riots. Rather, it was by obedience to words such as these in Paul’s letter to Timothy, where it was laid upon both Christian slaves and Christian masters to look at each other in a different way and to treat each other with honor and respect even though the institution of slavery continued. Slaves were to look to God to change the practice.” I might add, as did the Israelites

There are a couple of very prominent Old Testament accounts that show again that God wants us to live within the status that we find ourselves in. Joseph was sold into slavery, and served well all those years.

Daniel and thousands of others were taken into captivity by the Babylonians. Daniel also served his captures well and was rewarded for his good service.

The obvious application would be to the employees of our day – those that feel that they are treated as slaves – which is probably most of us! JOKE! We as employees are destined to have opportunity to treat our employers correctly or incorrectly – this is one of the passages that can give us guidance.

GIVE YOUR EMPLOYER ALL HONOR. Now, that doesn’t mean only when you are one on one with them in their office, IT IS WHEN YOU ARE HAVING COFFEE AND EVERYONE IN THE BREAK ROOM IS DISHING HIM DIRT – give them honor ALL the time.

Why? The verse is very clear – so that God’s teaching or doctrine is not blasphemed.

This word translated “honor” is the same term we studied in chapter five where we are told to honor the elder that ruleth well. US POOR SLAVES HAVE TO HONOR EVERYONE AND NOBODY GIVES A HOOT ABOUT US!!!!!! LARGE SMILEY FACE IMPLIED! God asks that we honor! This we should do.

In the area of how to honor, you might give due consideration to how you speak to them, how you react to them, how you talk behind their back about them, and how well you perform in the work place for them.

Just what Paul had in mind when he mentioned the doctrine of God being blasphemed would be of great interest to me. I have to think it related to the possibility of witnessing to the master. If we are slothful workers, or if we have an attitude toward them, I am sure that they will feel our incorrect feelings and relate it directly to how they feel toward our belief system. If they see that you are a goof off, they will wonder what moral/ethical teaching there can be within your belief system.

Sad to say, this is a passage that needs to be adopted by many believers. Many I see today are just like the lost when it comes to work ethic and attitude.

We might consider the reverse of blaspheme. If we are to work so that the name of God and His doctrine is not blasphemed, then we should be working so that they are being glorified!

WOW! When you go to work, you go in such a manner that you are attempting to glorify God! No, it isn’t easy, but that should be our attitude!

This attitude basically goes back to love thy neighbor – put them before yourself. In the rights movements of the 70’s there was total concentration on the individual and what they wanted – at all cost – at anyone else’s cost.

One might want to relate this passage to the union movement in our country as well. I will allow you to work through that one on your own. Concentrate on how you can honor someone when you are demanding that they give of their material gain for your benefit. You might add a side light of allegiance – who are you following when called on to strike – the union or Christ. How do you honor the employer if you are acting against his desire and betterment?

Let’s add just a little emphasis to what we have said. One of the usages Thayer puts to this Greek word translated slave is “devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests.” Now, put a little personal application to that as you go to work tomorrow!

Another little emphasis: The term translated master is the word that our English word despot comes from. A despot is a tyrant – a dictator. GIVE HONOR EVEN IF THEY ARE A TOTALLY LOUSY BOSS might well be the thought of the text!

Give the honor due them, so that God’s NAME AND DOCTRINE will not be spoken of in a demeaning manner.

If you would like to read a clear view of how God feels about His good name, read Ezek. 20 and notice how many times He speaks of His name and His not wanting it to be polluted.

II. BE A LOVING SERVANT

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

6:1 Let {1} as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, {2} that the name of God and [his] doctrine be not blasphemed.

(1) He adds also rules for the servant’s duty towards their masters: upon which matter there were no doubt many questions asked by those who took occasion by the Gospel to trouble the normal manner of life. And this is the first rule: let servants that have come to the faith and have the unfaithful for their masters, serve them nonetheless with great faithfulness.

(2) The reason: lest God should seem by the doctrine of the Gospel to stir up men to rebellion and all wickedness.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

V. INSTRUCTIONS FOR GROUPS WITHIN THE CHURCH 6:1-19

In the last major section of this letter Paul called on Timothy to instruct the members of various groups within the church concerning their Christian duty.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

A. Slaves 6:1-2

As he had done previously (e.g., 1Ti 5:1-2) Paul urged the adoption of proper attitudes toward others that would normally make it easier to produce proper actions. Christian slaves were to "regard" their masters as worthy of all "honor" (cf. 1Ti 1:17; 1Ti 5:3; 1Ti 5:17; 1Ti 6:16) if for no other reason than that God had placed them in a position of authority over them. Such an attitude would lead to service that would not bring dishonor on the God the slave professed to serve or the faith he professed to follow (cf. Isa 52:5).

Christian slaves who had believing masters had a second reason to give their masters honor and faithful service. They were their brethren. As such they deserved even greater consideration than unbelieving masters. Disrespectful behavior was inappropriate in such a case, as was shoddy service, since the person who benefited from the ministry of the slave was a brother in Christ (NIV, NASB, NRSV). Another view sees "those who partake of the benefit" as the Christian slaves who, because of their respectful service, reaped benefits from their unbelieving masters (TNIV). I prefer the first view.

"A first-century slave’s hope for manumission was more than a dream, and the realistic possibility of obtaining freedom served to motivate the slave to excel in service." [Note: Ibid., p. 379.]

Timothy was to communicate this instruction to the church. Perhaps Paul wrote no instructions for Christian masters of slaves because there were none in the Ephesian church or because they were behaving properly. Perhaps Paul wrote Timothy (and Titus [1Ti 2:9-10]) about the conduct of slaves but not masters because many slaves had become Christians and most of them undoubtedly had non-Christian masters. [Note: Knight, The Pastoral . . ., p. 243.] Elsewhere in the New Testament other instructions for slaves and masters appear (1Co 7:20-24; Gal 3:28; Eph 6:5-9; Col 3:22-25; Phile.; 1Pe 2:13-25). Paul probably did not discuss other family relationships (e.g., husband, wife, children, masters) because he was addressing a specific Ephesian situation and not teaching on family relationships in general. [Note: Mounce, p. 325.] What Paul said to slaves here is applicable to employees today.

"How could a Christian leader such as Paul tolerate the existence of oppressive, dehumanizing slavery without denouncing it? To answer this question, we must note that the time was not propitious for a Christian to secure freedom for slaves by denouncing slavery. Paul’s modification of the servant-master relationship in Eph 6:5-9 destroyed the very essence of slavery. Also the New Testament consistently calls Christians to a role as servants (Mar 10:43-45)." [Note: Lea, p. 163.]

"While not condoning slavery or calling for its dissolution, Paul makes it clear that the deeper and more significant relationship is that between two believers rather than how society defines their relationship on the surface." [Note: Mounce, p. 330.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 16

THE NATURE OF ROMAN SLAVERY AND THE APOSTLES ATTITUDE TOWARDS IT-A MODERN PARALLEL. – 1Ti 6:1-2

THERE are four passages in which St. Paul deals directly with the relations between slaves and their masters:-in the Epistles to the Ephesians, {Eph 6:5-9} to the Col 3:22-25; Col 4:1, to Philemon, {Phm 1:8-21} and the passage before us. Here he looks at the question from the slaves point of view; in the letter to Philemon from that of the master: in the Epistle to the Colossians and to the Ephesians he addresses both. In all four places his attitude towards this monster abomination is one and the same; and it is a very remarkable one. He nowhere denounces slavery. He does not state that such an intolerable iniquity as man possessing his fellow-man must be done away as speedily as may be. He gives no encouragement to slaves to rebel or to run away. He gives no hint to masters that they ought to let their slaves go free. Nothing of the kind. He not only accepts slavery as a fact; he seems to treat it as a necessary fact, a fact likely to be as permanent as marriage and parentage, poverty and wealth.

This attitude becomes all the more marvelous, when we remember, not only what slavery necessarily is wherever it exists, but what slavery was both by custom and by law among the great slave-owners throughout the Roman Empire. Slavery is at all times degrading to both the parties in that unnatural relationship, however excellent may be the regulations by which it is protected, and however noble may be the characters of both master and slave. It is impossible for one human being to be absolute owner of anothers person without both possessor and possessed being morally the worse for it. Violations of natures laws are never perpetrated with impunity; and when the laws violated are those which are concerned, not with unconscious forces and atoms, but with human souls and characters, the penalties of the violation are none the less sure or severe. But these evils, which are the inevitable consequences of the existence of slavery in any shape whatever, may be increased a hundredfold, if the slavery exists under no regulations, or under bad regulations, or again where both master and slave are, to start with, base and brutalized in character. And all this was the case in the early days of the Roman Empire. Slavery was to a great extent under no check at all, and the laws which did exist for regulating the relationship between owner and slave were for the most part of a character to intensify the evil; while the conditions under which both master and slave were educated were such as to render each of them ready to increase the moral degradation of the other. We are accustomed to regard with well-merited abhorrence and abomination the horrors of modern slavery as practiced until recently in America, and as still practiced in Egypt, Persia, Turkey, and Arabia. But it may be doubted whether all the horrors of modern slavery are to be compared with the horrors of the slavery of ancient Rome.

From a political point of view it may be admitted that the institution of slavery has in past ages played a useful part in the history of mankind. It has mitigated the cruelties of barbaric warfare. It was more merciful to enslave a prisoner than to sacrifice him to the gods, or to torture him to death, or to eat him. And the enslaved prisoner and the warrior who had captured him, at once became mutually useful to one another. The warrior protected his slave from attack, and the slave by his labor left the warrior free to protect him. Thus each did something for the benefit of the other and of the society in which they lived.

But when we look at the institution from a moral point of view, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that its effects have been wholly evil.

(1) It has been fatal to one of the most wholesome of human beliefs, the belief in the dignity of labor. Labor was irksome, and therefore assigned to the slave, and consequently came to be regarded as degrading. Thus the freeman lost the ennobling discipline of toil; and to the slave toil was not ennobling, because every one treated it as a degradation.

(2) It has been disastrous to the personal character of the master. The possession of absolute power is always dangerous to our nature. Greek writers are never tired of insisting upon this in connection with the rule of despots over citizens. Strangely enough they did not see that the principle remained the same whether the autocrat was ruler of a state or of a household. In either case he almost inevitably became a tyrant, incapable of self-control, and the constant victim of flattery. And in some ways the domestic tyrant was the worse of the two. There was no public opinion to keep him in check, and his tyranny could exercise itself in every detail of daily life.

(3) It has been disastrous to the personal character of the slave. Accustomed to be looked upon as an inferior and scarcely human being, always at the beck and call of another, and that for the most menial services, the slave lost all self-respect. His natural weapon was deceit; and his chief, if not his only, pleasure was the gratification of his lowest appetites. The household slave not infrequently divided his time between pandering to his masters passions and gratifying his own.

(4) It has been ruinous to family life. If it did not trouble the relation between husband and wife, it poisoned the atmosphere in which they lived and in which their children were reared. The younger generation inevitably suffered. Even if they did not learn cruelty from their parents, and deceit and sensuality from the slaves, they lost delicacy of feeling by seeing human things treated like brute beasts, and by being constantly in the society of those whom they were taught to despise. Even Plato, in recommending that slaves should be treated justly and with a view to their moral improvement, says that they must always be punished for their faults, and not reproved like freemen, which only makes them conceited; and one should use no language to them but that of command.

These evils, which are inherent in the very nature of slavery, were intensified a hundredfold by Roman legislation, and by the condition of Roman society in the first century of the Christian era. Slavery, which began by being a mitigation of the barbarities of warfare, ended in becoming an augmentation of them. Although a single campaign would sometimes bring in many thousands of captives who were sold into slavery, yet war did not procure slaves fast enough for the demand, and was supplemented by systematic man-hunts. It has been estimated that in the Roman world of St. Pauls day the proportion of slaves to freemen was in the ratio of two, or even three, to one. It was the immense number of the slaves which led to some of the cruel customs and laws respecting them. In the country they often worked, and sometimes slept, in chains. Even in Rome under Augustus the house-porter was sometimes chained. And by a decree of the Senate, if the master was murdered by a slave, all the slaves of the household were put to death. The four hundred slaves of Pedanius Secundus were executed under this enactment in A.D. 61, in which year St. Paul was probably in Rome. Public protest was made; but the Senate decided that the law must take its course. The rabble of slaves could only be kept in check by fear. Again, if the master was accused of a crime, he could surrender his slaves to be tortured in order to prove his innocence.

But it would be a vile task to rehearse all the horrors and abominations to which the cruelty and lust of wealthy Roman men and women subjected their slaves. The bloody sports of the gladiatorial shows and the indecent products of the Roman stage were partly the effect and partly the cause of the frightful character of Roman slavery. The gladiators and the actors were slaves especially trained for these debasing exhibitions; and Roman nobles and Roman ladies, brutalized and polluted by witnessing them, went home to give vent among the slaves of their own households to the passions which the circus and the theatre had roused. And this was the system which St. Paul left unattacked and undenounced. He never in so many words expresses any authoritative condemnation or personal abhorrence of it. This is all the more remarkable when we remember St. Pauls enthusiastic and sympathetic temperament; and the fact is one more proof of the divine inspiration of Scripture.

