The reading for 1 April according to our Bible Reading Plan is probably fascinating to many of us when we consider the laws on slaves. As we know, the Old Testament is Christ concealed and New Testament is Christ revealed. Is there something we can learn about Christ here? Here the term servant and slave is used interchangeably. The Hebrew word for servant in Exodus is "eh'-bed", which means "bond-servant/slave". Paul called himself a "servant" (Romans 1:1), of which the Greek word "doulos" means "slave, a person owned by another."
Exodus 21:2-6
2 "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
5 "But if the servant declares, 'I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,' 6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.
This is repeated the second time in Deuteronomy 15:16-17 but more graphically "push it through his ear lobe into the door." Ouchhhh!
Christ had redeemed us through the cross. Our price for redemption is fully paid. He sets us free when we receive His forgiveness. In case we think that this redemption is one where there's a condition tied, like God saying "Now that you have received forgiveness, you have no choice but to submit to me for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not!" This sounds very much like someone out to trap you into a commitment. God's greatest gift to man is a "free choice or will". The essence of love is about this free choice, that we choose to love God, as much as God chose to give His Son that we might be saved. God will never violate this part of human dignity and even when He had saved you, He still gives you the choice to follow Him daily!
Gal 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Gal 5:13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
I am sure you are very aware that each of us, although forgiven and set free from condemnation, have the choice of walking away from God. God will never hold us to ransom to follow Him. He wants us to choose. Christians are to be the freest person in the world because we recognize the importance of boundary and we choose to do things that are constructive for our lives. We learn to take personal responsibilities over the choices we make.
1 Cor 10:23 "Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive.
Very much like the slave when he is set free, he is free indeed but note what he does after he is set free: "But if the servant declares, 'I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,' 6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life."
Because of a love relationship, the servant now choose to be a servant for his master and therefore creating an oxymoron term: a willing slave!
That's exactly what happened in our relationship with God. Once we were slaves in the kingdom of darkness but now we are redeemed by the blood of Christ and God says to us, "You are free to go. Do what you like from here on." But because we have come to know how good this Master is and we cannot think of a life apart from that, we now choose to follow Him for the rest of our lives, WILLINGLY!! How often we have seen, or ourselves become, unwilling servants! No wonder many have drifted away from God because they have not come to experience how good God is.
If you were to touch your right ear now, you will be able to feel a small hole on your earlobe through which the pierced awl have gone through. Try it now!
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KIDDING! :) It's a virtual piercing. Those of you who love the Lord, you would have willingly gone and allow the Master to drive that awl through your earlobe into the doorpost. Ladies (or men!), if you have a ear piercing, let it be a reminder that you belong to God! It may be 1st of April but we are certainly "Fools for Christ"! 1 Cor 4:10
Psalm 40
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