Colossians 3:22-4:1

Independance Day, hard work, and navigating tough Bible passages on slaves and masters. Plenty to look at this week as we continue on our journey through Colossians.

The other day, I watched what happens to recruits as they exit a bus on their first day of Marine boot camp. The minute they step off that bus, their old civilian life is over, and their new life as a Marine has begun. Quickly, they assemble on equally spaced painted footprints, as Marine D.I.s begin yelling instructions they expect to be obeyed without question or comment. After this, each recruit is formed into a single unit by having their hair all cut the same. A new uniform replaces their former clothing, and they are now well on their way to becoming Marines after the next thirteen weeks of intense and demanding training.

As spiritual warriors who fight the Devil and his minions, we can learn much from this analogy. Once we step off the bus of unbelief and choose to follow Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are saved and forever seen as one of His troops. At that moment of faith, He gives us the uniform of His holiness to show that we belong to and report to Him. Also, at that moment of faith, the old, sinful you becomes the new holy you (2 Cor. 5:17).

There is, however, a difference in the analogy: We, as the Lord’s recruits, can willfully choose to put on the clothing of our former sinful life. If this occurred with recruits on at say, MCRD San Diego or MCRD Parris Island, you can imagine how this would go over with a D.I. Any recruit standing in a unit in his old clothing would not only be quickly noticed, but he would be quickly confronted and challenged.

The same applies to spiritual soldiers. How do I know? I know this is true because of how Paul writes books to recruits, books like Colossians. Like a committed and skilled D.I., Paul barks commands designed to motivate recruits to shed the old, sinful clothing and to ensure they wear the new, divinely approved uniform. The structure of Colossians readily attests to Paul’s holy quest, a spiritual leader par excellence.

From this teaching, we can readily identify the central theme Paul, the spiritual D.I., is seeking to drill into recruits:

Your Christian Life Should Always Be Moving From The Old Life To the New Life (Col. 3:5-4:6)

How are you doing with taking off the old uniform and putting on the new one? To help you move in the right direction, we join Paul in continuing our study of what is called…

The Identification of the Right Clothing (Col. 3:12-4:6)

So far, we’ve studied fifteen spiritual types of clothing we should seek to wear as a lifestyle. For U.S. Marines, there are three categories of uniforms: utility, service, and dress.

Utility Uniforms are for working and combat. Within this uniform category, there are two: the Woodland, a forest-green camouflage for forest or jungle environments, and the Desert, a tan camouflage for sandy environments.

The Service Uniform resembles a business suit and is worn for official duties, ceremonies, and public appearances. It, in turn, is divided into three types: Service Service Alpha, which is a green coat, green trousers, and a green garrison or peaked cap; Service Bravo, which is a long-sleeve khaki shirt, green tie, and green trousers; and Service Charlie, which is a short-sleeve khaki shirt and green trousers.

The Dress Uniform is highly formal and divided into three types: Blue Dress is worn in four variations: Alpha (with medals), Bravo (with ribbons), Charlie (long-sleeve), and Delta (short-sleeve); Blue-White Dress: A summer variation that pairs the midnight blue jacket with white trousers. Evening Dress: The most formal uniform, similar to civilian “white tie” or “black tie” attire, reserved for official evening events.[1]

Why go into all this detail? This quick exercise shows that Paul is quite reasonable in requesting recruits to wear the fifteen types of uniforms he has presented thus far. With verses 22 through 25 of chapter 3 through chapter 4, verse 1, he adds two more:

Garment #16: Hard Work (Col. 3:22-25)

First, let’s read the text, and then circle back for some salient observations:

²² Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.

Colossians 3:22 Οἱ δοῦλοι, ὑπακούετε κατὰ πάντα τοῖς κατὰ σάρκα κυρίοις, μὴ ἐν ὀφθαλμοδουλίᾳ ὡς ἀνθρωπάρεσκοι, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ἁπλότητι καρδίας φοβούμενοι τὸν κύριον.

As we study this command, which uses the same intensive verb that Paul employed regarding Christian children being challenged to obey their parents (hupakouo), permit me to make a couple of foundational points.

One, Paul speaks about how a Christian slave should relate to his master because the book of Colossians was written about the same time as the book of Philemon. Pilemon is a Christian slave owner who owned a slave named Onesimus, who had ripped him off and fled to Rome. While in Rome, he ran into Paul, and Paul eventually led him to faith in Christ (Philemon 10). In Philemon, Paul writes to encourage Philemon to take this new convert back and treat him with grace and mercy as a Christian brother. In Colossians 4:7-9, we learn that Onesimus came from the church in Colossae, which means that Philemon was also probably associated with this church. So, as Paul sent Onesimus, the slave, back home, he challenged him and Philemon to wear spiritual clothing in their respective roles, honoring Christ above all things.

