Daily Bible Reading 3rd August 2025 // Colossians 3:22-4:1
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.
Paul's remarkable and astounding insight is that in our daily work, as Christians, we are not serving man at all, we are serving God! (vv 23-24). Paul's words are certainly disconcerting and challenging but 0 the release, the encouragement and the joy that they should bring to our hearts as we work for the Master. In the old sinful order of things we serve men, often with superficial and dishonest ulterior motives. We do as little as we can to get by (raising questions of honesty and integrity). We are half-hearted and self-seeking, looking for the easy way out and for the quick buck. But now, says Paul, we are that man no longer, we have put off the old man and put on the new and in this new order we serve the Lord Christ with whole-hearted endeavour. He is the one we are working for and he is the one who will reward us (v 24). It is God who will judge the quality and worth of our work not our earthly employer. And at the judgment bar of God there is no favouritism; there is no partiality or bias with God, He is not taken in by appearances, although our earthly master may very well be (v 25). This surely lifts our daily work on to a new plain. Work was ordained by God before the Fall to bestow dignity and worth, to be the arena for the building of character and for the growth and development of Adam and Eve. In Christ this is how we must view our work today. We must recognise it as the crucible where God disciplines and sanctifies us, where He remakes and refashions us after His sovereign will.