1 Timothy 6:1-2

Let the kids.
Rube Goldberg designs to perform a simple task in an overtly complicated way.
So, hey, welcome back, everybody.
It’s good to have you with us.
Thanks for being with us.
Settling a little conversation.
We,
today, continue moving into the last chapter of 1 Timothy.
We won’t get far,
and it won’t be fun.
We have just a couple verses here as we begin chapter 6.
And there’s just no good way through these verses.
There are a couple of places in the New Testament where verses like these are given.
And for many centuries since,
people have struggled with what to make of them.
To be honest,
in the Western world,
those who have been in places of power,
economic or
political,
have kind of minimized these verses,
not probably been terribly offended by them in most cases.
Sometimes even tried to use them.
However,
those who have lived under some challenges,
particularly those who have some history of slavery and being enslaved in their history,
in their ethnic history.
These verses, I think you could only say,
are challenging at best, offensive at worst.
We will try to unpack some of it for you.
I want to give you my bias on the front end,
just to be honest.
I don’t think there’s any good way to resolve these
verses and make them other than what they are.
They are kind of a holdover from a very different time.
I don’t think they are particularly helpful in the day and age in which we live,
nor do I think they’re somehow indicative that the Bible or even those who wrote these parts of
the Bible affirmed the practice of slavery in some political way.
Because we’ll have this conversation in a few moments,
but I don’t think that’s fair either.
So it’s not very much.
Let me read it and then we’ll try to make some sense of it.
“Let all who are under the oak of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor
so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed.
Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful to them on the ground
that they are members of the church.
Rather, they must serve them all the more since those who benefit by their service
are believers and beloved.”
Okay,
so obviously, any time you unpack a theme like slavery, it is loaded.
There is a lot in it,
and in the few places that the Bible sort of affirms it as an institution
or appears to affirm it as an institution,
again, I will argue that that’s probably not the case.
I think we struggle.
And there’s a couple of ways that this topic has been addressed historically,
and the one you’ve probably heard,
the one we’re most familiar with,
is to kind of say that slavery in the New Testament world was different than the slavery
we’ve seen in our own history.
It was less brutal.
It was less racial.
It was more economical.
There probably is some truth to that,
but the reality of slavery has always been,
I think at all times,
it depended who you were and what your situation was.
There were slaves in Jesus’ day, in Paul’s day,
who were horribly abused,
who were horribly mistreated.
There were slaves in our own country who probably had
relatively comfortable or at least secure
positions with masters who were not abusive.
That doesn’t mean they had it good.
It means they didn’t have it as bad as some,
and that’s always been the reality of slavery.
Much of your existence depended on who your master was and how they treated you,
as well as your own behavior and your own actions.
So why doesn’t the Bible decry slavery?
I think, Michael, this is probably the question that jumps to mind.
Whenever we encounter a text like this,
certainly when we encounter a text that seems to encourage
slaves not to fuss,
not to make trouble,
and to be “good slaves.”
And I think we don’t know what to do with that. I think your comments at the start are really helpful, Clint.
I think as we enter into a text like this, it
puts front and center a question that is always
on the table as we’re studying scripture,
but maybe becomes even more important and certainly
more clear-sighted in a text like what we have here today.
And that is fundamentally what do we do with a scriptural text written to a congregation at
a particular time in a particular city with a particular culture and place.
The reality is,
Ephesus is full of slaves.
Now,
the trouble of that for us is we,
especially if we assume that most,
if not everyone joining
us for this conversation,
live in America, we have a particular historical understanding of slavery,
which is not a one-to-one relationship with what they experienced in Ephesus.
They had no concept for what we consider what would be modern slavery.
That aside doesn’t remove the trouble of it.
And some biblical scholars make that case that,
“Hey, look, it was different, so we shouldn’t be troubled.”
But you make the case, Clint,
that there’s troubling things regardless
of the time, the place, the context.
But that said,
as we look at a text like this,
what we have to ask is,
is this an all-time blessing or encouragement of this practice?
Or is it rather an interpretation/accommodation of what faith looks like in that time and place?
