<p>6:2 <i>And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brothers</i>- Why should a Christian slave despise his believing master? Perhaps because slavery was so obviously wrong; a Christian master should not participate in the style of slavery then practiced. The master should release his slave- because that is just the language used of what Jesus did to all in Him. He released us from slavery, redeeming us from it, paying the price of manumission whereby a person could be bought out of slavery. But for whatever reason, these believing masters hadn't responded as they might. The Lord had warned His followers to &ldquo;despise not&rdquo; the &lsquo;little ones&rsquo; (Mt. 18:10). Paul picks up this phrase here in warning servants not to despise their masters who were brethren; the implication that they were to treat those wealthy but perhaps not very spiritually mature masters as &lsquo;little ones&rsquo;, with all the patience this would require. The command is not to despise them; but we might think that the dominant emotion in this case would be anger. Yet Paul focuses on not despising because his point is that we must respect others because of their status in Christ; every believer in Him should be respected by us. We must ask whether our churches are places of respect, or whether various strata of respect and acceptance have robbed them of the spirit of mutual respect which ought to characterize the communal life of God's people.</p><p><i>But rather serve them because those whom they are serving are</i> <i>believers and beloved</i>- The reference to &quot;beloved&quot; invites connection to Christ who is &quot;the beloved&quot;; just as unbelieving masters were to be given &quot;all honour&quot;, i.e. served as Christ, to whom alone &quot;all honour&quot; is due. In any difficult relationship with a believer, however abusive to us we consider them to have been, no matter how much better we feel they ought to be able to do in their relationship with us, let us remember that 'God loves this person'. They are beloved. So much so that He gave His only begotten Son for them. Some MSS, followed by the AV, add here: &quot;Partakers of the benefit&quot;, literally, 'partakers in the good deed', referring surely to the cross. The Lord died not only for me. But for those who name His Name whom I consider to have abused me. We cannot condemn another believer, so we are to presume their acceptance by the Lord. This will mean that they have partaken in the benefits of His death, just as we have. This is so easy to write, but it was equally difficult for first century Christian slaves being abused by their Christian masters.</p><p><i>Teach and exhort these things</i>- The idea is of comfort, and the message to abused slaves was indeed a comfort.</p>