Master

The Bible uses "master" along three connected lines: the head of a household over slaves and hired workers, the employer who owes wages, and — figuratively — Yahweh and Christ over their people. Mosaic law restrains the first, the prophets and apostles press the second, and the Gospels redirect the title to Jesus, who accepts "The Teacher" and "The Lord" as proper of himself.

The Master in the Household

The Mosaic law treats the household master as accountable for the bodies and the rest of those under his hand. A master who strikes his slave with a rod and kills him is to be punished (Ex 21:20-21); a master who maims a slave by destroying an eye or knocking out a tooth must release the slave free for that injury (Ex 21:26-27). The Sabbath command extends rest down through the household: "your male slave and your female slave may rest as well as you" (De 5:14). Authority is bounded — "You will not rule over him with rigor, but will fear your God" (Le 25:43). Job, in his oath of innocence, names the same accountability and traces it back to creation: "If I have despised the cause of my male slave or of my female slave, when they contended with me; what then shall I do when God rises up?... Did not he who made me in the womb make him?" (Job 31:13-15).

Egyptian bondage shows the opposite of this restraint. Pharaoh "set over them slave masters to afflict them with their burdens" (Ex 1:11), and when they sought to make bricks without straw it was "the taskmasters of the people" who carried the order forward (Ex 5:6, 5:10). Scripture's positive picture of a household master takes Abraham as its warrant: "I have known him, to the end that he may command his sons and his household after him, that they may keep the way of Yahweh, to do righteousness and justice" (Ge 18:19). The centurion of Capernaum is the Gospel instance — "a certain captain's slave, who was dear to him, was sick and at the point of death" (Lu 7:2).

Unjust Masters

Genesis records three unjust masters. Sarai pressed Abram for license against Hagar and used it: "Look, your slave is in your hand; do to her that which is good in your eyes. And Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her face" (Ge 16:6). Jacob testifies of his uncle, "your⁺ father has deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God didn't allow him to hurt me" (Ge 31:7). In Egypt, Potiphar's wife turns the master's house against an innocent slave: "his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph" (Ge 39:7), and when he refused her she accused him to her husband, so that "his master's wife heard the words... that his wrath was kindled. And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison" (Ge 39:19-20). In each case the master, or the master's wife, exploits the legal hand the household gave.

The Master as Employer

Beyond the slave laws, Scripture binds the master who hires. "The wages of a hired worker will not remain with you all night until the morning" (Le 19:13). Deuteronomy presses the same duty in the language of compassion: "You will not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy... in his day you will give him his wages, neither will the sun go down on it; for he is poor, and sets his soul on it: lest he cry against you to Yahweh, and it is sin to you" (De 24:14-15). The wisdom literature warns the master who works the household for his own gain — "He who oppresses the poor to increase his [gain]... [will come] only to want" (Pr 22:16) — while observing how an indulgent master shapes a slave over time: "He who delicately brings up his slave from a child will have him become a son at the last" (Pr 29:21).

The prophets press the same point as a covenant lawsuit. "Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice; who uses his fellow man's service without wages, and does not give him his wages" (Je 22:13). Yahweh of hosts names himself "a swift witness... against those who unjustly reduce the wages of the hired worker, the widow, and the fatherless" (Mal 3:5).

The apostolic writers carry the wage-relation forward. "Now to him who works, the wages aren't reckoned as of grace, but as of debt" (Ro 4:4). The Christian master is told to deal with his slaves under a higher accountability: "you⁺ masters, do the same things to them, and forbear threatening: knowing that he who is both their Master and yours⁺ is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him" (Eph 6:9); "Masters, render to your⁺ slaves that which is just and equal; knowing that you⁺ also have a Master in heaven" (Col 4:1). Pauls' wage rule for the assembly cites both Torah and Gospel: "You will not muzzle the ox when he treads out the corn. And, The worker is worthy of his wages" (1Ti 5:18). The case of Onesimus shows the relation transposed: "no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a brother beloved... both in the flesh and in the Lord" (Phm 1:16). James reissues the OT judgment against fraud: "the wages of the workers who mowed your⁺ fields, which you⁺ kept back by fraud, cries out: and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of Yahweh of hosts" (Jas 5:4). Sirach, looking back at the same household, names the holy as Yahweh's own slaves: "Those who are holy servants, serve her, And God is with those who desire her" (Sir 4:14).

Yahweh as Master and Teacher

Yahweh stands over Israel as the household's true master, and his authority is exercised most often as teaching. He instructs from heaven — "Out of heaven he made you hear his voice, that he might instruct you" (De 4:36) — and through the prophet's mouth: "and put the words in his mouth: and [my Speech] will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you⁺ what you⁺ will do" (Ex 4:15). The Psalter holds the relation in the first person on either side: "What man is he who fears Yahweh? He will instruct him in the way that he will choose" (Ps 25:12); "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you will go: I will counsel you with my eye on you" (Ps 32:8); "O God, you have taught me from my youth" (Ps 71:17); "He who chastises the nations, will not he correct, [Even] he who teaches man knowledge?" (Ps 94:10). Even ordinary craft is laid to Yahweh's tutoring — "For his God instructs him aright, [and] teaches him" (Is 28:26) — and the redemptive vocation is named the same way: "I am Yahweh your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go" (Is 48:17). The eschatological gathering in Isaiah and Micah turns on this same role: "he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths" (Is 2:3; Mi 4:2), with the result that "all your sons will be taught of Yahweh; and great will be the peace of your sons" (Is 54:13). When Israel turns away, the loss is described in those same terms: "though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they haven't listened to receive instruction" (Je 32:33). The thanksgiving in Sirach belongs to the same posture: "a nurse she was to me; And to my teacher I will give glory" (Sir 51:17).

Christ the Teacher and Master

The Gospels carry the title across to Jesus. He is addressed as Master on the lake — "Master, master, we perish" (Lu 8:24) — and at the arrest the kiss of Judas is given with the word "Rabbi" (Mr 14:45). Crowds and disciples come to him as teacher: Nicodemus says, "we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, except God be with him" (Jn 3:2). He teaches in synagogues (Lu 4:15), from a boat at the lake (Lu 5:3), in the temple at the feast (Jn 7:14), and to crowds whom he saw "as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things" (Mr 6:34). His public method is parable, with private exposition for the disciples — "And he taught them many things in parables, and said to them in his teaching" (Mr 4:2); "without a parable he did not speak to them: but privately to his own disciples he expounded all things" (Mr 4:34); "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God" (Lu 8:11). He claims the teaching as derivative from the Father: "My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me" (Jn 7:16); and at the foot-washing he accepts and defines the title: "You⁺ call me, The Teacher, and, The Lord: and you⁺ say well; for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your⁺ feet, you⁺ also ought to wash one another's feet" (Jn 13:13-14). The apostolic closing makes the title a test: "Whoever goes onward and doesn't stay in the teaching of Christ, doesn't have God: he who stays in the teaching, the same has both the Father and the Son" (2Jn 1:9).