SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/26/2017
8:59 PM
Bible Reading & Meditation Focus:
PT-1 A Word to Servants
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Colossians
3:22-25
Message of the
verses: “22 Slaves, in all things
obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those
who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23
Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, 24
knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It
is the Lord Christ whom you serve. 25 For he who does wrong will receive the
consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality.”
I thought that it would be a good idea to look at what
Dr. Warren Wiersbe had to say about this section and then look at what John
MacArthur has to say about it later on.
Dr. Wiersbe begins with something that we have talked
about earlier and that is that slavery was very common in Paul’s day as there
were probably some 60 million slaves at that time and many of them were very
educated, people who took care of their master’s children and some of them were
even doctors, so the connotation of slavery was completely different then than
it is today, although there were some harsh slave masters during Paul’s day as
there were in the early part of our history in the United States. We have also mentioned that Jesus was a slave
to God while on earth as Paul points out in his letter to the Philippians as we
are now slaves to God now, but again remember that our Master is perfect.
Now in the early days of the church it was a minority and
could not afford to go up against the owners of slaves in order to stop
slavery, but their mission as is ours today is to preach the gospel. Now that does not mean that as believers we
are not to be involved in matters that are near and dear to the God we serve.
Paul wrote a letter to Philemon about his runaway slave
Onesimus, and in that letter did not tell Philemon to let Onesimus to be freed
from being a slave. The letter that we
are studying now was taken by Onesimus to Philemon and the church of Colossians
as seen in Colossians 4:9 “9 and with
him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of your number. They
will inform you about the whole situation here.”
I write this to make a point that it is all about the
slave owner as to whether or not the slave is treated well, and because our God
is the One we serve as His slaves then we are surely in good hands and the more
we get to know the Lord the more we will want to serve Him.
5/26/2017 9:17 PM
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