It never occurred to me how head-turningly paradoxical this command from Galatians is: “Become slaves to one another” (5:13). The very nature of a slave relationship is that the power is unipolar. How can slavery be mutual? (There’s certainly an antisocial, obsessional, probably erotic way of interpreting this that describes a possible meaning, but—hopefully obviously—neither desirably nor plausibly.) Paul here pushes semantic boundaries to rhetorically amplify Great Commandment no. 2. It’s a dangerous amplification: If only some people in a group heed it, then you’ve got a cult. But man, if everybody has bought in and there’s that kind of earned trust in a group, what a great way of thinking about it.
And talk about destabilizing institutional slavery! Masters commanded to be slaves of their slaves! Mm mmm. You probably didn’t hear too many American slaveholders quoting that translation of Galatians. Most translations soften things by saying “serve one another,” which I suppose a slaveholder could say he was doing by providing, say, shelter and food for his slaves. But they probably didn’t quote any translation of Ephesians 5:21 (“Subject yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ”). No idea how they would’ve gotten out of that one. Yes, the next chapter of Ephesians does have instructions for slaves to be obedient to their masters—but then it says, “Masters, do the same things to them” (emphasis mine)!