Because you see this term servant and master, you don't need to panic. God is not defending an evil slavery system. God speaks against kidnapping, against stealing people to be sold into slavery. But God realizes there will be employers and employees, and those are just the terms that are used biblically. Welcome to Grace to You with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Whether you punch the clock from 8 to 5 or your work schedule changes week by week or you own your own business, how do you glorify God in your job? And if your working hours are spent with people who mock Christ and revel in sinful living, how do you maintain your witness, let alone you're cool? Consider that with John MacArthur as we kick off another week of Bible teaching with a study titled Wisdom for the Workplace.
Now, you know, a lot of people might think that work can only have spiritual value if you are, let's say, a pastor or an employee of a Christian charity. But the truth is, as long as your job doesn't involve sinful activities, you can glorify God with any work. Here's what John had to say about that some years ago.
Well not only can, but must You know, the Bible is so clear about that. The simplest statement that could be made was made. whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, the most mundane routine thing, eating and drinking, do all to the glory of God. Or make it your ambition to be pleasing to God. or present your bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
or set your mind on things above and not on things on the earth. Those are simple commands that tell every one of us that whatever we do we have the same calling. to glorify God, to please God, to honour him to be heavenly minded, to think on holy and pure things that is how all of us are to live. And when we live that way, then our life takes on spiritual impact. It isn't just pastors.
Being a pastor is a calling from God that requires a gift for preaching and teaching the Word of God. That's just one of many gifts. But the body is built up by all the gifts. And you know, the Apostle Paul says, don't say, because I'm not, you know, that most noble gift, I'm not that most visible gift, I'm nothing in the body. Paul says to the Corinthians, you can't say that.
Every single part of the human body matters. Paul even goes on to say that the ugliest. part of you, which is your internal organs. are the most important part of you. Not the outside, not the the pretty parts.
And that's how it is in the body of Christ. Whatever you do, wherever you work, You need to be glorifying God on the job. And we're going to begin a series today called Wisdom for the Workplace. We're going to start today in 2 Thessalonians 3. We're going to look at how society views work.
The ways that your job is actually a gift from God, how God can use you in your job for His purposes, the importance of the work ethic. We're going to talk about employer-employee relations. The workplace shouldn't be a place of fear, anxiety, dread, or boredom. if you develop a biblical perspective on your work.
So stay with us.
Now friend, whether you are in your dream job or just working to pay the bills or studying hard in school, this series can help you honor God whatever the task at hand.
So here now is John MacArthur to begin his series, Wisdom for the Workplace. Ephesians chapter 6 is our passage for this morning, and we're looking at Verses 5 to 9, and we're really going to cover what could be a long series just in a message.
Now here we have a word from the Apostle Paul. About how employer-employee relationships are to function. This is a needful subject today. I think it's obvious to everybody in our society That the struggle in the employment world has reached a monumental level. strikes and walkouts and threats and management fights.
and so forth literally fill the newspapers. The conflict rages on constantly, and all people who are in the employ or are the employment source are finding themselves fraught with multiple problems as we endeavor to unscramble all of the issues. Basically, The problem In employment, can always be reduced to one single sin, and that is the sin of greed. Everybody wants more of everything for himself. The employee wants less work, fewer hours, more vacation, and higher pay.
And the employer wants more labor from the employees, more freedom for himself, bigger chunk of profit, and on and on it goes. And at the bottom of the whole thing is greed. And that's the way it goes. The consumer is out there screaming for lower prices. and screaming for less taxation.
and at the same time screaming for more money.
Now it is an impossibility to have lower prices, less taxation and higher wages. It defies the simplest principle of logic. For example, a man safe who works in the auto industry. He decides that he wants more money, so there's a strike. They strike for more money.
The corporation is caught. The corporation has to renegotiate and pay them more money. Where is the corporation going to get that money? Two places. One, it immediately raises the prices of automobiles.
Secondly, it makes a big loan from the government.
Well, the government doesn't have any money, so the government just prints some. And when the government prints money without any source behind it, it inflates the money that already exists, so you have more money worth less.
So now that when the employee wants higher wages, what happens is the product becomes higher, and by the way, the auto industry is interrelated with almost every single product that's in existence because it's all carried by transportation, so that everything goes up in price, his wages go up, but so does the government's inflationary spiral. And the end result is you wind up in the same situation, except for one additional thing. In order for the government to pay back its debt, it raises taxes.
So, that all you have is a constantly ascending spiral based upon the fact that everybody wants more of everything. It can't happen. You cannot have everybody demanding more. without having everybody losing out. And the greed goes on.
And that's what we're seeing in our country today. And by the way, I think the reason we see it so much more dramatically here is it is just a basic characteristic of human nature that the more possible materialism available, the greater the greed. In other words, in a society where life is very simple and there isn't that much, the greed will only reach that level. But where you proliferate the potential attractions to greed, you proliferate the greed itself. What is the solution to this?
