In today’s first reading we have two sayings or exhortation. The first saying exhorts children: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother.” The second saying is more difficult: “Slaves, be obedient to your masters with fear and trembling.” While all Scripture is “inspired by God” not all Scripture is normative. So, for example, the kosher food laws of the Old Testament are not normative for Christians: “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 2:16-17).
The Second Vatican Council teachers God speaks in Scripture through human words and human authors:
“However, since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion (Deus in Sacra Scriptura per homines more hominum locutus sit), the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words. To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to “literary forms (genera litteraria).” (Dei Verbum, #12).
The literary form of today’s first reading is what is called a “Household Code,” that outlines the duties and responsibilities of private affairs in Greco-Roman society. The human author intends to use these Household Codes to show to outsiders that Christians are good and upstanding members of Roman society at a time when their religion was viewed as a mere superstition and their gatherings as subversive and even seditious. These household codes in Ephesians as such reflect the ethics of Roman society and not necessarily a true Christian ethic. So, while the exhortation to children to obey their parents remains normative the exhortation to slaves does not remain normative. Saint Paul declares that in Christ Jesus there is no longer or should not be slaves:
“For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 2:25-28).
Sadly, and sinfully it took the church a long time to realize the practical implications of this theological truth and to condemn the inhumanity and the evil of slavery.
Image: “Early Christians” by Pedro Nuno Caetano is licensed under CC BY 2.0.