Colossians 3:18-4:1, Ephesians 5:21-6:9, and 1 Peter 2:18-3:7 contain family codes of conduct, described in theological circles by the German word Haustafeln (plural). These codes regulated the behavior of the members of a family in their corresponding relationships: husband-wife; father-son; master-slave. There are also examples of Haustafeln in Clement’s First Letter at the end of the first century and in the Letter to the Philippians, written by Polycarp at the beginning of the second century, which we reproduce below:

1 Clement 21:6-8: Let us revere our rulers; let us honor our elders; let us instruct our youth in the lesson of the fear of God. Let us guide our women towards what is good: that they show their beautiful disposition of purity; let them prove their sincere affection of kindness; that they manifest the moderation of their language through silence; that they show their love, not in partisan preferences, but without partiality towards all who fear God, in holiness. May our children be partakers of the instruction that is in Christ; that they learn that humility of heart prevails before God, what power chaste love has before God, that the fear of God is good and great and saves all who walk in it in purity of heart and holiness. [1]

Letter to the Philippians 2:6-7 (Polycarp): And teach ourselves first to walk according to the commandments of the Lord; and then your wives to walk likewise according to the faith that is given to them; in charity, and in purity; loving their own husbands, with all sincerity, and all others alike, with all temperance; and to bring up their children in the instruction and fear of the Lord. The widows likewise teach that they be sober as to what concerns the faith of the Lord: praying always for all men; being far from all detraction, evil speaking, false witness; from covetousness, and from all evil. [2]

The New Testament Haustafeln, however, have some particularities. John Howard Yoder says:

The admonition of the Haustafel (in the New Testament) is addressed first to the people on the lower side of the social order (women, children, slaves) and assumes that they have heard a message that calls into question the subjection that until now they have not been able to challenge. Where had they heard such a message but from Paul? How had they heard it but in the report that in the messiahship of Jesus a new era had begun in which men and women alike are freed for obedience by the resurrection of the Crucified? [3]

Yoder’s insight is especially noteworthy in regards to Paul’s instructions to the Christian slaves in Colossians 3:22-25. [4] Here, the apostle encourages his slave brothers and sisters to still suffer the duties required by their temporary social condition, and reminds them that they will “receive the reward of the inheritance, because they serve Christ the Lord.” 

Another particularity of the New Testament Haustafeln is that they include an element of reciprocity that did not exist in pagan Haustafeln. 

Children are indeed to be subject to their parents, but parents shall not provoke them to anger or overdo their discipline, and shall use reasonable judgment in exercising their temporal authority (Ephesians 6:4; Colossians 3:21). Married women will be subject to their husbands, but husbands will love them “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Slaves will continue to serve their masters as to the Lord, but masters will do “what is just and right with them knowing that you also have a master in heaven” (Colossians 4:1). 

And yet, God’s ideal of family relationships is mutual subjection without any kind of discrimination as expressed in Ephesians 5:21 (“Submit to one another in the fear of God”) and in Galatians 3:27-28 (“for all of you who have been baptized into Christ, are clothed with Christ. There is no longer a Jew or a Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”).

We conclude that the New Testament Haustafeln do not annul the due subjection in the different family relationships—according to the Roman law of patria potestas—but they relativize it by expressing special concern for those under subjection, by making it reciprocal, and by exhorting those who are in a position of authority, to exercise it from the perspective of the new creation that Christ has inaugurated. 

1. https://earlychristianwritings.com/text/1clement-lightfoot.html

2. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_suppressed_Gospels_and_Epistles_of_the_original_New_Testament_of_Jesus_the_Christ/Chapter_20

3. John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972), 175-176.

4. “Servants, obey your earthly masters in everything, not serving the eye, like those who want to please men, but with a sincere heart, fearing God. And whatever you do, do it from the heart, as for the Lord and not for men; knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, because you serve Christ the Lord. But the one who does injustice, he will receive the injustice that he does, because there is no respect of persons.”