Guilty by association?

Continuing forward in the Bible, for whatever reason, I find this passage, Colossians 3:18-24

¹⁸Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. ¹⁹Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly. ²⁰Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord. ²¹Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart. ²²Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. ²³Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, ²⁴since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ.

To the modern eye it's impressive how naturally and seemlessly the text flows from talking about wives and children to slaves, who were just that integral a part of the landscape that you couldn't not address them. To the modern eye that throws the whole enterprise into question. Were wives and children really so analogous to slaves? Certainly even for me there's a bit of a gut punch as you read through it. One wonders how the clergy in today's Black church thinks through this stuff. The passage does go on to enjoin masters to do right by slaves, to be sure, which might have been pretty revolutionary at the time.

And then it immediately goes on to speak very abstractly to everyone, in a way I suspect was novel. (Colossians 4:5-6)

Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.

All in all I continue to see how the Bible study project intrigues so many. But there are so many other books too. To say nothing of movies, music, blogs, YouTube serieses, and the like.