6:8
Our human masters may appreciate and reward us properly, or they may take advantage of us, or take us for granted. Whatever the case, we know that we will ultimately receive a just reward from the Lord. The guiding principle in all of the teaching in Ephesians (and the whole Bible for that matter) is that God is God. He has the final say in all things. So if we serve well, even if unappreciated by the world, we do not lose heart, because we know that God sees all that we do. Knowing this enables us to persevere in all circumstances.
6:9
Attention now turns to masters. “Do the same to them”. Masters are to treat their slaves or bondservants properly, knowing that God sees all that they do. In particular they are not to use threatening behaviour. Presumably threatening behaviour was considered normal practice in those days. They are to behave like this because while they may have power in human terms, both slave and master are answerable to God, and He shows no partiality. One might naively ask why doesn’t the Christian master just stop having slaves. Well, in effect this is what is happening! As mentioned earlier, the Christians were in no position at the time to overturn the system, so instead they do this indirectly. The master treats the servant or slave as an equal, as someone with equal importance and equal rights before God. Therefore they treat the person well.
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