+I. The duties of servants.+--1. _To be obedient to their masters._
This must be understood with the same limitation as all other
commands enjoining relative duties. We are to obey God rather than
men. Servants no further obey their masters according to the will of
God than they make His will the rule and measure of their obedience
to their masters. 2. _Servants owe their masters reverence as well as
obedience._ 3. _There is an honour, as well as fear, due to their
masters._ 4. _Cheerfulness in their obedience is recommended by the
apostle._ 5. _Diligence of faithfulness is another duty which they
owe to their masters._ 6. _They are to be patient and submissive,_
though they meet with usage more severe than they think reasonable,
not breaking their own obligations, or deserting their master's
service for trivial causes, but bearing his smaller indiscretions
without complaint, and in cases of real injury seeking relief in a
prudent manner and by lawful means. 7. _In all their service they
should act with an aim to please God and to obtain His approbation._
+II. The duties of masters to their servants.+--1. _Their government
is to be mild and prudent, not passionate and severe._ 2. _With
respect to apprentices, the contract binds the master not only to
give them comfortable support, but to instruct them in his business
and profession._ 3. _With respect to labourers, justice obliges us to
give them the stipulated wages when they have faithfully performed
the promised service._ 4. _With respect to all servants, equity
requires that we treat them with humanity and kindness,_ and
contribute all proper assistance to render them useful, virtuous, and
happy.--_Lathrop._
Vers. 6-8. _Christian Servitude._--1. To propose to ourselves the
pleasing of men as our great design is inconsistent with the work of
grace in the heart and with that subjection we owe to Christ. The
meanest service is service done to Christ, and will be accepted by
Him as such. 2. So ingrate is man, and so slow to reward those from
whom he receives favour, that a man can never heartily do service to
the most of men, except he look to God, whom to serve in the meanest
employment is a reward in itself. 3. The Lord in dispensing rewards
looks not to the external beauty, splendour, or greatness of the
work, but to the honesty and sincerity of it.--_Fergusson._
Ver. 9. _Masters accountable to God._--1. There is no power among men
so absolute--not that of kings and supreme rulers--but implies an
obligation, through virtue of God's ordinance, on those invested with
it to make conscience of duties towards their inferiors and subjects.
2. As it is usual for powers on earth sinfully to oversee and not to
punish the cruel and unjust dealings of masters towards servants, so
those sins most connived at by men are most severely taken notice of
by God. 3. It is too ordinary for men in place and authority to carry
themselves as if they had none above them to be accountable to, or to
dream that the Lord will not take such strict account of them as of
their underlings and servants.--_Ibid._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 10-12.
_The Christian Warfare_--
+I. Can be fought only with Divine help.+--"Be strong in the Lord,
and in the power of His might" (ver. 10). The apostle has dwelt like
one enraptured on the sublime constitution and glorious destiny of
the Church; now he deals with the formidable foes with which the
Church will have to contend. He sees the evil forces gathering, and
hears the clash of arms among the approaching enemies. He warns
believers that unaided they will be powerless in the strife and must
suffer defeat. They are secure and will be victorious only as they
make the strength of God their own. The strength of the general, in
other hosts, lies in his troops; he flies, as a great commander once
said, upon their wings; if their feathers be clipped, their power
broken, he is lost. But in the Christian army the strength of every
saint lies in the Lord of hosts. God can overcome His enemies without
their hands; but they cannot even defend themselves without His arm.
Man is impotent without the strength of God. If the ship, launched,
rigged, and with her sails spread, cannot stir till the wind fills
them, much less can the timber in the carpenter's yard hew and frame
itself into a ship. Power to contend with the spiritual foes must
come from God.
+II. Involves a fierce conflict with the powers of evil.+--1. _A
conflict, not with men, but with unseen spiritual enemies._ "We
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities"
(ver. 12). The apostle brings out in bold relief the terrible foes
they are summoned to encounter. (1) _As to their position._ They are
no subalterns, but foes of mighty rank, the nobility and chieftains
of the spirit world. (2) _Their office._ Their domain is this
darkness in which they exercise imperial sway. (3) _Their essence._
They are not encumbered with an animal frame, but are spirits.
(4) _Their character._ They are evil--their appetite for evil only
exceeds their capacity for producing it (_Eadie_). The Church is
engaged in a double conflict--of the flesh and of the spirit. We are
assailed with the temptations of the world of sense, and with
seductions of error that attack us in the world of the mind; and in
both spheres we have to contend with the subtle influences set in
motion by the rulers of the darkness of this world. Our foes invade
"the high places" of our faith and hope, and would rob us of our
heaven.
2. _A conflict with unseen spiritual enemies led by an astute and
subtle commander._--"That ye may be able to withstand against the
wiles of the devil" (ver. 11). The New Testament assumes the
personality of Satan. This belief runs counter to modern thought,
governed as it is by the tendency to depersonalise existence. The
conception of evil spirits given us in the Bible is treated as an
obsolete superstition; and the name of the evil one with multitudes
serves only to point a profane and careless jest. To Jesus Christ,
Satan was no figure of speech, but a thinking and active being, of
whose presence and influence He saw tokens everywhere in this evil
world. Satan's empire is ruled with a settled policy, and his warfare
carried on with a system of strategy which takes advantage of every
opening for attack. The manifold combinations of error, the various
arts of seduction and temptation, and ten thousand forms of the
deceit of unrighteousness constitute "the wiles of the devil." Satan
is no longer the God of this world since Christianity rose to its
ascendant. The manifestations of demonism are, at least in Christian
lands, vastly less conspicuous than in the first age of the Church.
But they are more bold than wise who deny their existence, and who
profess to explain all occult phenomena and phrenetic moral
aberrations by physical causes (_Findlay_).
+III. Is victorious only as the warrior is armed with the Divine
panoply.+--"Put on the whole armour of God" (ver. 11). They who put
on Christ are well clothed; they are armed from head to foot, and are
proof against the darts of the devil. The Christless man is
defenceless; his own understanding and gifts do not sufficiently arm
him. The soldier comes into the field with no arms but what his
general commands: it is not left to every one's fancy to bring what
weapons he pleases; this would breed confusion. So the Christian
soldier must put on the armour God provides, and be completely
clothed with it. To leave one part unguarded will bring disaster. In
one of the famous battles between the English and French, that which
lost France the day was a shower of English arrows which so galled
the horses that they became unmanageable, put the whole army into
disorder, and trod down their own men. So if there be the least
loophole in our armour the wily adversary will quickly discover it
and shoot through his fiery darts which will effect confusion and
defeat.
+Lessons.+--1. _The Christian life is a conflict between good and
evil._ 2. _God is always on the side of the good._ 3. _The Christian
warrior must fight with weapons Divinely provided._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._