Ephesians 6:5

οἱ δοῦλοι, ὑπακούετε τοῖς κυρίοις κατὰ σάρκα : servants obey them who according to the flesh are your masters. As in the case of the two relations already dealt with, so here the statement begins with the dependent member, the servant, who in these times was a bond-servant. Many questions would inevitably arise with regard to the duties of masters and servants in a state of society in which slavery prevailed and had the sanction of ancient and undisputed use. Especially would this be the case when Christian slaves (of whom there were many) had a heathen master, and when the Christian master had heathen slaves. Hence the considerable place given in the NT to this relation and the application of Christian principles to it (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:21-22; 1 Timothy 6:1-2; Titus 2:9-10; and Philemon, in addition to Colossians 3:22; Colossians 4:1 and 1 Peter 2:18-25). Here, as elsewhere in the NT, slavery is accepted as an existing institution, which is neither formally condemned nor formally approved. There is nothing to prompt revolutionary action, or to encourage repudiation of the position. Onesimus, the Christian convert, is sent back by Paul to his master, and the institution is left to be undermined and removed by the gradual operation of the great Christian principles of the equality of men in the sight of God, a common Christian brotherhood, the spiritual freedom of the Christian man, and the Lordship of Christ to which every other lordship is subordinate. See especially Goldwin Smith's Does the Bible Sanction American Slavery?; Küstlin's Christliche Ethik, pp. 318, 480, etc.; Mangold's Humanität und Christenthum; Lightfoot's Colossians and Philemon, pp. 319 329. ὑπακούετε, as in the case of children so in that of slaves obedience is the comprehensive name for duty, and this as a duty lying within the larger principle of the recognition and honour due to constituted authority (Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17). For τοῖς κυρίοις κατὰ σάρκα (TR, with [732] [733] [734] [735], etc.), the better order is τοῖς κατὰ σάρκα κυρίοις (LTTrWHRV, with [736] [737] [738] [739], etc.), = “those who according to the flesh are your masters” (RV), not “your masters according to the flesh” (AV). In the Pastoral Epistles and 1 Peter the slave's master is called δεσπότης. The word κύριος, limited by the κατὰ σάρκα to the designation of a lordship which holds only for material interests and earthly relations, may perhaps have been selected here with a view to the contrast with the Κύριος whose lordship is absolute, inclusive alike of master and of slave, of earthly and of heavenly relations. μετὰ φόβου καὶ τρόμου : with fear and trembling. The use of the same phrase with regard to Paul himself (1 Corinthians 2:3), the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 7:15), and the Philippians (Philippians 2:12), is enough to show that nothing more is in view here than solicitous zeal in the discharge of duty, anxious care not to come short. ἐν ἁπλότητι τῆς καρδίας ὑμῶν : in singleness of your heart. A clause qualifying the obedience itself; not the “fear and trembling,” in which case we should have expected τοῦ ἐν ἁπλότητι, etc. It states the spirit in which the obedience was to be rendered, not in formality, pretence, or hypocrisy, but in inward reality and sincerity, and with an undivided heart. The noun ἁπλότης = the condition of being without folds, simplicity, as contrasted with pretence, dissimulation, insincerity, in the NT is found only in the Pauline writings, and there seven times, with slightly different shades of meaning (Romans 12:8; 2Co 8:2; 2 Corinthians 9:11; 2 Corinthians 9:13; 2 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 6:5; Colossians 3:22; in 2 Corinthians 1:12 the preferable reading is ἐν ἁγιότητι). The phrase ἐν ἁπλότητι occurs again in the first and the last of these passages. ὡς τῷ Χριστῷ : as to Christ. That is, with an obedience regarded as rendered to Christ Himself; cf. ὡς τῷ Κυρίῳ in Ephesians 5:22, and see also Romans 14:7-9.

[732] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[733] Codex Augiensis (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

[734] Codex Mosquensis (sæc. ix.), edited by Matthæi in 1782.

[735] Codex Angelicus (sæc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.

[736] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[737] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[738] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[739] Codex Porphyrianus (sæc. ix.), at St. Petersburg, collated by Tischendorf. Its text is deficient for chap. Ephesians 2:13-16.