Living and Working in a Bad Situation - Part 1 | Adult Sunday School

Good morning. Are we good? We're good. I'm good. Are you good? Actually, I'm not good,.

Redeemed Relationships in the Household Codes

But I am saved. I hate to disturb the patter of fellowship, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm glad you're here. We enter this morning into the final segment of this series that's been going on now for a number of months, out of the fifth and now sixth chapter of the book of Ephesians.

So before we pray and begin, you might open your Bible there to the sixth chapter, Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus, Ephesians chapter six, and let's ask the Lord's enablement and blessing upon our time.

Our Father, we are most grateful to call you our Father through the gift of your only begotten Son. We have been redeemed. We have been purchased from the slave market of sin, and we have been transferred as sons into your glorious kingdom to come.

How we rejoice in that reality of our new status in Christ, and pray that our time here together this morning as we begin and then continue throughout this morning, that we would lean into the fellowship, that we would seek by our words to be a blessing to others, to encourage and strengthen those who are weak, that our hearts would be soft to hear the Word of God and the admonishments that surely come because our Father, they come from a loving Father who desires to make us like his beloved Son.

And so we can embrace that in faith, rejoice in it, because we love you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So we are in the sixth chapter, the sixth chapter here of Ephesians, and our text begins in verse five and runs through verse nine.

So Ephesians chapter six, beginning in verse five. Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart as to Christ, not by way of eye service as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

With goodwill, render service as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. This is the final teaching from the Apostle Paul under the heading of the household codes.

We've mentioned this several times over the months together here, the household codes. A household in the first century was in many ways foreign to us, very different than what we would be used to, what we would understand.

It was an extended household in which often multi-generations would live together under one roof. And for those living in the household, if you were of a position where you had some economic wealth, then you would have slaves as part of your household.

And if you did not have economic wealth, you might likely be a slave in the household of someone who did. And that's hard for us to understand. We have no experience with slavery at all. We have what we've learned in school about American slavery, but in terms of the slavery of the New Testament, which the New Testament is born into, we have nothing.

We have no correspondence really. And what I want to do this morning is spend some time in looking at that and setting that as a background and a context for the later exposition of Paul's words here, beginning in verse 5.

So we're really not going to get to the text this morning at all, because I think it's important for us to understand the culture and the background into which this whole teaching comes. Okay? So that's kind of what I'm after.

Now, again, just to be reminded, in verse 18, we've talked about this and talked about this, where Paul says, don't get drunk with wine, but that's dissipation, that's debauchery, but be filled by the Spirit.

And then this filling by the Spirit plays itself out in the relationships of the household. A redeemed household has redeemed relationships, and these relationships are very different than what these pagans who are now believers have grown up with.

So everything about the way they lived has to be transformed by Christ. It has to change. And so that affects marriage, and so Paul spent a fair amount of time talking about that. That affects how children and parents, and particularly fathers, are to interact as well.

It's countercultural, what Paul is saying. And so here in the last of the household codes, so we've dealt with the head of the house, as it were, and his queen. We've dealt with the children in the house.

It's kind of the next layer down on the authority structure, and now Paul's going to deal with the slaves, the lowest level of the household. But they are still part of that household, very much part of that household.

I think maybe the closest I've ever experienced to it was some time that Carol and I were able to spend in India visiting a missionary there who had several household helpers. That's the right word, helpers.

Not servants, but helpers. Why? Because managing life in India as a Westerner is incredibly difficult. And so they had helpers, and they weren't just employees. There was an affection that grew between them, and so they became, in a sense, a bit of an extended part of that household.

And that's the closest I've ever seen to what really is going on behind this. It's probably important to say right up front that there is no theological foundation or support given in the New Testament for slavery.

So we should say that. There is no theological foundation, nor is there support in the New Testament for slavery. And that stands out in contrast to the husbands and wives where we see theological support, right?

That the marriage is this picture of this great eternal reality of Christ and His Church. There's theological support underneath children and parents, found there in the law in the sixth commandment, and so forth.

But one notices there in verses 5 to 9 that there's nothing theologically underneath this, nothing theologically underneath it. It is not supported by the New Testament. That said, slavery has been part of the human experience for millennia, for millennia.

