A stirring extrapolation

“Let all who are under a yoke as bondservants regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. 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” (1 Timothy 6:1-2).

The subject is how to serve masters, and the instruction is unequivocal: Serve them well. Reckon them “worthy of all honor.” That is how to think of them. Words like “serve,” and “not be disrespectful,” and “beloved” are used.

Now, there is something in formal logic known as a fortiori reasoning, and also argument “from the lesser to the greater.” This is argumentation for one thing from an even stronger reason. I find such a logic in this passage relevant to my own attitude toward my husband. That is to say, a husband is in biblical terms a relationship even more important and central to one’s life than a boss or master. Therefore, if we are to honor secular masters, how much more husbands?

And look what it says in 1 Timothy about mere worldly masters: we are to render them “all honor.” In verse 1, Paul is not even talking yet about Christian masters, but merely masters in general. They may be God-haters for all we know; they may be harsh. Still, the Christian under their yoke is to give them “all honor.” Only in the second verse do we come to the scenario where we consider Christian masters, men who are “believers and beloved.” If we are duty bound before God to honor a run-of-the-mill pagan master, how much more a Christian one?

Now we ramp it up yet another notch higher, and we extrapolate the following: If our Christian ancestors were commanded to “serve” and give “all honor” to and “not be disrespectful” to pagan masters and especially Christian masters, then how much more should I as a wife “serve” and give “all honor” to and “not be disrespectful” to my husband? Even if the word husband is not mentioned here, the implication is inescapable.

So we find in 1 Timothy 6:1-2 as strong an argument for wives loving and honoring their husbands as we can discover anywhere in Scripture. And is it not helpful for a woman to think of the matter in these terms—that if our spiritual ancestors were fully expected, as a way of making the faith attractive, to so honor their worldly masters who may care nothing for them, then how much more should we content ourselves with the easier mandate to honor our husbands, and for the same reasons?