What is the Household Code in the New Testament?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

In modern discussions of Christianity, a set of commands on gender, family, and slavery known as the “household code” has caused no shortage of controversy. Among some of the most-cited examples are  passages that instruct wives to submit to husbands, children to obey their parents, and enslaved people to obey their masters. For centuries, many Christians have treated these instructions as divinely ordained principles for organizing the family and society.

So, what exactly is the New Testament household code? Where did it come from, and why did early Christians adopt it? More importantly, what can these passages tell us about the development of Christianity and what should modern readers make of them today? To answer those questions, I’ll look not only at what the New Testament says, but also at the ancient world in which these texts were written and the centuries of interpretation that followed.

Check out Dr. Travis Proctor’s related course: Must Women Keep Silent? Paul’s real views on gender, desire, and women.

What Is the Household Code in the New Testament?

The New Testament household code is a set of ancient ethical instructions found in several New Testament epistles that define the roles and obligations of members of a family and society. As we’ll see, such notions were common in Greco-Roman philosophy as well which, like the New Testament codes, concentrated specifically on hierarchical relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and slaves.

Angela Standhartinger notes that the name “household code” is a translation of the German word Haustafeln, the word used for the code by Protestant reformer Martin Luther. Standhartinger also writes that Luther’s reference to the specific verses known as the household code would lead to the popular notion that they represented God’s will for family and societal roles.

However, as I noted before, the idea of the household codes is not without precedent in the ancient world. Greco-Roman philosophy referred to the notion of oikonomia, which meant management of the household. Jonathan Lookadoo writes that in Greco-Roman thought, the household was generally seen as the most basic foundation of the social and political order, which is why many ancient writers wrote about how to manage it correctly.

The most obvious non-Christian parallel to these codes comes long before the advent of Christianity, specifically from the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BCE–322 BCE). In fact, what we find in the biblical household codes, while less detailed than those of Aristotle, agrees wholeheartedly with much of what the philosopher said.

In his book Politics, Aristotle compares the rule of a husband over a wife to a statesman ruling free citizens. He also compares a father's rule over his children to a king ruling subjects, and argues that slaves lack full reasoning capacity and therefore need a master to decide what is good for them. Noting the similarities, Lookadoo writes that the New Testament household code represents an early Christian attempt to contribute to and fit in with this larger Greco-Roman discourse of proper household management.

We also find similar codes in early Christian writings outside the New Testament. For instance, in the Didache (4:10–11) and 1 Clement (1:3–2:1 and 21:3–9). First-century Jewish authors including Philo of Alexandria and Josephus wrote similar material:

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So, while the household code does occur in the New Testament, such ideas were not a Christian innovation. Rather, they were evidence of Christian participation in the larger Greco-Roman context in which they were written. Let’s look now at what the NT codes say.

New Testament Household Code

There are three places in the NT which are generally classified as the household code. One example is found in Colossians 3:18–4:1. Here’s an excerpt:

Another is found in Ephesians 5:21–6:9. Here’s an excerpt:

A final example is found in 1 Peter 2:13–3:7. One part says:

Most critical scholars regard Ephesians as later than and literarily dependent on Colossians, although the precise relationship between the two letters remains debated. In general, only one facet of these verses separate them widely from household codes written by Aristotle: the authors of the biblical books attribute these rules to God, meaning that these values, which were already so dominant in Roman culture, had a divine stamp of approval.

This is equally true of 1 Peter, with one slight difference. Mark Ellison notes that this passage, in commanding submission to political authorities as well as household ones, hints at the author’s underlying worries about Roman persecution of Christian groups (more on this later).

Since Peter and Paul were such important authorities in the early church, these household codes carried all their apostolic authority. But did Peter and Paul actually write these books?

Paul, Peter, or Someone Else?

