rights. Then there are the bond-servants, or slaves, who have no
rights, who receive no wages and who have no appeal. The Hebrews were
forbidden ever to make bond-servants of their own race. Only of the
Gentiles were they permitted to take such slaves. When, however, we
come to the New Testament, the word in the Greek for the servant of
the Lord Jesus Christ is not "hired servant" but "bond-servant," by
which is meant to be shown that our position is one where we have no
rights and no appeal, where we are the absolute property of our
Master, to be treated and disposed of just as He wishes.

Further, we shall see more clearly still what our position is to be
when we understand that we are to be the bond-servants of One who was
Himself willing to be a bond-servant. Nothing shows better the
amazing humility of the Lord Jesus, whose servants we are to be, than
that "though He was in the form of God, He counted it not a prize to
be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself and took upon Him the
form of a bondservant" (Phil. 2:6,7)--without rights, willing to be
treated as the will of the Father and the malice of men might decree,
if only He might thereby serve men and bring them back to God. And
you and I are to be the bond-servants of Him who was and always is a
bondservant, whose disposition is ever that of humility and whose
activity is ever that of humbling Himself to serve His creatures. How
utterly low, then, is our true position! How this shows us what it
means to be ruled by the Lord Jesus!

That leads us to something further. Our servanthood to the Lord Jesus
is to express itself in our servanthood to our fellows. Says Paul,
"We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves
your bond-servants for Jesus' sake." The low position we take toward
the Lord Jesus is judged by Him by the low position we take in our
relationship with our fellows. An unwillingness to serve others in
costly, humbling ways He takes to be an unwillingness to serve Him,
and we thus put ourselves out of fellowship with Him.

We are now in a position to apply all this much more personally to
our lives. God spoke to me some time ago through Luke 17:7-1O. "But
which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say
unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down
to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may
sup, and gird thyself and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken