As we begin the new year, let us take a quick look at the opening verses of St. Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome, a group of believers that the apostle always hoped to visit, and then later did when he was imprisoned by the Roman government for his faith. As he opens this letter to the believers in Rome, Paul says something that may seem rather odd or strange to our modern ears as we are a quarter through the 21st century. The odd thing that Paul said was when he referred to himself as a “bondservant”, which is essentially a slave. Let’s take a look at this specific point in our Scripture.
We all know what a slave is - someone who is in enforced servitude to another, one who has no rights whatsoever, who can be bought and sold at their master’s whim. Slaves could be, and quite often were, beaten and the women assaulted, whenever the master felt like it, as slaves had no rights. Most forms of slavery are now illegal in the majority of countries around the world, along with its cousin serfdom. Who, then, would willingly call themselves a slave? Not too many people would want to spend their life being a slave to someone else. Yet Paul embraced that title and position, as we see here in the first verse of our Scripture, where he called himself a bondservant of Jesus Christ.
Paul could have rightly called himself an apostle. He could have introduced himself as a missionary, as he definitely was that, or a teacher, or a preacher. What would have been puzzling to many was the fact that Paul was a Roman citizen. Not everyone who was born within the Roman Empire were citizens. As a matter of fact, only about 5 - 10% of the population of the empire were actually Roman citizens. He was a Roman citizen due to his birth in Tarsus, one of a small handful of “free” cities in the empire. Among the benefits of being a Roman citizen was that Paul could not lawfully be scourged or beaten before being lawfully convicted of a crime, and that he had the right to have any trial heard before the emperor. He could have made mention of any of these in his greeting, yet he chose the word bondservant or slave, as he also did in his letter to the Philippians and to Titus.
Paul knew that he owed everything in his life to the Lord Jesus. He knew that it was only through His love, grace, and mercy that God had saved him. For several years, under his former name of Saul, he had viciously persecuted the early church, even traveling distances to arrest believers, throw them in jail, and testify in their court cases to ensure their deaths. Yet after being committed to this, Jesus still had love and mercy on him, and appeared to him on the road to Damascus, where Saul became a believer and follower of the One that he had formerly persecuted. Paul knew that God could have rightly condemned him then and there, but instead, Jesus saved him, so Paul considered himself the slave of Jesus for the rest of his life.
The truth is, as we read in the Bible, we are all slaves of something. The Lord Jesus told us that whoever commits sin is a slave of sin (John 8:34). Since we are all sinners, then we are all slaves to sin (Romans 6:16). However, when we become saved, we are set free from sin, and should now give ourselves in servitude to the Lord Jesus and righteousness (Romans 6:18-19). If we are not a slave to the Lord Jesus Christ we are a slave to sin, and separated from God.
As we face the beginning of a new year, let us look at who we are a bondservant to. Is it a life of sin, with the evil master of the devil, or are we bondservants, like Paul, to the Lord Jesus Christ? When he was known as Saul, he would not have considered himself a slave to sin and the devil. He was a Roman citizen, a Pharisee, a former student of the great Gamaliel! But he was a slave, nonetheless. Now set free from sin, Paul willingly became a slave to the Lord Jesus. What about us? Who are we giving our allegiance and service to?
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