I Timothy 6:1-10
Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers; rather they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved. (v. 2) At first this seemed to be a strange comment from Paul, in that he already urged slaves (bondservants) in the preceding verse to glorify God in their service. But now he makes a special plea to slaves who serve believing masters, essentially repeating his comment in the first verse, but also adding to it something about the slaves considering their believing master’s welfare. I imagine that Paul added this second verse because of his time with Onesimus, the slave whose owner was Philemon. No doubt he had spent hours chatting with Onesimus and possibly hearing about Onesimus’s jealousy for his master’s wealth, even though both of them were believers. Maybe Onesimus felt like Philemon should have freed him? Again the larger context helps us understand the verse!
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. (vv. 9-10a) This verse is true enough, but we have another context today that was less an issue for Paul: POWER!! Switch “rich” for “powerful” and “money” for “power” and we have a good picture of politics in the USA today – on both sides of the aisle! Nothing more to say on that! Back in Paul’s time the Romans were powerful and there was little that the Jews or other conquered people could do (although there were numerous uprisings that were put down fairly quickly). However, it is also true that the Jewish leaders also craved power, as did the regional Roman rulers (like Herod and Pontius Pilate). So “rich and powerful” could have easily been the bigger context for these two verses.
Slava Bohu!