Ephesians 6.1–9
A sermon from St Margaret’s Nedlands 11 October 2026
We are nearing the end of our adventure with Paul and the Ephesians. Two weeks ago we looked at the question of husbands and wives and how they should behave towards each other in marriage. Last Sunday I took a day out from St Margarets to help out at St Albans while Marc Dale was away up on the border of Thailand and Burma. It was providential for me. Working on Ecclesiastes chapter 8 I saw something about Paul’s instruction for husbands and wives that I had not realized before. Ecclesiastes is about wisdom, and it hit me that Paul’s words in Ephesians 5 and 6 about up-down relationships are wisdom, whereas I had always seen them as law. There is a difference. The Old Testament is made up of three different types of literature: history, law, and wisdom. In the law God lays down for us what we should do and not do. Wisdom is different. It is advice for living successfully. It begins with the fear of the Lord, and goes on to a myriad of observations of how life works. Paul introduces the section of Ephesians that we dealt with two weeks ago and what we will look at today with the words:
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Ephesians 5.15–17.
It’s about living wisely. It is God’s will for us, so it is not just a matter of Paul’s advice that we are dealing with, but God’s advice—if we believe Paul to have been a true apostle. But how we work with it is different from law. It requires thought and consideration: how does this proverb apply to the situation I am in? Is this the right principle for this situation? Wisdom requires wisdom in its application.
Let me suggest such a possible application of what we studied two weeks ago. A Christian woman whose husband is persistently abusive, perhaps physically, should get out. No law of God puts her under obligation to stay and suffer in this way. Yes, normally she should accept the leadership of her husband, but if that becomes unbearable, she should leave. The law of God does not prevent her withdrawing from the presence of her husband, should that be the path of wisdom. On the other hand, there is no law that she should.
I became involved in a situation where a man was sleeping with other women and refused to change his ways. His wife decided she could bear it no more, and demanded that he should promise never to do it again. He would give no such assurance, so she had no alternative than to leave. I agreed with her decision. She packed her bags and I drove around to her place to collect her. In the driveway she changed her mind. “No, I am not leaving,” she said, and returned to the house. The Lord broke her husband down, he repented, and she nursed him back to sanity. They are now a happily married and devoted couple. We are not dealing with law in these situations, but wisdom. Wisdom will bear good fruit, and it certainly did from this woman’s courage. In another situation it might have been different. Wisdom carries no iron guarantee that we will get it right.
In today’s reading Paul gives two more examples of behaviour in up-down relationships. Children obey your parents, and slaves obey your masters. The word he uses in both cases is different to what he says to husbands and wives. Wives are to cooperate with their husband’s leadership, and husbands are to love and care for their wives. The word is apotassomai, subordinate yourself—let the other person lead. Children and slaves are told simply to obey. I have discussed the relationship of children and parents in the newsletter.
The advice to slaves and masters requires careful thought—if only because some reject the Bible altogether as God’s word, because, as they say, “the Bible teaches slavery.” A full discussion of slavery would take us a long way from what Paul speaks of here, so I will only point out that the Bible begins with God rescuing a slave nation, and ends with the total emancipation of the whole of God’s creation. It is essentially a book about freedom from slavery.
But life in this world—“under the sun,” if I can use this phrase from Ecclesiastes—was and is difficult when it comes to our working relationships. In ancient times, workers and their families living on the land of someone else and being in a subordinate relationship to them could be natural and beneficial to all concerned. It became evil when coercion was involved, as it often was. Israel’s law mostly aimed at limiting harm. Two provisions are noteworthy. Every dependant person was to share in the sabbath rest; no one was to be forced to work every day. This was very different from the other nations. Second, under Israel’s law a slave who ran away from his master was not to be forced to return. Under Roman law a runaway slave was crucified. Also, under Israel’s law kidnapping—forcing a person into slavery—was punishable by death. Again, this was different to other countries. Even in some Christian countries forcing people into slavery has happened. We know about the horrors of the Middle Passage and the transporting of Africans to America and the West Indies. Less known is that before ever the enslaving of Africans, in 1700 for example, there were over 20,000 white slaves in the West Indies, of whom many thousands were Scots, kidnapped as children, and sold in the West Indies—with the connivance of the city authorities in Glasgow. Until recently Islam encouraged the enslavement of non-Muslims. When Thomas Jefferson went to London to protest to the Moroccan ambassador about the taking of Americans as slaves from captured ships, he was told that the Qur’an encouraged it. At one point there were over a million white slaves in North Africa, most of them taken in pirate attacks on ships, some from raids on the coast of Cornwall. Jefferson was so incensed he went back to America and insisted they form a navy. It is how the US Navy began.
