Colossians 3:21–4:1 - Biblical Leadership in the Home and Workplace (Session 21)

This episode is a verse-by-verse Bible study of Colossians 3:21–4:1, exploring the historical context, theological meaning, and faithful application of the passage within the Christian faith.

Are you being fair to those under your authority, be it at home or the workplace? Have you ever paused and wondered about the gravity of your actions and their long-term impact? This episode takes you through an enlightening exploration of the book of Colossians, with a spotlight on the responsibilities that come with authority, particularly for fathers. We unpack the Biblical instructions on how to avoid being overbearing or irritating, stressing the consequential role our actions play in shaping individuals, especially children.

This episode will leave you pondering on your actions, attitudes, and their ripple effects on those under your authority. It doesn't matter if you're a father, a boss or someone under authority; this episode promises to provoke thought and inspire change. So, tune in and let's journey together through the book of Colossians and the lessons it presents about our roles in authority.

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:43

How should those in authority treat those that are underneath them? Those that are in a position of power have a biblical responsibility for those that are underneath them, and the Bible is quite clear about this and will hold those in authority responsible. God makes very clear commands for people that are in a position of power and today, when we get into the book of Colossians, we're going to learn very specific instructions about those people that are in authority and how they should treat those that are under them.

Speaker 1 1:16

And I think this is a subject that is overlooked many, many times, in that people that have authority, they do have a responsibility, and they're going to be held to a higher standard whenever it comes time to reviewing their life, everything that they've done. And we even have a couple of parables that talk about people that didn't go out and treat others the same way that they were treated, meaning they were. They've been given forgiven their sins and forgiven their debt, yet they went out and they treated others in a cruel way, and there's going to be some payment that they're going to have for that. So I think this is a subject that is overlooked many times, and it's going to be a good one to go through this in this session.

Speaker 2 1:56

In the book of Colossians, the Lord, god, speaks through the apostle Paul to the church at Colossae and, as Paul's custom, he spends the first half of the book talking about doctrinal and theological issues, because we have to get those things right first, and the second half of the book he talks about how to get along with each other and instructions for everyday life. That's what we're in the middle of. Last time we covered what husbands and wives and children should do, and today we get to learn about fathers and masters and bosses. Steve, if you could read in the book of Colossians chapter three, starting at verse 20, and go down to chapter four, verse one Children.

Speaker 1 2:37

Be obedient to your parents and all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Do not exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart, slays and all things. Obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service as those who merely please man, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for man, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve, for he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, in that, without partiality, masters grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a master in heaven.

Speaker 2 3:24

Our verse here, our translation in verse 21, says fathers, do not exasperate your children. Some of the translations say do not provoke your children, do not provoke them to wrath. And the command here again is for fathers not to ridicule, not to be domineering over your child to the point where they get very angry. Steve, I've seen this. For some reason there's a tendency for some fathers to be very overbearing with small children and I've never quite understood that. Yes, the children need some discipline and they need some authority figure and the father has that role. But there's a point where you can go too far, don't you think?

Fatherhood, Relationships, and Slavery in Bible

Speaker 1 4:08

Yeah, and again, this is within the family unit and the father is to be a Christian father and a godly father. It's a way that he is supposed to treat the family unit in general, but especially to the children, because the children are forming. We have a responsibility as fathers to know that we're forming the children what they're going to be later on in life, and if we're exasperating them and if we're being overbearing with them, they can affect them into their adulthood and then even carry on to how they treat their children. So it's very clear that the fathers are not to do this with their children and the family unit.

Speaker 2 4:50

I've seen fathers that do this. Well, I was fortunate enough to have a very good father and in some cases he was hard on me because I needed somebody to be hard on me on occasion. But what my father didn't do was go so far as to make me angry. And I've seen other fathers do that. And guess what? Whatever the motivation is, I've seen what happens when children grow up. Well, suddenly, they'll eventually grow up. They get to be adults someday and if you don't maintain that relationship, if you've made them angry fathers, they walk away as soon as they get old enough to walk away.

Speaker 2 5:28

And if you want to destroy your family, then violate this command here in Colossians, chapter 3. Make them angry when they're small. Be overbearing and domineering when they're small, and you will drive them away. I've seen it happen over and over again. Fathers should have enough wisdom to know the personality of the child and how far you can push and how far you can expect, because fathers are needed.

Speaker 2 5:53

There's things that fathers do that they can just do easier than the mothers can, and children like my own father was very good. There was times where he pushed me that he had a high demand out of me and the reason I've had what success I've had is because my father was good with that and he expected a lot out of me. But at the same time, we can't be so overbearing as to push down the child's spirit, and when that happens you will push them away. And if you want to break up your family and turn your child into a rebellious child, then violate this law and this rule Again. The command here, not a suggestion, a command Do not exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart. Do not be so overbearing that you've diminished their spirit.

Speaker 1 6:42

We have a responsibility that we're going to account for whenever we our life is reviewed. I would hope that there'd be fathers out there that wouldn't want anything in their review of their life, that is, of exasperating their children to anger or provoking them.

Speaker 2 6:59

Like it or not, dads, you are the God image in your family and I never was comfortable with that relationship because I knew my own weaknesses and I didn't want to be the God figure. But, like it or not, you are With that. You need to have the same attributes that the Lord had to the best of your ability, in the sense of also showing love, because if you want godly children, then you dads need to reflect a godly character and we need to look at the things that would motivate the child. Again, look at the end of this verse.

Speaker 2 7:34

Do not exasperate your children so they will not lose heart. That's what you don't want to have them do. Sure, you want them to grow up with discipline and motivation, but you don't want them to lose heart. All this is good advice to family, but what if I've gotten late in life? And I mean somewhere out there there's a mom or a dad that's learning these things and they've messed up in the past? What can they do now? Starting now, are these principles still able to be used, even with parents that have kind of messed up up to now?

Speaker 1 8:06

Yeah, absolutely, and I think the word repent here is a appropriate word. Repent means to change your mind and make a 180 degree turn. Usually it's back to God. But if you've been exasperating or provoking your child, if you've been trying to break their spirit to the point that you're provoking them, the anger all the time, yes, you can repent of that. You can change your mind. You can go back and make an 180 degree turn and start loving them, start being a father to them, start being that godly figure you pointed out very well. The fathers have a responsibility in that they're a representative of that godly father figure. When you think about it that way, are we as fathers truly representing God, the father, in a correct manner, in a correct way? And that's a very dangerous thing to think about if we haven't been doing that.

Speaker 2 9:02

So I would say, if you're in a situation where you've already blown it, go to your children, go to your wife and say please forgive me, and I'm going to start trying to do it right from now on. The Bible talks about in the Old Testament that God is able to. The phrase it uses is to restore what the locusts have eaten. When even things that are gone and destroyed, god can come and build them back again. If he's capable of that in the Bible days, he's capable of it here. It's not rocket science, guys. Praise motivates a child and ridicule tears them down. Verbal abuse tears them down. So build them up, don't tear them down. Moving on, the next passage gets into work relationships In the particular New Testament context. Here it talks about slaves. We're immediately into another issue, steve, that the world takes and kind of runs with it.

Speaker 2 9:57

So we did a whole three part series on the biblical view of slavery. I would direct our listeners to that. But the context here is very simply the word slaves. It's a broad term. It deals with servants of all types, most of the slaves, of course, he's here in the New Testament. They're dealing with the world, and the world had slaves for all kinds of reasons. Many of them, if not most of them, were because of financial issues. They were slave because of either complete destitution, starvation, or they had built up some sort of a debt that they had to run off. And I've heard the critics, the skeptics, will say oh, he says here in verse 22,. In all things, obey those who are your masters. And I've heard the skeptics and the critics say he should have told them to run away.

Speaker 2 10:52

Well, I would submit that's a complete ignorance of the context, because at the point this was written, which is the first century Rome, where are you going to run to slave? It's not like there's no slavery over there, on the next town. Slavery was in every country, every country. So if you're telling a slave to run away, you're telling them to violate the law. And again, where are you going to run to?

Speaker 2 11:16

They were destitute in the first place or they wouldn't have been a slave. They were complete, abject poverty that didn't have a means of supporting themselves, which is why they got into this bond relationship with the master that they had to work off the debt. Where are you going to run to? Are you going to run to the next country? They got slavery too. You're just as poor over there, you're going to still be a slave. Paul really had an option here to say get along within the context of the system you're in, or violate the law and make it hard for you, because now you're going to get arrested in the next country or just going to be under a different master over there, and now you're a runaway.

