The title alone caught me off guard and once I read the description of the book, I was hooked and set out to read it.
John MacArthur is a fantastic Bible Scholar and here he does an exegesis on the word "Slave" found in the Bible. He explains through his to the point way of teaching how this idea of Slave has not only been lost in our Bible translations today but also the important role being a Slave plays in our Christian lives!
The first three chapters of the book take a look at how the Greek word doulos and the Hebrew word 'ebed, which are both words for "SLAVE" have been softened into "servant" most of the time and he explains how this has caused us to have a missing piece of understanding in our identity as Christians. He then goes on to take what both Greek and Hebrew writers had in mind when they wrote out doulos and 'ebed by taking the reader on a journey to Greco-Roman slavery.
This was an eye-opening 3 chapters, all basically new content to myself because the American view of slavery is scued by the recent history of American slavery. He exposes the similarities and differences of Greco-Roman slavery, which helps the reader understand why our identity is a "Slave to Christ".
After MacArthur delves into the role of "Slave" and the Greco-Roman meaning of slavery he then takes a 4 Chapter chunk of the book to talk about Masters in the Bible. Slave and Master go hand in hand and to understand the totality of one, the other must be explained and understood.
This deep discussion of God as our Master was also very eye-opening and humbling. It helped me to refocus what my relationship with Christ truly is and helped me to better identify with myself being a Slave.
Lastly, MacArthur then describes Sin and Son ship and how we are slaves chosen to be sons as well to our Lord. We let go of our first Master: Sin and embrace our new Master: Christ and he, in his love and Grace also makes us sons!
The truth and beauty behind such a simple word in the Bible is incredible. I really enjoyed the depth that MacArthur took to describe out the meaning of the word and to explain how we have lost it a bit in translation. I love reading books that give me new ideas and explain new (to me anyways) Biblical concepts in an easy, simple to understand way. MacArthur does that here.
I highly recommend this book to any and all Christians because it is well written and the concept of us being Slaves to Christ is an important concept for us to grab a hold of.
Go here if you'd like to order this book: http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/product_detail.asp?sku=1400316774&title=Slave&author=John_MacArthur
I like the part of translating SLAVE to SERVANT...as always Marvin, thanks for sharing your ideas. I will have to get this book!
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