A Bondservant of Jesus Christ

The Bondservant of Jesus Christ

(Romans 1:1)

The Apostle Paul was an elite with a splendid education and the highest status. He held Roman citizenship, studied under the great rabbi Gamaliel, and was one of only thirteen apostles on earth personally called by the risen Jesus. Yet when he introduced himself to the believers in Rome, the word he chose was “a bondservant of Jesus Christ.”

1. A Lowly Slave
Paul did not impersonate the Old Testament’s glorious concept of “the servant of God,” but deliberately applied to himself the first-century Roman concept of a lowly slave. At that time, a slave was nothing more than the property of the master, with no legal rights at all. Paul described himself as a “minister” (a table waiter) and as a “servant” (a galley slave rowing in the lowest deck of a warship). This was Paul’s most basic self-identity before the Lord.

2. Subjection Chosen by Love
Paul’s servanthood reflected the Old Testament’s ordinance of the permanent slave. Even when given the chance to go free, a slave could choose to remain for life out of love for his good master. For Paul, being a servant was not humiliation but the highest glory, not a duty but a privilege, not something forced but a choice of love. He willingly devoted himself to the Lord who saved him from sin and death.

3. A Life Centered on Grace
For Paul, his apostleship and every gift were not matters of authority or grounds for boasting, but only grace. As his confession, “By the grace of God I am what I am,” shows, his encounter with the Lord on the road to Damascus kept him in humility for the rest of his life. If an apostle is nothing more than a servant, then surely, we are less than servants. The calling, the mission, and the very life of a believer—all given by God—are nothing but grace. The very fact that Jesus Christ is our Lord is our eternal joy. Let us clearly recognize this spiritual reality. Let us set right our attitude before God, and let this be the foundation of a new life.

Overseer Sung-Hyun Kim