As we have progressed through this letter, Paul’s attention has become more and more focussed. From the plans of God on a cosmic scale, starting before the beginning of the world; to the life of the church, particularly that of the multiracial church in Ephesus; to being light in our communities; and now… to the most personal of our relationships: in marriage, the family and the workplace. This section is not just some homely advice that Paul has added on after the more ‘theological’ earlier chapters, but it is a logical outworking of what he said there. Let me just take a few verses from earlier chapters, and show the links - If we are to be holy and blameless before him, children adopted into his family, our relationships with one another have to be right - husband-wife, parent-child, employee-employer. We are saved by grace, not by works, so that no one may boast. No individual can look down on another - there was a nice quote from the American politician Jesse Jackson in our Lent study book this week: “Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.” As God’s children we do not look down on one another; we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s standards, we are all forgiven and saved by faith. In 2:16 Paul says that Jesus has referring here to the reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles. For a Jew like Paul, trained as a Pharisee, the biggest division in human life was that between Jew and Gentile. If the death of Jesus on the cross had reconciled Jews and Gentiles, it would make sense to say that husbands and wives, parents and children, even masters and slaves, could be reconciled in Christ. Therefore we should live in harmony with one another, as one family; and the first verse that we read tonight sets the tone for the remainder of our reading: 21st century readers, such as we are, might see Paul as being very conservative in this passage. Many of his first century readers will have found him radical - dangerously radical. Marriage - Some today might want to criticise what Paul says here, and suggest that if Paul were alive now he would encourage a complete symmetry in the relationship between husband and wife. But close reading of the text reveals that this is not a charter for men to treat their wives as doormats. While Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands, which would be normal behaviour in that society - he also tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church; they should be willing to die and suffer for them; they should care for them as they care for their own bodies. A real challenge for husbands in the first century; and a real challenge for husbands today! Children – The comments about obedience would be the norm for most societies – but Paul also says: Two alternative translations for comparison:
This was not mainstream. History suggests that in many traditional societies parents would have given little regard to the thoughts or feelings of their children, until they became young adults; although amongst the cultured Greeks and Romans there were certainly some who saw the value of bringing children up with understanding. For example, the Greek poet Menander (342–291 BC) wrote that: One should correct a child not by hurting him but by persuading him
Even in modern times, parents worry about how best to bring up their children. Some here will be familiar w the advice on child-rearing written by Dorothy Nolte in 1954. This is the shorter version, and I think it’s a helpful expansion of what Paul writes: Children Learn What They Live

• If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
• f children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
• If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy.
• If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
• If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
• If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient.
• If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.
• If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
• If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
• If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
• If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and others.
• If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

All Christian parents want their children to turn out as model citizens of whom they can be proud. Nowadays there are many books, webpages and TV programmes on parenting; and courses run by churches and by secular agencies. But what Paul has written here makes a good starting point.
Masters and slaves - Again, people of the 21st century might criticise Paul for condoning slavery; but for his time he was being radical. For not only does he tell slaves to be obedient, as though obeying Christ, he also tells masters to respect their slaves, and not to threaten them; for they all have the same heavenly master. Today we can interpret this in terms of employees and employers, and how we treat one another in the workplace. Many of us are not actually employers in a technical sense, but we all have to deal with shop assistants, council workers, and people on telephone helplines, whom we employ indirectly – in the end, it’s our money that pays them. We can be tempted to treat them as lesser citizens, as our servants, and get angry with them when they don’t do their job well. But getting angry with them is neither an effective solution to their incompetence, nor a good witness to God’s love. Marriage, parenting and the world of work - Paul has applied his theological perspective to each of them. There is much more that could be said about interpreting this in our 21st century context - we could offer a whole course on any of them. But the key to getting these relationships right is knowing who we are: redeemed and forgiven through the cross of Christ, and adopted into the family of God; and therefore not insisting on our rights, but claiming his grace; not putting others down, but helping them up, as we have been helped up by God himself.