A Charge to Christian Employees!

We now come to the final section of Paul’s letter to Timothy. Chapter 5 was focused upon giving “honor” to various groups of people: honor widows (5:3-16), honor Elders (5:17-25), in fact, for those who work hard at “preaching and teaching” were to get double-honor! But there is one more group that must be honored, namely, employers (masters) (6:1-2). They are to receive all “honor” from their employees (slaves)!
I. A word about slavery in the Roman world.
If we are going to understand what Paul writes here about slaves, we must see it in its historical perspective. Roman slavery bears little or no resemblance to America’s or England’s slavery!
• Slavery was an integral social component of the Roman world.
• Besides manual labor, slaves performed many domestic services, and might be employed at highly skilled jobs and professions such as teachers, accountants, and physicians.
• A Roman slave could hold property that, despite the fact that it belonged to their master, they were allowed to use as if it were their own.
• Skilled or educated slaves were allowed to earn their own money, which they used to buy their freedom.
• A freed slave was allowed to become a Roman citizens and as a Roman citizen enjoyed not only passive freedom from ownership, but active political freedom, including the right to vote.