Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
1 Timothy 6:1-10, Slaves under the yoke, and godliness as gain
Slaves are to respect their masters so that the faith is not slandered, and those with believing masters are to serve them all the more; then Paul turns on teachers who treat godliness as a way to get rich, and warns that the craving for money breeds every kind of harm.
1 Timothy 6:1-10, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul tells slaves to honor their masters fully, so that God's name and the faith are not brought into disrepute, and those whose masters are believers are to serve them all the more willingly. He then turns on teachers who argue over words and treat godliness as a way to make money. True gain is godliness with contentment, since we leave the world with nothing, while the urge to get rich traps people and leads to every kind of harm.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/household-codes\/","n":"Household codes","s":"From Aristotle on, moral writers told the male head of a household how to rule his wife, his children and his slaves, in that order. Religions under suspicion used the same form to show Rome they were no threat to the family.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/patrons-and-benefactors\/","n":"Patrons, clients and benefactors","s":"Favors in the Roman world came with strings. A patron gave help and protection, the client paid it back in loyalty and public honor, and rulers who gave gifts to the public were hailed as benefactors.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sages-and-philosophers\/","n":"Philosophers and their schools","s":"Stoics, Epicureans and other schools taught a whole way of life in lecture halls and marketplaces. A traveling teacher with a message about God would be heard, and judged, as one more philosopher.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/orators-and-sophists\/","n":"Orators, rhetoric and boasting","s":"Public speaking was the great skill of the Greek city. Traveling orators performed for crowds and gathered paying students, audiences judged them on voice and gesture as well as argument, and the fans of rival speakers boasted of their own man against the rest.","r":""}
Wright notes that "in Paul's day slaves formed up to one-third of the population" and that most free families owned one or two. A religion Romans thought might stir slave discontent would be branded subversive and persecuted (Keener and his notes), and Wright adds that Paul wanted no name for pointless provocation; the ESV Study Bible gives the motive as the faith's good name, the CSB Study Bible as love. The word for those who benefit was used of wealthy benefactors, so "Paul speaks of slaves as benefactors", picturing them as free in God's sight like Seneca (the cultural backgrounds notes; Keener). Jewish teachers saw wealth as a blessing with dangers, and some philosophers used their teaching for profit (Keener and his notes); Wright suggests the grumblers meant to hawk the new faith as such teachers did. Contentment was a commonplace of the philosophers, the saying about bringing nothing in and taking nothing out was proverbial, Cynics and poor peasants owned one cloak, and the love of money as a root of evils was a proverb too (Keener and his notes). Wright and Bird note that Polycarp echoes these verses about AD 120.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introductions to 1 Timothy 6:1-2 and 6:3-10, and on 1 Timothy 6:3, 6:4, 6:5, 6:6, 6:7, 6:8 and 6:10
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 Timothy 6:1-2, 6:2, 6:4, 6:6, 6:7, 6:8 and 6:10
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 1 Timothy 6:1
- CSB Study Bible, note on 1 Timothy 6:1-2
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 23, The Pastoral Epistles, Date
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Pastoral Letters, comment on 1 Timothy 6:1-5
