Verse of the Day for January 22

Paul is writing to slaves, which makes this one of the most uncomfortable passages in the letter and also one of the most radical.

Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.

Whatsoever is doing a lot of work. He is not describing religious activity. He is describing tasks that were, by any measure, unchosen and unrewarded.

He also names the payer. Ye serve the Lord Christ, he writes in the next verse, to people who served somebody else all day and were paid by nobody. The wage is not withheld; it is simply issued by a different house.

And he relocates the audience. The work is unchanged; the person it is done for changes. That is the only variable Paul adjusts, and he treats it as sufficient.

Heartily is literally from the soul. It is the opposite of doing something at the minimum acceptable standard because nobody who matters is looking.

Most of a life is unglamorous and unwitnessed. This verse says that is not a lower category of existence.

Do today's ordinary thing as though it were handed in to God, because it is.