Friday, May 18, 2007
Meditation on Philippians 1:1: Slaves
Reading 1: Philippians 1:1-11
Philippians 1:1
focal phrase: “servants of Christ Jesus”
focal word: slaves
Verse 1 is just a throwaway line, right? We should just pass over it quickly and get to the substance of this book, right?
Let’s not. Let’s stop right away here at verse 1 and talk about a word that I would say is “under-translated,” or weakly translated.
And let’s suppose it’s not just a picky point about language. Let’s suppose this one word is about setting up the entire letter to Christians in Philippi—and to Christians today.
“Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus...”
Stop there for a second. Paul didn’t really say “servants.” The Greek word for “servant” is actually “diakoneo,” the root of our word “deacon,” which he uses in the next verse, when he says “the bishops and deacons.”
No, in verse 1 Paul says that he and Timothy are “douloi,” meaning “slaves.” Enslaved to Christ. That’s Paul’s greeting. When is the last time you introduced yourself at church by saying, “Hi, I’m Bob, a slave of Christ Jesus.”
Slavery was common practice in the Roman Empire. It wasn’t necessarily brutal—it was more economic than anything else. Someone else owned you if you owed them money, or if your side lost a war to their side. You were compensation; you were property. (The best definition for “doulos,” given by many Greek dictionaries, may be “bond-servant”; among the few English translations that reflect this are Darby—"Paul and Timotheus, bondmen of Jesus Christ"—and the NASB—"Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus.")
But while being a slave in the Roman Empire was not necessarily as bad as being a slave in the early American South, it was hardly a desirable status. You had no independence, no rights, no autonomy. You were owned. ("Doulos" could even be a metaphor in Greek literature for chains: Aeschylus writes in “Persians”: “he conceived the hope that he could by shackles, as if it were a slave [doulos], restrain the current of the sacred ... stream divine.”
Isn’t that sort of a downer for an opening greeting in a letter? Is slavery the most uplifting metaphor Paul had to describe the Christian faith?
It was for Paul, who was writing in chains, in a prison in Rome (or maybe Ephesus). For Paul, being enslaved to Christ is being free from all other enslavement.
Slaves called their masters “kyrios,” or “lord.” And the true freedom from calling Caesar or any other master “kyrios” is saying, “Jesus is Lord.”
Perhaps there’s a danger in letting “Lord” become too cozy of a word in our prayer and our worship. I’ve sung “I love you, Lord” in worship many times as merely an affectionate expression, forgetting that calling Christ “kyrios” makes me a “doulos.” Calling someone “lord” is an affirmation of being owned and obedient.
Not that we should see Christ as domineering. This is Paul’s whole point in writing to Philippi. Be a doulos not only because Christ is kyrios but also because Christ became a doulos. He’s the one deity who ever “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave [doulos],” Paul writes in Philippians 2. Christ is the only lord whoever “became obedient to the point of death.”
This is one of the few letters of Paul in which he identifies himself in his greeting not as apostolos—an apostle—but as doulos. It’s probable that the Philippians noticed, right away, in this very first line. It turns out to be the theme of the letter; especially the lyrical chapter 2:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave
And so Christ is the only one to whom being a slave is freedom. He’s the only master who will die for you. He’s the only one to whom ownership equals liberation.
Update: Related blog post: Do diakonos and doulos ever overlap in meaning?
Related Resources
Commentaries on Philippians
More Meditations
Meditations on the Psalms
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