GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES.

Vers. 5–9. The Duties of Servants and Masters.

I. The duties of servants.—1. To be obedient to their masters. This must be understood with the same limitation as all other commands enjoining relative duties. We are to obey God rather than men. Servants no further obey their masters according to the will of God than they make His will the rule and measure of their obedience to their masters. 2. Servants owe their masters reverence as well as obedience. 3. There is an honour, as well as fear, due to their masters. 4. Cheerfulness in their obedience is recommended by the apostle. 5. Diligence of faithfulness is another duty which they owe to their masters. 6. They are to be patient and submissive, though they meet with usage more severe than they think reasonable, not breaking their own obligations, or deserting their master’s service for trivial causes, but bearing his smaller indiscretions without complaint, and in cases of real injury seeking relief in a prudent manner and by lawful means. 7. In all their service they should act with an aim to please God and to obtain His approbation.

II. The duties of masters to their servants.—1. Their government is to be mild and prudent, not passionate and severe. 2. With respect to apprentices, the contract binds the master not only to give them comfortable support, but to instruct them in his business and profession. 3. With respect to labourers, justice obliges us to give them the stipulated wages when they have faithfully performed the promised service. 4. With respect to all servants, equity requires that we treat them with humanity and kindness, and contribute all proper assistance to render them useful, virtuous, and happy.—Lathrop.

Vers. 6–8. Christian Servitude.—1. To propose to ourselves the pleasing of men as our great design is inconsistent with the work of grace in the heart and with that subjection we owe to Christ. The meanest service is service done to Christ, and will be accepted by Him as such. 2. So ingrate is man, and so slow to reward those from whom he receives favour, that a man can never heartily do service to the most of men, except he look to God, whom to serve in the meanest employment is a reward in itself. 3. The Lord in dispensing rewards looks not to the external beauty, splendour, or greatness of the work, but to the honesty and sincerity of it.—Fergusson.

Ver. 9. Masters accountable to God.—1. There is no power among men so absolute—not that of kings and supreme rulers—but implies an obligation, through virtue of God’s ordinance, on those invested with it to make conscience of duties towards their inferiors and subjects. 2. As it is usual for powers on earth sinfully to oversee and not to punish the cruel and unjust dealings of masters towards servants, so those sins most connived at by men are most severely taken notice of by God. 3. It is too ordinary for men in place and authority to carry themselves as if they had none above them to be accountable to, or to dream that the Lord will not take such strict account of them as of their underlings and servants.—Ibid.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verses 10–12.

The Christian Warfare—

I. Can be fought only with Divine help.—“Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might” (ver. 10). The apostle has dwelt like one enraptured on the sublime constitution and glorious destiny of the Church; now he deals with the formidable foes with which the Church will have to contend. He sees the evil forces gathering, and hears the clash of arms among the approaching enemies. He warns believers that unaided they will be powerless in the strife and must suffer defeat. They are secure and will be victorious only as they make the strength of God their own. The strength of the general, in other hosts, lies in his troops; he flies, as a great commander once said, upon their wings; if their feathers be clipped, their power broken, he is lost. But in the Christian army the strength of every saint lies in the Lord of hosts. God can overcome His enemies without their hands; but they cannot even defend themselves without His arm. Man is impotent without the strength of God. If the ship, launched, rigged, and with her sails spread, cannot stir till the wind fills them, much less can the timber in the carpenter’s yard hew and frame itself into a ship. Power to contend with the spiritual foes must come from God.

II. Involves a fierce conflict with the powers of evil.—1. A conflict, not with men, but with unseen spiritual enemies. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities” (ver. 12). The apostle brings out in bold relief the terrible foes they are summoned to encounter. (1) As to their position. They are no subalterns, but foes of mighty rank, the nobility and chieftains of the spirit world. (2) Their office. Their domain is this darkness in which they exercise imperial sway. (3) Their essence. They are not encumbered with an animal frame, but are spirits. (4) Their character. They are evil—their appetite for evil only exceeds their capacity for producing it (Eadie). The Church is engaged in a double conflict—of the flesh and of the spirit. We are assailed with the temptations of the world of sense, and with seductions of error that attack us in the world of the mind; and in both spheres we have to contend with the subtle influences set in motion by the rulers of the darkness of this world. Our foes invade “the high places” of our faith and hope, and would rob us of our heaven.