SERVANT OR FREE

SERVANT OR FREE?

1 Cor 7:21-23

21 Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.

22 For 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.

23 Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.

           There is violence in our streets again and the cause seems to be something that should have been settled long ago. I can’t imagine any black remembering slavery and I can’t imagine any white ever owning one! Yet the animosity is thick and bitter.

During the American Civil War, both sides used the same Bible to "prove" their cases for or against slavery. One of the popular arguments was, "If slavery is so wrong, why did Jesus and the Apostles say nothing against it? Paul gave instructions to regulate slavery, but he did not condemn it.”

One of the best explanations was given by Alexander Maclaren in his commentary on Colossians in The Expositor's Bible (Eerdmans, 1940; vol. VI, p. 301).

First, the message of Christianity is primarily to individuals, and only secondarily to society. It leaves the units whom it has influenced to influence the mass. Second, it acts on spiritual and moral sentiment, and only afterwards and consequently on deeds or institutions. Third, it hates violence, and trusts wholly to enlightened conscience. So it meddles directly with no political or social arrangements, but lays down principles which will profoundly affect these, and leaves them to soak into the general mind.

We are bought with a price and this makes us obligated to the buyer. His love and care for us has made us free (John 8:36). Our service is now voluntary and full of gratitude because we have been bought away from a hard taskmaster who beat us as payment for our service. Serving Jesus – whether black or white – is infinitely better than serving the devil.

We are called upon as believers to “profoundly affect” our society but it seems that society has profoundly affected us. We have been subjugated, conquered, and made slavers of society. God help us to use the liberty which has been so hard won to influence our culture.

Dear Lord, I am your servant but please help me to influence my world as the Lord’s freeman. AMEN