Writing in his introduction to Colossians in The HarperCollins Study Bible, J. Paul Sampley, argues that Paul probably did not write Colossians, based partly on the household code in it:

We know, for instance, that Paul accepted women as leaders in Christian communities, including Phoebe (Rom. 16:1–2), and Junia (Rom. 16:7). This certainly seems to contrast with Colossians’ insistence on women’s submission. In addition, Sampley also notes that Paul likely didn’t write Ephesians:

Does the fact that Ephesians and Colossians are pseudo-Pauline diminish the authority of the household code? This is a difficult question to answer. What about 1 Peter? Did the apostle Peter write it? In the The Jewish Annotated New Testament, Claudia Setzer says no:

In other words, whether readers agree or disagree with the biblical commands for women, children, and slaves to submit to authority, those codes were not written by Peter or Paul. In fact, let’s look at what Peter and Paul actually taught about the household.

Household Code vs. Peter and Paul

In his online New Testament course, Yale scholar Dale Martin notes that the household code found in Ephesians, Colossians and 1 Peter “contrasts with the authentic Pauline letters, where women frequently functioned as coworkers, deacons, and apostles.” Furthermore, in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, Peter Zaas writes that “in his authentic letters, Paul’s description of marital relationships is remarkably nonhierarchical.”

In 1 Corinthians 7:1–4, as an example, Paul characterizes an ideal marriage as one of mutuality:

As Jennifer Berenson writes in the The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, in Ephesians and Colossians,

Unfortunately we don’t know for certain what Peter actually taught about the household because there are no other writings attributed to him. In point of fact, Bart Ehrman points out that like the vast majority of people in the 1st-century Mediterranean world, Peter was almost certainly illiterate.

Household Code and the Pastoral Epistles

The Pastoral Epistles, especially 1 Timothy and Titus, are so named because they are addressed to young leaders of Christian communities, recommending solutions to the communities’ problems. They therefore served as "congregational codes" for house-church communities, and it is here that we find a connection between them and the household code.

While the household codes we’ve seen are to be applied in Christian homes, verses such as 1 Timothy 3:14–15 see the church as God’s household:

The Pastorals therefore use household roles to select church leaders and define roles for church members. For instance, 1 Timothy 2:11–15 tells women to remain silent in church and to save themselves through childbearing. Meanwhile, those men who want to be bishops are told that they must

Interestingly, though, the same passage also says that to be worthy of being a bishop, a man must

In this sense, the Pastorals reflect the same cultural expectations of order found in Colossians and Ephesians, but shift the focus from the private home to public church behavior. Both the Pastorals and Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter draw from Greco-Roman ideas of household management to keep peace and stability.

In fact, most critical scholars conclude that the author of the Pastoral Letters, whom most scholars believe was not Paul, likely knew and was influenced by Ephesians. On the other hand, the Pastorals and Ephesians may have emerged from a shared Pauline school tradition with overlapping vocabulary and theological emphases.

Researchers such as A. T. Hanson have noted specific shared vocabulary and conceptual phrases concerning "salvation," "mystery," and ecclesiastical household codes, applied to church structure in the Pastorals, that suggest the author of the Pastorals was familiar with the broader corpus of letters attributed to Paul, which usually included Ephesians and Colossians.

Why Did The Need for a “Household Code” Arise?

I showed above how ideas by Aristotle and other Greco-Roman authors on managing one’s household were paralleled in the NT household code. But why did the authors of Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter feel the need to explicitly outline these ideas for their readers?

Frank Stagg argued that the codes' emphasis on mutual duties within the household must be read within the context of tension, in Paul’s undisputed letters, between freedom and order, as well as his vision of the life “in Christ” in which ethnic, social, and gender distinctions were not to be the foundation of one’s status. Galatians 3:28 provides a striking theological statement of equality in Christ that later interpreters have compared and contrasted with the differentiated roles prescribed in the household codes.

In other words, after Paul’s death, as church structures grew and ecclesiastical roles became institutionalized, the codes delineated the responsibilities of both church families and church members.

Furthermore, in The New Testament History, Culture, and Society: A Background to the texts of the New Testament, Mark Ellison writes that the Pastorals specifically address a rival Christian teaching about rejecting marriage and family for the Kingdom of God:

The household code was thus one way to assure church members that marriage and family were important for the Christian life and thus to combat the severe asceticism of this rival group.

Finally, and perhaps most important, was the unfulfilled expectations of the imminent Second Coming of Christ. When he hadn’t returned for over a generation, Christians had to decide how best to live a Christian life in the long term. Ellison writes

Reception History of These Passages

Reception history of the Bible is the study of how the text has been interpreted and used by different people and cultures over time. Rather than trying to decipher what an object meant to its author and readers when it was first created, reception history tracks its changing impact through history.

