Slaves, Masters and Sound Teaching

Slaves, Masters and Sound Teaching
1Timothy 6.1-5

Supposing the world goes on for another thousand years, and the Christians alive at that time look back at our generation, what will shock them most?

We could each, no doubt, draw up our list of (other people’s) failings and faults, and, by projecting our dislikes onto the future, declare that this or that will be deemed outrageous. Some will highlight the way in which white Christians went along with the oppression of their black brothers and sisters; others will focus on the massive problem of debt in the Third World. Some will declare that Western Christianity has lost the plot entirely when it comes to sexual morality; others, no doubt, will imagine that a thousand years from now Christians will be comfortable accepting a wide variety of sexual practices as normal. And – who knows? – it may be that among the things future generations will regard as scandalous about our present behaviour will be our unthinking use of oil-based products as a major energy source. We are polluting our planet day and night, burning up resources and making a great mess. And our nuclear alternatives aren’t much better. ‘After all,’ people may say, ‘they had the wind and the tides, the waterfalls and the sunshine, and the technology to harness them – why. didn’t they use them?’ And we might not have any good answers. We might find ourselves ashamed of the way we took our energy sources for granted and never asked awkward questions about them...