"5 Bondservants, obey your earthly master, with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, 6 not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,7 rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. 9 Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him."
Ephesians 6:5-9
The quotations in the previous Note have surely a great deal to teach us in relation to the subject in hand. Both Lightfoot and Catherwood have a point when they maintain that to try to overthrow by violent revolution the injustices of the world would be to make matters worse in terms of suffering for all concerned, and that would help no one in the long run. We should not therefore miss - or dismiss - the significance of the principle of indirect influence, but ask ourselves whether there is not a pattern shown here, and an example, to be followed, and a guiding principle for the Church? It is sometimes said that in Paul's day the social conscience of the Church was not so keen as it is today, and that the Church came very slowly to the understanding of the social implications of the gospel that they preached. But we take leave to disagree with this point of view. It would be a very bold man who tried to put a man like Paul in his place in matters of interpretation of the gospel! It is far more likely that today's Church has missed the profound insights given by the Apostle, and is going about things in the wrong way. What Paul seems to advocate is that the Church's influence in such matters as slavery - and this can legitimately be extended to social, economic and political questions in general - should be an indirect one, rather than one of direct intervention. It is easy to become so taken up with questions pertaining to this life, legitimate though they may be, that we forget our message concerning the world to come. And if these verses tell us anything they say that ultimately the Church will do more to help 'this-worldly' issues by being the Church and paying heed to eternal realities - and therefore being a potent influence among men - than by concentrating on political and social questions at the expense of neglecting spiritual issues.