Ephesians 6:5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.

We are rounding the corner in our discussion on relationship goals by looking at the boss-employee dynamic. Bridging the section on slaves into our age is much more difficult than the section on children, especially in America where our understanding of it has been influenced greatly by our history. This increases our difficulty in understanding why the early church did not call for a wholesale rejection of slavery.

In the Greco-Roman world, slavery was so much a part of daily life that hardly anyone thought about its morality. It was considered an economical necessity, where almost a 1/3 of the Greco-Roman population were slaves, so in addressing slaves, Paul was talking to a big portion of the congregation in Ephesus.

With Paul's admonition to the masters, he again is raising the ante for what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. Paul may not have called for a full-on abolition of slavery, but he set in motion a thought and idea that treating even the most marginalized with respect and love was the way of Jesus. The message of this text obviously moves from ancient slavery to modern work relations, but it does much more than that. Its theology concerns who wer really are, what motivates us, whom we seek to please, and how we are called to use our power. In Christ, every part of life is redefined! No action or relation is seen by itself; everything we do involves a direct encounter with Jesus Christ.