Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed.

And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things. (1 Timothy 6:1–2)

In the year 480, a man named Benedict was born in the Italian town of Norcia. He went to study in Rome, but was disillusioned by the worldliness of what he saw there. So he withdrew, and established a small Christian community at a place called Monte Cassino, a hilltop ½ way between Rome and Naples. He formulated rules for this Christian community, which involved several hours of prayer, and plenty of labour. In fact, a saying emerged from this community: laborare est orare – to work is to pray. For them, there was no great division between worshipping God in prayer and song, and doing their work. His kind of community spread through Europe. One eyewitness described what you might have seen.

“Silent men were observed about the country, or discovered in the forest, digging, clearing, and building, and other silent men, not seen, were sitting in the cold cloister, tiring their eyes and keeping their attention on the stretch, while they painfully copied and recopied the manuscripts which they had saved. There was no one who contended or cried out, or drew attention to what was going on, but by degrees the woody swamp became a hermitage, a religious house, a farm, an abbey, a village, a seminary, a school of learning and a city.”

To work is to pray. That seems very different to the way many Christians think about their work. For them, work is what you do between Monday and Friday, and it has nothing to do with God, or the things of faith. They divide sacred and secular with a hard barrier, and the two don’t touch.

But that isn’t what we see in Scripture at all. In the Bible, work and worship are inseparable. From the book of Genesis, we read that we were created free, and free to work. Our fall introduced a curse into work, making work difficult, and meaning we would now work with and for other sinful people. But Jesus came to redeem everything, including work. Christ came to redeem us from the personal sins of hatred, grumbling, laziness, abuse, as well as eventually the societal sins of slavery, abuse, rebellion. One day work will be perfected and restored. In the meantime, Christians should give the world a taste of how we will work in Christ’s kingdom. We work in different ways and for different reasons than the world does. We work for God’s glory, and for man’s benefit. We work because of the two great commandments, to love God and love man. The way Christians work is what these verses in 1 Timothy are about.

First Timothy has been about how to conduct oneself in the household of God. Ordering the doctrine, ordering corporate worship, selecting leaders, Timothy’s approach as a pastor, financial support of widows, the church’s own payroll, hiring and firing leaders. But in this last section, Paul turns to how the church is going to interact with the world. And most often, that is going to be in the area of work and wealth: the economy. Believers have to work, and they need to know how to act in the workplace. They will be seeking money and income, and they need to know how to view wealth. Some of them will become wealthy, and they need to know how to be wealthy believers. And along the way, there will be those who corrupt ministry into money-making, and Paul is going to expose that and tell Timothy to flee it. So chapter 6 is really about the church and the world, being in it, but not of it, making money without loving money, being rich not only in finances but in good works. Why?

Well, it would be pointless if we had a well-ordered church, but the moment we stepped out into the world we ruined our testimony. It would be pointless to have a great church, excellent worship, sound doctrine, good leadership, mercy upon widows, but then the moment Monday morning came around, the wheels came off, and we trashed the name of Christ and harmed and devoured one another at work.

So Paul tells Timothy to teach and exhort, preach and encourage Christians to approach their work in a very particular way. We’re going to see the two approaches that Christians have to work. These gave to do with God’s reputation, and the church’s edification. Glorify and edify. Love God, and love my neighbour.

I. Christians Submit To Unsaved Masters to Glorify God

Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed.

If I were to put that into contemporary language, it would sound like this, “Every Christian under a boss should inwardly respect that boss, so that God’s reputation and Christian teaching is not slandered.”

But now let me take the black-and-white of the words and colour them in a little with some background. That word bondservants translates the word for slave. There were plenty of slaves in the Roman empire. Possibly 2 out of every 10 people you saw or met were slaves. The church that first heard this letter, at Ephesus, would certainly have had many slaves, likely a minimum of 20%, and early Christian congregations had a much higher percentage of slaves.

Slaves in the Roman empire had a wide range of experiences. Some had happy, benevolent relationships with their masters and were taken care of entirely, others lived in inhumane conditions, were cruelly treated, used, and barely provided for. People ended up as slaves for all sorts of reasons. Some were people captured by slave-traders or pirates, or prisoners of war. Some were sold into slavery by their relatives. Some sold themselves into slavery because of debt. Some were born into slavery as the children of slaves.

