Daily Bible Reading 26th July 2025 // Colossians 3:18-4:1
18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. 22 Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.
4 Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.
Having dealt with our attitudes and actions within the fellowship of believers, the apostle moves on to address domestic and business relationships. This is no abstract and airy fairy Christianity. Paul is concerned that the Lordship of Christ is displayed in the concrete of family and workplace relations. Ultimately there is no area of life which stands outside of God's influence and control. There is no final distinction between the sacred and secular. It is in the home (vv 10-21), in the relationships between husband and wife and between parents and children that the life of Christ and the virtue of Christ is to be manifest. It is at work (vv 22-4:1), in the relationships between slave and master (we will say employer and employee) that the reality of our sanctity is put to the test: This is where the Christian life matters. It is in the crucible of the home and the workplace that our faith is tested by fire to see what it is made of. The person who is fully involved in the work of the Lord, immersed in the life of the Church, but who is a bear with a sore head at home and who is unreliable and half-hearted at work is a double-minded man. His home and his work place tell the true story! How does your life at home or at work measure up?