Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

1 Timothy 6:1

1 Timothy 6:1. The subject of Church discipline in the strict sense of the word had been finished. But social questions of no small difficulty remained to be dealt with, and these St. Paul, with the wide experience which made him perceive the falsehood of extremes, and which we trace in 1 Corinthians 7:20-23; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22 to Colossians 4:1, now proceeds to discuss.

As many servants as axe under the yoke. The English suggests the thought that the last words add a mark of distinction differencing some servants as slaves from others, either as being worse treated, or as having unbelieving masters. In the Greek, however, the order stands ‘ as are under a yoke as slaves,' the first word being the more generic of the two.

His doctrine. It is clear from this and Titus 2:10, that the influence of Christianity on the slave population of the Roman Empire was popularly regarded as a crucial test. Was a slave more honest, sober, truthful, generally a better servant, after his conversion? One can fancy the kind of language, half abuse and half blasphemy, which would be freely used when the answer to that question was in the negative.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

1 Timothy 6:1

Old Testament

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