LABOR AND MANAGEMENT (1): KEEP SHOWING UP (Ephesians 6:5-8) After the Civil War Battle of Antietam in September,

1962, General A. P. Hill, who had been serving under Stonewall Jackson, asked for and received a transfer. A major in Hills brigade wrote his wife about the move noting, Hill does not work well with Stonewall. Then he added his own observation: I must admit, it is much pleasanter to read about Stonewall and his exploits than to serve under him and perform those exploits. My great fear is that is an apt description of our service for Christ. We dont mind reading the Bible now and then, coming to church if the pastor is interesting enough but lets keep this Christianity a Sunday thing. God takes a different perspective. He links Christianity to every day life. In Eph 5:15 He wrote, Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, Then, to make sure we didnt think He meant book learning He instructs us on how to perform in three every day relationships. Living as a Christian is not just a Sunday thing. Weve studied wives and husbands, children and parents, and now, today, we find the third of those relationships slaves and masters, or by way of application, labor and management. Now, before we launch into this passage, let me provide a footnote. This passage addresses slaves and masters. Not just any slaves and masters, but those existing in Pauls first century world. But we dont have slaves and masters today so cant we just skip this section? Indeed, we cannot. In fact, there is much here for us. But this is a great opportunity to learn about Bible study, interpretation and application. Many people wonder how we can get so excited about a 2,000 year old Bible. Written to an ancient culture in a distant part of the world with unintelligible customs. How is it relevant to 21st century Americans who text and twitter and tweet!? My old business associates often questioned why I was so interested in what the Bible had to say. Well, first, we realize the Bible is Gods Word. It is an infinite and transcendent God condescending to put His will into words that we can understand. We are driven to know it. But, how do we translate its message to our day? Five steps Read, Observe, Interpret, Principalize and Apply (ROIPA). Read you cant interpret if you dont read, and many read until the find a hard passage and then give it up as hopeless. Or they read a few chapters,
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and then cant remember what theyve read. Let me give you a clue. John MacArthur, one of todays premier Bible teachers, tells how he used to read the Bible and not be able to remember what he read the next day. So he did something unique. He began to read a few chapters (say the book of I John 10-15 minutes worth) for 30 straight days. Same passage for 30 days straight. By the end of that time, youll have it down cold. You may not understand it all, but youll know what it says. I suggest you take the book of Luke where we are going to go next. Read three chapters a day for 30 days. Then move to the next three. In 8 months, youll have the whole book. And youll know it. Then go to an epistles Philippians, maybe. Do that until you have the whole NT. Read Second observe. Take a passage that you are studying in detail and pester it to death with questions and observations. What is the tense of the verbs? What words are used more than once? Does it sound like any other passages with which you are familiar? Diagram the sentences if you know how it is a marvelous observation tool. Question word meanings you do not know. Observe who is writing and to whom. Squeeze the passage until it cries Uncle. Interpret determine exactly what it meant to the people who were first wrote and read it. This may take some work in word studies, digging into cultural background using a Bible dictionary or commentary. Check how words are used in other places with a concordance and come to an understanding of what the writing meant in its original context. When Paul wrote these 5 verses about slaves and masters, what was he saying? Thats our starting point in Bible study. It is not, this is what it means to me. Absolutely the wrong place to start. But what did it mean in its time and place? Interpretation! Then we derive principles. What universal truth does this teach about God? All of the Bible is His story, so what does this teach about God, about His character, about how He works? Principles. Then, and only then, we can make application. But the application must be derived from a correct interpretation. The rule is one interpretation, many applications. It is an abuse of Scripture to insist it speak to me apart from its cultural context. Ive known people who want to just let the Bible fall open and assume that whatever they read is directly for them. That can be like playing Russian roulette. One guy who followed that process had his Bible
