In our culture right now, people establish their righteousness by what they stand against. The attitude presented in many social circles is that if you don't stand against oppression, which means the evil of slavery, that you are in favor of oppression. A few years ago, toleration was the great spirit of self-righteousness. Now the spirit of self-righteousness is opposing anyone who oppresses others -- and of course, you can define oppression in any way you like. This verse and those like it might be difficult if you have bought into this oppression / oppressor mindsight, or if you are talking to those who have bought it. Paul is addressing people who are Christians and who really owned slaves. In this particular verse, Paul doesn't address the issue of owning slaves. There are other places in Scripture that do. But in this verse Paul is simply looking at reality that in the early church, a few of the new believers were slave owners. We should not think of Roman-world slavery as the same thing as Hollywood portrayed slavery. There were some significant differences. Paul is dealing with real relationships between real people in the church of Colossae.
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