Lectionary Commentaries for September 21, 2025
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The parable at the heart of this passage is a head-scratcher, one of the most puzzling texts in the New Testament. A business manager (steward, oikonomos) engages in questionable conduct that damages his boss financially, yet wins praise. Really?

Chapter 16 of Luke presents two challenging parables dealing with economic relations, the first one starring this steward and the other depicting the dramatic reversal of fortunes for wealthy and destitute men (verses 19–31). Between the two parables, Luke places a set of sayings—also enigmatic—that relate the realm of God, entered through struggle, to the still-relevant claim of the law and the prophets (verses 14–18). Provocative as Jesus’ message about wealth and poverty may be (and this is a prominent narrative theme), Luke makes clear that it is not an innovation but continues a long-standing commitment of God and God’s people to social and economic justice.

The business manager: Dishonest or shrewd?

The parable begins by introducing a wealthy man who employs a steward, someone who manages his business affairs. All is not well, however: The steward is accused of mismanagement. It is unclear exactly what he has done, but it is worth noting that the description mimics the wealth-dissipating conduct of the prodigal son in the previous chapter (skorpizein, “squander,” in 15:13 and 16:1). Whatever the details, the wealthy owner (“master”: kyrios) acts without delay, firing his business manager and demanding he hand over all his financial records (verse 2).

Verses 3–7 then relate the fired manager’s response to the crisis he faces. An interior monologue articulates the man’s dilemma, with questions that invite readers into the story to contemplate what they would do in such a situation: “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg” (verse 3, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition). Self-awareness informs a rapidly developing strategy, one designed to win the manager friends whose welcome will ensure his survival (verse 4).

So, one by one, he renegotiates the contracts of his former boss’s debtors, substantially reducing the amounts they owe (verses 5–7). The scale of the debts—“a hundred jugs of olive oil” and “a hundred containers of wheat” (verses 6–7, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)—indicates that the debtors have much to gain from such a renegotiation. If they are, as of yet, unaware of the manager’s release from employment, they would assume that the debt reduction has been authorized by their wealthy creditor, though the instruction to rewrite the contract “quickly” may seem curious.

It is customary to regard the steward’s conduct as dishonest. After all, the narrator of the parable (Jesus) calls him an “unrighteous manager” (verse 8, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition). Some interpreters, though, have attempted to defend his character. By reducing the contracted debts at the expense of his master, they suggest, he is not acting as a scoundrel but instead performing a virtuous act, whether removing unlawful interest built into the debt principal or voluntarily forfeiting his own agent’s commission.¹ However, the story doesn’t highlight his virtue; rather, it turns on his shrewdness in surviving a desperate situation. Ironically, his plan results in more of the wealth-squandering that cost him his job in the first place.

The manager’s crisis response proves successful: When the rich owner learns about it, he commends his former steward (verse 8). To be sure, he doesn’t rehire the man, but he recognizes that the strategy has ingratiated the one-time steward with new friends. And to reinstate the debts in full, to cancel the transactions, would be unthinkable, as this would damage the owner’s now glowing reputation in town. Honor and public esteem are more important even than money!

Responding to the parable: An appeal for trustworthy conduct

A strange story, this. The sayings that follow, beginning with verse 8b and continuing through verse 13, rein in the parable by making clear that the manager’s praise does not mean that dishonest conduct is acceptable. Rather, all are urged to be utterly trustworthy in handling the affairs and resources entrusted to them. Even so, in commenting on the parable, Jesus laments that the people of God don’t seem to be as savvy as others who are driven by self-interest—in the manner of this steward, for example (verse 8b). Albeit in a strange way, the parable points in a promising direction: Money may and often does entangle and corrupt, but it can also be a vehicle for forging relationships of value (verse 9). It is not about self-interest but contributing to the flourishing of others.

How might this passage contribute to Luke’s insistent appeal for generous sharing of wealth with the under-resourced (for example, 12:13–21, 32–34; 14:7–24; 16:19–31; 18:18–25; 19:1–10)? How might 21st-century persons and communities of faith prove strategic and wise in forming and sustaining relationships that foster the well-being of others, especially those who experience oppressive debt burdens?

To be sure, we can’t serve both God and wealth (16:13). Yet the parable and the ensuing sayings suggest that we can serve God by being strategic and wise—being faithful—in how we deal with the economic resources at our disposal. The enormous disparity in wealth between the rich and most others in many parts of the world today highlights the importance of creating more-just systems that make many more friends for us among under-resourced persons and communities. Jesus will pick up that thread more directly in the next parable, about Lazarus and the rich man (16:19–31).

Notes

1. So he exercises management in a domain that is unrighteous—money—rather than being unrighteous himself. See the summary of these proposals in John T. Carroll, Luke: A Commentary, New Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2012), 323–24.

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The pericope before this week’s lectionary text offers a key for interpreting the indictment against the gross violation of human rights on display in Amos 8:4–7. In a striking image, Amos is presented with a basket of summer fruit past its peak, utilizing a clever wordplay, qayits for “summer fruit” to symbolize that the end (qets) is nearer than the oblivious audience suspects. In terms of the classic Doomsday Clock, one could say it is minutes before midnight. 

One would not say this is the case if one looks at the unsuspecting behavior of the people of the northern kingdom, which Amos addresses. Elsewhere in Amos, the callous behavior of the people living opulent lives filled with luxury is well documented (see, especially, next week’s lectionary reading in Amos 6:1–7). In Amos 8:4–7, the prophet specifically addresses business owners obsessed with making profits, stepping on those in need and bringing ruin upon the poorest of the land.

In a profound expression of unfair labor practices, these business owners do not rest even during festivals, much less for the weekly Sabbath. And they most certainly will not let their employees rest. In a classic case of shrinkonomics, these business owners vow to make “the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier.” Further examples of their obsession with making a quick buck are highlighted in verse 6, when it is said they are selling second-grade wheat (“the sweepings of the wheat”) to bolster their profits. In contemporary terms, the subpar quality of their food offerings could be likened to selling low-quality meat with plenty of fillers that ultimately compromise its nutritional value to the detriment of the poor.

But probably most shocking is how these business owners prey on people who have fallen on difficult times as they participate in debt slavery. In Amos 8:6, we hear how they buy the poor and the needy for a couple of silver coins or, one can say, the price of a pair of sandals. This ancient text offers a shocking indictment of the value of a human being: next to nothing. One could ask similar questions in today’s world of fast fashion and deplorable work conditions for those who feed our fetish with fashion: whether there is a similar disregard today for human worth. 

In a powerful rhetorical strategy, Amos uses the business owners’ own words in verses 5–6 against them as they implicate themselves. Their words confirm just how little regard they hold for those in their service. For them, unethical business practices are just how things are: run-of-the-mill, business-as-usual. 

However, the pericope that started with judgment, with the basket filled with rotten summer fruit signaling an ominous end, also ends with judgment. The indictment against the unfair labor practices and the callous disregard for human life on display in Amos 8:4–7 is framed in terms of God’s declaration that God will never forget their deeds (verse 7). In a damning indictment, those who are deemed responsible for stepping on the needy and for bringing ruin upon the poorest of the poor are held accountable by Godself. 

Rooted in the understanding that acts have consequences, this text echoes the sentiment of proverbs from around the world that capture the notion of cause and effect associated with injustice: The chickens have come home to roost; You reap what you sow; Harm set, harm get; As you give, you receive; Boontjie kry sy loontjie (an Afrikaans proverb that literally translates: “Little Bean gets his paycheck”).

The indictment against the business owners’ unethical behavior in Amos 8:4–7 is framed in terms of lamentations and bitter weeping when “the songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day” (verse 3) and “everyone mourns who lives in it” (verse 8). And in verse 10, God states: 

I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on all loins
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.

The unfair labor practices and the callous disregard for human life in this week’s lectionary text thus are characterized as a disaster in the making. The only realistic response to this desperate situation is to join in the songs of wailing and the lamentations about the ensuing death, destruction, and expulsion that are already resounding throughout the land. 

In the pericope to follow, one finds a foreboding vision of the detrimental effects of human greed on the entire land, which is said to “tremble on this account” (verse 8). The ecological impact of greed is likened to the widespread upheaval wrought by the rising and waning of the Nile, and to the sun going down in the middle of the day, covering the earth in darkness (verse 9).  