It is striking how this text has been used historically to defend things that today’s
Christian would say is far outside the realm of God’s intention.
Even, I think, we would use the word “sinful.”
And the fact that a text like this has historically been used to make the case
for the subjugation of those who have the image of God,
who are created and called as beloved,
should cause the church,
I think, to pause.
And it does force us as interpreters of Scripture to say,
“Are there not times when we come in a study of a text to realize
that while in this case Paul is pastorally responding to a present need in this particular community,
that that may not be a blanket endorsement of that practice in any form
into the future.” There are some biblical interpreters,
Clint, who are going to struggle with that.
They’re going to say,
“If it’s in the Bible,
it is what is.”
I would hope that a text like this would trouble them.
But that reading becomes far more difficult on a daylight today.
Because we have to admit that realistically,
in other places in Scripture,
we see it made
explicit that in Christ there’s neither slave nor free, male or female,
Jew or Gentile.
This idea that
we are all made brother, sister in Christ.
And I think that we have to read the Scriptures holistically to see that a troubling text like
this shouldn’t provide foundation or ammunition for a long-term practice which subjugates another
person.
Yeah, I
think this brings us
into contact with the reality that the folks who wrote these Scriptures,
faithful,
diligent,
well-intentioned people, are also people of a particular time and place.
They wrote in Greek
because that’s the language people used.
They wrote sentence structure that was the way that they were taught to write.
They spoke the way that they were trained to speak.
So, we can’t ask them to imagine 2,000 extra years of Christian growth,
history, and assumptions.
Paul does not live in a world
where the concept that your faith leads you
to try and change
political systems because Paul can’t imagine that he has any input in political systems.
Why don’t they speak about the way that soldiers are trained?
Why don’t they speak about capital punishment?
Why don’t they speak about Roman coins?
Because these things are just simply assumed to be the way it is.
And slavery is a part of their culture.
And Paul imagines that that’s simply the way that that’s where they live.
It would be as if he tried to write,
“What’s the ethical responsibility of watching television?”
Paul can’t imagine a television.
He can’t imagine a world without slavery.
He can’t imagine a world in which Christians have a voice in those kind of societal matters.
But what he can imagine is that the personal faith in Jesus Christ impacts those
who are in the arrangement of slavery.
And in this place,
he talks particularly to those who are the slaves.
In other places, he at least balances that to some extent with some conversation
about what it means if you are the “master.”
Here, though,
he speaks of the position of slaves as, again,
an opportunity and a place where the faith has to be practiced.
I think it is very dishonest to try and read this historically as we have
as a kind of affirmation of slavery or of slavehood.
That’s not what Paul is doing here.
And I think we can clearly, looking back,
see that.
I think we can understand that.
Having said that,
for most of us,
this doesn’t go far enough
because I don’t think it leaves Paul’s orbit.
And we desperately wish that Paul would leave his orbit.
But I think that’s wishful thinking on our part.
I’m not sure it’s possible for Paul to leave his orbit in that way.
I think that’s asking something that probably isn’t very realistic.
That’s where, Clint, I do think this is a generative sort of text.
It’s not an easy text to read.
Quite frankly, if you’re seeking to study the Bible for some sort of,
you know, maybe meditational or devotional content,
you’re not going to find this incredibly generative.
What you are going to find,
if we’re honest, though,
is that this challenges us to realize that the Holy Scriptures were written
by those who were responding in their own time and place
with the life-changing truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And we see in these texts how that transformational work
is being driven forward by the core of the gospel.
That is the very core that we inherit today.
And in the same way,
these texts give us a habit,
a practice, a kind of pattern by which we seek to pattern our own lives.
That whatever the context that we inherit historically,
and by the way,
Christians have done this for thousands of years,
we turn to these texts with new sets of challenges
and we ask what they might have to say to us.
A few things that jump out to me that I just want to point out
and share with you here quickly.
I want to point out specifically verse one here.
Notice this interesting connection made so that the name of God
and the teaching may not be blasphemed.