Speaker 1 11:54

Well, let's look at, let's go back and look at who is it that Paul has addressed these letter to? He's addressed it to the saints who are in Colossae. So this is being addressed to Christian people, christian mothers, christian fathers, christian husband, christian wives, christian children and Christian slaves. And it was the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire encircled all of what's known as the Mediterranean Sea, all the way around, from Spain, italy, greece, turkey, around to the Middle Eastern area of what was Israel, all the way into Egypt. Everything there was under this Roman Empire, and there were different ways that people became slaves. Some of them were taken back from the conquered areas, taken back, but the vast majority of them were bond servants. From the dictionary that I used in this study here, it says the most accurate translation of this word, doulas, is bond servant, in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is our cake, few today understand its force. And it goes to your point Slavery was everywhere. It was a way of life in the Roman Empire that's been estimated that anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the population were slaves, and most of those were house servants, house bond servants. For Paul to say go and run away. Where are they going to run away to? They don't have anything. They're house servants and this is a way of life. That's one thing to look at. By the way, that estimation of 10 to 15, you're talking about five upwards of five million or a little over people within the Roman Empire that is there. That is a lot of people. So what is it that Paul is to do? Paul is giving advice for these Christian slaves. Number one they're Christians and you got to keep that in mind, that these are households, that you have Christian slaves. So what are they doing? They're attending the services with the family and Paul is giving advice here. He's saying look, you need to do what you need to do in an honoring way, in a Christian way for the Lord. That's serving the Lord, because that's who you're serving.

Speaker 1 14:20

Now, another thing that we can take into our modern times is not quite the same, because we have freedoms to go to work one place and another place, but it translates to us as being workers for the companies or the people that we work for. As Christian workers, we are to serve and do the best that we can as if we were serving Christ, and I believe that is a direct translation from this. Do we have the freedom that we can go to another job? Yes, but I submit to you sometimes you work yourself into a situation where you're making the money that a person is making and you're living a lifestyle that you become a slave to that work and to that company because you can't go anywhere else because of the lifestyle that you've brought about. Well, what are you to do? If you're a Christian, you're to work for the best you can and serve that company the best you can because it's honoring to the Lord. And it says here that you're going to be rewarded for that type of work ethic in honoring the Lord.

Speaker 2 15:28

Notice the middle of verse 22. It's talking to workers here. It says Obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, or some of the translations say not with eye service. And what he means there is don't go around looking like you're working without actually working. Don't make some external show of looking like I'm working. He says no, actually do your job, do what you're there for. That's the critical thing here, steve. That definition you read a minute ago. The critical part I noticed in there was, it said, put themselves into a bond.

Speaker 2 16:07

Most of the slavery in those days was voluntary. In the context of Israel, kidnapping was a capital offense. Now that was just within Israel. So within Israel there was no kidnapping and involuntary slavery. Who knows what happened in all the other countries around Rome? But what he's saying here is that if you're a slave, be a good worker. Because and again, most of the people today criticizing these things don't really grasp how close people were to death by starvation. I mean, you're one crop away from literally starving to death. There were routinely people that got into complete, abject poverty and had no choice but to go and either bag or sell their services. Hey, I will go if you'll feed me, then I'll work for you, and then you get a bond relationship going there. That's the slavery that it's talking about.

Speaker 1 17:10

Now, one thing I think that we should do before we go any further, glenn, is I would give a disclaimer we don't support slavery, we don't condone slavery, we don't encourage slavery. That's not what we're doing. We're giving a historical account of what was going on at the time and putting it into context of what is going on here. Why do I say that is because in last session we talked about the world, or the skeptics and critics coming in and creating divisive situations to divide Christian families. This is another one that they come in with to divide Christians amongst themselves. And my research is I was going through and studying for this.

Workplace Ethics

Speaker 1 17:52

I went out to several, several sites and videos that talk about historical context of slavery in the Roman Empire and guess what I saw? In the comment sections I saw nothing but people saying this was very informative. I'm glad that you put this out and all those type of comment. Not once did I see in all of those comments the atheists and the skeptics and the critics that came in and talked about how immoral it was for that person to be talking about slavery. Now take that over to the Christian videos and ones like you talked about, and on those other Christian videos.

Speaker 1 18:30

Guess what I see? The skeptics and critics that come in there put their copy and paste situations and their only purpose is to go in there and divide the church and divide people from God, and so I wanted to put that disclaimer in there. We don't support it, we don't. We don't support slavery, we don't condone slavery, we're not advancing slavery. We're giving the historical and biblical context of what is here, and this is something that you have to do if you go verse by verse through scripture.

Speaker 2 19:03

Correct. Now what we can do in our day is to apply these same principles to our workplace and look at the end of verse 22. It tells us why we, as Christian workers, should obey those that we're working for. At the tail end of verse 22. It says but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. So it's saying one of the reasons why we, as Christians, should do a good job is because we're God fearing people.

Speaker 2 19:34

And I would say that if you're really somebody that wants to please the Lord, you'll be a good worker. You'll be somebody that wants to do a good job because, like you've said several times over the course of our studies, Steve, you may be the best Christian that anybody ever meets. You may not feel like you're a great Christian, but you're the best one they're ever going to meet. Our work reflects Christ. We should go do good work simply because that way it'll reflect good on our Lord. I also would ask this, Steve if I in my job, if I realize that I'm doing this to please the Lord, how are my actions and attitudes going to change in my workplace?