Two, Paul wasn’t writing to correct the wrong of Roman slavery. At the time, Rome had a whopping 60 million slaves. Many were well educated, ran the homes of the wealthy, and educated and disciplined the Roman children in their care. This is why they were called pedagogues, or child leaders. Granted, some slaves worked in challenging environments to build buildings, roads, fortifications, ships, armaments, and so forth, and their lives were hard and short-lived. Looking at the pervasive nature of Roman slavery, Paul did instruct Christian slaves to take a path of freedom if they could (1 Cor. 7:21); however, the Apostle did not teach open rebellion against the existing Roman order. What he did teach was something radically new: Christian slaves, who were also slaves of Christ, were responsible for exhibiting a superior Christian work ethic that pointed to Christ. Of course, this goal was not only for the slave to secure reward from Christ, but for non-Christians to consider the validity of Christianity based on the model behavior of the slave. As a sidenote, if you wonder why Paul didn’t act more forcefully against the plague of slavery, choosing to slowly overturn it through the power of changed lives, then consider how long it took God to free Israel from Egyptian bondage. God informed Abraham that his descendants, the Israelites, would be enslaved in a foreign land for 400 plus years (Gen. 15:13; Exodus 12:40-21).[2]

Third, since we, as Christians, are not presently in a slave/master relationship, and since modern demographic studies reveal that some 750,000 of our countrymen died to rid our country of the scourge of slavery, we must look at the labor principles Paul teaches here and professionally apply them. Put differently, we must relate Paul’s teaching to another hierarchical arrangement; that being the relationship between the employee and the employer—more on that as we work our way through these verses.

With this in mind, consider the import of Paul’s teaching in verse 22. Paul says Christian slaves at the time shouldn’t obey with mere “eye service,”ophthamoloulia (ὀφθαλμοδουλίᾳ), from which we get our word ophthalmologist. Translated, don’t just obey, or don’t do a great job only when your master is looking at you to please him with your stellar performance. That is the wrong motivation. Conversely, work hard if you are a slave, whether the master has his eye on you or not. That was revolutionary thinking in that day when slaves looked for opportunities to do as little as possible because the work was so demanding. Further, Paul challenged the slaves to be fearful in their work. Fearful of whom? A Christian slave should be reverentially fearful of the Lord, as we shall see, who sees how you work and why you work the way you do. His knowledge of your work ethic is never static, but always dynamic, and is poised to reward accordingly.

Paul drives this home point in the next verse:

²³ Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men . . . (Col. 3).

What a mindset. Paul says outright that Christian slaves should be known as the hardest workers any master has ever seen, and they should do their work as if it is done unto Christ. Talk about a unique way to attack Roman slavery. Be an exemplary slave and let your work ethic be a witness to your earthly master. Perhaps, then, through this, he would come to know Christ, at which point, he would have to put on a new uniform and treat others as a Christian man, not a carnal man. Interesting methodology.

What is the application for us today? I think the answer is clear: Whatever your work arrangement is in life, whether it is optimal or not, you should be the best worker you can be because you are really working to please your Master, Christ. You might need to read that again to let it sink in and possibly change or ramp up your current work ethic. So, whether your job is menial or mind-boggling in its importance, you are to go whole hog after it, as they say down south.

As you all know by now, I’ve had all kinds of jobs to make my way in this life. Most of my jobs were tough, demanding, and somewhat demeaning, but my godly parents raised me to do them as if I were working for Christ. Here’s a sampling of some of my jobs:

