Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

1 Timothy 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 Ephesians 6:5; Colossians 3:22; Titus 2:9, Philem. 1 Peter 2:18. In each place it is dealt with consistently, practically, Christianly.

The difficulty in this verse is ὑπὸ ζυγόν. The contrast in 1 Timothy 6:2, οἱ δὲ πιστ. ἔχ. δεσπ. seems to prove that a δοῦλος ὑπὸ ζυγόν 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 ὑπὸ ζυγόν.

τοὺς ἰδίους δεσπότας : The force of ἴδιος was so much weakened in later Greek that it is doubtful if it amounts here to more than αὐτῶν. See on 1 Timothy 3:4.

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

πάσης τιμῆς ἀξίους, worthy of the greatest respect.

ἵνα μὴ βλασφημῆται : The phrase “blaspheme the name of God” comes from Isaiah 52:5 (cf. Ezekiel 36:20-23). See Romans 2:24; 2 Peter 2:2. See note on 1 Timothy 6:14. The corresponding passage in Titus 2:10, ἵνα τὴν διδασκαλίαν τὴν τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν θεοῦ κοσμῶσιν, 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 διδασκαλία, see note on 1 Timothy 1:10.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

1 Timothy 6:1

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