Efesus 6:5-6

6:5 Slaves, ¹  obey your human masters ²  with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart as to Christ, 6:6 not like those who do their work only when someone is watching ³  – as people-pleasers – but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. ⁴ 

Efesus 6:8

6:8 because you know that each person, whether slave or free, if he does something good, this ⁵  will be rewarded by the Lord.

Efesus 3:7

3:7 I became a servant of this gospel ⁶  according to the gift of God’s grace that was given to me by ⁷  the exercise of his power. ⁸ 

Efesus 3:1

Paul's Relationship to the Divine Mystery

3:1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus ⁹  for the sake of you Gentiles –

Efesus 6:21

Farewell Comments

6:21 Tychicus, my ¹⁰  dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will make everything known to you, so that you too may know about my circumstances, ¹¹  how I am doing.

Efesus 6:9

6:9 Masters, ¹²  treat your slaves ¹³  the same way, ¹⁴  giving up the use of threats, ¹⁵  because you know that both you and they have the same master in heaven, ¹⁶  and there is no favoritism with him.

Efesus 6:7

6:7 Obey ¹⁷  with enthusiasm, as though serving the Lord ¹⁸  and not people,

[6:5]  ¹ tn Traditionally, “Servants” (KJV). Though δοῦλος (doulos) is often translated “servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. BDAG notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times…in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v.). The most accurate translation is “bondservant” (sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος), in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force.

[6:5]  ² tn Grk “the masters according to the flesh.” In the translation above, the article τοῖς (tois) governing κυρίοις (kuriois) is rendered in English as a possessive pronoun (i.e., “your”) and the prepositional phrase κατὰ σάρκα (kata sarka) is taken as modifying κυρίοις (indicating that the author is referring to human masters) and not modifying the imperative ὑπακούετε (Jupakouete, which would indicate that obedience was according to a human standard or limitation).

[6:6]  ³ tn Grk “not according to eye-service.”

[6:6]  ⁴ tn Grk “from the soul.”

[6:8]  ⁵ sn The pronoun “this” (τοῦτο, touto) stands first in its clause for emphasis, and stresses the fact that God will reward those, who in seeking him, do good.

[3:7]  ⁶ tn Grk “of which I was made a minister,” “of which I became a servant.”

[3:7]  ⁷ tn Grk “according to.”

[3:7]  ⁸ sn On the exercise of his power see 1:19-20.

[3:1]  ⁹ tc Several early and important witnesses, chiefly of the Western text (א* D* F G [365]), lack ᾿Ιησοῦ (Ihsou, “Jesus”) here, while most Alexandrian and Byzantine mss (Ì⁴⁶ א¹ A B [C] D¹ Ψ 33 1739 [1881] Ï lat sy bo) have the word. However, because of the Western text’s proclivities to add or delete to the text, seemingly at whim, serious doubts should be attached to the shorter reading. It is strengthened, however, by א’s support. Nevertheless, since both א and D were corrected with the addition of ᾿Ιησοῦ, their testimony might be questioned. Further, in uncial script the nomina sacra here could have led to missing a word by way of homoioteleuton (cMuiMu). At the same time, in light of the rarity of scribal omission of nomina sacra (see TCGNT 582, n. 1), a decision for inclusion of the word here must be tentative. NA²⁷ rightly places ᾿Ιησοῦ in brackets.

[6:21]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “the.” The Greek article ὁ (Jo) was translated with the possessive pronoun, “my.” See ExSyn 215.

[6:21]  ¹¹ tn Grk “the things according to me.”

[6:9]  ¹² tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[6:9]  ¹³ tn Though the Greek text only has αὐτούς (autous, “them”), the antecedent is the slaves of the masters. Therefore, it was translated this way to make it explicit in English.

[6:9]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “do the same things to them.”

[6:9]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “giving up the threat.”

[6:9]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “because of both they and you, the Lord is, in heaven…”

[6:7]  ¹⁷ tn Though the verb does not appear again at this point in the passage, it is nonetheless implied and supplied in the English translation for the sake of clarity.

[6:7]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “serving as to the Lord.”