New Testament household code

The New Testament household code (German: Haustafeln) are New Testament exhortations that set reciprocal duties for wives and husbands, children and parents, and slaves and masters. They occur in Colossians 3:18–4:1, Ephesians 5:21–6:9, and 1 Peter 2:13–3:7, with Ephesians elaborating Colossians; related "congregational" guidance appears in 1 Timothy and Titus. The term originates from Haustafel which derives from Martin Luther's Small Catechism (1529), which popularized the idea of divinely ordered roles within the home.

Scholars trace the form to Greco-Roman and Hellenistic-Jewish instruction on oikonomia ("household management"), including Aristotle’s analysis of master/slave, husband/wife, and father/child relations, and parallels in Philo and Josephus. Similar Christian lists appear in early writings such as 1 Clement 21:6–8, Polycarp's Philippians 4:2–3, the Didache 4:9–11, and the Epistle of Barnabas 19:5–7.

Many read the codes as pastoral and apologetic: they present Christians as orderly while constraining household heads and addressing subordinate members as moral agents (e.g., mutual submission in Eph 5:21, sacrificial love in 5:25–33, non-provocation in 6:4, and a ban on threats in 6:9). Modern debate centers on gender, authority, and slavery.