Yesterday, I went to my children’s school.  At the entrance, there were three kids in uniform just in front of me to whom the school guard refused entry.  I was signing myself  in as a visitor when I overheard the guard say that he couldn’t allow the kids to come in to school because they violated the dress code.  I took a look at the kids and I saw that they were all male and they all had pierced ears.

I had to agree with the guard when I saw their pierced ears.  They were not wearing common studs or hoop earrings:  they were wearing large surgical steel earrings that reminded me of sewing machine bobbins.

From Wikipedia, I learned that these were called  flesh tunnels. These are worn in the lobe instead of on the lobe or dangling from lobe.  The flesh tunnel was sold as part of a set: the wearer would start wearing a small flesh tunnel until the earlobe has been stretched to accommodate a bigger and bigger-sized flesh tunnel. After the earlobe has been stretched, the person may wear flesh tunnels decorated with precious stones.

In ancient cultures, earrings were not fashion accessories. Pierced ears are a means of  identifying members of a tribe or a means of identifying a person’s social or civil status. In the cultural milieu of the Scriptures, a person’s pierced ear is a sign of ownership and possession:  wives had pierced ears to show that they were owned by their husbands; male and female slaves had pierced ears to show that they were owned by a master.

In the Leviticus 25, God forbade the Israelites from selling other Israelites into slavery.  But, the Bible did provide an exception:  an Israelite may lend money to another Israelite.  In cases when the borrower is unable to pay, the borrower may “sell” himself into the personal service of the lender and be his servant for seven years so he can work off his debt.  At the end of seven years, though, on the occasion of the celebration called the jubilee, the lender has to return to the borrower his personal freedom and any wages he has earned.

When at the end of the seven years and the borrower is about to be freed, the borrower then  tells the lender that he has chosen to remain in the service of the lender,  the lender will then bring the borrower to the door post of the lender’s home and  pierce the ear of the borrower with an awl.  Out of love and devotion to the lender, the borrower has traded his independence and personal liberty and has chosen to live under the dominion, protection and authority of the lender.  He is now a bond servant.

Apostle Paul often referred to himself  as “Paul, the bond servant of Jesus Christ.”  We modern Christians read this phrase and we think that Paul was just being poetic, or he was just using an idiomatic expression.  We see here the cultural background that gives nuance and meaning to the phrase “bond servant.”

The spiritual significance of the title “bond servant” is this:  Apostle Paul remembers that day when he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus as the day Saul of Tarsus died.  On that day,  Saul of Tarsus, the  free Roman citizen, the former proud and self-righteous Pharisee, the former  illustrious member of the ruling Jewish Sanhedrin, ceased to exist.  On that day, Saul of Tarsus died on the cross with Jesus Christ, he was buried with Jesus Christ and after three days, he rose up from the dead with Jesus Christ.  But when he rose from the dead, he was not Saul of Tarsus anymore.  After his conversion, he was content to be known only as “Paul, the bond servant of Jesus Christ” because out of love and devotion to Jesus Christ, he chose to sign away the independence of his mind, his emotions and his will  and was content to follow and obey Jesus Christ.

Oswald Chambers, in his devotional My Utmost for His Highest (November 3 reading) defines a bond servant as one who has deliberately signed away his own rights and his own independence in order to live under the authority of another.

This,  in the barest essence, is what it means to “deny oneself” and “follow Christ.”  It means we do not think of ourselves as free agents who, after receiving the free gift of salvation can choose to live out the rest of our lives as we please.  Being a follower of Christ means dying to oneself.

In a compilation of his writings published as The Radical Cross, A.W. Tozer explains:

In every Christian’s heart there is a cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross; if he refuses the cross he remains on the throne.  This is the root of the backsliding and worldliness among gospel believers.  We want to be saved but we insist that Christ do all the dying.  No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying.  We remain king within the little kingdom of our soul and wear our tinsel crown but we doom ourselves to shadows, weakness and spiritual sterility.  Our uncrucified flesh will rob us of purity of heart, Christlikeness of character, spiritual insight, fruitfulness; and more than all, it will hide from us the vision of God’s face.

Have you been crucified with Christ? Are you a bond servant of Jesus Christ?  Why not?