9 Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, 10 and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.
This passage dealing with the behavior of Jesus-following slaves is instructive to those of us who are employees. The first thing I notice is the respect that the subordinate is to express toward the supervisor/boss. We are to be the kind of worker that pleases the boss by our good performance. They are the boss, after all. When we are the boss, we can do things the way we want to! Of course, as a boss, we have to please our customers or stockholders. So even bosses have bosses! If we don’t please our customers, we go out of business. It is hard to feed the kids when there is no money coming into the bank account. We usually don’t talk back to our bosses directly to their face, we save that conversation for the teambuilding activities around the lunch table. Or maybe they the whispered complaints as two or three of you huddle on the jobsite. But we are not to talk back, in person or to a third party. We are to respect their authority. If we can’t respect their authority, authority we can see, how can we be expected to respect the authority of God whom we have not seen! There is a wonderful principle here that applies to our walk with God. When we have a boss, we must die to our own will and live to the will of the boss. That is recognizing authority, an essential trait of the successful Jesus-follower. The outcome will be honesty and integrity in your work ethic. You will give them their due energies. They will have the opportunity to see Jesus in action. If we steal money, time, or energy from our boss, then why would they want to learn more about a dishonest Jesus? Ouch! So if you have not been honoring the authority of your boss, then begin to honor it today. Zip the lip and be obedient to the Lord. Just maybe, you are the one to be the Gospel to your boss.
The Arnold Journey 