And it reflects man's deep dark descent into depravity following Adam's sin, following Adam's sin. I'm reading a really excellent book on ancient history, and one of the things that just stands out to me as I read it is how widespread slavery was in the ancient world.

And now we're talking going back 5 ,000 plus years. Slavery is very much there. It didn't take long for it to spring up. And the reason it didn't take long is because it originates in the heart of depraved humanity.

Our own history as a nation, we have a very dark chapter involving African slavery, a very dark chapter, and a chapter that was really a nation, I guess I should say, that was only expunged of this through the shedding of the blood of over 600 ,000 men and boys.

It's a very dark chapter. But as we begin this topic of slavery, I think it's helpful to provide some historical background. So that's what I would like to do for a good bit of our time this morning together.

Slavery in the Ancient World

Let's look at slavery in the ancient world. Let's begin there. Slavery in the ancient world. Most people became slaves in the ancient world in one of four ways, one of four ways. It would be through becoming a prisoner of war.

So prisoner of war, the idea that you were kept in camps and then exchanged at the end of the conflict or something, that none of that. If you were captured in war as a prisoner, you would become a slave.

You would become a slave. The second way that people became slaves in the ancient world is they were born into it. They were born into slavery. Their mothers and fathers were slaves and they would be slaves too.

They were born into it. Third, one could enter into slavery by being sold to pay off a debt, to be sold to pay off a debt. The idea of bankruptcy and the clearing of your debts and a second chance and so forth lies in the heart of the Mosaic law, not in the heart of man.

And so if you were in debt and unable to pay, you would be sold into slavery to extinguish that debt. You could sell yourself into slavery for it, or you would be sold by someone else and you would enter slavery.

And the fourth and probably darkest of it all was that you would be kidnapped by a slave trader, that you would be kidnapped by a slave trader and thus enter into slavery and God severely condemns that.

For example, in Exodus chapter 21, in fact, let's do that because we're going to be there a little bit. Let's go over to Exodus 21. I'll save you some time in a few seconds here. Exodus chapter 21 and we see God's severe Yahweh severe condemnation of kidnapping by slave traders.

21 16, he who kidnaps a man whether he sells him or he is found in his possession shall surely be put to death. It was a capital offense for God. Deuteronomy 24 7, if a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen of the sons of Israel and he deals with him violently or sells him, then that thief shall die.

So you shall purge the evil from among you. It is a capital offense to kidnap for the purpose of slavery. Paul in the New Testament also reminds the believers of this reality in chapter one of first Timothy, beginning in verse eight, where he says, but we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, kidnappers, literally slave dealers, man stealers, kidnappers.

Now the gods of the ancient world viewed their worshipers as slaves. They viewed their worshipers as slaves whose purpose was to serve them. And the human king or ruler over these people of antiquity worth were thought to be the human embodiment of that God.

And therefore it was very natural for them to accumulate slaves to serve them that that fit their religious system very well. But that's not true of Israel. That's not how Yahweh thought of his people.

They were not his slaves. They were his sons. They were his sons. And because of their 400 years of slavery in Egypt, when they were let out, it took time for them to have a mental change of mind and heart from being a slave people to a free people.

It took time. And part of the glory and beauty of the Mosaic law is the provision by Yahweh to his people of a series of feasts, festivals, days off, vacations, if you like, that punctuated their calendar year and allowed them to begin to escape of the mindset of an endless treadmill of slavery.

It was one way that God helped them to learn to enjoy their new status as his sons and not slaves. Now, slavery in Israelite society. That was antiquity of the pagans. What about Israelite society? And this is not exhaustive by any means, but here you go.

In a world of brutality, compassion was to be the ruling virtue of Israelite society. In a world of brutality, compassion was what was to characterize Israelite society. And it was buttressed by the repeated commands of Yahweh for Israel to never forget that they were once slaves themselves in Egypt.

Exodus 20 and verses one and two. Right here, the preamble to the giving of the law. Then God spoke to all, spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

I am your God and I have delivered you from slavery and therefore you shall live no longer as slaves. Now, the slaves themselves, because they did exist still, had a specified market value. We see this in 2132.

A specified market value that was based upon their expected labor contribution. See 2132. If an ox gores a male or female slave, the owner shall give his or her master 30 shekels of silver and the ox shall be stoned.

30 shekels of silver was the price of the slave. The importance of that is that it establishes a market value for a slave. In other words, a man knew what he was worth and what it would require to redeem him from his slavery.

It wasn't arbitrary. It wasn't negotiated. It was fixed and it was fixed by God. It was his purchase price. A free Israelite who made a rash vow in the heat of the moment could pay money in lieu of committing himself to a lifetime of service in the tabernacle.

We see that in Leviticus 27, 1 -3. Again, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when a man makes a difficult vow, he shall be valued according to your valuation of persons belonging to the Lord.

If your valuation is of the male for 20 years, even at 60 years old, your valuation shall be 50 shekels of silver after the shekel of the sanctuary. 50 shekels, you could redeem yourself from a unwise rash vow of a lifetime of service to the Lord in some form or fashion.

Now that's significant by the way because for an average person, it would be one shekel a month would be their income. That kind of gives you an idea. Over four years of wages. If you make a rash vow, wake up the next morning and say, what was I thinking?

There is a way to get out. Now in Hebrew society, foreign slaves, all right, so we've talked just a little bit about Hebrew slaves, foreign slaves were also to be treated humanely. And this stands in direct contrast to the inhumane treatment that Israel herself received at the hands of the Egyptians.

But for example, in Exodus 21, 20, we read that they can be beaten, but not killed. A foreign slave in Hebrew society can be beaten by their master, but they cannot be killed. 21, 20, if a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he, that is the one who struck him shall be punished.

If however he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken for he is his property. Now at first reading of that, that sounds really kind of drastic and cruel, doesn't it? Hang on to that because I will address all of that here in a moment.

But I would note for you there that it says he struck with the rod. That's the same Hebrew word that's used for the rod of Proverbs, where we're read there, you know, beat your son with a rod and he won't die.

Okay. He may tell you I'm dying, but he won't die. They could be beaten. They could not be healed further. And here's an interesting idea. They have to be released if they are permanently injured by their master, 21, 26, and 27.

If a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye. And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth.

Now that's very interesting, isn't it? You can beat him. You cannot kill him. If in the process you knock out a tooth or blind an eye, then he shall go free. Now I was thinking about that a bit. And I thought, you know what?

Hey, when you get old, you lose teeth and eyesight naturally, naturally. I think what is happening here is this, this, the tooth and the eye stand in for all other lesser parts. Basically what God is saying is, yes, you may beat them because they are disobedient.

You can't kill them and you can't beat them up in such a way that you disfigure or wound them, even down to knocking out a tooth. That's pretty, that's pretty controlled, particularly in a world and a culture where that would be incomprehensible.

Beyond that, 2312, a foreign slave owned by a Hebrew, it was mandated that they enjoy a Sabbath rest. 2312, six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the sons of your female slave, as well as your stranger, may refresh themselves.

In other words, they get one day off in seven. That is also unknown for slavery in the ancient world. One day off in seven. If you were a Hebrew and a slave of another Hebrew slave, then you are to be treated as a hired worker, and you had a regular and predictable emancipation.

For example, a debt slave, a Hebrew that is sold into a debt slavery to another Hebrew has a six-year term of service. And at the end of that sixth year, his master is to set him up financially and send him out.

Exodus 21. Well, I'll tell you what, let's just, for the sake of time, Deuteronomy 15. Let's just go there. Deuteronomy 15, 12 to 18. If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, then he shall serve you for six years.

But in the seventh year, you shall set him free. When you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your wine vat.

You shall give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you. Therefore, I command you this day, it shall come about.

If he says to you, I will not go out from you because he loves you and your household, since he fares well with you, then you shall take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your servant forever.

Also, you shall do likewise to your maidservant.". In other words, at the end of his service, you are to launch him financially, much in the same way that Yahweh launched Israel financially when he delivered them out of the slavery of Egypt.

Do you remember? They were each to ask of their neighbor for articles of gold and silver and clothing and so forth. Thus, they plundered the Egyptians. Essentially, what they got was the back wages for 400 years of service.

So, in ancient Israel, Yahweh did not abolish slavery, but he carefully regulated it in order to present or prevent its worst abuse. He did not abolish it, but he carefully regulated it in order to prevent its worst abuse.

And that reality set the nation of Israel wondrously apart from all the other peoples. In Deuteronomy chapter 4, I just find these couple of verses, chapter 4, beginning in verse 5, to be such a helpful, hermeneutical key to understanding the Mosaic law.

Deuteronomy chapter 4, beginning in verse 5, I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the Lord my God commanded me, this is Moses speaking, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it.

So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as is the Lord our God, whenever we call on him?

Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today? What he is saying is that when the pagans look on to the law of Moses, which when we read it, quite frankly, it's kind of alien to us, and there are lots of parts of it that we go, boy, I don't know how that works, that doesn't sound so in comparison to what existed at that time.

It was head and shoulders, absolutely head and shoulders. And I say it's a hermeneutical key for me, and I think I'm not alone in this, is that it pushes me to try to peek into the law and find the heart of God in it.

Where is the love, mercy, and grace of Yahweh reflected in this law? And I think that's the approach to take. All right, slavery in Israelite society, slavery in the Roman Empire. We're kind of moving historically, now we're coming up into the New Testament, slavery in the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire was deeply dependent upon slavery to operate. It was a slave society. It's estimated that as many as 15 percent of the people were slaves. As many as 15 percent of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves.

In the large cities of the empire, the number could be as high as 30 percent, 30 percent slaves. Most of this early slavery was the result of the conquests of the expansion of the Roman Empire back to prisoners of war.

By the time of the New Testament, most of the wars of conquest were behind them, and so the primary source of slavery for them was those born into slavery, born into it. That's how the empire functioned.

The slaves who lived in the big cities or on the large farms occupied virtually every station of life. They could be found as cooks, cleaners, personal attendants, tutors, physicians, nurses, household managers, janitors, delivery boys, managers of estates, shops, and ships, as well as salesmen, contracting agents, and civil servants.

In other words, they were found all through the spectrum of society as slaves. Those slaves that still came into slavery through warfare, because the Roman Empire was a bloody empire, so it was always conflict at its edges, generally went to the Colosseum or the mines, which was a death sentence, a death sentence.

Under Roman law, a slave was considered property and thus could not contract a legal marriage. They were property that could not contract a legal marriage. The standard Latin term for a farm slave was instrumentum vocalis, a talking tool, a talking tool.

A slave could not represent himself in court, a slave could not inherit, and often a slave was subject to more severe physical punishment than would their owner be for the same criminal act. In other words, there was a two-tiered justice system.

On the other hand, on the other hand, life for the freeborn peasant was a very, very difficult hand-to-mouth existence. They often lacked the economic security of a slave who served in the household of a generous and considerate master who would provide housing and clothing and food and opportunity that for a peasant would not have.

Slaves could earn money, they could own property, they could even own other slaves. If they had adequate resources, they could buy their freedom. Many of the city slaves would be emancipated by their masters at some point in their life, and if their master was a freeborn citizen, then the slave's children would be also granted Roman citizenship.

So the child of a slave, of a master who was a freeborn Roman citizen, could themselves become Roman citizens, and Roman citizenship was worth something, as the Apostle Paul demonstrates. Because slavery was not ethically based, it would be nearly impossible to determine a person's legal status or social standing by just looking at them.

You can't just look at them and say, oh, you're a slave. You can't. You couldn't. Manumission, that's the word for setting a slave free, was woven into the Roman system, and a city slave could generally be counted upon being set free somewhere around the age of 30.

Farm slaves generally remained slaves their entire life. It's not uncommon for a wealthy slave owner upon his death to provide in his will for the release of a portion of his household slaves. Additionally, the slaves could purchase their own freedom through the accumulation of earnings from a side business.

Some slaves were treated very well by their masters, but others were abused. Peter speaks to that in 1 Peter 2, beginning in verse 18. Servants, slaves, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.

For this finds favor if, for the sake of conscience toward God, a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience?

But if, when you do what is right and suffer for it, you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps.

The Gospel of Christ and Deliverance from Sin

So, despite the economic and social stability that the system provided there in the first century, it was still fundamentally based on a threat of violence and coercion at its core. Even the first century Roman philosopher Seneca recognized this and implored slave owners to control their anger.

