Welcome to Episode 5 of Series 2. We are continuing to look at the Christian family in Paul’s thinking.

Recap and Background

Those of you who listened to the last episode will remember that Paul’s theme there was Christian marriage, husband and wife together. Paul is thinking a lot about family in the second half of the book of Ephesians. Earlier, he talked about the church as a family, as one new humanity gathered together, and about the relationships between people in the church and how important they were. Now he is focusing, as part of his emphasis on Christian discipleship, on the actual family community. The sort of communities that Paul had in mind were those that existed in those days, where you had a husband and a wife with their children, but also an extended household. Many people had domestic servants or slaves. He was teaching here, in the last episode and this episode, as to how Christian faith changes and transforms those relationships. These are some of the most important relationships in our lives. They can be some of the most difficult relationships in our lives. They can be some of the most complicated relationships in our lives.

There are different cultures of family across the world. People listening to this episode may come from a Western background, or a traditional tribal background, or an African or Asian family background, or a Latin American family background. There are many different dynamics that we have in our family structures around the world. What we are thinking about here is the family structure that existed in the Greek and Roman cultures that Paul was bringing the gospel to, and how they were changed by Christian faith.

As I mentioned in the last episode, in Greek and Roman society, the father and the husband was in total control of the family. He had great power. In fact, the property belonged to him; the children belonged to him; even his wife in that sense belonged to him. He was given, in their culture, power to make whatever decisions he wanted, for good or for bad. We saw in the last episode that Paul changed this way of thinking very fundamentally by saying husbands are actually under the authority of Christ. They are not their own authority in the family; they are under the authority of Christ. They should be adopting Jesus Christ’s attitude to the family and to others and that attitude is servant leadership.

Christian Parents and Children

Now our focus changes, because we are going to look at the relationship between parents and children. Paul focuses particularly on the father and his relationship with the children. In their society the mothers took responsibility for almost all the care of the children. They organised the household and they looked after their children at the various stages of their development. Paul took it for granted that mothers were heavily involved in bringing up their children, but he mainly focused here in helping fathers to adopt a Christian attitude towards parenting their children.

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honour your father and mother’ - which is the first commandment with a promise - ‘so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”

Ephesians 6:1-4, NIV

We start with “Fathers, do not exasperate your children”. The very first thing he says about fathers is, don’t exasperate, or frustrate, your children. How can fathers do that? What did Paul have in his mind? What sort of things would fathers be doing that Paul was opposing in this teaching? It might be that they were very harsh. Sometimes discipline in the ancient world was very harsh - physical punishment and beatings. Sometimes fathers would be very unfair and would favour one child against another; sometimes they would favour a son against the daughter, or the oldest child against the younger children. Favouritism effects the whole of a child’s life but particularly in those early years before they become adults. Children in the ancient world became adults. At about the age of 14 or 15 they assumed independence – a bit younger than in many modern cultures. Paul is speaking particularly to those children below that age, and any children who continue to live at home after that age.

Paul quotes the fifth commandment to “honour your parents”. This brings another question which I have dealt whilst teaching some other of Paul’s letters, and also the Sermon on the Mount in the ‘Life of Jesus’ Collection. The question is this: Which of the commands of the Old Testament apply to us? Paul applies one of the 10 Commandments from Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, directly to members of the church, and in this case to children. So which commands do we have to obey? Let me repeat what I have said elsewhere, because it is really important for us. Many Christians are confused about this issue. When Jesus came he died on the cross, rose again from the dead, and formed a new covenant in his blood, forgiveness of sins through repentance and faith, baptism, and the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives; when Jesus did all those amazing and wonderful things, the Old Testament Laws, known as the Law of Moses, which were designed for the people of Israel, became obsolete. They came to an end. They no longer applied to the Christian Church unless, and this is the important point, they are applied again by Jesus or one of the Apostles. Occasionally in the New Testament, an Old Testament command is added into Christian discipleship, and then it becomes part of our way of life - but only those commands that get added in by the Apostles or Jesus are the ones that we should be obeying from all the over 600 laws in the Old Testament. There are only a very few that carry forward. Out of the Ten Commandments, of which this is the fifth, only nine are applied in the New Testament. The Sabbath command is never reinstated in the New Testament for all Christians at all times. This fifth commandment becomes relevant for us because Paul adds it in to his teaching about Christian discipleship.

Slavery in the Ancient World

The second half of our episode deals with the other people who often lived in Christian households, and these were the slaves of the ancient world. We need to spend some time explaining who they were and how they became slaves before we look at the passage. In the ancient world, slavery was very common. It existed in almost all societies, but was not based on race, or the colour of your skin. It is therefore not like slavery that was adopted, for example, by the Europeans colonising Africa and taking slaves to the Caribbean and the Americas. That was based on race and the colour of the skin. This is a different type of slavery, so we must rethink our understanding.

In the ancient world people ended up in slavery for a number of different reasons. The most common one was when there was a war; prisoners of war were often made slaves - both soldiers and other people who had been captured in conquered lands. When the Roman army came through and conquered the land, it might go into a village and take the villagers captive, male and female, young and old, and turn some of them into slaves. They would certainly do that for the military forces that they defeated. That was the main reason for slavery. Sometimes people became slaves for other reasons. A main one was because they were criminals, and they had been found out to be thieves or murderers and had been convicted and their punishment was slavery. They might be just ordinary Roman citizens who became slaves. Sometimes children who had been abandoned became slaves because they were picked up by somebody and sold in the slave market. If you wanted to buy slaves in the ancient world, you went to the slave markets that existed in many towns, and you literally went round and negotiated with the slave owner. You looked at the slave and you paid a certain price for him or her and took them home to your house.

Slaves were rarely chained up. They were marked by branding with a hot iron on the skin, often on the back, arm or leg with the initials or the name of the slave owner. This is what kept you as a slave, the mark that people could see. If you ran away, you could always be found again. Those who ran away were sometimes branded a second time with initials on their face - the cheek, or their forehead - to say that they had run away or that they had been a thief.

Slaves worked in factories, in mines and often worked in ships - rowing in ancient rowing ships called galleys. The majority of slaves however worked in a home; they were domestic servants in effect. They were not chained up. They walked around freely but they had been branded. Everybody knew they were slaves. They weren’t free to change their jobs. They weren’t free to leave. They had to work there permanently unless they were given their freedom. This is the slavery that we are talking about here.

Now slavery is against fundamental Christian principles. There were no slaves in the original creation. Slavery is a result of human sin. Paul had to accept that slavery existed in the ancient world, and he had to deal with it in a practical way, because he had no power to abolish it. The Christians had no democratic rights; they had no political power. The Roman authorities had slavery operating. Paul decided the best thing to do was to teach carefully how to relate to slaves well, in Christian households.

He also taught in other places some interesting things that suggested that, in Paul’s mind, the best thing would be if the slaves were set free altogether. We find this, for example, in the book of Philemon. This is a very short book - a letter that Paul wrote to a friend by the name of Philemon. In this letter he wrote about a slave called Onesimus, who lived in Philemon’s household but had escaped, and gone to where Paul was - probably in prison - to escape from Philemon and had been converted and become a believer. Paul was sending Onesimus back to his owner. He encouraged Philemon to receive him back, Philemon verse16: “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother.” He was encouraging Philemon to release Onesimus from slavery because he had become a brother. We also find another interesting statement by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7: 21, “Were you a slave when you were called” (to faith)? “Don’t let it trouble you-although if you can gain your freedom, do so.” Paul was not in favour of slavery, but he recognised that he had to deal with it practically because it existed in ancient society everywhere.

Christian Masters and Slaves

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favour when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favouritism with him.”

Ephesians 6:5-9, NIV

He was encouraging the slaves, if they were Christians and had become believers, to carry on with their work in a humble and honourable way, knowing that they now have a greater Lord, Jesus Christ, and that their master is only that for a period of time, but they must serve him and fulfil their jobs well. But notice here that he talks to the masters, those slave owners who, in Roman times, were often brutal and unfair and exploiters. They beat their slaves. They would often rape, or sexually abuse, their female slaves. Notice what Paul says to them, “Do not threaten them”. “Treat your slaves in the same way,” - with respect. The master himself must recognise that the Lord Jesus is watching his conduct as he looks after his slaves. If he is unjust, he will be punished for that, so he needs to be just and fair to his slaves.

Summary

With these words, Paul ends his statements about Christian families. He started with marriage, then he talked about fathers and children and parenting, and then about those households where there are slaves.

Maybe they were Christian slaves, maybe they were non-Christian slaves. How should they be dealt with? There are many challenges in this passage for us. Although our cultures are very different from the ancient Greek and Roman culture, the principles of Paul’s teaching for marriage, parenting, and other household relationships are still very important. As we come to the end of this episode, I hope you will have found something that can help you in your Christian discipleship. If you are not a parent, if you are not married and you don’t have other people in the household to look after, then you can see how other Christian households operate: you can pray for them; you can encourage them; you can participate with them in a positive way.

Reflections

First, Paul highlights the great challenge of parenting. For every parent listening to this, Paul would say that your parental responsibilities are one of the most important parts of your Christian discipleship. Those parental responsibilities are very intense during the years when your children are at home, but they remain all the way through your lives. If you are fathers, I want to encourage you particularly to look very carefully again at those first four verses.

The second reflection I have is that for those of us who are employed and working, either in households like those slaves in the ancient times, or in any other context, it is good to remember that God is your ultimate employer. He is the one that you want to please. Paul said, both to the master and to the slave ‘It is not just the relationship between the two of you that matters, there is a higher relationship and a higher accountability. God is your ultimate employer.’ Your workplace is also a place of discipleship where you should be living out a life of integrity, such as these slaves working in the households of the ancient Roman world.

Thank you for listening to these two episodes. They fit together, this one and the last one. They need to be seen together. They present real challenges; there are some principles here that are particularly difficult for us to put into practice, because they go against the principles of our modern cultures. This is a key part of building strong Christian communities. They are built around households. But notice here, they are extended households. In this case, we have the slaves as part of that extended household, but in many modern contexts, we have extended households with other family members, with single people, with friends who come and live in that extended community. God wants that to be a powerful basis for the advance of his Kingdom: that every home counts for his Kingdom. I hope that you can play your part wherever you live and in whatever household you are, to advance the Kingdom through what happens in the home environment.

Do join us again for our last episode in this second series on Ephesians when we look at the topic of spiritual warfare. See you then.