Amos 8’s unsettling account of a fatally flawed economic system that benefits a few but that, the prophet warns, will inevitably collapse sounds all too familiar. In today’s world, we increasingly hear prophetic voices channeling Amos when they warn that corporate greed and humans’ insatiable drive to produce and consume more, more, more—the neo-liberal capitalism regime—comprise a fatally flawed and fundamentally unjust system with devastating consequences for the entire creation. 

Contemporary prophets who see what others cannot or do not want to see consistently warn us of the negative impact of unfair labor practices on the environment. For instance, global warming has been shown to have devastating consequences, as more and more erratic natural disasters and rising sea levels cause great harm to the most vulnerable.

One might easily despair, looking at the world around us, where it seems injustice and unrighteousness are out of control. The good news of the gospel is that there are voices like Amos who see and hear and dare to speak about what is not right, not normal in the world today. The concluding words that God has sworn an oath to never, ever forget what they (we) have done, thus, serve as an urgent appeal not only to the initial audience but also to every one of us who are recipients of Amos’s vision to align the world as it currently is with the way the world is supposed to be.

No prophet incorporates the genre of lament into their message to a greater extent than Jeremiah. Among the most recognized writings of the prophet fitting this characterization are those scattered about the book and known as Jeremiah’s “confessions,” although each could quite accurately carry the heading “lament.”¹ In addition to these (and others), the current pericope also more than qualifies as a lament. Unfortunately, the church tends to underutilize lament, as reflected in the Revised Common Lectionary’s somewhat sparse use of the vast store of laments found in the Psalms.² Jeremiah reminds us, however, that the faithful can hardly experience the fullness of life, or of God, without this powerful means of expression.

Someone complaining that their coffee isn’t just the right temperature at Starbucks does not qualify as a lament. With few exceptions in the biblical genre, a lament includes a cry to God regarding a situation of deep grief or profound suffering, but also notes of trust in God and confidence that the lamented situation will improve. These characteristics help explain why the one often referred to as “The Weeping Prophet” would remain such a profound voice of the faith to this day. This noteworthy status would not be true if there were not more to Jeremiah’s weeping than, well, just weeping.

As do all the prophets to some degree, Jeremiah earnestly desires for the people to repent of their wrongdoing so they might live. Thus, one of the very helpful aspects of lament is naming that which is not as it should be. Only after recognizing and naming something can that thing hope to be corrected. Thus, Christian worship services typically begin with a confession of sin.

Jeremiah engages extensively in the practice of recognizing and naming the things that are wrong. In chapter 7, the prophet delivers what is often referred to as his “temple sermon,” in which he spells out the many egregious wrongs of the people—from stealing, murdering, committing adultery, and swearing falsely, to the outright making of offerings to other gods, even offerings of their own children.

As chapter 7 gives way to chapter 8, it becomes clear that, though encouraged and offered the opportunity to do so, the people are not amending their ways in the least. As a result, catastrophe befalls them. God suggests that even storks, turtle doves, swallows, and cranes have more self-awareness and wisdom than God’s people, which is perplexing, to say the least, to both Jeremiah and God.

Verse 14 ends with a hint of self-acknowledgment that the impending doom is a result of the people’s sin against God. Yet, there is still no indication of contrition. Verse 15 suggests that the people still expect everything to turn out OK in some automatic way. Clearly, however, as verses 16–17 reveal, it does not. The text reports that the sounds of the snorting horses of an invading army are heard from Dan. What’s more, God is sending serpents into the midst of the people, whose only purpose is to bite.

It would seem that the only “lament” possible in light of such an ominous precipice would be of a horrific and tragic end from which there is no return. In addition to announcements of judgment and words of lament, however, Jeremiah is also known for profound words of hope, such as in the portion of the text known as the “Book of Consolation.”³ This should not be surprising on the part of a prophet so steeped in lament. Our current pericope, however, expresses hope not simply as part of the lament form in the usual response to pain and grief, but through the actual pain and grief itself.

Many writers have noted the ambiguity of identifying the speaker(s) in our text.⁴ Is the first-person referent Jeremiah or God?⁵ Perhaps we can (and maybe even should) avoid the urge to try to resolve the ambiguity and instead embrace it by considering the first-person speaker to be both Jeremiah and God. Not only for Jeremiah but for any Old Testament prophet, the speaker of the word of the Lord cannot be neatly separated from the word itself. Biblical prophets were not passive mouthpieces who conveyed messages from a shielded location. On the contrary, the prophets, in various ways, embodied and experienced that which they proclaimed.⁶

There can be little doubt that what Jeremiah saw and experienced happening to his people brought him great grief and heartache, particularly since he had put so much of himself into trying to bring about repentance. None of the expressions of profound distress found here are difficult to imagine as belonging to Jeremiah.

And yet, even if Jeremiah here does make a personal claim to the outlined distress, could God not also do so? In fact, if Jeremiah is a prophet in the full biblical sense and is speaking the word of the Lord, could God not? Because Jeremiah has given his all to call the people back, but now sees the catastrophic outcome of their refusal, his joy is gone, grief is upon him, his heart is sick. These things are also true of God! God also hears the cry of the people asking, “Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” (18:19), to which God responds (in anger? or in anguish, perhaps even with a tear?), “Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?”

The text then sounds the voice of the people once more, who this time speak a statement reflective of a people who believe their God may not be in Zion: “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (verse 20). Again, the first-person speaker responds with words of hurt, recognizing the brokenness of the people, for which the speaker mourns and is even seized with horror (verse 21). The persistent overarching question of “why” continues in verse 22, only for the text to conclude with additional words of anguish over “the slain of the daughter of my people” (9:1).

The text offers no explicit hope for the survival or restoration of the people. Nevertheless, it does offer great hope in that we see neither a prophet nor a God who delights in the suffering, punishment, or imminent destruction of the people. Both have heretofore relentlessly desired repentance and life for God’s people, and there is no indication that this desire has now suddenly ended. So although it is only implicit, a message expressed in the words of Amos comes to mind: “It may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph” (Amos 5:15; see also Isaiah 37:4).

Through lament, Jeremiah honestly names the deep wrongs of God’s people and calls them to account for their refusal to acknowledge or repent. However, the prophet also offers a powerful and moving glimpse of a God who, more profoundly than we can perhaps imagine, is indeed with us, so much so that our suffering becomes God’s suffering. Somewhere in the midst of that, there is indeed hope—profound hope—for a future.

Notes

1. Jeremiah 11:18–23; 12:1–6; 15:10–21; 17:14–18; 18:19–23; 20:7–13.
2. Fortunately, today’s readings include one of the lament psalms.
3. Jeremiah 30:1–31:40. See also the wider context of 30:1–33:26.
4. See, for instance, Patrick D. Miller, “The Book of Jeremiah: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, vol. 6 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 648.
5. Miller refers to the following for an argument for God as the speaker: J. J. M. Roberts, “The Motif of the Weeping God in Jeremiah and Its Background in the Lament Tradition of the Ancient Near East,” Old Testament Essays 5 (1992), 361–74.
6. Consider, for example, the impact of Hosea’s prophetic activity on his family life. The bodily expression and experience of the Word as seen among the prophets will reach an incarnational climax in the person of Jesus Christ.

Consider “the name of the LORD,” a phrase repeated three times in the first three verses of Psalm 113 (The name “LORD” is repeated three times in the first verse alone and eight times in the nine verses of the psalm. The theme is crystal clear!).

Perhaps you cannot help but recall the commandment: “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God” (Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11). This commandment admonishes us not to use “the name of the LORD” as a prop to promote an agenda or as a shield to cover an agenda that we know in our hearts is not the Lord’s. As preachers, this commandment demands that we remember the audacity of our task, discerning with faithfulness what we dare to proclaim in “the name of the LORD,” lest the words we speak from the pulpit make it harder for people to trust in the Lord, rather than sustaining and strengthening that trust.

We know, then, that we ought not use the Lord’s name wrongfully. But how do we use it rightly? How are we supposed to use it? The Lord’s Prayer is helpful here: “May your name be revered as holy” (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2). Or, more traditionally, “Hallowed be thy name.” In this prayer that Jesus taught us, we ask the Lord to help us honor the Lord’s name, in the words of Martin Luther, “as the greatest treasure and most sacred thing that we have.”¹ Psalm 113 leaves no question about what this looks like: Praise and bless the name of the Lord at all times and in all places! (verses 2–4).

Non-churchy types tend to balk at this notion. I hear the cynic asking, “How arrogant is the Lord, that the Lord needs constant praising and blessing?”

Good question. The Lord doesn’t! The one who created all things and reconciled all things to Godself without us does not need us—does not have needs. Period. To understand the psalmist’s call to praise the Lord everywhere and always, it is vital to note the genre.

Psalm 113 is not legal material; it is not a list of commandments. It is the work of an artist, a poet, a songwriter. “Praise the name of the LORD” is not an admonition to “Get your act together and show some respect!” to some narcissistic lord in the sky. Rather, it is sung out of an overflow, an uncontainable awe and wonder and thanksgiving at the name of the one who created the infinitely expansive cosmos and continues to care for each individual creature who lives in it, including you! (see also Matthew 10:29–30). It is an exclamation of joy that cannot help but be proclaimed for all who have ears to hear! Praise the name of the Lord, because—how could you not?!

In a world in which many of us can go online and purchase whatever we need without knowing where or how the product was grown or made, or the journey it took to sit on our doorstep, a world in which we can turn on a faucet without a clue about the water’s source, it takes no small amount of curiosity and wonder to trace these journeys further and further back, all the way to creation, until one cannot help but ask with the astonishment of a young child, the astonishment of the psalmist, “Who is like the LORD our God?!” (verse 5).

The preacher might play with the images in this psalm to open the doors of people’s imaginations to wonder at the majesty of the Lord, “who is high above the nations, and his glory above the heavens” (verse 4); who, in this psalm, does not sit on a throne in heaven somewhere, but is above even heaven, looking “far down on the heavens and the earth” (verse 6).

The incomprehensibility of the Lord doesn’t stop there. This inconceivably limitless Lord freely chooses to “bend down” (Psalm 86:1; 116:2) to human beings in order to “raise” us from the “dust” and “ash heaps” to which we condemn one another—especially the poor, ill, and those unable to fulfill the expectations society places upon them (verses 7–9).

For Christians, the character of the Lord that we hear proclaimed in this psalm is seen most clearly in Christ Jesus,

who, though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:6–8)

In Christ, the Lord who “looks far down” (Psalm 113:6) comes all the way down to us, to the depths of the earth. The Lord of the cosmos, who might have remained abstract to and distant from us, freely chooses to be revealed as the Lord who is with us and for us, always. In Christ, the Lord walked through all the “dust” and “ash heaps” to which we could condemn him, all the way to death, and overcame death once and for all—for us. Through the Holy Spirit, the Lord unites us with Christ in his death and resurrection, raising us to new life with him and freeing us from all condemnation.

Therefore, whatever ash heap the world throws us on—and whatever ash heap we throw others on—does not have the final say. In Christ, we are set free from our death-dealing ways. Death itself is put to death. We are raised to “sit with princes” (verse 8), through no merit of our own.

“Who is like the LORD our God?” (verse 5). No one!

In faith, we cannot help but use the name of the Lord rightly, praising the one whose name is “the greatest treasure and most sacred thing that we have.”² Praise the name of the Lord!

Notes

1. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, trans. Charles P. Arand et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 445.
2. Kolb, 445.

In 1 Timothy 2:1–7, the author shifts into the specific “instructions” (tēn paraggelian, see also 1:3–4) that he first mentions in 1:18. The goal of such instruction is “faith and a good conscience” (New Revised Standard Version), and the rejection of the latter by some has led to their faith being “shipwrecked” (1:19). The first instruction is for “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings” to be offered “for all people” (hyper pantōn annthrōpōn, my translation). Why should the audience pray for all people? Part of the answer lies in the author’s radical use of “all people” in 2:4: God “desires all people (pantas anthrōpous) to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (New Revised Standard Version modified).