How do you resolve this? Because what happens on the job is you've got the employee wanting more money, you've got the management wanting more money and bigger profits and so forth. You've got all this conflict going on. You've got the employee who feels he's being abused, he's not getting a fair wage or he's working too hard. You've got management feeling the employee is not doing what he ought to do and the profits aren't good.
And what do we do? How can we get an answer and a solution to this? A major problem in our world that continues to plague us.
Now some people say absolute government control is the answer, and what we need to do is to just abolish the free enterprise system and have some form of socialism or communism or an elitist kind of group that run what amounts to a welfare state.
Well, increasing government control would be a solution. And it may be that that's what we're going toward. In fact, it seems to me that that might be the logical thing because that will build the potentiality for Antichrist to just take over the whole world. And if I read my Bible right in the 18th chapter of Revelation, one of the things that Antichrist does is ride on top of a worldwide economic system. It may well be that what's happening in the world today is the development of such a system with a greater and greater potential greed.
There must be greater and greater restrictions on that greed. Government takes more and more power, beginning to set the stage for one who can come and sit on top of the whole pile and dictate policy for the world. It's fast coming. But I'm really convinced that God didn't design our freedom to be that way. I don't think He designed man's freedom and man's autonomy to work against man, but He designed it in order for us to earn our money, to provide for our families, to gain those things which our potential allowed us to gain, and to cooperate with each other for the good of all mankind.
Unfortunately, that just doesn't happen. Why? Because man is depraved and man is sinful. And I suppose the single most obvious manifestation of depravity is selfishness.
Now this brings the Christian into the picture in a very strategic way. I believe that as the only hope in the world for marriage, is going to be found in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. And the only hope in the world for the family is going to be found in Christ and the Holy Spirit. I think the only hope for the labor situation is to be found in Christ and the Holy Spirit. I think that's what this is saying right here.
That God has a divine design. You know, if you study the Bible, you can study all the way from Genesis to Revelation, and you can study biblical economics. You can study the whole process of employment, of wages. It's all through the scripture. But God, as He has done in other parts of the fifth and sixth chapter of Ephesians, has boiled it back to some very basic principles.
There are very basic things that are related to this issue. And they are built upon the same two pillars that all of God's systems for man are built on, authority and submission. You have it in government, somebody leads and somebody follows. In marriage, somebody leads and somebody follows. In the family, somebody leads and somebody follows.
And in the business world or the economic world, somebody has to be in charge and somebody has to carry out the orders. This is the way it is. And the authority-submission principle as designed by God is evident in verses 5-9. You have the masters in verse 9, the employers. You have the servants in verse 5 through 8, the employees.
And this is God's design for how it is to work. As we have said before, This is all a response to chapter five, verse twenty-one. Which says, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, so that there is a mutual submission, just as in marriage and the family. Yes, there are employers and employees, but both learn to submit to each other. Both have a point at which they submit.
Both must be conscious of the needs of the others, so that none is given the right to oppress, none is given the right to lord it over in an abusive way. There is a beautiful mutual submission. within the leadership and the follower. that brings about the good of both.
Now just The text itself is dealing with a domestic situation. All of chapter 5, 22 through 6, 9 pictures a family. Where the parents are there, the children are there, the husband, the wife, and here the servants. in the employ of The family. And that is a domestic scene that is in view.
In fact, in First Peter. In a parallel passage where there is a discussion of the same truths, Peter uses the word oiketes. for servant, which means a household servant. And that, I think, is the intention here, though a different word, doulas, is used. It is in view, particularly in a home.
But I believe we want to see the principle extend itself from a household servant to any person in an employment capacity.
So what we have here, then, is God's divine standard for employer-employee relations.
Now keep in mind That Paul is dealing with the practical effect of a spirit-filled life. Apart from Christ, this can't happen. But with Christ, and as we are filled with the Spirit, we not only are to have model marriages and model families, but model employment relationships. If you're an employee, there is a standard for your employment, just like your home and your marriage. If you're an employer, there is a standard for your employing practices, just like your family and your marriage.
So this is God's divine standard.
Now, if you'll notice in verse 5, you'll notice the word servants. It could be translated slaves because it is the word doulas. And doulas is a word translated slave, bondslave, or servant.
Now, we need to mention also the word masters in verse 9, the word lords. And when you see the term lord and slave or lord and servant, you immediately think of a slavery system. And people have asked the question: why would the Apostle Paul regulate slavery? Why wouldn't he just abolish it?
Well, that's because we don't have a comprehension of the terms as they're used biblically. They are simply a reference to the one who leads and the one who follows. The one who gives the orders, the one who obeys them. And by the way, such concepts are very germane to the whole teaching of the Bible. If we didn't understand an employer and an employee concept, if we didn't understand a master and a slave, we would never understand our relationship to Jesus Christ, or we would never understand His relationship to the Father in His incarnation either, right?