Speaker 1 20:17

Well, it makes a complete difference because, as it notes there in verse 23, your work is hardly as for the Lord rather than for men, because in 24 it says we're going to receive a reward of the inheritance that is in the Lord Christ, whom we serve. So it's an attitude that we're serving the Lord and it's something that we need to do as a Christian thing to be a reflection of the Lord, and it's a way of demonstrating. You said in another session that whenever in your work environment you didn't actually tell people that you were a Christian, but yet it somehow usually always came out that somebody later would come up to you and say are you a Christian? Or they knew that you were a Christian and you were just serving that company, whichever one you're working for, as it was says here, as if it was the Lord. So with that we can become a witness of Jesus Christ and who he is by doing that.

Speaker 2 21:19

Non-Christians will indeed pay attention to you as a Christian. They'll watch you. With that, I would say that none of us should ever be accused of being lazy. Christians should never be accused of being lazy. We should be doing our work diligently and well. We should strive to be good workers and please our bosses, and when we're doing work for the Lord, we should try to please Him. He would be our boss. So then, in verse 25, it speaks about what happens to people who do wrong things on earth. People sometimes do wrong things and get away with it, but do people get away with wrong things forever?

Speaker 1 22:02

No, there's going to be a judgment at some point, and even us, our salvation, if we're Christians, believers in Christ, our judgment is not going to be one of salvation, whether or not we're going to have salvation or not. But yet we are going to have a judgment that does a review of our lives. All of our works and our deeds that we have done it says in Scripture both good and bad, are going to be reviewed. We're going to have rewards that are available to us. It's not spoken of much, it's not talked about or preached about, but our lives here, that we have here and we serve Christ here, in our human lives here on earth, is going to have a great impact on the eternal life that we have with our glorified bodies and our spiritual bodies. There's many, many rewards that we will gain by the way that we live our lives here. There's also many, many rewards that we will forfeit by the way that we live our lives here.

Speaker 2 23:05

And it talks about that in chapter 3, verse 24, talks about these rewards of inheritance. So the flow of the passage it talked to fathers, it talked to slaves and it's now talking to masters. They're, in our day, the bosses. And it says in chapter 4, verse 1, masters, grant your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a master in heaven. So how do we, if we are a boss, we're a superior, we have people under us. What's the command to us? How should I treat the people under me? This verse tells me, tells me why, and it's because, ultimately, I'm working for the Lord as well.

Speaker 1 23:49

Then you mentioned a while ago where skeptics and critics say that well, paul should have told them to run away. And one of the items that they use is the slave or bond servant, onissimus, who had come and visited Paul. And there's a letter that Paul sends back to another Christian, philemon, who was the master of Onissimus, and Paul implores for Philemon to treat Onissimus in a respectful way and in a Christian, loving way. And he even says if he still owes you something, let me know what it is and I will pay that for him. So, paul, we see him with Onissimus doing what he has laid out here. He says, onissimus, you need to go back. You need to serve Philemon and serve out whatever debt that you have with him in a Christian way.

Speaker 1 24:39

But Onissimus was a Christian bond servant. Philemon was a fellow Christian. And we see Paul imploring Philemon to treat Onissimus as a fellow Christian. Why? Because just what's put here in verse one is that Philemon as a master, know that he has a master in heaven as well and that there's going to be looked upon Philemon how he treated his different bond servants.

Speaker 2 25:10

And this man, onissimus, shows up in Colossians here. Colossians, chapter four, verse nine. Paul is greeting the people he's directing the letter to and he sends Onissimus with the other delegation to take the letter to the church at Colossae. This slave, or former slave, onissimus Paul, was practicing what he preached. He treated them just like everybody else on the team. At least by here, onissimus had the freedom to travel around. So it's very possible that Philemon, the owner, forgave him of everything and it released Onissimus to go do ministry work. But what we see here is that the slaves were treated well and the masters were commanded to treat their slaves well.

Continuing Through Colossians

Speaker 2 26:00

Paul is saying if you're a boss, if you're a leader, if you're somebody that's in charge of people, you have an obligation to treat them fairly, an obligation to treat them with respect. They have rights and you need to realize that, because there's going to come a day when you're going to get called into your boss, your you know, the top floor corner office, so to speak, where the Lord God is, and he's going to ask you to give an account for what you've had in front of you. And those of us that treat the people around us well are going to get a good reward, and I would hate to appear before him if I had not. So with that, we will pull it to a curb for today. We've reached the end of this section. Next time we should get into the part where Paul starts to wrap up the book, and that'll be in chapter four of Colossians, which we'll get to next time as we continue to reason through the Bible.

Speaker 1 26:56

Thank you for watching and listening. May God bless you.