As I begin to focus on the word Doulos this year, someone shared with me this video by John MacArthur (author of Slave). I thought I would share it with you all, along with some of what I have been learning.
The word "doulos" has been translated servant, bondservant, and slave. However the literal translation is slave. Bondservant waters it down a little, and servant waters it down a lot.
A servant is one who expresses submission, recognizance or debt to another.
A bondservant is a person obligated to service without wages. (In other words somewhere between servant and slave.)
A slave is one bound in servitude as the property of another; one who works or toils extremely hard.
The real difference? A slave owns nothing, and has no choices. However they can be treated well and even loved by their masters. Servants on the other hand, were hired and paid. They can quit at any time, slaves can not quit. This makes me think of our Salvation. If we are mere servants for Christ, then we can just simply quit being Christians. We could lose our salvation. If we are slaves of Christ then we can't quit. If we try Christ will fight for us to keep us His own. We cannot lose our salvation. Which would you rather be?
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A SLAVE! :)
ReplyDeleteI'll watch the video later, when I have time. Looking forward to it! Thanks for posting
Excellent! I, too, will watch later, but I do love John MacArthur, and listen to sermons from his archives over at gty.org often. Thanks for this study on the word "doulos"--very powerful!
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Wendy
Faith's Firm Foundation
P.S. I'm in the process of passing on an award to you! Hope you like it:)