Paul applies his rule to one of the hardest cases: a believer who was a slave when he came to faith. The question picks out that person and speaks to his worry. Barnes takes "care not for it" to mean, do not deem it disgraceful or let it affect your spirits, but "be content in the lot of life where God has placed you." Yet Paul does not make slavery a calling to cling to. Barnes reads the rest of the verse as, "Avail yourselves of the privilege if you can, and be a freeman." Gill mentions a reading, held by several interpreters, that a servant should rather stay a servant than gain freedom by wrong means, but he thinks "the more obvious sense" is that a servant offered freedom in a lawful way should take it.

Paul answers his own question: "care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather" (1 Corinthians 7:21). Then he explains why: "he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant" (1 Corinthians 7:22). He adds, "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men" (1 Corinthians 7:23), and closes, "let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God" (1 Corinthians 7:24).

The word translated "servant" is doulos, a bond-slave, someone owned by another. The phrase "care not for it" reads literally "let it not be a care to you." The word "use" (chresai) is a command meaning "take advantage of," which is why the ESV renders it "avail yourself of the opportunity." Barnes urges that freedom be sought by lawful means rather than by violence. Gill explains that a servant called by grace is "the Lord's freeman" because he is "free from sin" and from other spiritual bondage, even while he remains a servant in civil life.

The gospel changes a person's deepest identity before it changes outward circumstances. In Christ, the slave is "the Lord's freeman" and the free man is "Christ's servant" (1 Corinthians 7:22). Both stand on the same ground before God, and both belong to Him because they were "bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 7:23; 1 Corinthians 6:20).

That is why Paul can say "be not ye the servants of men." Matthew Henry writes, "The servants of Christ should be at the absolute command of no other master besides himself." Paul shows the same truth at work when he asks Philemon to receive Onesimus "not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved" (Philemon 1:16).