This study works through Colossians 3:22–24: who wrote it and when, the world of Greco-Roman slavery it speaks into, how the passage caps the letter’s household code and flows from its “Christ is all” vision, the interpretive cruxes (doulos, the inheritance language, the disproportionate address to slaves), the two main interpretive traditions on the New Testament slavery texts, and how the passage sits alongside Philemon and the other household codes — including its grievous afterlife in the American slavery debate. Footnotes and a bibliography follow at the end.
The passage is the slaves’ section of the household code (3:18–4:1). It must be read with the master’s counterpart in 4:1, which the chapter break unhelpfully severs.
Colossians 3:22–24 (ESV) “Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”
Colossians 3:25–4:1 (ESV) “For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”
A point of proportion that will matter throughout: of the six pairs of instructions in the code, the slaves receive by far the longest — three verses against one for wives, husbands, children, and fathers each — while masters get a single, pointed verse (4:1). The address is also direct: slaves are spoken to as responsible moral agents who “serve the Lord Christ,” not as property to be managed. Where you put the weight (on “obey in everything” or on “you will receive the inheritance”) shapes the whole reading.1
Colossians presents itself as written by “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus” (1:1) from prison (4:3, 18), to a church he had not personally founded (it was planted by Epaphras, 1:7; 2:1). It was received as Pauline from the second century. Two positions dominate, with a mediating third.
On this reading Colossians is one of the Prison Epistles, written during Paul’s Roman captivity and carried with Philemon and Ephesians by Tychicus and the returning slave Onesimus (Col 4:7–9; cf. Philemon). The personal links to Philemon’s household are the strongest argument: the same named individuals (Onesimus, Archippus, Epaphras) appear in both, tying Colossians to a concrete, datable situation in Paul’s lifetime. Douglas Moo and N. T. Wright defend Pauline authorship; Murray Harris treats the case as decisively favoring it.2
Many critical scholars judge Colossians transitional or pseudonymous — written by a close associate during or after Paul’s life. The arguments, developed by Eduard Lohse and (with nuance) James Dunn:3
Even most who lean this way concede Colossians stands closest to the undisputed letters of the disputed group, and Dunn locates it at the very hinge — perhaps written by Timothy (named in 1:1) in Paul’s lifetime and with his authority.
A secretary or co-worker (Timothy) drafting under Paul’s direction near the end of his life accounts for both the stylistic distance and the dense personal ties to Philemon. This is increasingly the path of least resistance.
Does it change the exegesis? For 3:22–24, very little. Whether by Paul himself or a close associate within a decade or two, the text is a first-century document of the Pauline mission addressing real slaves and masters in the churches of the Lycus Valley. The interpretive debate in §6 runs the same way under either dating — and the Onesimus connection (see §7) keeps the passage tethered to a specific enslaved person, however the authorship question is resolved.
Reading this passage requires setting aside the image of nineteenth-century race-based chattel slavery. Roman slavery was a different (though still brutal) institution, and the differences bear directly on interpretation.4
Colossians 3:18–4:1 is the most compact New Testament Haustafel, the template behind Ephesians 5:22–6:9 and partly behind 1 Peter 2:18–3:7. The form descends from Greek reflection on household management (Aristotle’s Politics, the Stoics, Philo, Josephus), in which the free male governs wife, children, and slaves. What is conventional here is that slaves are told to obey; what is unusual is (1) that they are addressed directly as moral agents and the dominant audience of the code, and (2) that masters are placed under a heavenly Master and commanded to give what is “just and fair” (4:1) — a reciprocity foreign to the pagan codes, which instructed only the master.
Colossians moves from a towering Christology to its ethical consequences, written against a “philosophy” (2:8) of ascetic and ritual regulations troubling the church.
| Chapters 1–2 — Christ’s supremacy | Chapters 3–4 — The new life |
|---|---|
| The cosmic Christ in whom “all things hold together” (1:15–20); reconciliation through the cross (1:21–23); the “mystery” of Christ in you (1:24–2:5); freedom from the “elemental” regulations of the false teaching (2:6–23). | Raised with Christ, seek things above (3:1–4); put off the old self, put on the new (3:5–17); the household code (3:18–4:1); prayer, mission, and final greetings (4:2–18). |
The ethical section opens by declaring the new humanity in which “there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all” (3:11). The household code follows just a few verses later. The juxtaposition is the heart of the interpretive tension: the same letter that proclaims “slave and free” abolished “in Christ” then tells slaves to obey their masters. How one holds 3:11 and 3:22 together largely determines one’s reading.
