Slaves and Bond-servants

"Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?"--Romans 6:16.  Paul writing to the church in Rome. This is one of my chapters in Romans and possibly the whole New Testament.  Obeying the gospel is so wonderfully described in this chapter in Romans 6:1-4 and Romans 6:17.  Romans 6:1-23, the whole chapter just fits so beautifully together.  But one of Paul's points here is since we have obeyed the gospel, we have become slaves. I prefer the term bond-servant. Furthermore, at the end of the day, we are slaves of one of two masters, of sin or obedience.  One results in death, the other in righteousness.

Slaves.  The word slave does not have a good connotation to it.  Especially here in America, when we think of slaves, we think of someone in chains.  We think of the way many men, women and children were brutally treated in the 1800's and before.  We think of the slave trade. A very dark time in our history.

Bond-Servants. In contrast, there is the term bond-servant, a situation where a slave was freed but still chose to serve his master much due to the fact that the master treated the slave well.  Many time, this was the situation in biblical times.

Slaves.  When we think of the American slave trade, we think of the brutality that occurred.  Now think of sin, even your sin.  Look at the world around us. People today are still enslaved to sin.  People enslaved to sin might not have stripes on their back from being whipped upon or chains on their hands showing someone owns them. But sin hurts us.  It hurts us deep inside.  In many cases, our sin can hurt those around us.  Families are torn apart by sins of addiction and lust just to name a couple. We must also remember this. Your sins and my sins inflicted the wounds Jesus suffered on the cross.

Bond-servants.  As followers of Christ who have obeyed the form of doctrine described in Romans 6, Christ has removed the chains and has healed the wounds that our sins have caused by taking them to the cross, burying them and leaving them in the grave forever offering US the chance at new life through HIS resurrection (See 1 Corinthians 15:1-4).  We must follow Jesus to the cross and be buried with Him and be raised again to newness of life per Romans 6:1-7. Because Jesus has freed us, we must become His bond-servant because He is the BEST master anyone could ask for.

So my question for you tonight, is which are you? Are you a slave or a bond-servant? Consider Romans 6. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! PRAY ABOUT IT! LOVE Y'ALL! GOD BLESS!