It should be noticed that in contrast with the instructions to wives, husbands, parents, children, and masters, each of which takes only one short sentence, the instruction to slaves takes four verses. This may be due to the fact that there were more problems arising from a Christian slave’s relationship to his master (Christian and non-Christian) than from any other social relationship of the time.
Your human masters is literally “your masters according to the flesh,” so designated because they are contrasted to the supreme master, the Lord (verse 24). In English the phrase human masters makes sense because there is the implication that Christians have a heavenly master, but if masters is translated as “those who own you,” then it seems not only strange but even ludicrous to talk about “human beings who own you,” since a slave would never be owned by an animal. Under such circumstances, human masters can simply be rendered as “those who own you,” or “those persons to whom you belong,” or “those whom you must serve.”
When they are watching you translates the Greek phrase “in eyeservice” (the noun is found only here and in Eph 6.6), meaning service performed while being watched by the master, contrasted with genuine service well performed, whether or not the master is watching.
You want to gain their approval translates the Greek compound word “men-pleasers” (Revised Standard Version). It may mean human approval in general; probably here it has the masters in view, again in contrast with service that is performed in order to please the divine master. A literal rendering of they are watching you because you want to gain their approval may result in complete misunderstanding. The clause because you want to gain their approval does not relate to when they are watching you but to the matter of obeying. It may be necessary, therefore, to shift the order of certain of the clauses, for example, “because you want to gain their approval, do not obey them merely when they are watching you.”
A sincere heart translates “in singleness of heart,” that is, sincerely, honestly, with no ulterior motive or hidden intention. A sincere heart may be rendered as “with your heart exposed,” or “with people being able to see what is in your heart,” or “with your mind like a paper that can be read.”
Reverence stands for the participle “fearing” (Revised Standard Version): it is that sense of awe, reverence, fear, that in the OT specially characterizes the attitude of the devout member of the believing community toward God. Your reverence for the Lord may be expressed in some languages as “the way in which you regard the Lord” or “the way in which you look upon the greatness of the Lord.” In this way one may suggest something of the “awe” which is to be understood in such a context.
The Lord is here the Lord Jesus Christ. Some manuscripts have “God” (see King James Version), but this seems an obvious conformance to the OT expression, where “Lord” is Yahweh, that is, God. As in a number of contexts, the Lord must be rendered as “our Lord,” and in some languages it may be necessary to add “Jesus” in order to avoid confusion with the OT references to God.
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Colossians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1977. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .