being owned...

February 25, 2014

Romans 1:1 Paul a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God

In the days the bible was written, authors of letters, like Romans, had to open with who they were and give proof that they could write the letter. Paul opens this letter with a couple of claims one that he was a slave of Christ and an apostle of Christ. In Rome there were many slaves, and like most areas were slavery existed those slaves were looked upon like property. Paul willingly put himself in the position of being owned by Christ. A slave didn’t do his own bidding, ever, that slave only was concerned with the bidding of his master. It was all that was allowed. Do we, like Paul, look to ourselves as being “owned” my Christ? Do we ever put the bidding, will, call of Christ upon our lives ahead of our own desires? This was not a small thing that Paul did. This was not just a simple claim that he made in order to be heard by the Roman people. His life bore the fruit and truth to this claim. His actions proved that what his lips said was true. So, we may, like Paul, claim to be slaves of Christ, but like Paul our actions must prove what our lips say before we can ever be believed.