So there is validity in the divine concept of a master and a servant, of a leader and a follower. That's all right. God has ordained some to be leaders, some to be heads, and some to be those that respond and obey. That's part of God's design. We see it in marriage, we see it in the family, we see it in the employment world.
So we shouldn't be concerned about it. We see it in government as well as the home. The point is this: at that day and in that time, employees were servants. and employers were masters. Most economic issues revolved around a home.
Whether it was an agrarian agricultural situation where a householder had servants and stewards who worked in his fields and took care of his crops and his animals, or whether it was a business of manufacturing or making something, and the servants would work around the home in that capacity, the home was pretty much the center of the employment situation. There were those people who then had a shop in the marketplace, which would be operated by another employee, but the home was pretty much the center. And since most marketplaces were fluctuating, in other words, on market day, the market went to the market. And then it went back home, and still, some places in the world that's done. Rather than having permanent shopping centers as we do today, the home was the center.
So he's regulating employment in line with what it was in that day. The Bible does not defend an oppressive slavery system. But employing people is a normal procedure in human life. And so that is not spoken against.
Now, slavery was widespread in biblical times, and in many cases it was bad. There's no question about that.
Now, the Bible speaks against that. But where it was good, where a servant was serving a just and fair and equitable master and giving a fair service to that master for a fair wage and properly cared for, it was no different than employment.
So that in some cases, slavery would be just like employment today. On the other hand, there are some cases of employment today that would be more like slavery then. Where there is oppression. Where there is inequity, where there is injustice, where there is an unfair treatment. Where there are people who are literally intimidated to doing things they didn't want to do.
Where they are enhoc to the corporation through blackmail or whatever else, so that they could never get out of their job without being blackballed all over the place? In other words, the very terms today, employee, employer, don't tell us anything about the relationship. And the terms master and slave or servant don't tell us anything about the relationship in the past either. We've got to see the character of the individual relationship to know whether it was right or wrong. When we think of slavery in the sense of stealing people and shipping them across the ocean, or as a case may be in our own country, of children being used as child labor forces, when we see that kind of slavery, we all are against that.
And the Bible speaks against that. In fact, the Bible says that if anybody ever stole a man or a woman to make him a slave, he would pay with his life.
So, whatever was done in capturing slaves in Africa and other parts of the world, if you were living in the time of Israel in the Old Testament, had done that, you would have paid with your life. And in 1 Timothy 1, verses 9 and 10, it says that the ungodly of the world are characterized as kidnappers or man-stealers.
So, that kind of slavery is spoken against in Old and New Testament texts. But just the terms themselves don't need to give us trouble because they can only be defined by the individual relationships themselves.
Now among the Greeks, slavery was oppressive, no question about it. Among the Greeks, it was oppressive. That's why Paul regulates it here. In fact, we know on the island of Delas, in one day, as many as 10,000 human beings were sold into slavery. And this occurred several times.
And among the Romans it was even worse. In fact, almost the whole Roman Empire was functioning on the basis of slave power. There was a fatal flaw in Roman thinking, and that was that it was beneath the dignity of a Roman citizen to work.
So all the Roman citizens wanted to do was sit around in their orgies and watch their games, and they got slaves to do it. And there were literally millions of slaves in the Roman Empire. And they were thought of simply as instruments of work, like a hoe or a beast of burden. Nothing different than that. They had no rights, no protection, were treated with no kindness, and so forth.
And there was an oppressive element to it.
Now, in the Old Testament, did you know that the Lord advocated a certain kind of slavery? Yes, he did. Because, in and of itself, you see, the terms used don't really define the relationship. For example, in Exodus. Chapter 22, just to show you.
An illustration. People in that day would serve someone as their servant or their slave. The term didn't carry any connotation about whether it was good or bad kind of a situation. The term was just a definition of the fact that they served another person, they were an employee. That's all.
And here we find that some of those things are even advocated. If a man steals an ox or a sheep or kills it or sells it, he should restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep. If a thief be found breaking in and be smitten that he die, there shall be no bloodshed for him. In other words, if you're trying to steal something and you die in the act, there's no price to pay. You shouldn't have been doing it.
You're guilty.
Now verse three, if the sun be risen on him, there shall be bloodshed for him. For he should make full restitution. If he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.
Now there's the point. If a thief steals something and he can't make restitution, then he has to work back that restitution. In other words, he simply moves into the employ of the person he has taken from and he renders due service until such time as restitution is paid.
So you can see, under some terms, the Bible even advocates a kind of slavery or service. But the term slavery doesn't mean that it's oppressive, evil, kind of browbeating, chaining, and whipping kind of relationship. No, it's simply servitude. For a purpose, servitude in the employ of another person, sometimes voluntarily.
