Abstract Numismatic inscriptional evidence consistently employs the ΕΥΕΡΓ- word group in describing a superior providing some material public benefit to an inferior, typically an entire city, nation or kingdom. This is evidenced in the present study's comprehensive survey of several hundred numismatic types, extant in many thousands of specimens from the second century bce to the first century ce. Within this context, 1 Timothy 6.2 is discussed, wherein it is noted that the apparent identification of a slave's labour as ɛὐɛργɛσία not only heightens the significance and value of that service but is a deliberate inversion of expected social and linguistic norms.