That slavery, as he saw it, must often have excited the most intense indignation and distress in his heart we cannot doubt; and yet he was guided not to give his sanction to remedies which would certainly have been violent and possibly ineffectual. To have preached that the Christian master must let his slaves go free, would have been to preach that slaves had a right to freedom; and the slave would understand that to mean that, if freedom was not granted, he might take this right of his by force. Of all wars, a servile war is perhaps the most frightful; and we may be thankful that none of those who first preached the Gospel gave their sanction to any such movement. The sudden abolition of slavery in the first century would have meant the shipwreck of society. Neither master nor slave was fit for any such change. A long course of education was needed before so radical a reform could be successfully accomplished. It has been pointed out as one of the chief marks of the Divine character of the Gospel, that it never appeals to the spirit of political revolution. It does not denounce abuses; but it insists upon principles which will necessarily lead to their abolition.

This was precisely what St. Paul did in dealing with the gigantic cancer which was draining the forces, economical, political, and moral, of Roman society. He did not tell the slave that he was oppressed and outraged. He did not tell the master that to buy and sell human beings was a violation of the rights of man. But he inspired both of them with sentiments which rendered the permanence of the unrighteous relation between them impossible. To many a Roman it would have seemed nothing less than robbery and revolution to tell him “You have no right to own these persons; you must free your slaves.” St. Paul, without attacking the rights of property or existing laws and customs, spoke a far higher word, and one which sooner or later must carry freedom with it, when he said, “You must love your slaves.” All the moral abominations which had clustered round slavery, -idleness, deceit, cruelty, and lust, -he denounced unsparingly; but for their own sake, not because of their connection with this iniquitous institution. The social arrangements which allowed and encouraged slavery he did not denounce. He left it to the principles which he preached gradually to reform them. Slavery cannot continue when the brotherhood of all mankind, and the equality of all men in Christ, have been realized. And long before slavery is abolished it is made more humane, wherever Christian principles are brought to bear upon it. Even before Christianity in the person of Constantine ascended the imperial throne, it had influenced public opinion in the right direction. Seneca and Plutarch are much more humane in their views of slavery than earlier writers are; and under the Antonines the power of life and death over slaves was transferred from their masters to the magistrates. Constantine went much further, and Justinian further still, in ameliorating the condition of slaves and encouraging emancipation. Thus slowly but surely, this monstrous evil is being eradicated from society; and it is one of the many beauties of the Gospel in comparison with Islam, that whereas Mahometanism has consecrated slavery, and given it a permanent religious sanction, Christianity has steadfastly abolished it. It is among the chief glories of the present century that it has seen the abolition of slavery in the British empire, the emancipation of the serfs in Russia, and the emancipation of the Negroes in the United States. And we may safely assert that these tardy removals of a great social evil would never have been accomplished but for the principles which St. Paul preached, at the very time that he was allowing Christian masters to retain their slaves, and bidding Christian slaves to honor and obey their heathen masters.

The Apostles injunctions to slaves who have Christian masters is worthy of special attention: it indicates one of the evils which would certainly have become serious, had the Apostles set to work to preach emancipation. The slaves being in almost all cases quite unfitted for a life of freedom, wholesale emancipation would have flooded society with crowds of persons quite unable to make a decent use of their newly acquired liberty. The sudden change in their condition would have been too great for their self-control. Indeed we gather from what St. Paul says here, that the acceptance of the principles of Christianity in some cases threw them off their balance. He charges Christian slaves who have Christian masters not to despise them. Evidently this was a temptation which he foresaw, even if it was not a fault which he had sometimes observed. To be told that he and his master were brethren, and to find that his master accepted this view of their relationship, was more than the poor slave in some instances could bear. He had been educated to believe that he was an inferior order of being, having scarcely anything in common, excepting a human form and passions, with his master. And, whether he accepted this belief or not, he had found himself systematically treated as it were indisputable. When, therefore, he was assured, as one of the first principles of his new faith, that he was not only human like his master, but in Gods family was his masters equal and brother; above all, when he had a Christian master who not only shared this new faith, but acted upon it and treated him as a brother, then his head was in danger of being turned. The rebound from groveling fear to terms of equality and affection was too much for him; and the old attitude of cringing terror was exchanged not for respectful loyalty, but for contempt. He began to despise the master who had ceased to make himself terrible. All this shows how dangerous sudden changes of social relationships are; and how warily we need to go to work in order to bring about a reform of those which most plainly need readjustment; and it adds greatly to our admiration of the wisdom of the Apostle and our gratitude to Him who inspired him with such wisdom, to see that in dealing with this difficult problem he does not allow his sympathies to outrun his judgment, and does not attempt to cure a longstanding evil, which had entwined its roots round the very foundations of society, by any rapid or violent process. All men are by natural right free. Granted. All men are by creation children of God, and by redemption brethren in Christ. Granted. But it is worse than useless to give: freedom suddenly to those who from their birth have been deprived of it, and do not yet know what use to make of it; and to give the position of children and brethren all at once to outcasts who cannot understand what such privileges mean.

