1 Timothy 6:1 - Meaning and Application

I. Here is the duty of servants. The apostle had already spoken about church relationships, and now he turns to family relationships. Servants are said to be under the yoke, which points to both submission and hard work. They are yoked to labor, not to idleness. If the gospel finds servants under the yoke, it leaves them there, because Christianity does not cancel duties that come from nature or from agreement.

Servants must respect their masters and count them worthy of all honor. That means the respect, attention, cooperation, and obedience that servants rightly owe to masters. This does not mean they must think more highly of them than they should. It means they must give them the honor that belongs to their place, so that the name of God is not blasphemed. If Christian servants became rude and disobedient, people would blame the teaching of Christ, as if it made people worse than before they believed.

This is a strong reason for all of us to live well. Many people are ready to take advantage of our failures and speak evil about religion because of us. We should avoid giving them that excuse. If professing Christians misbehave, both God’s name and his teaching are in danger of being slandered by those looking for a reason to attack them.

Someone might ask whether a believing master changes this duty, since in Christ there is neither slave nor free (Galatians 3:28). The answer is no. Jesus Christ did not come to tear apart civil relationships, but to strengthen them. Those who have believing masters should not despise them because they are brothers in Christ. That brotherhood speaks to spiritual privilege, not to outward rank or advantage. People misuse their religion when they use it as an excuse to ignore their duties to others.

Instead, servants should serve even more faithfully, because their masters are faithful and loved by God, and they share in the benefit of the gospel. Believing masters and servants are brothers in Christ, and both share the same spiritual blessing. Timothy is told to teach and urge these things. Ministers must preach not only the general duties of all people, but also the duties that belong to each relationship.

II. Paul then warns Timothy to stay away from those who corrupt the doctrine of Christ and turn it into a matter of argument and conflict. If anyone teaches a different doctrine, and does not agree with healthy words, words that lead directly to godliness, then he is to be rejected. The healthy words are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching that agrees with godliness. We are not asked to accept every set of words as wholesome, only the words of Christ. But to his words we must give full and honest agreement.

The doctrine of our Lord Jesus is a doctrine that leads to godliness. It has a direct power to make people holy. But the one who refuses Christ’s words is proud and quarrelsome, and he understands nothing. Pride and ignorance often go together. Often those who know the least are the most arrogant, because they do not even know themselves.

Such people become obsessed with questions and word battles. Those who leave the plain, practical teaching of Christianity usually drift into disputes that drain the life out of religion. They argue over questions and over words, and this produces envy, fighting, slander, and suspicious thoughts. When people are no longer content with the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching that leads to godliness, they begin making up ideas of their own and forcing them on others. If they do this in human words rather than in the words the Holy Spirit teaches (1 Corinthians 2:13), they sow trouble in the church.

This leads to endless wrangling among people with corrupt minds. Their debates are full of cleverness, but empty of substance. People with corrupt minds are far from the truth. Their minds become corrupt because they do not hold to the truth as it is in Jesus. They think religion is a way to gain money or advantage, making godliness serve their own profit.

Timothy is warned to withdraw from such people. The words of our Lord Jesus Christ are healthy words. They are the best words for healing church wounds and a wounded conscience. Christ has the tongue of the learned, able to speak a timely word to the weary (Isaiah 50:4). His words are also the best protection against division in the church, because no one who truly follows him can deny their authority or fit. The church has never done well when human words have been treated as equal to his, or even placed above them.

Paul marks out only those who do not agree with the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine that leads to godliness. They are proud and know nothing. From this, we learn the sad results of wasting time on questions and word battles. Envy, strife, evil suspicions, and twisted arguments grow from that soil. When people leave the healthy words of Christ, they will never stay united for long, not even around their own invented phrases. They will keep quarrelling over them.

These quarrels produce envy when people see other teachings preferred over their own. They also lead to jealous thoughts and distrust of one another, called evil surmisings. Then the disputes become more twisted and destructive. People who live like this show themselves to be men of corrupt minds, and without the truth, especially when they do it for profit. They treat religion as a means to gain, even though Paul says godliness is great gain in a very different sense.

Good ministers and Christians should withdraw from such people. “Come out from among them and be separate,” says the Lord, and again, “Withdraw yourself from such people.”