Next in the request for prayers, “kings and all who are in high positions” get a special mention. Numerous possibilities exist for why he makes that request. Does he, for example, seek the conversion of political leaders along with “all people,” so that leaders will govern according to “Christian principles”? Is the author of 1 Timothy, in other words, an ancient “Christian nationalist”? His stated purpose of prayers for leaders is actually simple and practical: Prayers are needed “so that” (hina) the author and other Christ-followers (note the “we” in verse 2) would “lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity” (verse 2, New Revised Standard Version).

Here, interpreters must bear in mind the distance between contemporary American democratic governance structures and those of the first-century Roman Empire. As Luke Timothy Johnson states, “It is important for present-day readers to grasp that the idea of a Jeffersonian democracy was as far from Paul’s imagination as the concept of a nuclear suburban family with dual-career spouses.”¹

Contemporary political imaginations can conceptualize dramatic political transformations through democratic processes, revolutions, or other means. Similarly, ancient apocalyptic writings envisioned wholesale cosmic transformation of present orders. The author of 1 Timothy, however, like the author of 1 Peter, seems to take the established imperial order as firmly established.²

Whether due to a lack of sociopolitical imagination, a level of comfort within the imperial order, or something else entirely, the author’s request to pray for such leaders seems quite practical. Rather than live as sectarians, zealots, or others who might draw the empire’s attention and risk the well-being of Christ-believing communities, they should pray for their leaders so they can pursue godly lives without fear or violence.

Yet, one also finds in these verses a tension between conservatism and subtle subversion. The author never conflates earthly rulers with the ruler of the cosmos. Although the audience should offer prayers “for kings and all who are in high positions,” such figures are not confused with the recipient of those prayers, whom the author earlier identifies as “the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God” (1:17, New Revised Standard Version).

In the first century CE, Roman emperors were at times addressed with the titles of “savior” and “lord.” The author of 1 Timothy, however, identifies God as Savior (1:1; 2:3; 4:10) and Jesus as Lord (1:2, 12; 6:3, 14–15; see also the more ambiguous 1:14). For the author, Jesus can combine these and related identities and be identified as “the only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (6:15, New Revised Standard Version).

Instead of loyalty to an emperor and deities—the two intertwined in the emperor cult—1 Timothy acknowledges the ultimate sovereignty of one God, with God’s Son Jesus Christ serving a mediating role between God and humanity. He summarizes: “For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all” (1:5–6, New Revised Standard Version).

By reading the epistle’s admonition to pray for sociopolitical leaders alongside its descriptions of God and Christ as divine sovereigns, the tension between conservatism and subversion in the passage comes into view. Christians who experience injustice and oppression understandably read the Pauline letters in search of a perspective that encourages the transformation of the world’s systems and structures. Such readers would be disappointed to find in 1 Timothy not a prophetic call to hold leaders accountable but what seems to be mere acceptance of imperial powers (see also Romans 13:1-7). Furthermore, the verses that follow our focus text (2:8–15) do little to characterize the author as an advocate for liberation.

Yet the author’s seeming resignation about the immovability of sociopolitical powers does not tell the full story. The author also implicitly subverts—though without fully deconstructing—human claims to sociopolitical power over others by locating all of humankind within the context of the divine rule of God and Christ. Within that cosmological perspective, the claims of kings or other rulers can never be ultimate. It is important, moreover, for readers to recall the purposes for prayers on behalf of sociopolitical rulers: “so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity” (verse 2).

Despite the difficulties of reading 1 Timothy, its mix of conservativism and subtle subversion offers something for Christians who live in politically fraught and unstable environments to consider. For one, that framing locates Christ-believers within a sociopolitical order while giving them an identity and way of life that is never fully commensurable with that order.  Moreover, the text reminds readers who possess significant amounts of social power and political agency to consider that, in some situations, subtle forms of political subversion, rather than more overt acts of protest or rebellion, are necessary to preserve the well-being of the most vulnerable.

The choice of whether to adopt Timothy’s subtlety or, say, Revelation’s vision for cosmic overhaul is never one of mere text selection. Such judgments are acts of discernment for those who live and conduct themselves with “hope set on the living God” (1 Timothy 4:10).

Notes

1. Luke Timothy Johnson, Letters to Paul’s Delegates: 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, TNTIC (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International), 129.
2. Johnson, Letters to Paul’s Delegates, 128–30.