YE SERVE THE LORD CHR IST
By Edward W. Goodrick*
I N Phrygia in Asia Minor, on the banks of the Lycus River, and strad dling the great highway that ex tends from Ephesus to the Euphrates valley, lay a busy city called Colossae. It gained its support and fame by the manufacture of collossinus, a peculiar kind of fine wool. Its religion was the worship of angels. Michael himself was the chief angel and protector of the city. Under the ministry of Epaphras, an associate of Paul, a church was born there. And, as is customary, trouble therein soon began. False teachers, probably Jews, crept in who taught ritualism and ascetic and speculative doctrines. And unable to shake off all the shackles of their heathenism, they maintained in part the practice of the worship of angels. This sad state was reported to Paul, then in prison in Rome, by Epaphras when he rejoined Paul in Rome. We have the letter Paul wrote to Colossae in answer to this report. Picture the little local church in some open amphitheater or, more probably, in some private dwelling, called together to hear for the first time a personal letter written by none other than the great Apostle Paul. The people would be seated in their proper places, the slaves probably separate from the free, the highborn from the lowborn. Can you see them as they drink in every word as the letter is read to them? Past the middle of the letter they heard this short sentence: “Ye serve the Lord Christ.” Of course they were not so quick-witted as to be able at the moment to analyze this terse statement thoroughly, but is it presuming to think that perhaps many of them were so struck by its force that they carried it away in memory and later, in quiet thought, explored its implications?
the Lord Christ. And the bishop and elder who administered the love feasts and the laying on of hands, thought on the truth that there was no class ex cluded from the debt of service owed the Lord Christ. And how many of them, when they thought of the absolute obedience that that word serve implied, were not pricked in conscience? The Christians at Colossae would also notice the action of the verb, because action, in the language of Paul’s day, was expressed in two different ways. One was the action with both the be ginning and end in view. The whole was looked upon as a unity. It is punetiliar, a snapshot. The other tense portrays the idea of continuous action with no end ing in view, a motion picture. When the Spirit of God selected the tense for the verb serve, he used the latter one. So that it is safe to say that a correct translation of the verse is, “Ye continue in serving as a slave, the Lord Christ.” A slave cannot contract for a definite piece of work, and then, having com pleted it, negotiate for another, as mod ern labor does. If the slave is put in a certain part of a vineyard to labor, he is to continue there until his lord places him elsewhere. He cannot stop when he pleases or work where he chooses. And certainly the object of the verb did not escape notice. The story is' told of a man dressed to perfection in black- striped trousers, swallow-tailed coat, g-ates-ajar collar, silk topper and a sandwich-board upon the front of which was written, “A fool for Christ’s sake.” This caused no end of tittering on the part of the passers-by. But when they turned to see what was on the back of the board, they read, “Whose fool are you?” I would take the liberty to change the word on the front of the board to read: “A bond-slave of Jesus Christ.” For it is psychologically true, scripturally true, that man is so constituted that he must be a slave of someone or some thing. If a man is not in bondage to another man or woman, then he is to a cause, a principle, a philosophy. And if not to these, then he is enslaved by his own desires and lusts. Scripture recognizes various servi tudes using the same verb Paul uses. Some are servants of sin: “ We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be de stroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom. 6:6 Revised Standard Version).
The Colossian Christian knew, Greek being his mother tongue, that the in spired author had a selection of four different words from which to choose to give the idea of serving.** There was one that meant personal or menial service, as a maid, and is so used in Luke 10:40: “ But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?” Had this word been the Apostle’s selection, the Christian at Colossae would have centered his meditation around the hu mility of the Christian’s tasks. Another word gives us the idea of worshipful service and is used in this way in Luke 4:8: “ And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt wor ship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” Also to have been rejected was a word that gives the idea of serving as an emissary, an officer, or a minister. We find it used in this way in Acts 13:36: “ For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, and was laid unto his fathers and saw corruption.” Had this been chosen, we then would think about the dignity and nobility of the Christian’s calling. All these made their bid for this noble place in God’s Word and were rejected for the fourth, the word which means to serve as a slave! Lest we be misled, let us understand that a slave in the Roman world of the first century was neither like our mod ern-day servant nor like the Negro slave of the old south. Although utter, abso lute obedience (the alternative could mean death) was the price of slavery, their occupations were not all menial, but ranged from the simple household slave who swept the floor and the fac tory slave who sewed tents, on up through managers, business men, doc tors, lawyers and teachers. Slaves could be found in every trade and profession. It is this kind of slavery that the verb rendered ye serve implies. The slave merchant who heard this letter left that assembly in Colossae to go to his shop and meditate over the truth that he was also a slave merchant of the Lord Christ. And the free merchant who sat on the opposite side of the assembly, went to his shop across the street from the slave’s, knowing that free though he was, he was now a slave merchant of
*Biola 'UO Pastor, Baptist Church, Dillon, Montana
**In the common version the verb to serve is used in the New Testament to translate four Greek verbs, namely, diakoneo, latreno, hupereteo, and dou- leno, from the Englishman’s Greek Con cordance, page 785. If this had been the word, then our thoughts would center around the Christian and his worship- life, his prayer, his private meditation in the Word of God.
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
Page Sixteen
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker