“Slaves, obey your earthly masters.” In the Roman world at least one-third of the population was slaves and in some cities the slaves outnumbered the freemen. Since, Paul directly addresses slaves, you can be certain they were present when this letter was read to the Ephesian congregation. Slaves were looked upon as a lower class of humanity. Because of this classification, slaves were considered property, much in the same way women were classified. But that changed whenever a slave became a Christian. Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” When the master is a Christian, the Christian slave must be recognized as a person and a brother in Christ. You can see more of this relationship in the Philemon letter where Paul is sending Onesimus, a run-away slave who has become a Christian, back to Philemon. Christians could have demanded all slaves be set free, but it would cause Christianity to be looked at as a radical movement to be stopped. Therefore, the Roman soldiers would have been sent in. Also, it would have brought chaos to the economy which would have affected everyone. God had a better plan for when the slaves obeyed their earthly masters by doing their best; this change came about. An example of this is Joseph; who faithfully served God in Egypt even when he was falsely accused and put into prison. Events were turned around and Joseph was promoted to second in command for all of Egypt.
How you are in obedience is “just as you would obey Christ.” The motivation in obeying your earthly master is “Am I doing this as if it were Jesus Christ, Himself?” even if the master is an unbeliever. Gareth L. Reese in his book, “Paul’s Prison Epistles,” puts it this way, “If a Christian slave had an unbelieving master, he would serve him the more faithfully now because the honor of Christ and the gospel was bound up with the quality of his service.” This principle applied today would be an individual working for their employer with the same commitment they would have if Jesus Christ is their earthly employer.
THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT HOW YOU COMPARE THE RELATIONSHIP OF SLAVE AND MASTER WITH THE RELATIONSHIP OF EMPLOYEE AND EMPLOYER!!!