Just a Job: Ephesians 6:5-8

Our Faith Family is studying Ephesians 6. The second section of the chapter is as follows:

Ephesians 6:5-8

Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. (ESV)

This passage is challenging me. Friends and relatives of mine, who are only slightly older than me, are retiring early. I am happy for them. I enjoy my job, but I am tending to look forward to retirement where I can escape the mundane tasks and office politics. However, I need to focus on the here and now. Right now, I can honor God in my work. Each day I can render service to my employer, which will be rendered as worship to Christ. As I was looking for a specific quote on this passage, I came across this story.

Dennis J. De Haan (Our Daily Bread)

Three men were hard at work on a large building project. Someone asked them, "What are you doing?" "I'm mixing mortar," one said. The second man said, "I'm helping put up this great stone wall." But the third man replied, "I'm building a cathedral to the glory of God."

Those three men could just as well have been working on a car, in a factory, behind a counter, or on any legitimate product or service a man or woman might provide.

Most people work to earn a living, attain success, or amass wealth. Such reasons, however, must not be the Christian's primary motive for working. Like the third man in our story, we need to see that what gives work eternal value is not the product or service of our labor but the process of laboring itself--doing the job faithfully to the glory of the Lord.

God commands us to work because it is good. But work also gives believers the opportunity to represent Jesus Christ to unbelievers. By performing our God-given tasks to the best of our abilities, we bring honor and glory to His name. And we demonstrate to fellow employees the difference Christ can make in a life. Is our work just a job? Or are we doing it to the glory of God?

The following commentary explains why slaves have to obey their masters. Bondservants in the Roman empire and the modern wage-earners do not have a lot in common, but the reasons slaves have for honoring their masters and the wage-earners have for honoring their bosses seems to me to be the same.

Peter O'Brien

Ephesians 6:5 urges slaves to obey their masters; that obedience should be rendered with reverence and awe in the presence of God and Christ (note the following phrase, [lit.] ‘as to Christ’, and Col. 3:22), a godly fear in view of the final day (as the two earlier references indicate).

In the contemporary world masters controlled their slaves through fear, since it was believed that fear produced greater loyalty. The perspective of Christian slaves, however, has changed. They have been delivered from the bondage of human intimidation, and now are ‘enslaved’ to the Lord Jesus Christ. Their service to their masters, then, is to be rendered out of reverence and awe for him. It will also be characterized by integrity and singleness of purpose—what is here called sincerity of heart. As the inner centre which determines attitudes and actions, the heart is marked by sincerity and purity of motive. The Christian slave will not be guided by false, ulterior motives but will serve his or her master conscientiously and with sincerity. This kind of inner commitment can occur only as slaves recognize that in serving their master s they are rendering obedience to their heavenly Lord, Christ. The performance of their earthly tasks is related to his rule over their lives. Ultimately, then, the distinction between the sacred and the secular breaks down. Any and every task, however menial, falls within the sphere of his lordship and is done in order to please him. Their work is done ‘as to Christ’, their obedience is rendered ‘as slaves of Christ’ (v. 6), their wholehearted service is performed ‘as to the Lord’ (v. 7), because they know that they will be rewarded ‘by the Lord’ (v. 8) for every good is done. These instructions provide a specific application of the apostle’s comprehensive exhortation of Colossians 3:17, ‘Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.’
(p. 450, The Letter to the Ephesians (Pillar New Testament Commentary))