But what they all had in common is that they were the property of another person. Archaeologists have uncovered small tags, about 5 cm wide which were worn on a metal collar around the neck, stating the person was a slave, to whom they belonged, and to what estate they should be returned should they run away. A slave was, for better or for worse, under someone else. That explains the image Paul uses: under the yoke.

A yoke was a device, usually made of wood, that would join two animals at the neck so they could work together, to plow, to tread out grain, to pull a cart. An animal under a yoke no longer had the freedom to wander around or graze; it was now forcibly drafted into serving. The image is one of being locked in, bound, drafted, forcibly working. Now some version of that, with much less severity, is true of every Christian who works. We are bound to work, and we must do it.

Now, Paul is going to tell you what to do in the first part of verse 1, and then why you should do it in the second part.

Paul says, every Christian who finds himself working for another, not always voluntarily, sometimes by sheer force of circumstance, is to do the following: count their own masters worthy of all honour.

This is an inward command, not merely an outward, behavioural change. Christianity always begins with the heart, the thoughts, the attitudes, knowing that they will manifest then in actions.

Within your mind, regard, calculate, count your master, your boss, your manager as deserving full respect. The word for honour means value, price, esteem. Mentally regard your boss as deserving of respect, honour, deference, submission.

Objection: I’ll be lying! He’s not respectable. He’s a skelm. He lies, cheats and steals. He treats people atrociously. I can’t think of him that way, because I’d be thinking a lie.

But notice, the Bible does not command you to discover that he is worthy of all honour, or to believe he has indeed become a person worthy of all honour. It says, “count”. Mentally grant that value. Why? Not on account of the person’s character or behaviour, but on account of their position.

God has sovereignly placed that person in a position of authority over you. For the slave in Paul’s time, it was even more severe: the person was their literal owner. That owner might be just, or he might be unjust. Slavery itself as an institution is unjust.

But once again, the Bible is teaching us that believers salute the uniform, regardless of the man wearing it. We salute the rank, and count the rank worthy of all honour. If you are in the military, it’s easier to get this. If you are a private, or an ensign, and up walks a brigadier, or in the navy, a commodore, you salute the rank. You give honour by virtue of the office, the position.

Why does God keep commanding this kind of inward and outward submission? Because God’s universe is a cosmos where the very atoms and molecules are authority and submission. It’s built into the DNA of the universe. Satan’s rebel version is a world of rebellion, power and forced oppression. God’s universe has beauty and order, which includes authority. In fact, Paul often tells us how many hierarchical levels of authority there are in the angelic realm: “thrones or dominions or principalities or powers” (Colossians 1:16). Paul tells us of the three spheres of authority in human life: the family, the church, the government. He tells us husbands and parents are authorities in the home, and submission is in order; he tells us in the church elders are authorities and submission is in order, and he tells us that in society the civil government that bears the sword, i.e. has the force of law behind it is the authority and submission is in order.

When Christians see authority and submission, we are seeing patterns of God’s universe, not Satan’s. Yes, it’s terribly distorted in our world, and subject to all kinds of abuses. But authority and submission are colours that God paints with, they are the bricks He builds with, they are the notes He composes with. So Christians should take every opportunity to cheer on and support lawful authority with an inward attitude that says, “Yes! When that man puts on that uniform with that rank of being my boss, I willingly salute”.

Humans, in their fallen condition, believe that disdain, disrespect, murmuring about evil authorities is warranted. We say, “respect is earned”. Well, yes, in voluntary relationships, respect is earned. But in relationship of authority: honour is commanded. Children, honour your father and mother. Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honour. First Peter 2:17, Honour all men, fear God, love the brotherhood, honour the king (And at the time of writing, the king Peter was speaking about was the perverted, lecherous Emperor Nero).

You might be in an unfair environment, an unhappy circumstance, maybe even an unjust system. It probably doesn’t come close to the injustice of slavery. And so reasoning from the greater injustice of slavery to the lesser, if Paul could tell Roman slaves, salute the uniform, how much more can he tell us the same thing?

