You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.You were bought with a price. Don’t become bondservants of men.Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.Ye were bought with a price; become not bondservants of men.
3 sermons cite this verse
… You were bought by a price, with a price. do not become slaves of men. So to be a slave of somebody is to have been bought by them. So he calls himself a slave or a bondservant of Christ, which means Christ bought him. And that's what he says. Christ bought me. And since he bought me, he owns me. If you're a Christian this morning, you are doubly owned by God. You are owned by virtue of creation and you are owned by virtue of purchase. You are doubly not your own. Doubly his. He owns you. He can do with you as he pleases. Which leads us to the third thing it means. Namely that he rules you and that what you want to do is please him. Where do I get that? Galatians 1.10 Am I striving to please men? if I were still trying to please men, Paul says I would not be the bondservant of Christ if I were trying to please men I would not be the bondservant of Christ but I am the bondservant of Christ therefore I don't give a rip about pleasing men unless my pleasing them might lead them to please my master. …
Oh God, there's a lot we just read in your word that brings about all kinds of different thoughts and questions. And so we express our total dependence on your spirit to teach us this morning. Pray that over the next few moments in each of our lives, as many who are single, many who are married, that you would help us to understand specifically what you show us in your word about singleness and that you would, by your spirit, apply that to our hearts and our lives today for the spread of the gospel in the next generation and in all nations. We trust you by your spirit to bring clarity to our minds and hearts and specifically to each situation represented around this room. Help us, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, four foundations for biblical singleness. And this is where we're going to camp out most of our time. We're going to let that springboard into just flying through reasons to delight in singleness. But these foundations are, well, they're just that. …
That's pretty radical. I was bought already. I can't be owned by two people, and I'm owned by Jesus. That's totally revolutionary in the first century and throughout the history of the world, and eventually, eventually it began to take hold. So I wish there were time to do an hour's worth with those and about 17 other texts that I have been working on over the years. But let me sum up what that hour would conclude with. So here's my concluding. I actually took this paragraph out of that hour. Okay, so I've done this. The New Testament ordered human relationships in Christ in such a way as to transform the master-slave relationship into something so different from owner property that what remained of the shell is unrecognizable as slavery. I'll say it another way. When the New Testament instructions to masters and slaves are obeyed, what is left of the master-slave relationship is not a relationship of owner property. the master is transformed from owner to one who is owned by Christ among others like his slave and the slave is transformed from property to co-heir of Christ with the master that transformation would make slavery unrecognizable as slavery and frankly we don't know enough to make pronouncements in various places throughout the Roman world about how effective it was in various communities so you can't say well it didn't work you don't know that it certainly did not work globally and today it hasn't worked globally because there are people who don't believe this …