‘But rather do them service.’ Other Scriptures, in Ephesians 6 particularly, say – and this applies to us in employment – that slaves are to be obedient. We are to obey in our employment. We are to obey with fear and trembling. We don't know too much of this today do we, fear and trembling. When we are in our place of employment there is to be tremendous conscientiousness and diligence, and even fear and trembling, lest we should be slipshod, lest we should be caught out for bad or for shoddy work or for indifference. There is to be tremendous care; there is to be great sincerity of heart as Paul says in the letter to the Ephesians. This isn't to be a grudging compliance – ‘My Lord tells me I've got to serve my company, and I've got to do my best, and so I am reluctantly and grudgingly going to do it, because it's my duty.’ That's not good enough, says the Scripture. Even though the employer is unreasonable, this of course assumes that the things you're doing are righteous, you cannot do unrighteous things. The Christian slave in ancient times had to take the beating sometimes, and still be careful not do the unrighteous thing. But while the thing that you're being required to do is reasonable and righteous you're to do it and not grudgingly but with goodwill. Not with eye service, not just to get by, not just to do that which the employer sees, but to go beyond what the employer sees and to make a full-hearted proper contribution to employment.
You may say, ‘It's all very well for you to say all this, but you don't know my employer; you don't know my situation.’ Maybe that is an understandable reaction, but in doing this, says Paul elsewhere, we are doing God's will, and the apostle Peter adds that we are even to serve this way to the unreasonable master or employer. The way in which a believer should conduct himself or herself in employment in the world is governed by the word of God, and here are very serious instructions to us. It is to our benefit, because when we do things God's way, we will be happy. We do things God's way, even in difficult employment where there are problems, and it will be much less difficult for us. But this is to please God, this is to prosper the gospel and these are the commands and the duties of employment. How much we need today to understand the details of God's will for us in employment.
It is the great employment ethic for Christians and for professional men also that we are obedient, that we carry out the wishes of those who have the right to instruct us and to direct us and to require things of us. That is a basic Christian ethic and we have to do so, we have to comply. We are not entitled to say, ‘I disagree with the wisdom of this.’ We may disagree with the morality, and then another set of principles come into play. If we are instructed to do something which is unethical, then of course we have to take a stand and decline to do it. But other than that, our employer has a perfect right to ask us. It's not for us to determine policy; it's not for us to say, ‘I don't agree with your policy. I don't agree with the company policy; I think it is foolish; I think this way is more sensible.’ It may be that you have the opportunity to contribute your view on something but at the end of the day the Scriptural ethic for believers is to comply and to do so graciously and properly however much we may disagree with the wisdom of the policy. We are not to be belligerent; we are not to think we have a right to be difficult and awkward.