• When I was 12, my grandfather, Dorsey (4/7/1913-3/7/1970) died at 57 years of age from a brain tumor. After the funeral, my grandmother, Islare (5/21/1916-11/26/1984), put her arm around me and said, “I guess now you are my little man.” From that point forward, I took care of her lawn, and she paid me. That eventually led to other people at church asking me to take care of their lawns. These were my first jobs.
• Clerk at Baskin-Robbins/31 Flavors. They paid me $1.53 per hour.
• Denny’s busboy. I did it as unto Christ. I earned $2.10 per hour. I also had to clean a bar located in the same building as the restaurant, along with its bathrooms.
• Box Boy at Cooks market in El Centro, CA. Talk about hard, monotonous, repetitive work. I’d not sooner get products pulled forward on the shelves than a shopper would mess them up. This was a tough, trying job for a type-A personality.
• Icing crew at a cantaloupe plant. I did it as unto Christ. Our truck, replete with a massive grinder, chewed through 20 300-pound blocks of ice as we sprayed the ice into boxcars filled with cantaloupe. Once that was over, we sat in the desert sun of 110-120 degrees waiting for the train engines to bring us new box cars to fill up and ice down.
• Janitor at Western Christian High School in college. Worked every evening. Worst part: Cleaning the cafeteria. Wow. What a mess.
• Gardening for Azusa Pacific University. I took care of all the turf and bushes at the Bowles Apartment complex. I stored the mower at the complex, but I had to walk about a mile and a half to the school’s maintenance facility to get the Kohler edger. That was a six-mile trip on foot once per week.
• Boat salesman: MarCher Marine in El Monte. Hey, at least I was inside a building for the most part.
• Gardener for Pomerado Pines in Poway, CA. Took care of a massive condo complex during the summer of 1979. I came home so dirty that my girlfriend, Liz, had to think hard about hugging me.
• Gardener for Ireland Landscape. I managed 65 accounts for the company and worked closely with my trainer, a former Laotian army sergeant who didn’t speak English. What a team we were. Eventually, he left, and I did the job by myself.
• Gardener for Lancaster Village condo complex. I took care of this complex after I got off work at Ireland Landscape. I mowed and edged a complex of sixty units, and trimmed all the bushes and hoed all the planter boxes to keep the weeds at bay. I carried all my equipment from my uncle’s home to the job site because I didn’t have a truck. I walk several blocks with all of it a couple of times a week.
• Gardener for DTS. I mowed all the turf at the Dallas campus each week, and I edged the entire campus weekly with a weed eater. I trimmed bushes, pulled weeds, trimmed massive oak trees, and went to the dump each month to empty our fermenting grass clippings from a massive trailer called The Aardvark.
• Mover for Allied Van Lines commercial division. Heavy, demanding work in the cold of those Dallas winters and in the humid heat of summers. I also worked with some very questionable and, at times, very unfriendly individuals.
• Waiter for big events in Dallas.
• Commercial window washer while in seminary. I did the windows at shopping malls, pizza parlors, and so forth. Talk about a messy job. Pizza parlors took me a while.
• Paper mill forklift driver after seminary at Visible Computer Supply in Lodi, CA. I handpicked paper orders, stacked them on pallets, and loaded them onto trucks. Each pallet represented 2,000 pounds that I had stacked. Some days I’d assemble 20 pallets. This was a physically demanding job, for sure. I don’t know how many days I went home and could hardly feel my forearms.
• Youth pastor in a retirement community.
• Senior pastor at a church plant in Stockton, CA.
• I took care of nice lawns I handpicked on my day-offs for about 15 years as I worked at the church plant.
• I obtained my notary license, which was quite a deal in California, and then I started a part-time traveling notary business. I actually closed loans for my sister, who was a title officer at Alliance Title and then Chicago Title. I did 12-14 loans per month as I remained the pastor of my church.

Why do I tell you all of this? To simply say I know how to do hard, menial labor and how to do labor that involves more of your mind, and less of your body. Either way, my Christian parents taught me the importance of doing all my work as if I were doing it for Jesus. They got this idea from Paul, who got it from Christ. Why is it so important to embrace Paul’s challenge here? It is important insofar as it reveals to those around you that you are a Christ-follower, and it might also provide an opportunity to share the transformative power of the gospel with them. So, let’s all get to work, right?

And while we are talking about hard work for Christians, permit me to share with you the signs of a hard worker.

1. Arrives on time
2. Pays attention to details
3. Listens to instructions and follows them
4. Works hard whether the boss is around or not
5. Puts in extra effort if necessary
6. Doesn’t use time to float (video games/iPhone/Instagram/Facebook
7. Doesn’t abuse break times or lunch time. No extended breaks.
8. Self-motivated. Doesn’t procrastinate.
9. Seizes tasks and doesn’t pass them off to others.

Is this you? It should because it is a command from Christ via the hand of Paul.

Before we move on from this, check out this timely and motivational quote:

If a man is called a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that the hosts of heaven and Earth will pause and say, Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.

Who said that? The Reverend Martin Luther King. A wise, godly man, for sure.

