OUR TRUE MASTER

Colossians 3:22-24

      Americans in the twenty-first century take it for granted that "all men are created equal," but this idea has not been around throughout most of world history.In the first-century of the Roman Empire, people were anything but equal. Male, property-owning citizens rank normally at the top of the social spectrum. The right which these men had did not extend to there wives, children, or slaves. The male head of the household determined whether or not infants born to the family would live or be left to die of exposure. Slaves were regarded as a machine subject wholly to the will of the masters of the house. Wives did not fare much better, and while it was not uncommon to find a first-century Roman husband who loved his wife, such love was not expected or demanded.
      Considering these realities, it is easier to see how revolutionary the Christian message was in that society. This is why Paul addresses wives, children, and slaved directly, assuming that they are equally important in the church. Recognizing a proper order to society and relationships, Paul nonetheless applies the gospel to them in ways that would and did transform the people under Roman authority. Paul defined all members of the church as responsible human beings regardless of their gender or social status, and he demands that the men not be domineering and cruel, as was allowed in Roman law, but loving, encouraging, kind and just.
     In the master-slave relationship, Paul says that Christian slaves must not work "byway of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord" Considering that many thought all slaves were lazy back then, working wholeheartedly demonstrated the power of the gospel to bring true transformation and not just to create hypocrites who only pretended to do what was right. Moreover, the injunction for the slaves to fear the Lord put a limit on the slave master's authority. The slave had but one ultimate master---Christ Himself---and when the master commanded slave to do something that Jesus forbade, the slave had to disobey the master.