In fact, the more the man is unworthy of the rank and the uniform, in some ways, the easier it is to separate him from his rank. You then essentially make him invisible, and obey the office of authority as unto the Lord. Think of the believers in Scripture who undoubtedly had pagan, ungodly bosses. Joseph working under Potipher, and then under Pharaoh. Nehemiah, working under Persian king Artaxerxes. Daniel under Nebuchadnezzar, and then his son, and his son Belshazzar. These men undoubtedly did repugnant things, and were products of their pagan culture, plenty of violence, cruelty, abuse. But these godly men found a way to live out what Peter would write centuries later:

Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh.

For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. (1 Peter 2:18–19)

What about abusive masters? Can’t we strike, use the CCMA? Well, we happen to live in a world where there are protections for workers, employment laws, labour courts, arbitration processes. Should Christians use these? Well, like normal citizens, you have the right to use them, but not to abuse them. You can also forgo that right, when you see there is a conflict between pursuing that right and your Christian testimony.

What does this respect for authorities look like? As we said, it begins in the heart.

Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ;

not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,

with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men (Eph 6:5-7)

Man-pleasing respect only works when it is being watched. Man-pleasing respect works so as to not be demoted or docked or dismissed. But God-pleasing respect says, “I’m a Christian under the lordship of Christ. Submission is part of my spiritual DNA. I will treat this person like he is wearing five stars on his shoulder.” Once that inner attitude is present, Paul tells us what the outward looks like:

Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back,

not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. (Titus 2:9–10)

Outwardly, honouring bosses means you do the job. You do it thoroughly, so that your work will be complimented. Honouring bosses mean you don’t answer back, respond with cheeky comebacks, jabs, get the last word in. Honouring bosses means you don’t steal time or money or resources. You are faithful, reliable and loyal.

Now Paul tells us why: so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed.

If you don’t mentally give your work authority a place of rank and status in your heart, then it is likely that the reputation of God, and of all Christian doctrine will suffer.

Christians claim a unique relationship with God. With that privilege comes a responsibility. If you truly are God’s child, people can expect you will behave accordingly in the workplace. They quite rightly expect a family resemblance. If in place of honour there is murmuring, grumbling, gossip, backchat, cursing, complaining, the world can rightly ask, “So is this what Jesus would do? Is this what He taught, and is this what He did when He faced people like this?”

Turn your eyes upon Christ as He deals with corrupt Sadducees every year when he went up to Temple, three times. Or as He deals with Pharisees every Sabbath of His life. Or as he deals with narrow-minded elders in his hometown of Nazareth. Or as He deals with Romans policing his homeland, tax collectors. See Him even as He deals with Herod and Pilate. Yes, there were moments of rebuke and response, within a whole life of saluting their rank, often enduring injustice, sometimes suffering. But always living in hope, because the one who recognises rank and authority is submitting to God.

A Christian can go to work and say, “I am in Christ. The Spirit lives within me and can enable me to act as Jesus did in front of really harsh and evil authorities. Lord, help me to live out and act out the righteousness you have already imputed to me.

The one kind of master you can have is a regular unbelieving master. Whether he or she is nice or harsh, for the name of God, for the reputation of the faith, you inwardly respect the authority and let that flesh out. But then there is a second kind of master you could end up with.

II. Christians Serve Saved Masters to Edify the Church

And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things.

Now Paul comes to the second situation. Some slaves in Paul’s day had believing masters. Actually in Roman times, you had households, which consisted of more than just a nuclear family; it was usually extended family. And most households had at least one slave. So it was not uncommon in the early church for people to have been saved from the same household: the master and the slave. And now you had slaves who were the property of a Christian. In the church of God they ate the Lord’s Supper at the same table as equals, but then, come Monday, one was a slave and the other was the master.

With that was the temptation to despise the master. They could look down on him as no longer a master with authority, but merely as a brother with no right to command. They could begin to lower their sense of honour, and no longer work as hard, thinking, my boss is brother Marcus, a fellow-Christian. He’s not going to beat me if I do badly.

Or they could look down on him with resentment that he should continue to be a master and not simply set the Christian slave free. They could resent the fact that the same man who worshipped with them on Sunday had control over them on Monday. They could resent that there was equality in one place and inequality in another. What right does he have to command me, as a fellow brother in Christ? And so the Christian slave could come to abuse his shared position in Christ, take things for granted, expect special treatment, and basically abuse and exploit the situation to his own advantage.

