Slave of Christ

A New Testament Metaphor for Total Devotion to Christ

Murray J. Harris, D. A. Carson

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9780830871346
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The New Testament finds many ways to depict the relationship of Christians and their Lord. They are his disciples, sons, daughters and friends. But it is perhaps too little recognized that they are also his slaves. In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Murray J. Harris sets out to uncover what it means to be a slave of Christ. He begins by assessing the nature of actual slavery in the Greco-Roman world and the New Testament's attitude towards it. Drawing insights from this, he goes on to unfold the metaphor of slavery to Christ. Among the topics discussed are slavery and spiritual freedom, lordship, ownership, and privilege. Slave of Christ is a model of good biblical theology, providing insights both for future study of the Bible and for practical application. Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

Chapter One

Introduction

Reasons for this study

There have been several experiences that generated my special interest in the topic of slavery in the New Testament. For many years I included in a course on New Testament Greek exegesis a segment that discussed the theory of translation and examined how various translation theories are reflected in the twenty major translations of the New Testament. To discover that only one of these major English translations consistently renders the term doulos by “slave” – E. J. Goodspeed’s The New Testament: An American Translation (1923) – came as a surprise, since this is the most distinctive Greek term for “slave”, there being at least six other New Testament Greek words that may appropriately be rendered “servant”. What accounts for this strange phenomenon? A universal abhorrence of slavery in any form? An uneasy conscience about the persistence of slavery into modern times? A concern about the emotional connotations that attach to the word “slave” (visions of Kunta Kinta in Roots)? A conviction that there cannot be a positive metaphorical use of doulos?

The second reason for my fascination with this topic has been my involvement with the New International Version (NIV) translation since its inception in the early 1970s. Then, until my return to New Zealand, I was privileged to serve for twelve years (1984–96) on the Committee on Bible Translation, the central committee ultimately responsible for this translation, in their ongoing systematic review of the text. As a result of my raising this issue of how doulos should be translated, I was asked to prepare a report on the matter, with special attention to the NIV renderings of the word. This alerted me to the complexity of the issues and prompted me to consider in more detail the metaphorical use of doulos in the New Testament. In what sense should Christians regard themselves as the slaves of Christ or God?

But quite apart from these issues of translation, my attention has been drawn to this topic in a variety of other ways. In October 1987, at the annual Global Ministries Institute at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, our speaker was Dr Josef Tson, a Romanian pastor who had been arrested and imprisoned in 1974 and 1977, then exiled in 1981. He forcefully expressed his preference to be introduced simply as “a slave of Jesus Christ”. “There aren’t many people”, he observed, “who are willing to introduce me as a slave. They substitute the word “servant” for “slave”. In twentieth-century Christianity we have replaced the expression “total surrender” with the word “commitment”, and “slave” with “servant”. But there is an important difference. A servant gives service to someone, but a slave belongs to someone. We commit ourselves to do something, but when we surrender ourselves to someone, we give ourselves up.”

Then in 1990 there appeared a book entitled Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity by Dale B. Martin. It was a revision of his Yale doctoral dissertation written under the supervision of Professor Wayne Meeks. Martin seeks to discover how the metaphor of slavery to God or Christ “was able to function as a positive soteriological image for early Christians even in a Greco-Roman, urban environment” (1990: 137; cf xiv). Focusing on the language of 1 Corinthians 9, Martin argues that when Paul portrays himself (in 1 Cor. 9:16–18) as Christ’s slave steward (oikonomos; cf. “slave of Christ” in Rom. 1:1; Gal. 1:10; Phil. 1:1), he is indicating not only his authority and power but his high standing as an “upwardly mobile” slave who reflects the status of Christ his master. With the other self-designation, “slave of all” (1 Cor. 9:19–23), Paul deliberately lowers himself in status after the “enslaved leader” pattern of political rhetoric (viz. leadership from below) and in imitation of Christ’s kenōsis, in order to “gain” those of lower status and to afford an exam...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Titles in this series
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Series preface
• Author's preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Slavery in the Roman Empire in the first century AD
• 3. The New Testament attitude towards physical slavery
• 4. Slavery and freedom
• 5. Slavery and lordship
• 6. Slavery and ownership
• 7. Slavery and privilege
• 8. ‘Slave of Christ': its significance in the New Testament
• 9. ‘Slave of Christ': four New Testament examples
• Appendixes
• Bibliography
• Index of authors
• Index of subjects
• Index of principal Greek and Latin terms and phrases
• Index of Bible references
• Index of other ancient authors and writings
• Notes
• Praise for Slave of Christ
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright