Slave of Christ

Let’s pick up our study in Galatians 1:10, “For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.” The word “persuade” means to “make a friend of” or to “seek the favor of”. Examples of this are found in I Thessalonians 2:4 where Paul says, “But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts.” Also in 1 Thessalonians 4:1 “Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God;” Pleasing God should be the top priority in our lives. Pleasing Him comes before pleasing others and even ourselves. We must come to grips with the fact that the preaching of the gospel is not pleasing to lost man and it never will be. As a matter of fact, it’s about the quickest way I’ve found to lose and establish friendships.

Notice “the servant of Christ.” The word servant here can be better translated as “bondservant.” A bondservant was no ordinary servant. We see this in the Old Testament where the Law stated that all Hebrew slaves where to be set free after six years of service (Exodus 21:2). However, there were times when the slave could decide to stay with his master for one reason or another. It says in Exodus 21:5-6, “And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for ever.” Thus the servant would become a bondservant in that he served his master willingly. That’s why Paul said in Romans 6:22, “But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” Paul realized that the “freedom” that he had in the world was nothing to be compared with the “slavery” he had in Christ.