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1 Timothy

1 Timothychapter 6

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Speaks with:1 Timothy 1×52 Timothy 2×42 Timothy 3×31 Timothy 6×3Matthew 6×3Hebrews 13×3

Summary

Chapter summary

Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour. If any man teach otherwise. He is proud, knowing nothing. Godliness with contentment is great gain. They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare. The love of money is the root of all evil. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life. Keep the commandment without spot. Calvin reads the chapter as the apostolic charge enduring past Paul's life.

Context

Epistle · Paul — 1 Timothy overview

  • A. 1–10 Godliness With Contentment Is Great Gain
  • B. 11–16 Flee, Follow, Fight: Keep the Charge Till He Appears
  • C. 17–21 Tell the Rich to Hope in God, and Guard the Deposit

The outline

  1. A.Godliness With Contentment Is Great Gainvv. 1 to 10

    Read vv. 1 to 10 →

  2. B.Flee, Follow, Fight: Keep the Charge Till He Appearsvv. 11 to 16

    Read vv. 11 to 16 →

  3. C.Tell the Rich to Hope in God, and Guard the Depositvv. 17 to 21

    Read vv. 17 to 21 →

The world behind this chapter

1 Timothy 6
When
After Paul's first Roman imprisonment · c. AD 62–64
Where
Closing charges about slaves, money, and teachers who had turned the faith into a business
Who first heard it
A church holding both slaves and wealthy householders in the same room

The history

Slavery ran the ancient economy, and a great many believers were slaves. A Christian slave with a Christian master faced a strange new question: does calling him brother in the meeting change how I serve him on Monday? The chapter's answer aims at the slave's own honor rather than at the institution.

Ephesus was rich, and its wealth was visible. The temple of Artemis functioned as a deposit bank for the province, and men made fortunes off the pilgrim trade in silver shrines — the very trade that started the riot in Acts 19.

The teachers being described made money by teaching. A traveling lecturer who gathered followers and gifts was a normal career, so the warning about men who think godliness is a means of gain describes a real business model, not a caricature.

'We brought nothing into the world' would have sounded familiar; the sentiment appears in Greek and Jewish writing alike. What follows it is not familiar: instruction to the rich not to abandon their money but to be rich in good works and generous, storing up a foundation for the future.

What it meant to them

For the poor and enslaved majority, the chapter refuses to tell them that faith is a route to comfort. Contentment with food and covering is set out as gain, and the men promising more are named as frauds.

For the wealthy few, it refuses the other error too. They are not told to leave, but to set their hope somewhere other than a fortune that cannot be relied on.

Sources cited

  • Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
  • Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 1 Timothy 6. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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