The troubles between Sudan and South Sudan goes back not very far to official enslavement of Non-Muslim Africans in the south.
In most of the world, at most times in human history, slavery has been practised, and we are fortunate and blessed to not be cursed with it, largely because of the efforts of Bible-believing Christians in Britain and America.
How are we to read Paul’s words about slaves and servants? The economies of the Greek and Roman worlds depended on slavery and many of the first Christians were slaves. Christians have generally applied Paul’s words to the relationship of employee to employer: Workers are in an up-down relationship with their bosses. Paul tells the worker to obey, and the boss to deal considerately with his employees, remembering that he himself is a slave of King Jesus, and will one day be judged for his treatment of his workers by a Lord who shows no favouritism towards the privileged.
Remember that Paul is addressing real people, many of whom were slaves, and a real situation. He counsels cooperation between bosses and those who work for them. This he judges will have the best outcome for all involved. The alternative, as we saw earlier, is exploitation on the part of masters, and disobedience, passive resistance, or covert attempts to hurt their master’s affairs on the part of workers, leading to the use of force, and to much unhappiness. In a modern work-place employees can work with their supervisors to build up the business, or they can resist and undermine it wherever they can. Some of you will have been in adversarial workplaces, and some will have experienced cooperative ventures. It is obvious which works the best.
How should one handle a difficult workplace situation? They are never easy. Paul’s advice in Ephesians will cause us always to be aware of our position: what is appropriate for us to say to this person who is my senior, in these circumstances? As a normal rule I am to do what I am asked to do whole-heartedly, as though I were asked by the Lord Jesus himself. In a way I am. He is my lord and master, and I work for others as his servant first and foremost. This will see me through for most of my working life. We need to be clear, of course, that Paul is speaking to a small group of Christians. What happens in the wider society may be a different matter, and may need the law of the land to regulate it.
But what if there is a problem? In approaching a senior the Christian will want to let them know that you know and respect that they are in charge. In South Africa, “With respect,” was such a common beginning to a difficult conversation that it sometimes lacked sincerity, but the idea is sound. A person who feels attacked or undermined will probably react defensively or angrily. One needs to study how best to approach the person in question. Leaders can be very different to each other, and will need to be approached differently. This calls for wisdom. Consider how Nehemiah approached King Artaxerxes in Nehamiah 1–2. Note that it was after much prayer. The King of Persia was above being questioned, and a mistake could cost your life. But Nehamiah got what he sought.
Should we go higher with a grievance? Mostly, I would say not,until you have first spoken to the person directly above you. Only if this fails to resolve the situation should you go higher, and then, only when you have informed your superior that you feel you must do this.
Even discussing these matters makes it clear there are no hard and fast answers to these questions—no rules—the particulars of the situation, and the character of the persons involved must be considered. This is a call for wisdom. And remember that God tells us, when we feel the lack of wisdom, to ask him, and he will give.
Wisdom, you see, is not to be seen just as a person’s character: she is wise, he is not. Wisdom is needed for each individual situation, and the person who acts wisely once may not make a wise decision next time. A person who very often suggests a wise course of action will get the reputation of being wise, but should never think, for this reason, that their decisions will always be right. The wise Christian will consider each case carefully, and pray each time for God’s help. The truth is, no one’s decisions are always wise. Solomon had a reputation for being the wisest man alive, but he became foolish in his old age. His lack of wisdom ultimately brought down the kingdom of Israel. The “Preacher” of Ecclesiastes (if he is Solomon) says he only found one wise man in a thousand; he is not speaking literally. But it is true that the world of his day waited for one truly wise person, and found it only in the Lord Jesus. At every election we wish for a truly wise leader, but they are hard to come by. The world still waits for another truly wise leader, and will not find it until Jesus returns.
I said before and will say it again that the three up-down relationships Paul discusses in Ephesians are not the only such relationships; there are many. Our relationship with government, the state, and its laws is one, dealing with leadership in the church is another. But discussion of these must wait for another day.