Michael Anderson tackles one of the more uncomfortable passages in Paul's letters this week, walking through 1 Timothy 6:1 and 2 on the behavior expected of believing slaves. He opens by explaining why he deliberately read the ESV's softened word bondservant instead of the Greek doulos, slave, and why understanding that word matters before applying the passage today.

Anderson lays out the historical picture first: slavery in the Roman world looked very different from American chattel slavery, and even Mosaic law regulated rather than forbade the practice. From there he explains why Paul addresses slaves directly in this letter without also addressing masters, tying it to Paul's concern that the gospel's message of equality before God not be twisted into a demand for social revolution.

The heart of the message applies these instructions to modern employment. Anderson identifies two ways a bad attitude toward employers can cause the gospel to be reviled, from the influence of Marxist thought on modern liberation theology to the simple, practical witness of how a Christian actually works. He then unpacks five specific behaviors from Colossians 3 and Ephesians 6 through which believers adorn the gospel through their work, and closes by examining the added responsibility of serving a believing employer well.

Anyone who has ever wondered how to think biblically about their job will find real, practical direction here.

In Lesson 42 of Christian Ethics and the Old Testament, Dave Rich turns from the duties children owe their parents to the duties parents owe their children. He lays out five dimensions of parental duty: love, provision, instruction, modeling, and discipline.

Rich shows that Scripture assumes parents will love their children as a gracious gift from God, and he traces how that love shows up in providing for a child's intellectual, physical, spiritual, and social growth, not just their material needs. He works through the biblical case for instructing children in the Lord and walks through the arguments for public school, Christian school, and homeschooling, weighing each against the parent's God given responsibility for a child's education.

The lesson also covers modeling godliness for children who will imitate their parents whether they intend it or not, and it closes with a careful look at discipline. Rich explains what the rod refers to in Proverbs, why discipline must be free from anger, and how correcting a child's behavior becomes an opportunity to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Parents raising children in a Christian home will find a clear, biblical framework for thinking through everyday decisions about love, provision, teaching, and correction.

Dave Rich turns to the fifth commandment in Lesson 41 of Christian Ethics and the Old Testament, examining what it means to honor father and mother in Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16. He traces the Hebrew word kavod back to its root meaning of weight and substance, showing why honor calls for treating parents as significant rather than dismissing them.

Using John Calvin's framework, Rich breaks honor into three parts: reverence, obedience, and gratitude. He distinguishes between honoring parents, a lifelong obligation for every child, and obeying parents, which applies most directly to children still living at home. From there he addresses gratitude in concrete terms, including the biblical case for adult children providing financially for aging parents and respecting parental property, drawn from the parable of the prodigal son.

Rich also considers the promise attached to the commandment, weighing its original corporate meaning for Israel against its application today, and closes with the limits of parental authority. Since parents hold derived authority under God, children are never required to obey a command to sin.

Listeners walk away with a clearer framework for honoring parents at every stage of life, along with practical direction for navigating difficult family relationships with biblical wisdom.