Note: Devotion based on last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 6:5-9.
Servants,
be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh…. And, ye
masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that
your Master also is in heaven; neither is there any respect of persons with him
(Ephesians 6:5a, 9).
Paul’s
“household code” in Ephesians 5:21—6:9 addresses three key relationships: wives
and husbands, children and fathers, and servant and masters. That third pair is
the thorniest to understand and interpret in our contemporary context. Some, including
R. C. Sproul, have suggested we consider Paul’s instructions as applying to
employees and employers (see Ephesians, 146-147). We can also apply all of this teaching, in general, as
principles in living the Christian life and especially how we relate to one
another as “superior, inferiors, or equals.”
Here
are three gleanings:
First,
we should consider this passage if we are employees. Do we serve with fear and trembling, with
singleness of heart, as to Christ? Or, do we serve only with eyeservice as
menpleasers, rather than as slaves of Christ, doing his will? Do we serve with
good will, to the Lord and not to men, knowing one day we will all stand before
the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10)?
Second,
we should consider this passage if we are employers, managers, or supervisors. How do we treat those who work under our
authority? Do we treat them as we would like to be treated (Matthew 7:12)? Do
we rely on threatening? Do we understand that we have a Master in heaven?
Third,
we are reminded that the church is composed of all kinds of people: women and men, young and old, and people with all
kinds of societal standings. And the God we worship is not a respecter of
persons.
I’ve
been reading again recently through D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s classic book Preaching
& Preachers. In a chapter on the congregation, he addresses the folly
of ministers who are always trying to adjust their message to fit their
audience. He noted once preaching the simple gospel at a church in Oxford
attended by many university related people. Later a woman approached and
thanked him for not trying to put on some kind of intellectual show, but just
reminding them they were sinners who needed Christ.
Lloyd-Jones
says the preacher does not need to know the particulars of his congregation,
but to know there is a general, common need. He writes:
[The Christian preacher] knows the problem of the
factory worker, he knows the problem of the professional man; because it is
ultimately precisely the same. One may get drunk on beer and the other on wine,
as it were, but the point is that they both get drunk; one may sin in rags and
the other in an evening dress but they both sin. ‘All have sinned and come
short of the glory of God.’ ‘There is righteous, no not one.’ ‘The whole world
lieth guilty before God’…. The glory of the Church is that she consists of all
these types and kinds and all the possibly varieties and variations of
humanity; and yet because they all share this common life they are able to
participate together and to enjoy the same preaching (Preaching & Preachers,
135).
We
might say the gospel is a simple, one size fits all message, and we, as a
church, need always to remember this.
Grace
and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