The code is an application of 3:17 — “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” The slave instruction is its sharpest instance: even labor compelled by an earthly master is reframed as worship rendered to Christ (3:23–24). This relocates the slave’s true allegiance and dignity from the master to the Lord, and — with the warning of impartial judgment in 3:25 and the command to masters in 4:1 — subordinates the master to the same Lord he claims to be.
Several features carry the interpretive weight.
English versions have long softened doulos to “servant” (KJV) or “bondservant,” which obscures that Paul addresses chattel slaves, not hired employees. Most modern scholars insist on “slave” precisely so the text’s difficulty — and its dignity-conferring force — is not blunted. The translation choice is itself part of the history of how these verses have been used and abused.
That slaves receive the longest section and are addressed face-to-face is striking against the pagan codes. Several explanations are offered: a high proportion of slaves in the congregation; the pastoral need to steady believers in a vulnerable, abuse-prone station; and (with the Onesimus situation in the background) a live, concrete pastoral concern. The address treats the slave as a full moral and spiritual agent — a quiet but real elevation of status within the believing community.
“From the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.” This is theologically pointed: under Roman law a slave could not normally inherit. To promise slaves the inheritance — the language of sonship and heirship — grants them in Christ exactly what their legal status denied them. The reward comes “from the Lord,” not the master, and the same Lord will judge “without partiality” (3:25), a warning aimed as much at masters as at slaves.5
The clause can be read as indicative (a statement: you are slaves of Christ) or imperative (serve the Lord Christ). Either way it performs the same reversal: the slave’s ultimate master is Christ, which both ennobles obedient labor and relativizes the human master’s claim. The verse stops short of commanding manumission — the crux that drives the two readings below.
Unlike the marriage texts, the live debate over the slavery passages is not complementarian vs. egalitarian (no one defends slavery today) but hermeneutical: what does it mean that Scripture regulates rather than abolishes slavery, and how should that govern our reading now? Two broad approaches frame the discussion.
Core claim: the New Testament addresses slaves and masters within the existing social order rather than calling for its overthrow, teaching Christlike conduct inside structures it does not endorse. The gospel’s priority is the transformation of persons and relationships; social institutions are left to be reformed by that inner change over time.
Reading of the text: Paul gives realistic, pastoral instruction to believers caught in a pervasive institution — work with integrity, “as for the Lord” — while planting seeds (the heavenly Master, impartial judgment, the slave’s inheritance, the demand that masters be “just and fair”) that undercut the institution’s logic from within. The absence of an abolition command reflects prudence and the limits of a tiny, powerless minority, not approval of slavery.
Key voices: Douglas Moo, Colossians and Philemon (PNTC); Murray Harris, Colossians and Philemon; the broad patristic and Reformation reading of the codes as orders of conduct.
Strengths: takes the text’s plain regulatory form at face value; explains why no abolition command appears; fits the minority, apologetic situation. Pressures: must explain why the “seeds” took eighteen centuries to flower, and resist the way this reading was historically co-opted to defend slavery.
Core claim: Scripture sets a trajectory: each text moves the culture toward greater dignity than its surroundings, and faithful interpretation follows that movement to its destination — here, abolition — rather than freezing at the first-century way-station. William Webb’s “redemptive-movement hermeneutic” is the influential formulation.
Reading of the text: Read against the pagan codes, Colossians already pushes hard: it addresses slaves as moral agents, promises them the inheritance denied them by law, subjects masters to a heavenly Master, and (3:11) declares “slave and free” abolished in Christ. Philemon then enacts the movement on a single life, asking Philemon to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave… but as a beloved brother” (Phlm 16). The text’s own direction, carried forward, lands on abolition; to stop at “slaves, obey” betrays the trajectory.
Key voices: William J. Webb, Slaves, Women & Homosexuals; Willard Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, War, and Women; the abolitionist exegetical tradition.
Strengths: takes 3:11, the inheritance language, and Philemon as the interpretive center; explains how Christians eventually opposed slavery on biblical grounds. Pressures: must show the trajectory is genuinely in the text and not merely a modern projection, and define what controls when a “trajectory” may override an explicit command.
