<p>6:1 <i>Let all that are under a yoke as slaves</i>- This reads rather strangely, because a slave was axiomatically under a AV &quot;the&quot; yoke. It appears to be saying the same thing twice. And there is no evidence that 'under the yoke' was a common term for slaves in New Testament times. Perhaps the idea is to remind slaves that actually they were under the yoke of Christ, which is &quot;light&quot; (Mt. 12:29,30). Whatever slavery we may feel under, perhaps in our working or domestic lives, we can remind ourselves that ultimately we are under slavery to the Lord Jesus, and His yoke is light. But Acts 15:10 and Gal. 5:1 speak of those under the yoke as being those in bondage to the Mosaic law. Perhaps Paul is addressing the delicate question of how a slave was to behave if he came to Christ but was under the yoke of Jewish law because his master was Jewish. This was likely a live issue in Ephesus because the church there began with Paul making converts from within the synagogue. He does not urge rebellion against those masters or sticking on points of principle; but rather to treat these masters as Christ and thus get higher than them (see next comment).</p><p><i>Regard their own masters as worthy of all honour- </i>This is a clever word play. The Greek translated &quot;regard&quot; is elsewhere translated as the noun &quot;Governor&quot; (Mt. 2:6; Acts 7:10), &quot;he that is chief&quot; (Lk. 22:26), &quot;chief speaker&quot; (Acts 14:12), &quot;chief men&quot; (Acts 15:22). By regarding their masters as &quot;worthy of honour&quot; because they were to serve them as they served Christ- who alone is the One &quot;worthy of all honour&quot;- they were effectively masters of their masters. It recalls the spirit of the Lord's command to offer to take a Roman soldier's bags another mile when asked. Those treated as low become the high by their Christian attitude. Let's remember that many slaves were abused by their masters; not even their bodies belonged to themselves. Sexual abuse was common. Yet never does Paul tell slaves to refuse the sexual demands of their masters. And slaves, according to contemporary references to Christianity, formed a large percentage of Christian congregations. This is not to say that the moral teaching of Christianity in this regard was not to be taken seriously- to refuse such demands and face the consequences was clearly the highest level to be taken by a Christian slave. But Paul in this matter surely makes a concession to human weakness and the nature of human situations, which the letter of the law could never accommodate. The way of Christ however elevates the drudgery of slavery and dead end situations, of the type faced today by many in effective slavery to minimum wage employment, abusive employers or very claustrophobic, limited domestic situations.</p><p><i>So that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled</i>- &quot;Reviled&quot; or &quot;blasphemed&quot; is exactly what the pagans in Ephesus had accused Paul of doing to Diana (Acts 19:37 s.w.). Clearly the pagan opposition were looking for every opportunity and reason to do the same back to the God of the Christians, whose name they carried by baptism. Paul makes an assumption here, in warning believing slaves to act faithfully before their unbelieving masters, lest the doctrines of God be blasphemed by them. Paul takes it as read that the slave would have taught the doctrines of the faith to his master, and therefore any misbehaviour by him would cause those teachings to be mocked. He assumed that radical preaching would be going on. And again in Tit. 2:5, he writes that wives should behave orderly so that &ldquo;the word of God be not blasphemed&rdquo;. He assumes that all believing men and women would be preachers of the word, yet if the wives were disorderly in their behaviour they would bring mockery upon the message preached. Paul so often in writing to Timothy expresses concern about the disrepute possible in the eyes of outsiders. Clearly there was a conscious effort to destroy the church in Ephesus through legal procedures, and so care had to be taken not to give genuine reasons for this to happen. Further, Paul had entrusted Timothy with a teaching ministry, and bad behaviour amongst the converts would mean that his teaching would be &quot;reviled&quot;. The message preached was therefore backed up by the behaviour of those who believed it. Conversions are not often won by the simple attraction of the message of itself; that word is made flesh in the eyes of the world by those who believe it. &quot;The teaching&quot; would be reviled if those hearing it behaved in a way which invited mockery. So the teaching and the example of the believers of that teaching are parallel.</p>