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fall open to Matt 27:5 and read that Judas went out and hanged himself. He didnt care much for that passage, so he let it fall open to another. This time he read in Luke 10:37, Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. Well, things were going downhill fast, so he determined to make one more try. This time he got John 13:27, Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. It was at that point that he decided to give up the method of subjective Bible study. And so should we all. One interpretation get that. Then derive the universal principles and make application. In this passage, we must first derived the interpretation what exactly were the conditions and what was God saying to slaves and masters? But you can guess already that one obvious area of application is our jobs our work life. So, this morning -- a general perspective on the passage in three points I. The Environment II. The Instruction and III. The Implications. I. The Environment Our text, Eph 6:5, begins, Slaves, obey your earthly masters. When we hear slavery, we think American slavery. There were similarities, but there are many differences as well. American slaves were of a different race from their masters. They came not knowing the language and so were deprived of education and refinement. They served an agrarian population so their slavery meant, for the most part, manual labor under brutal conditions. They were slaves against their will with almost no chance of manumission or buying their own freed. They had usually no means of accumulating capital. Conditions for slaves in the world of Greece and Rome were at least a moderate step up. It is estimated that there were 60 million slaves in Rome around the time of Christ, which means that they comprised 1/3 to of the total population. Some became slaves through capture; some were unwanted children who were cast out to slave traders (usually ending in prostitution); some were sentenced to slavery as a result of their inability to meet financial obligations and some even sold themselves into slavery, usually for a specific period of time, in order to meet some debt or other. Slaves worked in many sectors of the economy, including agriculture, mining, cooking, administration, accounting, education and others. Many were well-educated, including doctors, lawyers educators and other professionals. They often mixed freely with the population at large, not
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being distinguishable as a result of race or poor conditions such as American slaves. While they were completely subject to their masters wishes, they often were allowed the ability to work for pay on the side. Having said that, they were still slaves. They had no standing at law; were subject to seizure and arrest by anyone; were absolutely subject to their masters and had to live where their owner desired. Especially in early times, theirs was often a grim and terrible existence. As wise a man as Aristotle forbade any friendship between master and slave because "a slave is a living tool, just as a tool is an inanimate slave." Varro commented that the slave is no better than a beast who happens to be able to talk. Cato advised, When a slave is ill it is sheer extravagance to issue him with normal rations. The old and sick slave is only a broken and inefficient tool to be discarded. Gaius, the Roman lawyer, in the Institutes lays it down:" We may note that it is universally accepted that the master possesses the power of life and death over the slave." Runaway slaves were branded or killed. A slaves treatment was largely dependent on his master. Augustus crucified a slave because he killed a pet Quail. Vedius Pollio flung a living slave to the savage lampreys in his fish pond because he broke a crystal goblet. The slaves who were maids to their mistresses often had their hair torn out in their cheeks torn with their mistresses nails. Augustus ordered that the legs of a slave named Thallus be broken because he had taken a bribe to betray the contents of the letter. Incidents of gouging out of eyes, cutting off of appendages and other unspeakable tortures were also recorded. In the end, Masters made up their own rules. Juvenal tells of a master "who delights in the sound of flogging thinking it's sweeter than any sirens song," or "who revels in clanking chains," or, "who summons a torturer and brands the slave because a couple of towels are lost." The Romans, in particular, came to look upon it as beneath their dignity as masters of the world to work. Thus they built an empire powered by slavery. Slaves were bought, sold, traded, used and discarded as heartlessly as if they were animals or tools. Considerate masters, such as Pliny the Elder, who was deeply grieved over the death of some of his slaves, were the exception. Some changes had occurred by the time of the Christian era. By that time, inscriptions indicate that as many as 50% of slaves were freed before the age of 30. This was driven by the economic fact that slaves could own and control property, including other slaves, and so could invest and save to