Two observations most interpreters now grant. First, whatever else it does, the passage massively dignifies the enslaved person as a person: addressed directly, made an heir, told that his real Master is Christ — categories the surrounding culture withheld. Second, the same Lord who hears the slave will judge the master “without partiality” (3:25), and the master is bound to justice (4:1): the text refuses to let the powerful party rest easy. The exegetical dispute over what the text requires socially is real, but it is conducted within a passage whose center of gravity is the equal standing of slave and master before one impartial Lord.
Colossians 3:22–24 must be read with its companion texts and with the sobering history of its use.
| Writing | Connection | Relevance to our passage |
|---|---|---|
| Philemon | Paul’s personal letter about Onesimus, a slave of Philemon — the same Onesimus named in Col 4:9 as carrying the letter home. | The indispensable companion. Paul asks Philemon to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave… but as a beloved brother” (v. 16) and hints he should be freed (vv. 14, 21). It shows the household code in action on a single life and is the linchpin of the trajectory reading. |
| Ephesians 6:5–9 | The expanded parallel to our code. | Adds that masters must “stop your threatening,” since the slave’s and master’s Master shows “no partiality” (6:9) — intensifying Colossians’ constraint on masters. |
| 1 Corinthians 7:21–24 | Paul’s direct counsel to enslaved believers. | “If you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity” — evidence Paul valued manumission, weighed heavily by the trajectory reading. |
| 1 Timothy 6:1–2; Titus 2:9–10 | The Pastorals’ instructions to slaves. | Tighten the obedience emphasis (especially toward believing masters); often cited by the “order” reading and central to how the texts were marshaled in later debates. |
| 1 Peter 2:18–25 | The household code that addresses slaves at greatest length, grounding their endurance in Christ’s unjust suffering. | Like Colossians, it makes the slave an imitator of Christ; unlike Colossians, it has no master section — sharpening the question of the codes’ social intent. |
| The American slavery debate | Antebellum defenders (e.g. apologists for the “peculiar institution”) quoted Col 3:22, Eph 6:5, and 1 Pet 2:18 as biblical warrant; abolitionists answered from Gal 3:28, Col 3:11, Philemon, and the Exodus. | The decisive cautionary tale: the “plain” regulatory reading was used to sanctify chattel slavery, while the trajectory and “in Christ” readings fueled abolition. Any modern handling of the passage must reckon with this history. |
The payoff: Colossians 3:22–24 cannot be read in isolation from Philemon on one side and from its reception history on the other. The conjunction of “slave and free… Christ is all” (3:11), the inheritance promised to those whom law barred from inheriting, and Paul’s plea for the freedman-to-be Onesimus are the data that turned the Bible, in the end, against the very institution some of its verses were used to defend.
Colossians 3:22–24 is, in its own logic, less a charter for an institution than an application of “whatever you do… do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (3:17) to the hardest case in the ancient household. The author — Paul, or a close associate writing in his name within a decade or two — addresses chattel slaves as full moral agents, reframes their compelled labor as worship offered to Christ, promises them the inheritance their legal status denied, and binds their masters to a heavenly Master who judges without partiality and demands justice (3:25–4:1).
The serious interpretive question is no longer whether slavery is permissible — the church long ago answered no — but how to read a text that regulates what we now reject. The “order” and “trajectory” readings both work from this passage in good faith, and they divide over whether the text’s silence on abolition is prudential accommodation or a movement awaiting completion. But both are bounded by the passage’s own controlling claims: that slave and master stand equally under one impartial Lord (3:25), and that “in Christ” the categories of “slave and free” have already been dissolved (3:11). Read with Philemon, the text’s center of gravity is not the chain but the brotherhood that makes the chain finally unbearable — and any use of these verses to sanctify bondage, as history tragically shows they were, has left the text behind.
Bradley, Keith. Slavery and Society at Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
Dunn, James D. G. The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.
Glancy, Jennifer A. Slavery in Early Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Harrill, J. Albert. Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006.
Harris, Murray J. Colossians and Philemon. Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.
Lohse, Eduard. Colossians and Philemon. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971.
Martin, Dale B. Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
Moo, Douglas J. The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.
Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Swartley, Willard M. Slavery, Sabbath, War, and Women: Case Issues in Biblical Interpretation. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1983.
Webb, William J. Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2001.
Wright, N. T. Colossians and Philemon. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Leicester: IVP, 1986.