I Peter
2:18
Servants, be submissive to your masters
with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the
harsh.
Kindhearted bosses who are “good and gentle” are a gift
from the Lord. We should not put their
tolerance and patience to the test by giving them less than our best, but we
should rather serve them all the more happily and energetically because they
provide us a more pleasant working environment.
If our boss is harsh toward us, however, we see that God would have us be
just as submissive and cooperative with them as we would be toward a boss who is
kind toward us. This does not forbid us
from finding new employment if our manager makes our life miserable, but it does
call on us to be excellent, submissive employees, respecting the position of
authority, even if the person in authority is harsh. Ephesians 6:5-9 discusses this same theme and
provides 2 reasons for sincerely working hard to comply with our boss’
demands. First, Ephesians 6:7 tells us
to serve with good will at work because we are able to serve God through our
service to man. We may feel little
motivation to please a cruel supervisor, but Paul tells us to do our work, “as
to the Lord, and not to men.” It is much
more motivating to do a good job when we think of our work as doing God’s will
rather than simply doing our work to serve a wretched boss. Secondly, Paul says in Ephesians 6:8,
“knowing that whatever good anyone does (at work), he will receive the same from
the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.”
So then we see that God Himself will repay us for doing a good job at
work, even if, or especially if our boss is unkind toward us.
