Children and Parents
1Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2"Honor your father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3"that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." 4Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Slaves and Masters
5Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, 8because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.
9And 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 favoritism with him.
Dig Deeper
A few years back in our school we had developed a problem with students making fun of one another, what they called "ribbing". It had gotten to the point where it was pretty pervasive and was starting to cause hard feelings and difficulties. It had become such a way of life for the students, though, and so accepted between them as an acceptable way to talk that it would have done little good to try to make a rule that said "no ribbing." It wouldn’t have been listened to and it would have just made the teachers and administration look more out of touch in the eyes of the students. Instead, we instituted a concerted campaign that inundated the students at every turn with a call to virtues like respect and consideration of others. We had not specifically banned the behavior, but we took the grounds away on which it could stand and it pretty quickly evaporated.
Many people in our society have criticized Paul for the standards that he lays out for husbands and wives, parents and children, and especially slaves and masters. How could Paul, we nervously ask, not have simply outlawed slavery? How could he have offered up suggestions for behavior without simply condemning it wholesale? Before we answer those concerns, we will consider a few things about this section as well as his words to parents.
This whole section is a further explanation or exposition of the command in 5:21 to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should submit to husbands as to the Lord (5:22); children should obey their parents in the Lord, while fathers are to be bring up children in the training and instruction of the Lord; slaves are to obey their master as they would obey Christ (6:5); and masters are to let Christ conduct the way they treat slaves (6:9). Paul probably chose to address these three areas because they were the traditional categories to address in his society in letters of advice, so he was probably addressing the traditional categories for a Christian perspective. He was also likely defending the Christian way of life as being a threat to society, which was a constant charge against Christians. This would not be completely unusual as Paul, in other places, calls women to submit to husbands so that no one will malign the word of God (Titus 2:5); he also says that slaves should give their masters respect so that God’s name and the Christian teaching wouldn’t be slandered (1 Tim. 6:1).
The fact that Paul would have instructed children to obey parents would not have been particularly shocking in a world where that would be expected, a world where children had virtually no rights. In fact, Paul says, this is right. He seemingly assumes that obedience to parents is a self-evident and universal good that should be understood by all people. Paul does not limit obedience to parents to only those with Christian parents, but certainly how this would be carried out in practical terms would depend on the age of the child and integrity of the parents. What would have been subversive and revolutionary was that Paul put limits on parents and called them to a standard of behavior.
Paul quotes from Exodus 20:12, as he calls for children to honor your father and mother. This, he interjects, is the first commandment with a promise, likely meaning it is the primary command when it comes to child-parent relations. The promise is that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. This seems a little confusing and optimistic until we understand that these were promises originally made to communities not individuals. The community that teaches their children to obey parents as they would obey the Lord is a community that will remain godly for as long as they do so. It should not go without notice that the fact that Paul addressed children rather than sons, would have been fairly significant and subversive, as he evidently gave equal footing to boys and girls.
Now we return to the issue of slavery and why Paul wouldn’t say that it should be abolished. Slavery was an integral part of the Roman and Greek worlds, with modern experts estimating that about one-third of the population was slaves. The entire social and economic structure of their society rested on the framework of slavery. Slaves could be treated kindly as members of the family and could marry, own property, and buy their own freedom, but they also had no legal rights and could be badly mistreated. Had Paul called for absolute abolition of slavery there would have been two problems. First, he had no power over non-Christians to free their slaves, and second, a call for abolition would have brought unparalleled criticism and persecution on the church.
Instead the consistent call that Paul gives is to understand one’s status in Christ. In Paul’s eyes this was far more important than one’s status in the present age. In 1 Corinthians 7:21-22, Paul says that if slaves can gain their freedom they are not prohibited from doing so, but in most cases they should be far more concerned with being in Christ than in gaining their freedom. This demonstrates that Christianity was concerned with brining the life of the age to come into the present world, but was not simply a social rebellion movement. Paul was far more interested in calling all people to the life in Christ rather than becoming involved in political debates, and whether we like it or not, one can be a slave and a Christian.
In laying out the standards he does here, though, Paul removes the ground on which slavery stands. If slaves truly stayed where they were and lived lives of submission and respect, they would have a far greater impact on their masters and others around them, than if they simply ran away. In that way, calling for an outright end to slavery would actually harm the Christian cause, bogging it down in politics and rebellion, rather than helping it. Paul’s solution is much more effective in the long run and promotes the true call of the life of the age to come. Although they might still be subjecting themselves to slavery, masters would have, in effect, lost control of their slaves, because the slaves now had a higher allegiance. They did not obey and do the will of their master to please them but to please the Lord. If they mistreated slaves, it would not have the desired effect, because the slaves would endure it, knowing that they were suffering for the Lord. In similar thinking, 1 Peter 2:18-25 called slaves to submit even to harsh masters, and to live lives of Christ that would stand in quiet protest and show their allegiance to a higher calling. The slaves would know that they were not inferior to masters, and in fact, would have been demonstrating a moral superiority over a master that continued to mistreat them.
Paul’s words aren’t just for the slaves, however, he also addresses masters. He says to treat your slaves in the same way. What he means by "the same way" is the most subversive and revolutionary thoughts to which Paul could call people. Paul told slaves to treat their masters with respect and fear (meaning reverence), and to interact with them as they would interact with Christ. If masters truly did that, the distinctions between slave and master would disappear and there would, for all intents and purposes, be no slavery in the Christian community. As the Christian community expanded and spread, slavery would disappear. Every idea of privilege or superiority would evaporate in Christ.
Paul could have unwisely called for abolition of slavery, but he knew that calling people to live the life of Christ would bring it to an end and serve as a far more powerful statement than a political statement like abolition ever could have. It is truly the job of the church today to find social injustices and to stand up to them with the power of the life of Christ.
Devotional Thought
What areas of injustice and evil exist in our world today? What are some ways that the Christian community can be as subversive in calling people to live the life of Christ as Paul was when it came to issues like slavery and mistreatment of children?
No comments:
Post a Comment