Question: 1. Will you kindly reply in the Bible Treasury to the following questions? I feel the subject to be an important one, and shall therefore be glad if you will add your own thoughts respecting it—1. Would the fact of servants not being slaves now, warrant the saying that one could not apply Eph. 6:55Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; (Ephesians 6:5) to Christian servants, as they are not in the present day what they were when the apostles wrote?
2. If the exhortations to wives, husbands, &c, flow from not only the relationships but standing brought out in the earlier chapters, can it be true that the relationship of the servant is lost, because he is not a slave? How then can Christian servants in the present day serve the Lord as such; for as far as they are concerned the relationship is supposed not to exist, although that of wives, husbands, children, &c., does?
3. Is the “fear and trembling” there spoken of, used in the sense of fearing wrath or punishment, and trembling in consequence?
4. Is there not ground for watchfulness, lest the spirit that is abroad in the world should manifest itself, in any measure, in the ways of such as serve in our homes or otherwise? And does not the advocacy of such principles tend to unsettle simple minds, and to encourage the insubordination that is so rife in the present day among men?
Yours affectionately, F. W.
Αnswer: 1. The direct answer to the first point is that the Spirit employs the word οἰκέται, “domestics,” in 1 Peter 2:1818Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. (1 Peter 2:18), which simply means such as compose the household, and in no way refers to bondage or slavery. But these servants or domestics are exhorted to as thorough subjection as the Christian slaves in Ephesians, Colossians, or 1 Timothy.
No man can weigh the force of the Holy Ghost’s appeal without feeling how deeply God’s glory is concerned in their honoring their masters, be they ever so untoward. 1 Tim. 6:22And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. (1 Timothy 6:2) shows how they are to fool and act if their masters were brethren, as the verses which follow express the Holy Ghost’s strong denunciation of such misguided souls as venture to teach otherwise, turning the Lord’s grace to the worst pride and rebelliousness.
2. But even if the care of God had not provided such an answer, what could be more ungrateful and base than to avail oneself of the mitigation of circumstances as to modern servants to deny their duty to their masters? The truth is that the ideas of liberty in these days have modified greatly the state of husbands and wives, parents and children, scarcely less than that of masters and servants; but as surely as the relations subsist, the duty abides for each and all.
3. I should refer to Philippians Cor. 2, &c. to show that we ought not to lower “fear and trembling” to mere dread, of punishment, but view it rather as sense of weakness with that of solemn responsibility before God.
4. There can be no doubt that we have all to watch against the spirit of the age, lest we might be infected by it; the more because we may be unconscious of its evil and of our own dangerous nearness to it. There is a desire at work among men to burst all barriers and level whatever either checks men or is above them. Christ’s servants have therefore in particular to be on their guard, if they would walk with God in holy separateness from that which characterizes the world, and will more and more till the day of the Lord.