No doubt, it was complicated for both Christian slave and master. You can tell, by reading the book of Philemon, that Paul was tending in the direction of overturning slavery, but yet he didn’t command some societal-wide revolution. In the New Testament, a tension exists between Christians who are slaves and the institution of slavery. Christian slaves are told to submit. But on the other hand, slave traders themselves are condemned (1 Tim 1:10). In the meantime, Christian slaves must submit, Christian masters must be fair, and neither should exploit the fact that slave or master is Christian.

But the command is simple: don’t despise your boss because he is a Christian.

Instead, Paul says, the very opposite should be happening. Slaves, if you are serving a Christian, you should work all the more, all the more diligent should be your service, because you are serving, aiding, helping a fellow Christian. The one receiving the good work is a believer and loved by God.

To serve them, as Jesus said, is to serve Him. To give a cup of cold water to a believer is to do it to Christ. If you work for another Christian, in a derivative sense, you are serving and building the church, edifying the body of Christ.

That’s still true today. If you help another Christian in his or her business, you are aiding him or her in making a living, just as he or she are aiding you, and together, you are going to be enabling more ministry, more missions, more mercy.

How do I know if my boss is truly a Christian? The answer is, the same way you know someone at church is a Christian. Because the person gives a public testimony of believing the gospel, shows that in public baptism, and then bears fruit of a changed life. If your boss simply says he is a Christian, or attends a church, or seems to be favourable to the Christian religion, that is all very interesting, but it doesn’t give you enough confidence to call him a Christian. So what do you do if your boss says he is a Christian, but has not given the biblical evidence that he is? You simply go back to verse 1, and treat your boss with all the respect you give to an unsaved boss.

But what if your boss has given a credible testimony of salvation, and is submitted to a local church and evidences some fruit of the Spirit? Well, then you have some reason to regard him as a brother. In that case, Scripture says, don’t despise him. Don’t expect special treatment at work. Don’t take chances and abuse your position as fellow Christian by being late. Don’t expect your Christian boss to be a better Christian than you are. But there’s no law for why that should be the case.

Instead, do all the things you would for an unsaved boss, and go the extra mile, knowing you are being a blessing to a fellow believer.

Here is the place to say that while it is great when believers help each other out in business, and give work to each other, and use each other’s services, I have seldom seen members of the same church go into business together in some kind of partnership and it end really well.

Few Christian business partnerships work out. Why? Most often, it is because Christians go into business together thinking that somehow there will be less problems to solve because they are both Christians. But work is work: it is problem solving all day.

Too often, Christians go into business, and one of them or both of them are not prepared to deal with mistakes, selfishness, sloppiness, or laziness in the other. Both fail to know how to address that. Both fail to communicate like Christians. Both fail to expect disagreement and use biblical approaches to solving disagreement.

And solving problems at work, is just like solving problems at home. It requires plenty of godly communication. And understanding of how to biblically resolve conflict. A business partnership is like marriage. It only works if you know how to communicate, if you expect disagreements and have a Christlike method for resolving them, and if you are controlled by the same priorities. I sometimes wish that Christians going into business together would come to me for the equivalent of pre-marital counseling, call it pre-commercial counseling to be ready.

A marriage will be as good as the maturity of the two Christians. A Christian business partnership will be as good as the maturity of the two Christians. This is important, because sometimes the very unity of the church is at stake.

When Christian work together, it should be the best of both godly submission and godly authority. Both manager and employee are seeking to be Christlike. When done well, it is another compelling picture of Christ.

Now those are the only two scenarios you’ll face: a saved boss or an unsaved boss. Unsaved? Salute the rank, and then express your loyalty to that God-ordained authority. Saved? Salute the rank, and go the extra mile to build up and bless, knowing you are blessing the church.

Either way, your work becomes worship. Hard work, whether done for an ungodly man or a godly man, can still be done for God. You can glorify God or you can glorify God and edify His church.

Laborare est orare: to work is to pray.

Someone once did a calculation of the amount of hours we on average spend on various activities and then worked it out in terms of a 75-year life. It looks like this in the average life. Of your 75 years – you will spend 6 years travelling, 6 years eating, 7.5 years dressing, and personal grooming, 9 years watching TV, .5 years worshipping and praying – 23 years sleeping – 19 years working.

That’s over a quarter of your life. Nineteen years, either glorifying and edifying, or not. If we obey 1 Timothy 6:1-2, by His grace, then those 19 years will be worship and service.