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purchase their own freedom. Interestingly, slaves were regularly were accorded the social status of their owners. It was often impossible to distinguish a slave from any other citizen. A slave could be a custodian, a salesman, or a CEO. Many slaves lived separately from their owners. Finally, selling oneself into slavery was commonly used as a means of obtaining Roman citizenship and gaining an entrance into society. With that background we come to Pauls instruction to slaves in Eph 6. It is a natural relationship to instruct on because nearly every household was affected by master/slave relationships, with 1/3 or more of the population being slaves. Some in the Ephesian church were masters, as was Philemon in the Colossian church. Many in the church were either slaves or ex-slaves (called freedmen). And some were slaveless citizens who, because of their lack of servants, were often poor. So virtually everyone in the Ephesian church had an interest in the Christian instruction for masters and slaves. II. The Instruction Now we come to the actual instruction. Eph 6:5, Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ. This is interesting on several levels. First, it is interesting that slaves are even addressed. One might have expected that God would instruct masters in the art of kindness which He will. But it was hardly expected that He would lay an ethical responsibility on the slave. He is the wronged party. And yet God does just that. This is another illustration of how Christianity works from the bottom up, transforming from the inside out. Always reminding us of the truth of I Sam 16:7, For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. It is also interesting that God does not instruct slaves to seek their freedom to foment rebellion and set right the wrongs of the society in which they live. Paul does not have a heal societys ills agenda here. Paul has been severely condemned for this by some who forget that behind Paul it is God instructing here. Paul is castigated for tacitly approving slavery in his failure to condemn the system in these instructions. But God did not make a mistake here. God has His own priorities. And while He does not like human bondage any more than we do it goes against His very character still, He sees a higher objective, and He is not willing to sacrifice the higher objective to focus on a lesser. His higher objective is the redemption on the whole person, not just the reduction of human bondage. And so, His instruction is
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not set yourself free, but rather obey where you are for the greater good. Let your actions be redemptive rather than rebellious. Lets aim for the eternal heart of your master rather than mere temporal behavior modification. Dont kill him literally kill him with kindness. And so, the instruction is obey. Obey. The Greek word is . Same as in the instruction to children. It is a strong word comprised of two words , meaning under, and , meaning to listen. Literally, to listen under. So the first step in obedience is to listen -- akouo. You cant obey if you dont listen. Thats why parents as well as our heavenly Father say, Listen to me! Right? You cant obey if you dont hear. But just hearing is not enough. There must be a positive response. God does not just tell us to , to listen; He tells us to to hear and do. The pilot of a commercial jet got instruction from the flight tower at Denver Airport: Flight 1234, for noise abatement turn right 45 degrees. The pilot replied, Roger, Tower, but we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up here? The flight controller replied, Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 707 makes when it hits a 727? That pilot had a choice to make, didnt he? If all he did was listen, he and his passengers were going to be scattered all over northern CO. To akouo is not enough; he must upokouo if he wants to live. To obey is to hear and respond. Just like that pilot, our best good is always found in complete obedience to the Father. And here He is saying Obey your masters and by application Obey your bosses. It should also be noted that the command to slaves to obey is present tense which means that it is urging an ongoing process of obedience. It isnt just obey today, then tomorrow do as you wish. This is a lifestyle commitment that God is urging on us here. I have known people, and probably you have too who were quite responsive as they started a job. But over time they got the idea that they knew more than the boss. In some cases, that may even have been true, but it became an excuse to rebel to take their own way. They became untrustworthy because they thought they knew better. The present tense nature of this command removes that option. It is an ongoing, consistent, constant obedience that Christ urges. But what if the boss is unfair? What if the treatment truly is arbitrary? Well, Peter answers in I Pet 2:18-20, Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. 19) For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. 20) For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for
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it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. What Peter is urging here is really one of the deep things of God. He is saying, You know, its great to obey when the master is fair and just, and the conditions generous and favorable. But grace starts when things are unfair, when conditions are harsh, when it is hard. Thats when grace flows, and that is the whole aim of this command. Take Paul and Silas Phillipi Acts 16. Paul healed a little slave girl who was possessed of a demon of divination. It was an act of kindness, freeing her from the evil forces that had been at work in her life. But her owners didnt see it that way. They only saw dollar signs flying away because they could no longer use this girl to tell fortunes. They brought Paul and Silas up on charges of disturbing the peace and had them beaten and imprisoned in stocks. At midnight Paul and Silas were holding a revival service in jail. Lets pick up the account in Acts 16:25, About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyones bonds were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. (That would have been the logical, expected thing to do. Oh look! God has opened the jail for us. Come on everybody, were outa here!) 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, Do not harm yourself, for we are all here. 29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? 31 And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. Obedience brings grace. It is so unexpected; so unusual, that it makes people sit up and take notice. The results are really up to God, but obedience gives Him room to work, and thats all He asks of us. III.The Implications Now, we dont have any slaves here this morning. But the most obvious application of this passage is to workers. Most of us have a job; we are
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employed, and by application, God is asking us to obey our employers, both those who are gracious and kind as well as those who are capricious and unfair. If He could ask that of slaves, it must apply double to us who have the freedom to move if we want. If we stay, the instruction applies. So, lets briefly consider implications of Gods instruction. A. Take the Long View The vast majority of people share a common eye-malady. We are spiritually near-sighted. We think temporally. If we are under human bondage, the highest good we can imagine is to be out from under. We seek relief above all. But God is saying, take the long view. Look at Eph 6:5 again, Slaves, obey your earthly masters. Notice the word earthly. It literally reads -- according to the flesh. Why according to the flesh? What point is Paul trying to make? Well, he is emphasizing that this master is temporary. He is earthly. He wont be there forever. You have another master a heavenly master who will be forever. He is asking you to obey the earthly, temporary master for the greater eternal purposes of your heavenly master. William Kelly was a great Bible scholar in Ireland in the late 1800s. He came to the attention of the leaders at Trinity College in Dublin who urged him to take up work at the college and thus distinguish himself. When Kelly showed a complete lack of enthusiasm, they were nonplussed. One of them asked in exasperation, But Mr. Kelly, arent you interested in making a name for yourself in the world? To which Kelly adroitly replied, Which world, gentlemen? Beloved, there was a man with an eternal perspective. He was seeing beyond now to then! The next world. That is the goal of all of us as Christians and one way to do that is obey the boss. Doesnt that help you see the whole thing from a different perspective? Obey the boss. Reasonable or not, obey the boss. Who knows whether your obedience may not cause him or her to one day think, I wonder what makes him or her tick? Their attitude and obedience is unexplainable. Who knows where that grace will flow, but you can be sure, God is taking note. Aim for the next world with your actions. B. Be faithful where you are Listen, if God calls you into politics and to be a reformer, do it. We should always do all we can for those who are underprivileged. But God did not call
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us primarily to foment revolution. He calls us to be faithful where we are. If you hate your job, you have an option that those slaves did not have. You can seek employment elsewhere and change with Gods blessing. But while you are where you are, be faithful. Conquer circumstances by Gods grace rather than let them conquer you. William Barclay says, What Paul did had as much impact on the future of slavery as almost any rebellion they could've ever had. Paul kept an eternal perspective which many today have lost. Paul is telling slaves to be Christian where they are. This is the great message of Christianity to every man. It is where God has set us that we must live out the Christian life. The circumstances may be all against us that only makes the challenge greater. Christianity does not offer us escape from circumstances; it offers his conquest of circumstances. The Baltimore Orioles were suffering through a long losing streak at the beginning of one baseball season. Gerry Girard of WPIX News in New York had this great comment on his sports show: Ands the Orioles are still without a win. But despite losing their 10th straight, attendance is up . . . and all the players showed up tonight. Can we be counted on to show up no matter what? Keep showing up Beloved. You can do it if you are living for the next world. You have no idea what great things God is doing through your obedience and you may never see them in this life, but when you obey Him from the heart, you can be sure that through the difficulties, God is doing great exploits. Lets pray.