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.
Ephesians 6:1-9, Children, fathers, slaves and masters
The household code goes on to children and fathers, then to slaves and masters, asking something of each side and reminding masters that they and their slaves have the same Master in heaven.
Ephesians 6:1-9, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul's household instructions move on to children and fathers, then to slaves and masters. Children are to obey their parents, as the commandment about honoring father and mother teaches, and fathers are to raise their children in the Lord's teaching without provoking them. Slaves are to serve wholeheartedly as if serving Christ, even when no one is watching, and masters are told to treat them the same way and stop threatening them, since both answer to one Master in heaven who plays no favorites.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/children-and-status\/","n":"Children without standing","s":"Children in the ancient world were loved but powerless. Status came with age, and a child had no rights or voice apart from the adults who provided for them.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/slavery\/","n":"Slavery and slave managers","s":"Slaves were everywhere in the Roman world, from field hands to stewards who ran whole estates and handled their master's money. A master away and slaves left in charge was a familiar story.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-household\/","n":"The household and its head","s":"A household gathered family, slaves, freed slaves and workers under one head, and it was expected to follow that head's religion. When the head turned to a new god, the house often came too.","r":""}
Codes told fathers how to govern children but did not normally address them; Wright notes that philosophers' codes ran only one way, while Paul gives children and slaves something owed to them (Keener and his notes; Wright). Paul sides with the minority who warned against harsh discipline (Keener and his notes). The cultural backgrounds article on slaves says household slaves faced the worst abuses, torture for evidence, beatings, sexual abuse and sale away from family, yet were "normally in better socioeconomic situations than free peasants", could earn money and often gained freedom, so Paul should not be read against slavery in the Americas. So far as is known only Paul tells masters to do the same for their slaves (Keener and his notes). What this implies about slavery is read differently. The article says "virtually no one was calling for the abolition of slavery", and Wright that Paul "could no more envisage a world without slavery" than we can a world without electricity; Keener and his notes find 6:9 pointing toward abolition; the ESV Study Bible says the system slowly died out through Christianity's influence, and the CSB Study Bible that Paul's words later fed the anti-slavery movement.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introductions to Ephesians 6:1-4 and 6:5-9
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Ephesians 6:1, 6:4 and 6:9
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Slaves and Slaveholders in Ephesians 6 (Ephesians 6:5-9)
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Ephesians 6:5
- CSB Study Bible, note on Ephesians 6:5-9
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, comment on Ephesians 6:1-9
