Yes, you have seen this before, but it is worth a second look.
Jesus calls his followers to think of themselves as servants and even as slaves. For example: “… whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mark 10:44-45). Or this, after the disciples argued about who was greatest among them: “Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.’”
Jesus lived the servant life himself: “For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” St. Paul summed up Jesus’s life of service succinctly when he wrote: he “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a slave…”
In the early church, it was understood that to be Jesus’s disciple, one must enter the life of service. Paul, for example, made himself “a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.” He frequently referred to himself as the “slave of Jesus Christ” or of God (see Romans 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Titus 1:1). Peter, James, and Jude also refer to themselves as slaves. The apostles urged fellow Christians to follow Jesus’s example and live as servants (Galatians 5:13; Ephesians 6:7; 1 Peter 4:10) and exhorted them to put others interests ahead of their own (Philippians 2:4; Romans 15:1-2; 1 Corinthians 10:24).
We know all this. We’ve heard and read it hundreds of times. Were someone to ask if we believed it (that we are to be slaves of Christ and servants of one another), we would say we did, though I suspect we have not given much thought to what that might entail. Does God really intend for us to act as if other believers are more important than we are? And what about unbelievers? Do we have to serve them too?
That last question captures how we feel about this. Do we have to? Serving (or slaving, Jesus uses both terms) is not the kind of thing American Christians do. We certainly don’t want people to think they are in charge. We can’t let people push us around like that. It would be a nightmare.
We want to keep our dignity in place and our options open—and dignity and options are not characteristic of slaves and servants. (Or so people think who have never been slaves and servants.) We know that Jesus said these things, but we assume that he just meant for us to be nice and do good when we can. But to act like you are the boss and I am the servant is to invite trouble or, at the least, inconvenience.
But what if we assume that (1) Jesus meant what he said and (2) that he knows more than we do? Perhaps Jesus knows that trouble and inconvenience play an indispensable role in advancing the gospel. Perhaps he knows that the church can only reach the world by doing something the world would never dream of doing: becoming servants.
When, during the Alexandrian plague of 261 AD, Christians buried the dead and cared for the sick that society had abandoned, their courageous service led others to faith in Jesus. It was the Christians who rescued and raised unwanted babies as their own. They practiced sacrificial generosity. They cared for the mentally ill. They were servants.
Christian groups were recognized by the way their members served one other. In St. Paul’s words, they took “the lead in honoring one another.” While they did good to all people, they especially did so “to those who belong to the family of believers.”
Christian servanthood, in the church and in the world, paved the way for the gospel to reach millions. But when we think of effective ways to reach people with the gospel, servanthood is not even on the list. We think instead about providing first-class programming and stirring music. We overhaul our webpage and rebrand our churches on social media. We depend on programs (some of them excellent, some not), and technologies, but we do not follow Jesus (Paul, Peter, and the early church) and live as servants.
It is time for an overhaul. The world will not come to Jesus because we have a talented band or because we updated the color palettes on our website. If they come to Jesus, it will be because we have come to look like Jesus, which among other things, means we will be servants.
Is that a price we are willing to pay?
The Way Home 
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