Another example, Clint, of what we’ve already pointed out
previous in this study,
where Paul makes what is,
I think on some level,
a surprising argument about the way that others are going to respond
to the actions of the church.
In other words, he’s saying to slaves,
if you are under the yoke of slavery,
then treat your master with honor
because otherwise people are going to look at the church community
and they’re going to be critical of it
because it’s an unruly set of people.
It’s interesting how it’s clear the earliest generations
of the church felt like there was some measure
that they needed to keep between the life-changing freedom
and the setting free, the lawlessness,
the graciousness of the gospel paired with the maintenance of human order.
So that neither of those got out of step with the other.
That Paul seems intent on making the case that,
hey, we shouldn’t stick out to the world
as being people who have lost our minds
or who have lost good conduct and good character.
And this is an area he identified as that being in danger.
I find that really interesting.
Also, very quickly,
I want to just point out a thing
that a commentator said.
I think, Clint,
that this is optimistic.
I’m going to be honest about that.
But this commentator says this.
Rather than crusade for the abolition of slavery,
Paul chooses a more indirect approach,
confident that the power of the gospel
will transform society from within.
I think we would love for that to be the case.
I think that we are reading Paul very optimistically
in a text like this.
But I do think it’s an example of a biblical scholar
trying to do some of that reconciliation work
that we would all like to have done.
In other words, to say, yeah,
Paul doesn’t say we should abolish slaves.
But he believes that if the church lives out its values,
that it ultimately will happen.
Well,
that’s a lot to put on a thing
that we would hope Paul would believe.
There are times when we just encounter a difficult text
and say, from what we now see in our vantage of history,
the freedom that comes in Christ applies to all.
And that that breaks down
systemically this thing that stood in between that value.
And I think a modern Christian should not only feel
comfortable with that reading,
but I think it should challenge us to be humble enough
to recognize that we will continue to lean into scriptures
and have them interpret the new ways in the future as well,
as we encounter new challenges and revelations.
That is a difficult process,
the process of discernment
and trusting the spirit to lead and guide us,
but necessary to be Christian.
Yeah, I don’t know that I’m qualified to disagree
with a commentator, but I think that is completely misguided.
I don’t think Paul is choosing not to decry slavery.
I think that Paul can’t imagine that he can.
I don’t think Paul sees that as an option.
I simply think it is the world in which he lives, and he,
like everyone else in it,
is a part of the status quo.
And so as he calls these slaves not to interrupt the status quo,
not to bring negative attention by revolting or being disruptive,
he thinks he’s helping the Christian story.
And we could argue whether that is or isn’t true,
but I think that is clearly Paul’s intention.
And I simply think from that vantage point,
he doesn’t have the information available to him to say, “You know what?
Slavery in all of its forms is an appalling practice
that is out of keeping and out of step with the Christian life.”
The church just doesn’t know that yet.
It hasn’t evolved to that yet.
And to expect Paul to be some sort of all-knowing Christian
in the first century is a misunderstanding of what it means to be a faithful person.
Paul has limitations.
Paul, like all of us,
serves Jesus within his day and his time,
and he’s subject to not all the things that he should know.
Paul is not perfect.
And I don’t think we should hold that against him
because he doesn’t go far enough,
nor should I think we hold it against him
that he seems to at least tacitly give approval of something
that we now say he shouldn’t have done.
Yes,
in 2,000 years,
we should have made progress in the church.
And I think verses like this are an indication that we probably have.
And to expect a person in the first century to think like a Christian
in the 21st century is unrealistic,
unfair, and probably simple.
And these are troubling verses,
and I think that’s okay.
There’s ambiguity in them.
There’s difficulty in them.
Clearly, they don’t mean that we should now somehow come to the conclusion
that slavery is okay.
And when we tried to use them that way,
we were abusing Scripture.
We were abusing the text in my not
very humble sounding opinion.
But this is,
again, for Presbyterians, for Reformed Christians,
this is the importance of looking at the whole witness of Scripture
and not simply pulling out verses here and there and saying,
“Oh, this is okay,” or “That’s okay.”
That’s not how the Bible works.
I find that really helpful word of wisdom,
Clint, and I think maybe just as my own sort of note of conclusion to a text like this
is just to say,
when we’re thinking about this
and we’re asking the question,
“So what?”
I think each of us would do well to be reminded
that even as we see in our Scriptures
that the Christians who over and over and over again
need to re-encounter the transforming good
news of the Gospel.
So that even in our earliest Scriptures,
we see fragments of things that had yet to bear the full fruit.
We see someone writing in other texts beyond Timothy
about the radical freedom of the Gospel.
And then in other texts like what we’ve read today,
words that seem to directly contradict it.
And we realize in that moment that the state of imperfection,
the need for continued transformation,
even of the biblical authors,
is for us a kind of grace-filled reminder of what is also true for us.
And we’re, by the way,
not people who are going to write things
that will be included in the Holy Book.
For us, the process of coming to a text like this,
to living in Christian community like this,
should be filled with an open awareness
that it is going to be made apparent throughout my entire Christian life.
Places where I took for granted what the Gospel meant,
and then I discovered it was bigger.
It was deeper.
It was more meaningful and more freeing
than I could have ever possibly
imagined.
And that is always a challenge at every stage of life.
It requires courageous
humility.
But if there’s a so what for us,
maybe that is one of the things.
It is a call to be open,
and recognizing that people of faith have always been those open
for the continued transformation of the Gospel,
because we are human.
And that’s a good thing.
We should actually celebrate that,
because Jesus Christ became
human for humans like you and me.
And that’s good news for people trying to,
often with left feet,
and often with stumbling around in the darkness,
people trying to live out the faith.
This is good news for all of us.
Yeah.
Michael used an important word there,
freedom.
And I think that’s the struggle that an American, modern,
postmodern, whatever we want to call it,
Christian, has when we come to a text like this,
because we assume that political freedom,
that livelihood freedom,
that sort of freedom in the context of where we live, and spiritual freedom,
are synonymous,
or at least they are coupled.
That’s not true in Paul’s world.
When Paul writes, “You are free in Christ,”
he doesn’t mean you can leave your guild.
You can leave your station.
If you were born in poverty,
you can go do that.
You can go be educated.
That’s still not true.
If your dad’s a fisherman, guess what?
You’re a fisherman.
We have a hard time separating spiritual freedom
and political freedom because for us in the American story,
we have so melded them together
that they feel like they’re the same thing.
And that’s why it makes it very difficult
to read a text like this.
Now,
I think what we can do is read a text like this
and say two things at once.
We can on one hand say slavery is an appalling reality
that a Christian has to work against.
We have to be opposed to the idea
of a human having ownership over another.
Having said that,
we can also say this text may have a voice for us
in the situations we find ourselves in.
Do you work for a boss who can be a rear end at times?
If you are a person of faith,
do so in the most respectful and loving and Christian way possible.
Do you have some authority over other people?
Then try to exercise it reflecting who you are
and who they are in light of the gospel.
Now, that’s not to minimize the horrificness of slavery.
It is simply to say that viewed through a different lens,
this can still say something to believers
without affirming a social reality that we shouldn’t affirm.
And I think, again,
for Reformed Christians, it’s a more difficult way to read the Scripture.
It takes a lot of thoughtfulness and a lot of study,
but it keeps us from these sort of obvious stumbling blocks
and obvious pitfalls in a text like this.
Maybe we’ve lost everybody at this point,
but these are tricky moments in the Scripture.
It’s much easier to hear the Scripture say things
that we affirm and relate to,
rather than say things that we don’t understand
and seem even maybe counterproductive.
Well, and it’s going to challenge us tomorrow,
so I’d encourage you to join us tomorrow as we continue on.
It’s not going to be the same line of reasoning,
but there’s going to be more encounter with things
that may seem to us foreign and hard to understand
as we continue along this journey in this instruction
from an older pastor to a younger and this church in Ephesus.
So thank you for being with us today.
I’ll be looking forward to seeing you tomorrow
and continuing the conversation then.
Thanks, everybody.