St. Paul tells the slave that freedom is a thing: to be desired; but still more that it is a thing to be deserved. “While you are still under the yoke prove yourselves worthy of it and capable of bearing it. In becoming Christians you have become Christs freemen. Show that you can enjoy that liberty without abusing it. If it leads you to treat a heathen master with disdain, because he has it not, then you give him an opportunity of blaspheming God and your holy religion; for he can say, What a vile creed this must be, which makes servants haughty and disrespectful! If it leads you to treat a Christian master with contemptuous familiarity, because he recognizes you as a brother whom he must love, then you are turning upside down the obligation which a common faith imposes on you. That he is a fellow Christian is a reason why you, should treat him with more reverence, not less.”

This is ever the burden of his exhortation to slaves. He bids Timothy to insist upon it. He tells Titus to do the same. {Tit 2:9-10} Slaves were in special danger of misunderstanding what the liberty of the Gospel meant. It is not for a moment to be supposed that it cancels any existing obligations of a slave to his master. No hint is to be given them that they have a right to demand emancipation, or would be justified in running away. Let them learn to behave as the Lords freemen. Let their masters learn to behave as the Lords bond-servants. When these principles have worked themselves out, slavery will have ceased to be.

That day has not yet come, but the progress already made, especially during the present century, leads us to hope that it may be near. But the extinction of slavery will not deprive St. Pauls treatment of it of its practical interest and value. His inspired wisdom in dealing with this problem ought to be our guide in dealing with the scarcely less momentous problems which confront us at the present day. We have social difficulties to deal with, whose magnitude and character make them not unlike that of slavery in the first ages of Christianity. There are the relations between capital and labor, the prodigious inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the degradation which is involved in the crowding of population in the great centers of industry. In attempting to remedy such things, let us, while we catch enthusiasm from St. Pauls sympathetic zeal, not forget his patience and discretion. Monstrous evils are not, like giants in the old romances, to be slain at a blow. They are deeply rooted; and if we attempt to tear them up, we may pull up the foundations of society along with them. We must be content to work slowly and without violence. We have no right to preach revolution and plunder to those who are suffering from undeserved poverty, any more than St. Paul had to preach revolt to the slaves. Drastic remedies of that kind will cause much enmity, and perhaps bloodshed, in the carrying out, and will work no permanent cure in the end. It is incredible that the well-being of mankind can be promoted by stirring up ill-will and hatred between a suffering class and those who seem to have it in their power to relieve them. Charity, we know, never faileth; but neither Scripture nor experience has taught us that violence is a sure road to success. We need more faith in the principles of Christianity and in their power to promote happiness as well as godliness. What is required is not a sudden redistribution of wealth, or laws to prevent its accumulation, but a proper appreciation of its value. Rich and poor alike have yet to learn what is really worth having in this world. It is not wealth, but happiness. And happiness is to be found neither in gaining, nor in possessing, nor in spending money, but in being useful. To serve others, to spend and be spent for them, -that is the ideal to place before mankind; and just in proportion as it is reached, will the frightful inequalities between class and class, between man and man, cease to be. It is a lesson that takes much teaching and much learning. Meanwhile it seems a terrible thing to leave whole generations suffering from destitution, just as it was a terrible thing to leave whole generations groaning in slavery. But a general manumission would not have helped matters then; and a general distribution to the indigent would not help matters now. The remedy adopted then was a slow one, but it has been efficacious. The master was not told to emancipate his slave, and the slave was not told to run away from his master; but each was charged to behave to the other, the master in commanding and the slave in obeying, as Christian to Christian in the sight of God. Let us not doubt that the same remedy now, if faithfully applied, will be not less effectual. Do not tell the rich man that he must share his wealth with those who have nothing. Do not tell the poor man that he has a right to a share, and may seize it, if it is not given. But by precept and example show to both alike that the one thing worth living for is to promote the well-being of others. And let the experience of the past convince us that any remedy which involves a violent reconstruction of society is sure to be dangerous and may easily prove futile.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary