Ephesians

Counsel for Employees

The apostle begins the next section of Ephesians 6 with counsel to slaves. You might think, “This section doesn’t apply to me or anyone I know!” When Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians, it is estimated that half of the population of the Roman Empire consisted of slaves, and many of these slaves were Christians. There were also many slave-masters who had been changed by the Christian gospel. As these Christians, both slave and free, came together in worship, they learned that in Christ there is neither slave nor free—no distinction over class, race or gender (see Galatians 3:28). The question naturally arose: “Are we only brothers on Sunday?” The apostle addresses this question, and in the process, he sets forth principles that apply not only to slave and slave-master, but also to the relationship between employee and employer.

When we work for an employer, we voluntarily sell our time and our labor to another person for a certain period of time. We work out a mutually agreeable relationship, and, within the limits of that agreement, we are “slaves” to those to whom we sell our time and labor. So the issues Paul addresses are exactly the same today as they were in the first century: “How should we conduct ourselves toward those who work under us, or toward those for whom we labor?”

In Ephesians 6:5-8, Paul begins by addressing labor—the first century slaves. He deals with two aspects of the employee’s response to his employer: