Ephesians 6:1-9 (NIV)
Read by: Clayton
If the modern understanding of Paul’s gender roles makes our stomachs turn, then today’s passage is maybe even more troubling to our ears. But again, we have to take off our 21st century headphones and try to hear Paul’s words the way his original audience would heard them.
We have to understand too that Paul saw our ultimate future entering into the present. It’s the “already, but not yet.”
The way the first century Christians understood Jesus’ death and resurrection was that it began something--a reversal of evil, a pushing back of the power of sin and death in our world through the conquering of it in the eternal, spiritual realm. By challenging the normal relationships of children and parents, masters and slaves, Paul is calling the first-century church into a new way of being human--a way that looks to the future, when all things will be made right--and brings that future into the present, in tangible ways, like signposts pointing the rest of the world to the way of the coming Kingdom.
Listen now to Ephesians, chapter 6, verses 1-9.
----------REFLECT----------
1. What ideas surprised you in this passage?
2. How can we apply this passage in the relationships of dominance and subordination that we find ourselves in--as parents or children, teachers or students, bosses or employees?
3. Slavery talked about in Scripture wasn’t usually the kind of chattel slavery we’ve experienced in our country. Sometimes it was unjust and cruel, for sure, since people have been evil at every point in history. But it was common--as common as electricity or running water is to us now. Life was hardly imagined without it. In all the ways the Western Church has failed in its interpretation of this issue in order to maintain economic power, do you find any comfort in Paul’s words here to the church at Ephesus that so radically challenged the status quo?
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Bible Project Podcast: New Testament Letters >>
Bible Project Video: New Testament Letters: Historical Context >>
Bible Project Video: New Testament Letters: Literary Context >>
Bible Project Video: Ephesians >>
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