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Date:         Thu, 30 Jul 1992 11:43:19 EDT
From:         Leo W <Leo_W@QM.CIRCA.UFL.EDU>
Subject:      Home & Business #5
X-To:         Christia <christia@asuvm.inre.asu.edu>

This series is reproduced with permission from a booklet, "Christ and the
Church in Home and Business (Eph. 5:22 - 6:9)," by Charles H. Welch circa 1964.
 Quoting from the forward on page one, "This booklet is sent forth in the hope
that it may help wives and husbands, children and parents, and servants and
masters, to see their proper relationship to each other, and thus to "walk
worthy of the vocation" wherewith they are called."

------------------------------------

SLAVES AND MASTERS.

The question of "Christianity and slavery" is never raised in the New
Testament.  These things were left for the working of the truth to accomplish
in time.  The slave of Paul's day and the servant of today may differ in many
things, even to great extremes, but the principle of their service remains
unaltered.  The child of God then, or the child of God now who is compelled to
serve an earthly master, is provided with no lower a standard than:-

"In singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as
men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the
heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men" (Eph.
6:5-7).

These words were once read by a reader of "The Berean Expositor" to an
extremist in social matters, who claimed passionately, "Well, what do you say
of the man who wrote this?"  Then his attention was directed to the words of
verse nine, "and, ye masters, do the same things unto them".  We do not know
his reply, but it is obvious that the Apostle was no champion of class warfare.
 That there are crying evils between servants and masters no one can deny, but
the child of God is not left here to reform or to patch up, but to witness for
the truth, to endure what may come as a result, and to leave his case with the
Lord:-

"Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of
the Lord, whether he be bond or free" (Eph. 6:8).

We have had a very unscriptural idea, based upon this verse, presented to us.
It is this.  Only the good we do will be dealt with by the Lord in that day,
for this verse says nothing about any bad things we may have done.  The good
will be recognized, the evil will have been forgiven.  That is a very
"comfortable" doctrine no doubt, but as Colossians 3:24,25 writes upon the same
theme and to the same people dispensationally, it cannot hold:-

"Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for
ye serve the Lord Christ.  But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong
which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons".

Masters are exhorted in Ephesians to "do the same things", which in Colossians
becomes, "give ... that which is just and equal" (4:1).  This is not incipient
communism, but refers to the relation of wages to service that it must be
equitable.  Further, the master is exhorted to "forbear threatening", a matter
of even greater difficulty then than today.  At that time slaves were the
personal property of their masters and without redress.

BEHOLD THE DREAMER.

Those of us who have received the truth of the Mystery and who have sought to
carry out as far as possible its teaching, have to submit to the
misunderstandings of our fellows, and among the charges made against us is that
we have exchanged realities for dreams, that we are no longer a practical
force, etc.  We wonder how many husbands and wives when faced with Ephesians
five, would dare to speak of our teaching as unpractical and only stuff for
dreamers?  We wonder how many fathers, surveying their children's progress,
would deny the practical teaching of Ephesians six, to say nothing of the
servants and the masters who are forming into hostile camps, even though
professing the same faith?

The world has a proverb, "Charity begins at home", and if home life and
business life were permeated with the spirit of Ephesians five and six, the
church life and gospel testimony would look after itself.  If every house kept
its own doorstep clean, the whole street would be in order.  And if every
believer ensured that, by the grace of God, his or her home and business life
were in harmony with the teaching of these chapters, the hosts of darkness
would receive a blow that no prayer meeting or aggressive campaign could ever
inflict.

God is not served by multiplying meetings and neglecting the claims of home.
God is not served by attendance at a church service at the expense of faithful
daily labour, or at the expense of faithful recognition.  In many things we
offend all.  Let us for the remainder of our time seek grace to live in harmony
with the practical outcome of being members of that church of which Christ is
the Head, and the church His Body.

(THE END)
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