Today’s passage is the last part of strategy number three on how to reflect God’s desire for all people.

¹All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. 

In line with ‘the elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honour’ (5:17), the masters of a believing bond servant deserve the worth, the weight, of ‘full respect’ (all honour, ESV, NASB), even just for the reason that their bond servants who serve them are believers. Notable is the use of the word ‘consider’ (regard, ESV, NASB),[1] which denotes a nuance to judge differently than what is apparent. A good example of the use is in Heb 11:11, describing the thought process of Sarah: ‘And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise’.

Both in the case of Sarah and the believing slave, the purpose of their ‘consideration’ is that the name of the faithful God is not ‘blasphemed’. Surely it is not their ‘consideration’ that makes things work and save God’s face, but it is God Himself, who takes care that His words do not end up in vain but are fulfilled and that therefore He is not blasphemed. Then we can say that believers’ such consideration, i.e., thinking and judging otherwise than what appears, is an act of giving honour to God, acknowledging that He has everything in hand, from plan to accomplishment. This is called, in other words, faith.

So, directing that honour to their seen master would be a symbol for what the believing servants have for God; at the same time, it is a command rather than a suggestion. Through believers’ submission (or consideration) to the command, God’s sheer confidence and power to accomplish His word are proclaimed. It is a command as well as a prophecy and a promise, as all commands in the Scriptures are.

² Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves.

What about the believing masters, who will consider their servants, including believing ones, worthy of full respect? Needless to say, they are to mutually consider each other worthy of the respect that God is worthy of. But even if one party happens to defect (worse than the other), it does not give the other party the right to stop (all together) automatically. For, in essence, their respect is for God, which cannot be affected or nullified by human disloyalty.

Dear Lord, how can we give each other the respect you deserve from us when we do not even give it to you? Let us give you the full respect and honour that is due by seeing things differently than what they apparently hold out to be! Let us have faith! Help us our unbelief; we want to believe! Let us believe that you are God, who creates all things from nothing. You are the Almighty God who called us out of nothing to be yours and to do your work of governing the world as you would. Let us acknowledge that by seeing who is next to us, who looks like nobody, as somebody that you love with all your heart and life. Let us have that heart, Lord. Have mercy on us.

---

[1] ἡγέομαι (hēgeomai) ‘to govern’ (G2233) (Verb Present Middle or Passive Deponent Imperative 3rd Plural) to govern