Henderson Hills Baptist Church

Spirit-Filled Slavery

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free." Eph 6:5-8 (ESV)

If we want to understand a passage of Scripture it is mandatory that we consider the context in which the passage is set. It is a little like contemplating the purchase of a home. You wouldn’t walk into a house, look into the rooms, analyze the layout and the color schemes then make an offer without looking at the neighborhood. What does the neighborhood tell you about the house, property values, and the quality of life that you would have if you lived in this house? It only makes sense to check out the neighborhood and then decide what you think about the house itself. As we consider this interesting passage let’s remember the neighborhood.

Paul told us, bask in Ephesians 5:18 that the power of Christian living comes from the filling of the Spirit. As we cooperate and seek Christ’s empowerment, control, and permeation of every aspect of our lives, we will experience a significant impact of the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit in the carrying out of the Christian life. The apostle then begins listing examples of the Spirit’s control in our lives. We will worship with joy, submit ourselves to other believers, wives will follow the initiative of their husbands, and husbands will serve their wives as Christ does the Church, children will submit themselves to their parents, and Spirit-filled parents will not provoke their children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Did you notice the span of life that is covered here? We go from our own lives in Christ, to worship, the Church, and then to family relationships! The filling of the Spirit touches everything!

It is easy to at least understand these various roles in life; they are common relationships. Verses 5-8, however, are different. The first word of the passage here is troubling. Consider the command, “slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling….” We are opposed to slavery. The Civil War was fought, in part, to do away with this terrible thing of people owning other people. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation put an end to it. We hate slavery and want to eradicate it everywhere it is practiced in our world. That’s why we are so troubled by what Paul is saying here. We would expect him to write, “Slaves, rise up, overthrow the ternary of your evil owners, and do everything you can to escape.” Instead, Paul actually instructs Spirit-filled Christian slaves on how to live as a Christian and be the best slave that you can be! Frankly, these words trouble our sensitivities and well they should! Christians should desperately seek to understand what this means.

Let me take a moment to express my concern here. It would be very easy for you to misunderstand what I’m about to say. If someone takes my upcoming statements out of context their meaning and purpose will be lost. So, please read this thoughtfully and prayerfully.

It is important for us to know that slavery isn't the major social evil that is addressed in the Bible. The sanctity of life is taught, but abortion is not mentioned. Does that make abortion acceptable? Of course that is not what the Bible is saying! There are many other examples of social issues that are rarely if ever directly mentioned in Scripture. Why would that be? Here is an important principle to understand; the Bible is not on a crusade to legislate morality. The scriptural principle is that change must happen within the hearts of the members of society. Today there is a sincere tendency among Christians to want to attack social evils with laws and government. It seems almost that some would like to have the Supreme Court replaced by a Sanhedrin. This is like wanting to change the fruit of a tree. If you had an apple tree in your back yard and wanted it to become a peach tree you might pick all the apples and tie peaches onto the braches. That might look like a peach tree to you, but next year, apples are going to blossom and grow, not peaches. To change the nature of a tree, you would need to start by changing the very roots of that tree. Our tendency today is to focus on the fruit of a godless society. We want to be godly farmers who pick off the rotten fruit and plan for a sweet new crop to come. This concept has been drilled into our minds by Christian preachers, authors, radio hosts, and a plethora of other “experts.” But here’s the problem, all of the methods of creating change that have come from this approach have not made things better. Wouldn’t you agree that the nature of our society today is worse that it was a decade ago? I read yesterday that 10 years ago 62% of Americans were against homosexual marriage. Today it is 49% against it. This is a dramatic change for the worse in a short period of time. Could it be that we are employing the wrong tactics? Does fruit picking work? In my opinion, it doesn’t because it doesn’t get to the root of real change. The Bible teaches us that transformation comes from within the heart, not from concentrating on the actions. You could take this too far as to say that I’m proposing that we should do nothing about social injustice. However, that would be a perversion of my convictions. My proposal is that the bulk of our attention and certainly our primary tactic for societal change need to be evangelism and discipleship, not picketing and politics.

What does this have to do with Paul’s statement about slavery? Next time I’ll focus on the answer to that question. For today, consider what Paul is doing from a macro perspective. He is not going to tell slaves how to rebel against their masters, and we will see that he does not command the owners to do the right thing and release their slaves. Instead, Paul is seeking to establish a series of principles that could lead to real societal change. It is like lining up dominoes. Paul is about to push the first one over. It will strike the next and the next and eventually dramatic changes will occur. The tree will be changed from the roots up. By the way, this is exactly what happens in our individual lives as well.


2 Peter 3:18
Dennis Newkirk

To read more from Dennis Newkirk click here.