The reception history of the household code thus spans from the early church adaptation of Greco-Roman social norms to modern feminist and postcolonial debates. This isn’t the place for an exhaustive list, but here are a few highlights.

Church Fathers

In homily 20 of his Homilies on Ephesians, bishop John Chrysostom (347–407 CE) made the connection between behavior toward one’s spouse and behavior toward the church, referring to Ephesians 5:22–33:

He also wrote of the household as a sacred space akin to the church:

Meanwhile, Christian philosopher and teacher Clement of Alexandria (147–215 CE) wrote in his work The Paedagogus (The Instructor), that Christian virtue should apply, as in the household code, to daily domestic life, emphasizing shared duty and modesty. In fact, he noted that that while wives must obey husbands, husbands should trust their wives with the practical administration of the home, viewing them as essential partners.

Reformation

As I noted above, Martin Luther popularized the literal term Haustafeln, specifically in his Small Catechism (1529), gathering biblical texts to teach specific, divinely ordered duties for different stations in society. Thus for centuries, traditional readings have used these household codes as proof-texts to solidify patriarchal family structures and subordinate roles for women.

Modern Scholarly Shifts (1970s–1980s)

As we’ve already noted, twentieth-century scholarship uncovered deep links between biblical Haustafeln and ancient Greek/Roman philosophical discussions on household management (oikonomia) from Aristotle onward.

Scholars therefore began debating whether the authors of the household codes had merely endorsed existing oppressive Roman norms (Latin: patria potestas) or introduced a countercultural version centered on mutual obligation and addressing subordinates as moral agents. 

This debate is ongoing. In her book The Good Book: How White Evangelicals Save the Bible to Save Themselves, for instance, Jill Hicks-Keeton argues that evangelical Christians often work to ignore oppressive biblical passages in order to make the Bible not just acceptable but good through and through. This is certainly done with the household codes, which do not meet modern standards of equality for women, and references to slavery which the biblical authors accept without question.

Contemporary Interpretations

Modern interpreters including Craig Keener have analyzed how these texts have historically justified domestic oppression and slavery, while seeking emancipatory or egalitarian readings (such as focusing on the framing of "mutual submission" in Ephesians 5:21). 

Meanwhile, many churches today remain divided on the household code. Some more conservative groups view the codes as timeless blueprints for family hierarchy, while others see them as culturally conditioned accommodations made by early Christian communities trying to survive under imperial pressure.

In her article “The Origin and Intention of the Household Code in the Letter to the Colossians”, Angela Standhartinger writes that accepting the injunctions of the household code as an acceptable form of family life has done a great deal of damage:

Conclusion

The New Testament household code is best understood not as an isolated Christian invention, but as part of a much larger ancient discourse about how households and societies should be ordered. Their similarities to Aristotle, Philo, Josephus, and other Greco-Roman discussions of household management demonstrate that the authors of Colossians, Ephesians, 1 Peter, and the Pastoral Epistles were writing well within the social and intellectual world of their time. What made these texts distinctly Christian was not necessarily the household structure they described, but the way that structure was connected to Christian theology and presented as part of God’s will.

The household code also reveals something important about the development of the early Christian movement itself. As expectations of an imminent return of Christ gave way to the reality of a continuing Christian community, believers increasingly had to consider how their movement would function within existing society. The code offered a way of maintaining household and social stability, responding to rival teachings, organizing increasingly institutionalized churches, and avoiding the appearance of political or social rebellion. In this sense, they represent not simply instructions about family life, but evidence of Christianity adapting to life in the Roman Empire.

Ultimately, the household code is valuable because it illuminates the complicated process by which early Christianity negotiated its identity within the ancient world. They preserve both the limitations of that world and the developing ethical concerns of the Christian movement. Reading them historically allows us to recognize their ancient context while also asking the more difficult question of how, or whether, their hierarchical instructions should function as moral authority today.

By the way, if you’re interested in the topic of this article check out Dr. Travis Proctor’s Must Women Keep Silent? Paul’s real views on gender, desire, and women, a course offered by Bart Ehrman.