Sometimes to pay back restitution or whatever. In Leviticus chapter 25. We find several statements, but in Leviticus 25, verse... Both thy male and female slaves, whom thou shalt have, shall be of the nations that are round about you. In other words, you have a right to hire people in the nations around you to work.
You can buy male and female slaves from them. And the buying idea Was the idea that you literally, somebody had some people in their employment? You literally wanted them and so you purchased them. Or in the case that a person made himself available, you literally paid that person for his service.
Sometimes, of course, in all cases, you would pay the person, but sometimes you had to hire him away from someone else. There might be a price to pay. It's exactly what we have in baseball, basketball, football, and whatever else today. If one team wants the services of another person, they will take the contract to pay the person they want, but they'll also pay something to the team who gives him up.
So it's not unlike that kind of a thing. If a person had a good servant and was willing to make that servant available to you, you might have to pay a little to get him. It goes on to say they could even use their own people in Israel as employees. The end of verse 46, but do not rule one over another with rigor.
Now that's repeated twice in the Bible, at least that I know of. Don't rule over one another in some kind of wild or violent or oppressive or intense way. This is an employment situation. You have the right to ask them to do things, but not to be oppressive. Exodus 21, as I told you earlier, said, Whoever steals a man and sells him or is found in possession of him shall be put to death.
So, yes, in the Old Testament there were servants and masters, yes. But God didn't say it's wrong to do that.
Somebody's got to run things and somebody's got to work. He just regulated it, you see?
So that it wouldn't be oppressive in any way. And the New Testament does the same thing. For example, if you ever hit your servant and hurt his eye, he was free. If you ever hit your servant and injured him in any way, he could go free. If you laid a hand of cruelty, Exodus 21, 26 and 27 says, If you laid a hand of cruelty on your servant and affected him in any way, he was free from you.
That's right. In Deuteronomy chapter 23, verse 15. Just going a little bit further in our thinking. It says this. Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant who has escaped from his master unto thee.
In other words, if a master's been oppressive to a servant and he escapes, don't take him back to that master. God doesn't have some kind of a system where if a guy's beating you up, you just stay there and take it. Let him go. And if he comes to you and dwells with you and in that place chooses to be in your gates where it pleases him best, let him stay and don't you oppress him. In other words, God is regulating things.
In Leviticus 25, he talks about the fact that it's not to be oppressive service. In the seventh year, every seventh year in Israel, all the slaves were set free. And they could go anywhere they want, they could work for anybody they want. And if they wanted to, they could stay with their original master. In fact, they might just say, I don't want to go free, I want to stay.
And very often they'd lean them up against a doorpost, take their earlobes, stick it against a doorpost, and punch a hole in it with an awl. And if a slave had a hole in his ear that an all had made, he was saying, I by my own choice, out of love, choose to serve my master for the rest of my life.
So in the Old Testament time and in the New Testament time, you have employment situations under the terms of masters and slaves or masters and servants. But that does not have anything to do with the fact that they were oppressive. God tries to regulate against that constantly. In fact, any time you ever sent a servant away, according to Deuteronomy 15, he had to be fully supplied. And if he was done serving you, you had to give him literally severance pay to fill in the gap until he could next be employed.
They were to be that cared for. And so, those kind of ideals are upheld in the New Testament. Luke 7: The centurion comes and he pleads with Jesus to heal the servant whom he loves. God has always wanted a right relationship. in that area.
So, I just want you to understand that because you see the term servant and master, you don't need to panic. God is not defending an evil slavery system. God speaks against kidnapping, against stealing people to be sold into slavery. But God realizes there will be employers and employees, and those are just the terms that are used biblically. Whatever the terms are, the relationship is what God is after.
You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. Today we kicked off John's practical study called Wisdom for the Workplace.
Now, if you'd like a copy of this study to review for yourself or to share with a friend, all four messages from Wisdom for the Workplace are free to download in MP3 and transcript format from gty.org. Get your copy when you get in touch with us today. Our web address once more gty.org. And again, the messages for Wisdom for the Workplace are free of charge, both the audio and the transcripts. In fact, gty.org gives you access to all of John's sermons free of charge.
That's over 3,600 messages covering the entire New Testament and many portions of the Old Testament.
So start listening and learning today. By the way, while you're at gty.org, I encourage you to check out the Grace2U blog. You can read articles on how to grow in discernment or get biblical insight on many of the frequently abused verses of scripture. Or you can be spiritually encouraged by our many biblical character studies. The blog is just one of the numerous free Bible study resources available at gty.org.
And now for the entire Grace DU staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for starting your week with us. Be sure to join us again tomorrow as we continue John MacArthur's study called Wisdom for the Workplace with a look at how you can develop contentment with your job. even if you work for an unreasonable boss. It's another 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time on grace to you.
