Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.
A sermon to servants
Understand your calling as the servants of Christ. You are His servants before you are any earthly master’s, and every work you do, every duty you fulfil, every command you obey, is really obedience to Him. He says, do this and this, by the lips of the earthly master; do it bravely, cheerfully, thoroughly; it is done for Me, not for him. All that is menial in that case vanishes out of your daffy tasks. Behind the human master there is a higher Master; there is no humiliation even in bondage to Him.
I. Be faithful for the sake of Christ your Lord. I mean, be loyal to the trust reposed in you; repay it by strict fidelity, incorruptible honesty, and steady devotion to those interests of the household committed to your charge.
II. Be diligent. Give to your service the energy that you would give to Christ; put it on the highest and firmest ground. Give your best, because it is the Lord’s work you are doing; it is the Lord’s “Well done” you are winning; it is the Lord’s wage you will receive at last.
III. Be patient. Many commands may seem unreasonable; many tempers you have to do with, irritable and arrogant. Take it up into a higher region. See how far the thought of Christ will enable you to do and bear. Be always more ready to obey than to question, to work than to wrangle, to submit than to rebel; and you will do well. And do not be always thinking that you can better yourself; be patient, and “rather bear the ills you have, than fly to others that you know not of.”
IV. Be cheerful. Nothing makes such sunlight on earth as cheerful, joyful fulfilment of duty. We have never mastered the lesson of life till we can sing to our tasks, and smile as we sing. Make it your study daily to wear a cheerful aspect as you go about your duty, and to make your life a willing, joyful service to your heavenly King.
V. Be sure that your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. No work done for Christ ever fails of a blessing. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Respective duties of masters and servants
I. Let us consider the duties of servants, as they are represented to us in Scripture.
1. The first point, then, which is enforced in every passage relating to this subject, is obedience (Colossians 3:22; Titus 2:9; 1 Peter 2:18). Such obedience does not rest on any mere law or custom of man, but on the plain word of Almighty God. There cannot be any disgrace in homing the place of a servant. Can there be shame in that, to which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the Lord of glory, submitted? (Philippians 2:6-8; Hebrews 5:8.) But of what kind should your obedience be? The apostle has taught you that as to its extent it should be universal. “Obey in all things your masters,” that is, in all things which are not contrary to the higher law of your heavenly Master: in all else obey readily and without limitation (Philippians 2:14). In small things as well as great. As servants should show obedience to their masters in all lawful things, so should they show it with reverence and meekness, or, as it is expressed in the text, “with fear and trembling,” lest ye should offend them.
2. Another duty of a servant is to add to his obedience a constant endeavour to please. Let your services be seen to flow not from necessity or interest alone, but from the attachment of a willing heart.
3. A third duty is strict faithfulness and honesty. An unfaithful servant is in itself a term of deep reproach. He owes much to those into whose service he enters. He is sheltered beneath their roof; he shares the comforts of their home, is placed beyond the reach of want, eats of his master’s bread, and drinks of his master’s cup. Much is confided to him. His master’s goods are placed beneath his care, and are justly required at his hand.
II. The duties of a master (see Colossians 4:1).
1. A master is bound in justice to keep to the full the terms of his agreement--to give to his apprentice the needful instruction in his business, and to pay his servant the stipulated wages (Deuteronomy 24:14-15; James 5:4).
2. The law of equity may be considered as binding a master to kindness, forbearance, and concern for the souls of his servants. It bids him show kindness, and thus extends further than the strict rule of justice. Reason and conscience are its umpires.
III. Mutual are the obligations under which masters and servants are placed to each other. Highly important are their respective duties, and each may truly glorify God in the sphere assigned them. But what are the motives, what is the principle that can produce such blessed fruit? It is summed up in the consideration--Ye have both a Master in heaven. “Ye are not your own”; “ye are bought with a price,” even the precious blood of Christ. Servants l how powerfully is this motive pressed on you! “Be obedient to them that are your masters … in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to mere” How happy are you, if you have indeed become the servants of Christ. Then will it be your foremost desire and endeavour to adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things. And, behold, how true religion can ennoble every station! Masters! “your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with Him.” Ye and your servants are fellow servants of the Lord; you are members of the same body--His Church; you must speedily stand together before His judgment seat. (E. Blencowe, M. A.)
Servants and masters
Paul takes the institutions of society as they stand, and defines the duties of those who acknowledge the authority of Christ. He teaches that the State is a Divine institution as well as the Church. Political government is necessary to the existence of human society; a bad government is better than no government at all. Governors might be unjust; but Christian people, with no political authority or power, are not responsible for the injustice, nor are they able to remedy it. Government itself is sanctioned by God, and submission is part of the duty which Christian people owe to Him. Domestic and industrial institutions are also necessary for the existence of society. By the Divine constitution of human life we have to serve each other in many ways, and if the service is to be effective it must be organized. In apostolic times slavery existed in every part of the Roman empire. It was a form of domestic and industrial organization created by the social condition of the ancient world. It was the growth of the history and mutual relations of the races under the Roman authority. To practical statesmen in those days it would have seemed impossible to organize the domestic and industrial life of nations in any other way, as impossible as it seems to modern statesmen to organize commerce on any other principle than that of competition. Christian people were not responsible for its existence, and had no power to abolish it. Their true duty was to consider how, as masters and slaves, they were to do the will of Christ. Paul transfigures the institution. He applies to it the great principle which underlies all Christian ethics; Christ is the true Lord of human life; whatever we do we are to do for Him; we are all His servants. Slaves live in the eye of God. They are to do their work for Him. All that is hard, all that is ignominious, in their earthly condition is suddenly lit up with the glory of Divine and eternal things. “Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling”--with that zeal which is ever keenly apprehensive of not doing enough--“in singleness of your heart,” with no double purpose, but with an honest and earnest desire to do your work well, “as unto Christ.” This will redeem them from the common vice of slaves; if they accept their tasks as from Christ, and try to be faithful to Him, they will not be diligent and careful only when their masters are watching them, “in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers,” but will be always faithful “as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” They will cherish no resentment against their earthly masters, and will not serve them merely to avoid punishment, but, regarding their work as work for Christ, will do it cheerfully with real kindliness for those whom they have to serve, “with goodwill doing service, as unto the Lord and not unto men.” Their earthly masters may deny them the just rewards of their labour, may fail to recognize their integrity and their zeal, may treat them harshly and cruelly; but as Christ’s servants they will not miss their recompense; they are to work, “knowing that whatsoever good thing each one doeth,” that very thing “shall he receive again from the Lord, whether he be bond or free.” No good works will be forgotten; the rewards which are withheld on earth will be conferred in heaven. Masters are to act towards their servants in the same spirit, and under the government of the same Divine laws. “Ye masters, do the same things unto them.” As slaves are warned against the special vices of their order, and charged to do their work, not reluctantly, but “with goodwill,” “not in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers,” but “from the heart,” so masters are warned against the special vice of which masters were habitually guilty; they are not to be rough, violent, and abusive, but are to “forbear threatening.” They are reminded that their authority is only subordinate and temporary; the true Master of their slaves is Christ, and Christ is their Master too; He will leave no wrong unredressed. Before earthly tribunals a slave might appeal in vain for justice, but “there is no respect of persons with Him.” (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
Relation of the gospel to slavery
These precepts may be met with the objection that slavery was a cruel tyranny, and that no moral duties could be created by social relations which were an outrage at once on human rights and on Divine laws; the masters had one duty, and only one--to emancipate their slaves; the slaves were grossly oppressed, and were under no moral obligations to their masters. But the objection is untenable. The worst injuries may be inflicted upon me by an individual or by the State, but it does not follow that I am released from obligations either to the man or to the community that wrongs me. I may be unjustly imprisoned, imprisoned by an iniquitous law or by a corrupt judge; but it may be my duty to observe the regulations of the jail; I ought not to be in prison at all, but being there it may be my duty neither to try to escape nor to disturb the order of the place. And though a man ought not to be a slave at all, he may be under moral obligations to those who hold him in slavery. So, on the other hand, I may be a jailer, and may have prisoners under my care who, in my belief, have committed no crime, and yet it may be my duty to keep them safely. To take an extreme case: the governor of a jail may be fully convinced that a man in his charge who has been condemned to be hung for murder is innocent of the crime, but if he were to let the man escape he would be guilty of a grave breach of trust. We may say of slavery what John Wesley said of the slave trade, that “it is the sum of all villanies,” and yet a servile revolt may be a great and flagrant crime. While the institution exists and a real and permanent improvement in the organization of society is impossible, it is the duty of the slave to bear his wrongs patiently. Circumstances may be easily imagined in which the position of a master, if he be a Christian, would be in some respects more difficult than that of a slave. Some of the miserable creatures whom he owns may have lost, or never possessed, the energy, the forethought, the self-reliance, the self-control, necessary for a life of freedom. In the organization of society there may be no place for them among free citizens. To emancipate them would be to deprive them of a home, to give them up to starvation, to drive them to a life of crime. In such circumstances a Christian master might think it his duty to retain his authority for the sake of society, and for the sake of the slaves themselves; but would resolve to use his power with as much gentleness and kindness as the hateful institution permitted. But it may be further objected that there are no indications in the New Testament that the apostles saw the hatefulness of the institution, or desired its disappearance. They certainly did not denounce it. I suppose that if Paul had been asked for his judgment on it he would have said that slavery was part of the order of this present evil world. If he had been pressed more closely and asked to say whether he thought it just or not, he would probably have answered that in a world which had forgotten God, and was in open revolt against Him, all the relations between man and man were necessarily thrown into disorder. It was not slavery alone that violated the true and ideal organization of human society; the whole constitution of the world was evil; and no great and real reform was possible apart from the moral and religious regeneration of the race. When the golden age came, and the love and power of Christ had won a final victory over human sin, the order of the world would be changed. Under the reign of Christ, tyranny, slavery, war, and poverty, would be unknown. Meanwhile, and in the actual condition of mankind, the work of the Christian Church was not to assault institutions, but to try to make individual men loyal to Christ. It was not Christ’s plan to effect an external revolution, but to change the moral and spiritual life of the race … We are happily free from the curse and crime of slavery; but even the social order of England, which we are accustomed, very inconsiderately, to call a Christian country, does not perfectly realize the ideal of social justice. There are no slaves among us, but there are tens of thousands of Christian people who feel, and have a right to feel, that their lot is a very hard one. They are inadequately paid for their work; they are badly fed, badly clothed, badly housed. They are never free from anxiety, they are always on the edge of misery and of ruin. They are without any hope of improving their condition. If by self-denial and forethought they are able in good times to save a little from their poor wages, illness, depression of trade, and loss of work soon sweep their little store away. They have to endure harsh and unkindly treatment from men whose control they cannot escape. But their position is not worse than the condition of slaves in apostolic times, and they should resolve with the help of Christ to obey the apostolic law. Let them do their laborious and ill-paid work as work for Christ. Let them look above and beyond their earthly masters to Him; cherishing no resentment against the men who treat them roughly and tyrannically, but “with goodwill doing service as unto the Lord and not unto men.” Let them never yield to the base temptation to work badly because they are paid badly; their true wages do not come to them on Friday night or Saturday morning; they are Christ’s servants, and He will not forget their fidelity. Masters have not yet escaped from their old vice. Their position of power encourages an arbitrary and despotic temper, and those who employ a few men seem to be in just as much danger as those who employ hundreds and thousands. They are to be not only just but courteous. They are to remember that the relations between the master and his workmen, the merchant and his clerks, the tradesman and his assistants, are accidental and temporary. They have all one Master in heaven, and to Him the supreme question in reference to every man’s life is not whether he is rich or poor, whether he rules or serves, but whether by justice, industry, temperance, and kindliness he is trying to do the will of God. The great revelation which has come to us through Christ abolished slavery; it ought to lift up our whole social and industrial life into the very light of God, and to fill the works, the warehouses, and the shops of this great town with the very spirit which gives beauty and sanctity to the palaces of heaven. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
True service
“Robert,” said a man, winking slyly to a clerk of his acquaintance, “you must give me good measure; your master is not in.” Robert looked solemnly into the man’s face, and replied, “My Master is always in.” Robert’s Master was the all-seeing God. (New Handbook of Illustration.)
The willing service of the heart
There is no moral good or moral evil in a work which is not my own--I mean no moral good or evil to me. A work which I do not myself perform may be creditable or discreditable to somebody else, it is neither to me. Take an illustration. In the Square of St. Mark, at Venice, at certain hours the bell of the clock is struck by two bronze figures as large as life, wielding hammers. Now, nobody ever thought of presenting thanks to those bronze men for the diligence with which they have struck the hours; of course, they cannot help it, they are wrought upon by machinery, and they strike the hours from necessity. Some years ago a stranger was upon the top of the tower, and incautiously went too near one of these bronze men; his time was come to strike the hour, he knocked the stranger from the battlement of the tower and killed him; nobody said the bronze man ought to be hanged; nobody ever laid it to his charge at all. There was no moral good or moral evil, because there was no will in the concern. It was not a moral act, because no mind and heart gave consent to it. Am I to believe that grace reduces men to this? I tell you, sirs, if you think to glorify the grace of God by such a theory, you know not what you do. To carve blocks, and move logs, is small glory, but this is the glory of God’s grace, that without violating the human will, He yet achieves His own purposes, and treating men as men, He conquers their hearts with love, and wins their affections by His grace. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The duties of servants
I. The duties they owe to themselves:
1. Religion.
2. Regard for truth.
3. Sobriety.
4. Chastity.
5. Frugality.
These duties they owe partly to masters, but by their non-performance they damage themselves alone.
II. Those which they owe to their employers:
1. Reverence and honour for them as superiors.
2. Obedience.
3. Good temper.
4. Fidelity--with regard to their property, their time, and their reputation.
5. Diligence.
6. Gratitude for kindness.
III. Those which they owe to each other--peacefulness--temperateness--kindness. (J. A. James.)
Christian servants
The Christian servants at Ephesus, who first read this letter of the apostle, were, probably, many of them slaves. Some, no doubt, were hired servants; but perhaps the greater part were in a state of absolute bondage to heathen masters.
I. Let us look, first, at the precepts and directions given to servants. And one is struck with this: there is no hint thrown out, no suggestion whatever offered, as to its being right or necessary to quit one’s occupation in order to serve Christ and promote His cause in the world. It is not an infrequent thought, in the minds especially of young men, when brought to the Lord, that they must give up their worldly occupation, and devote themselves wholly and exclusively to minister in holy things. And now let us notice the particulars which the apostle expressly mentions for a Christian servant to attend to.
1. Observe the first command is obedience: “Servants, be obedient to your masters according to the flesh.”
2. Further, in this preceptive part of his address, notice, secondly, how he enjoins a thorough devotedness to his master’s interests. This will appear in making manifest your thorough trustworthiness and faithfulness. I do not speak of mere honesty; the apostle means much more than this, when he speaks of “showing all good fidelity.” There is such a thing as seeking just to go through the daily routine with the spirit of a hireling, who will do no more than he must; who needs to be well looked after, or he will leave much neglected. Quite different is the spirit of a Christian servant: he will try his very utmost to please his employer; but he has a higher aim. What a pattern of this was Abraham’s servant Eleazar, and Jacob in Laban’s house, and Joseph in his captivity, first, in Potiphar’s house, and then in his dungeon: his master “left all he had in Joseph’s hand; he knew not ought he had, save the bread he did eat.” No terms could more emphatically give the idea of perfect freedom from all care, produced and maintained by the perfect assurance of ability, assiduity, and incorruptible rectitude.
II. But let us proceed to notice, secondly, the motive which the apostle holds up as the governing principle, the ruling motive of a truly Christian servant: “As the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily: as to the Lord, and not unto men”; “for ye serve the Lord Christ.” Again: “That ye may adorn”--ye servants, plain, humble, unnoticed, who have little to set you off in the eyes of the world--“that ye may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.” In a word, let there be at the root of all--godliness: “Setting the Lord always before you.”
1. Now, first, what a comprehensive principle is this! It reminds us of those wonderful triumphs of mechanical skill by which the same engine can be applied to lift the most ponderous masses, or to drive with the utmost delicacy, as with the feeble blow of an infant, the slenderest pin into its place. So with this principle of doing all as to the Lord.
2. And then, secondly, how ennobling and elevating a motive it is! The highest archangel knows no higher.
3. And then, thirdly, how consoling and comforting a motive is this to the humble Christian! “I am poor and needy, but the Lord careth for me” may he say. “One need not be in high station to serve the Saviour.”
III. And then, thirdly, let us not forget the promise annexed to it. “Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.” Oh! how often this is manifested even here in this life! Many are the houses where the pious servant has been the first to introduce the gospel, and by his “patient continuance in well-doing,” has demonstrated its reality and power. (J. Cohen, M. A.)