1 Timothy 6:2 - Exposition

Let them serve them the rather for rather do them service, A.V.; that partake of the benefit are believing and beloved for are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit, A.V. They that have believing masters. The direction in the preceding verse applied to all slaves, though chiefly to what, as Alford says, was far the commonest ease, that of those who had unbelieving masters. But now he adds a caution with regard to the Christian slave of a Christian master. There was a danger lest the feeling that slaves and masters are brothers in Christ should unduly interfere with the respect which he owed him as his master. And so St. Paul addresses a word of special advice to such. Let them not despise them. Let not their spiritual equality with their masters lead them to underrate the worldly difference that separates them; or to think slightly of the authority of a master relatively to his slaves. But let them serve them the rather, because they that partake of the benefit are believing and beloved. There is a good deal of obscurity in this sentence, but it may be observed first that the grammatical rendering of the R.V. is clearly right, and that of the A.V. clearly wrong. "They that partake of the benefit" is beyond all doubt the subject, and not the predicate. Then the construction of the two sentences (this and the preceding one) makes it certain that the subject in this sentence ( οἱ τῆς εὐεργεσίας ἀντιλαμβανόμενοι ) are the same persons as the δέσποται in the preceding sentence, because it is predicated of them both that they are πιστοί , and of both that they are, in convertible terms, ἀγαπητοί and ἀδελφοί . £ And this leads us, with nearly certainty, to the further conclusion that the εὐεργεσία , the beneficium, or "benefit," spoken of is that especial service—that service of love and good will running ahead of necessary duty, which the Christian slave gives to the Christian master; a sense which the very remarkable passage quoted by Alford from Seneca strikingly confirms. £ The only remaining difficulty, then, is the meaning "partake of" ascribed to ἀντιλαμβανόμενοι But this is scarcely a difficulty. It is true that in the only two other passages in the New Testament where this verb occurs, and in its frequent use in the LXX ., it has the sense of "helping" ( Luke 1:54 ; Acts 20:35 ); but there is nothing strange in this. The verb in the middle voice means to "lay hold of," You may lay hold of for the purpose of helping, supporting, clinging to, laying claim to, holding in check, etc. (see Liddell and Scott). Here the masters lay hold of the benefit for the purpose of enjoying it. There is possibly an indication in the word that the masters actively and willingly accept it—they stretch out their hand to take it. There does not seem to be any sense of reciprocity, as some think, in the use of ἀντι . The sense of the whole passage seems to be clearly, "Let not those who have believing masters think slightly of their authority because they are brethren; but let them do them extra service, beyond what they are obliged to do, for the very reason that those whom they will thus benefit are believing and beloved brethren." Teach ( δίδασκε ). Observe the connection of this word with the ἡ διδασκαλία of 1 Timothy 6:1 , 1 Timothy 6:3 , and elsewhere.