by bigstrat2003 | 2025-08-26 18:01:18+00:00
People always quote only half of those verses and use it to grind an axe. It's tiresome. Let's get the full text in here:

> Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. And 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. (Ephesians 6:5-9, NIV)

So yes, Paul doesn't rail against slavery and insist that it must be torn down. But the simple fact is that slavery was a fact of life in Paul's day, and he had to deal with the world as it was. Thus he focused his advice on the reality of the situation, not engaging in a vain struggle to overturn the order of society in one step. Even the command to treat your slaves well because you will answer to God would have been a significant change in Paul's day. Progress is made one step at a time, and it's not just to blame Paul for doing the best he could in the conditions of his day.

And, frankly, his advice to slaves is good advice. As the ancient Stoics recognized, the only thing you can control is your own response to the situation life places you in. If you're a slave, that isn't ideal, but you can and should conduct yourself with integrity even in such a situation. That doesn't mean you shouldn't hope to be in a better place someday, but in the meantime do the best you can where you are. That's great advice that everyone should follow.

> Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present herself as the radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church - for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each of you must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5:22-33 NIV)

Notice that this is far more than a one-sided "women must listen to their husbands" that it is often portrayed as. Expectations are placed upon both parties, and by far the larger obligation is placed on the husband. He is commanded to "love [his] wife just as Christ loved the church", and Christ loved the church so much that he died for it. Thus husbands are expected to be completely and utterly self-sacrificing for the good of their wives, even to the point of death if necessary. That is no small obligation, needless to say. Even if one doesn't like traditional gender roles, it is disingenuous to portray this verse as some kind of misogynistic oppression of women. In fact men have huge obligations of service and sacrifice placed upon them, in Paul's teaching.