Servant

Servant is used in regard to position. The Greek word for servant here means bond slave. A bond slave has no rights. Bond slave carries the interpretation of someone who has sold himself into slavery to another. Christ bought us with His blood, and we are His slaves.

Exodus clearly lays out the way that servants were to be treated. After all, the Israelites had just escaped slavery and received the Ten Commandments, so they should have known how slaves were treated.

"Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. 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 aul; and he shall serve him for ever." (Exodus 21:1-6)

After six years, a slave was to be set free. If he chose to stay, he was carried before the judges, pushed to the doorpost, and his ear was bore out. In the Hebrew, bore literally means dig, so they dug his ear out. It is not recorded in scripture where this actually happened.

If the slave chose to leave after his six years, there was still a price to be paid. Suppose the master had given him a wife and she bore him children, then the wife and children belonged to the master. If the man came in married, then he left with his family.

This is a picture of what Christ did. The Exodus scripture lays out the framework for what David said in Psalms. "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required." (Psalms 40:6)

This is a Messianic Scripture. If a person’s ear had been dug out, it was an act of obedience. He was saying, “I love my master, and I will not go free.” Christ did that for us. Christ was obedient to the Father; He took the form of a servant.

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:5-11)

Because of Christ's actions, we have eternal life. Now, we are to go and do as He did and as the apostle Paul mimicked. After the Damascus Road experience, Paul totally followed Christ. The church at Philippi was in a Roman colony set up for retired military personnel, and it was Roman guards who carried out the crucifixion. Roman guards were the ones who divided lots over Jesus’ garments. Paul started a church here to share the Good News with them. Paul, following the example of Christ, shares with the people of Philippi.

Paul stayed under the authority of Christ. He heard the story of the Roman centurion and knew Jesus' reaction. Jesus talked to the Roman centurion in Matthew 8.

“And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.” (Matthew 8:5-13)

The Roman centurion understood. He said, “I am a man under authority.” We are under the authority of Christ. This man was under the authority of Rome, and his soldiers were under his authority. When the centurion told the soldiers to do something, they did it. The soldier did not question his superior and do what he thought was best. Are we sold out for the cause of Christ?