Why else should you work hard, whether your job is optimal or not? Paul gives you the proper motivational answer in the next two verses:

²⁴ knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. (Col. 3)

What does this mean? It means the Lord will personally reward you for how you worked in the environment He sovereignly placed you in.

Under Roman law, a slave didn’t receive anything but a hard, demanding life. Paul’s statement is, once again, revolutionary and completely counters the Roman concept of slavery. The Lord will reward every saint’s commitment to conscientious work. Think about it. The most menial tasks—working as a maid for a local company, working on a production line, being a door greeter at Walmart, working as a cart-person at Costco, being a baker at a donut shop, working for a garbage collection service—are all done for the Lord and will be rewarded, in some fashion, by Him, personally, in eternity. Amazing. Jaw-dropping. Christ meant what He said in Matthew 25 about what He will do when He returns.

³¹ But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. ³² And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; ³³ and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. ³⁴ Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵ ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; ³⁶ naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ (Matt. 25)

He sees all that you do and will reward you accordingly. I wonder how He will reward you. There is no telling with the Lord who spoke the beauty and complexity of the cosmos into existence. One can only imagine, in a small fashion, what the wonder of heaven will be like. So, let’s get to work and make Him proud.

Another Pauline motivation to hard work crops up in the next verse:

²⁵ For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality. (Col. 3)

Paul is clear in 2 Corinthians that we will all be judged by Christ one day.

¹⁰ For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. (2 Cor. 5)

Believers will not be exempt, but there will be a difference between their judgment and that of the unbeliever. The believer will be judged in anticipation of divine reward. In contrast, the unbeliever will be judged with eternal fire based on the inadequacy of their works to garner the eternal favor of the living God who died for mankind’s sin (Rev. 20:7ff). How you work, therefore, matters, so let’s get on with it for Christ’s sake.

Another facet of our spiritual uniform is presented in chapter 4, verse 1.

Garment #17: Masterful Management (Col. 4:1)

Lest those in the Colossian church who had slaves thought they were spared from Paul’s analysis, he turns and addresses them here:

¹ Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven (Col. 4)

Once more, this was a revolutionary statement. Masters in the Roman Empire treated slaves as objects they could misuse, mistreat, and then discard when they felt like it. Paul says that is not the case for Christian masters. They are called to a loftier level of leadership. They are to treat their servants with justice and fairness. Put differently, they were to apply the Golden Rule to how they governed their servants.

Hence, no Christian slave owner at that time could say, “These are my slaves, and I can do with them what I want.” Not so, says Paul. He reminds the Christian master that he had a divine Master in heaven, Jesus Christ. The implication is clear: One day you will have to answer to Him for how you treated people. I’m sure this teaching helped put the brakes on the sinful concept of slavery that originated in Rome.

The application for our times is no different. If you are a Christian master insofar as you run a business with employees, then you are under divine obligation to treat them as you would desire to be treated.

• You are to listen to them, not yourself.
• You are to meet their needs when you can.
• You aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty and help them with tasks if need be.
• When you blow it, you admit your wrong and seek their forgiveness.
• If there is a problem between people, you work to resolve it.
• You operate your business based on lofty moral principles that you will not compromise.
• Your employees know that their place of employment is a safe environment.
• You are open to the ideas of those under you.
• You make reasonable demands of them.
• You are a joyous boss, full of the Holy Spirit, and not grumpy and full of yourself.
• If someone is a hard worker, you recognize them and reward them accordingly.
• You don’t demand so much from them that they don’t have quality family time.

Simply put: you act as Christ would act toward them. Do you? Will you?

Finally, when the Lord surveys your history as a business leader, CEO, CFO, President, General, Colonel, Manager, etc., will you hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful leader? You have touched the lives of those who worked for you, so now I will bless you for those efforts to wear the proper spiritual uniform.

You are the Lord’s recruit. Go forth, therefore, and wear all facets of the uniform to give Him the glory He is worthy to receive.

[1] “New to the Military? Get Answers About Military Uniforms,” accessed July 1, 2026, https:

//www.militaryonesource.mil/military-basics/new-to-the-military/military-uniforms-answers/.

[2] For a discussion on how long the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, cf. David Wright, How Long Were the Israelites in Egypt? Answers in Genesis, July 5, 2010, accessed July 7, 2026, https://answersingenesis.org/bible

-questions/how-long-were-the-israelites-in-egypt/?srsltid=AfmBOoqDkCycWN274qB_d_0JHoWQS-0okNhBfWA 3BNbzrcO49gFTPH4.