Bob Dylan famously wrote, ‘You gotta serve somebody. It might be the Devil or it might be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody.’* His point was that we do not live independently. We are all connected and are made to be in intimate relationships. In Western cultures, we deeply struggle with this challenge as we value individual freedom and happiness above family, community and obligation. We are strong on ‘rights’ and light on ‘duties’. 

This passage was written to real people about two thousand years ago. It is tempting to read it through our modern context and make some shaky assumptions about its intent. Paul is not affirming slavery. He is not reinforcing patriarchy. He is illustrating his point from verse 15 in real-life situations. It is too easy for us to gloss over the radical nature of the commands to men in verses 3:19, 21 and 4:1. Paul is seeking to bring love and peace into relationships easily characterised by power and abuse. 

We are all servants of our Lord and God. We may temporarily occupy roles that bring authority. They do not define us. See John 13:1–17 for how Jesus teaches his disciples to exercise authority. It involves a towel and wash basin.

*Bob Dylan, ‘Gotta Serve Somebody’, 1979, Columbia Records

Thank you, Lord, for the family relationships in which you have placed me. Grant me love and humility in my dealings with those close to me.

I remember the surprise when a wedding couple I was marrying chose the longer version of this passage as their reading.¹ Surprise, because these instructions about family relationships court controversy. How can they be relevant for a contemporary couple? Paul’s cultural context, where men owned their wives, children and slaves as possessions, did have pagan and Jewish household rules, but now, after teaching about Christian behaviour, household rules are radically changed. Now families live within Christ’s rule (v 15). Order remains important, yet Christ’s peace and unity require new rules, as family members willingly place themselves in relationships of love and service to each other.  

Note the balance between husband and wife (vs 18,19). Respective roles remain, but wives and husbands are called into a new relationship of mutual love and respect, a relationship ‘fitting in the Lord’ (v 18) within his rule of love. The new relationship between parents and children (vs 20,21) recognises that discipline is essential but should never be discouraging. In Paul’s world, slavery was the norm, but slaves’ equality before the Lord² anticipates eventual emancipation. Regarded as nobodies, slaves are now given the choice to see their work as for the Lord: to be somebodies, serving Christ’s kingdom. Christian masters are challenged to show the key qualities, so often missing in that world, of justice and fairness. Imagine how slave owners felt, on hearing that they were accountable as slaves to God (4:1). 

The couple I mentioned chose this passage because they wanted to make it clear to their friends that Jesus had a pattern for their marriage. As one commentator says: ‘It would be a bold person who would argue … that the contemporary non-Christian world offers a better model for marriage and family life’.³

Pray for Christian marriages, especially any you know that are under pressure.

¹ Eph 5:22 – 6:3  ² Gal 3:28  ³ NT Wright, Colossians and Philemon, TNTC, p151