Common methods of coercion included threatened beatings and sexual harassment, and selling a male slave away from the household and depriving him forever of his wife and children. It was into this social and economic environment that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ came to set men free.

Not free from their physical slavery, but from the eternally harsh and cruel slavery of sin. This is mankind's greatest need, and it is the gospel is God's most gracious answer to that need. The message of the gospel is not a message of social or economic deliverance, and thus it is not socially or economically bound.

It doesn't favor a particular ethnicity. It is not restricted by education, by wealth, by family connection, by religious background, by political affiliation, by circumstances of birth. It is equally powerful for men, for women, for boys, for girls, for the young, for the old, right?

Indeed, for any who will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10 and verse 13. What does that mean? What does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord? What does it mean? It means to acknowledge your sin and with it your need of salvation.

It is to recognize that this world is fundamentally broken and twisted, and I am fundamentally broken and twisted. The Bible calls that sin. The Bible calls it sin. I think, I say, I do what I don't want to do, what I know to be wrong.

I try to reform myself, and yet I do it again. I'm trapped. I'm a slave. I'm a slave to my own wicked passions, and I deserve the punishment of God. I deserve the punishment of God. I have no way out of this slavery.

No way out. Paul writes in Romans chapter 3, the end of his great indictment of the world, both the religious world of the Jew, the irreligious world of the pagan, and I think also the moralistic world of the pagan.

But beginning in verse 9 of chapter 3, he brings his summary to a conclusion. He says, what then? Are we better than they? Not at all. We have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin as it is written, and then listen to this indictment.

This is my indictment, and this is yours. There is none righteous, not even one. We are all unrighteous. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. We are ignorant, and we are rebellious.

All have turned aside. Together we have become useless. We are willful and rancid. There is no one who does good. There is not even one. We are immoral to the core. Their throat is an open grave. We're corrupt with their tongues.

They keep deceiving. We are deceitful in our hearts. The poison of asps is under their lips. We are dangerous, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. We are hostile. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

We are violent. Destruction and misery are in their paths. We are destructive. The path of peace they have not known. We are restless. There is no fear of God before their eyes. We are arrogant. That's us.

That's what slavery to sin looks like, and there is only one solution. I need a Savior. I need a Savior. I need someone who is not fatally flawed. I need someone from outside the system to pull me out of it.

What does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord? It means to believe that Jesus Christ, God's own Son, came into this world as my substitute, my substitute. To live the perfect life I cannot live, and I have not lived, and fulfill the law of God on my behalf, to succeed where I have failed, to understand that He has died on my behalf, and He has paid the price for my sin, the price I cannot pay.

He paid. 1 Peter 3, 18, Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God. It means to believe that He rose from the dead on the third day, and He conquered sin and death, demonstrably so, and offers that same victory to me and to you.

God raised Him up again, Acts 2, 24, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. And when by faith I call out to God to count His righteousness as my own, and believe that His death, burial, and resurrection can and will be mine, if I will trust Him and Him alone, then I become a recipient of eternal life.

Rise up and follow Him. Rise up and follow Him. Let's pray. Our Father, the devastation, the wickedness, the blackness of slavery stands as an analog to something much deeper, much greater, much more destructive.

For to be a slave in this body, even of an unrighteous master, is to suffer surely, but to go into eternity as a slave to sin is to suffer eternally. How grateful we are, how grateful we are that Your Son left the throne room of glory and came to live as a slave, as it were, and to offer Himself for us.

Our Father, I pray this morning, in this place, and at this time, for that one among us who has yet to entrust himself or herself to Christ. Acquaintance with Christ will not do. We must close with Him.

We must have union with Him. And that can only come as we call out for Him to save us. May you do your good work, even now, in that one, for the glory of Christ alone. Amen. We will come back next week, beloved.

It's next week and one more, and then, okay, and we will work through the passage there on slavery, and we'll apply it. Now that we've set up a pattern and a background of slavery in the first century in which we no longer live, we will apply it to the work environments in which we find ourselves, okay?

Some of you may think you're in slavery still, okay? There are valuable lessons that we can learn in that. So, God bless you.