I watched the movie "12 Years A Slave" tonight, and I'm not gona lie, it was I think the second movie I've ever seen to make me cry. Or at least bring tears to my eyes--don't judge. The other one was Tears Of The Sun, and I realized in the last couple hours in thinking about them that they both have to do with suffering and a total lack of justice for people. Tears Of The Sun has to do with genocide and guerilla warfare, and 12 Years A Slave, well, the title is pretty self explanatory.
A free black man is kidnapped and sent down to the South where slavery is still very much in vogue. While there, he endures some of the horrors of slavery stemming from having very cruel masters, including watching other slaves be hanged and being forced to lash another slave with a bull whip under the master's close eye. He does his best to stave off despair, and finally, after 12 years, he is rescued and returned to the North and to his family and home.
It's based off a true story, and though all the details of the man's life are not known, he wrote a book about his experience and was highly active in the war against slavery. But what really got me thinking for the last few hours is how Paul refers to himself in the greeting in many of his letters, namely a slave of Jesus Christ. (The word sometimes translated bondservant is DOULOS which is actually a straight up slave) Think about it with me---Paul's identity is completely interwoven and meshed and melded together with the idea that he is in total servitude to Christ.
So the master had the right to do literally anything he chose to do with his property. There weren't the laws regarding the ethical treatment of slaves; OSHA wasn't around to protect the working force. Although if I remember correctly, animals actually had more legal protective rights than slaves, at least at some point during the time period. But the master had the right to kill, torture, or anywise beat and discipline a slave he thought to be insubordinate. There were laws that went that direction--woe to the slave who thought to raise a hand against his master, even if said master was strikingly cruel.
But my point is this: God owns us. When we accept him into our hearts and lives as our Savior and Lord, he become our master and we become his slaves, willingly. Which is why the term "bondservant" is sometimes used, to commemorate the willingness with which we place his foot upon our necks. I think of Friday in Robinson Crusoe, who takes the man's foot and places it on the back of his bowed neck. We willingly give our freedom to the one who saved us from death and damnation.
And the super incredible part? Wait for it ... ... ... he gives us our freedom back! He gives us, our freedom, back to us. But not only that; remember the verse in Galatians 5:4? He redeemed us, that he might give us adoption AS SONS.
There was a bible translation I heard about awhile ago that tried to be politically correct when it came to biblical terminology, and so they translated this verse "adoption as children," which is still awesome enough in and of itself, but thinking historically, remember that the sons were given the inheritance. So male, female, it doesn't matter, as a child of God, you have been given the inheritance along with Christ as sons.
Unfathomable grace. And what was that word I read earlier?
Oh yeah, ineradicable.
Because the covenant isn't up to us to uphold, God be thanked. And so the promise is ineradicable. Hey, I thought it was an awesome word.
But back to thinking, the undeserved blessings that God gives to us in return for the nothing we can give to him, well, it's hard to quite grasp the chasm that separates us in our unworthiness for them. It's like the guy in the movie; he was under an especially cruel master, and in the end he clawed his way from the grasp of the torturer into the arms of his rescuer (sorry for the spoiler). It would be like if he were to take the new clothes they gave him and on the trip back home, he jumped down off the carriage or train and rolled around in some pig muck, then sauntered back up to the group of gentlemen who had rescued him and with a smile on his face, asked if they were ready to keep going yet.
Well, isn't it? Look me in the eye and tell me it's not. Or, you know, type me an honest message, since I can't see your eyes at the moment.
Do we not treat our Father's grace thus? Especially every time we sin knowingly or willingly (which we all do), that's exactly what we do. We take the clean new robes of his righteousness and we get down and play in the muck puddle of sin. Which reminds of what Lewis said in Mere Christianity about how we think so small. Each of us is like a small child who is content to go on playing and splashing in his little mud puddle because he has no comprehension of what is meant by a holiday at the sea.
So what are my thoughts tonight? I don't really know, I guess. I mean, I want to please Christ and I want to live like him, and I'm trying to read his love letter more consistently and spend increasing time with him in prayer, but I continue to groan along with Paul, "I do the things I know I shouldn't do and I don't do the things I know I should do. O wretched man that I am--who shall deliver me from this body of death?" And therein lies the true unfathomableness of God's loving grace--he gives grace to those who have trampled on the grace he already gave to them. To us.
To me.
So I suppose just a word of encouragement, if to no one but myself. To again quote the apostle, "For the love of Christ constrains us, because we judge thus: that if one died for all, then all died; and he died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again."
And my final thought; it's about the word "constrain." Etymologically, most people don't quite grasp its meaning. It has a similar picture to the word restrain, but in the opposite direction. Let's say you're trying to walk forward, but I've got my arms around you from behind and I'm not letting you go. That's restraint.
But let's say you're trying to stay put; maybe you're afraid, maybe you're lazy, maybe you just plain don't want to. But again I've got my arms around you from behind, and with all I've got I'm pushing you forward to what we both know you should do. That's constraint. And that's what the love of Christ does.
A free black man is kidnapped and sent down to the South where slavery is still very much in vogue. While there, he endures some of the horrors of slavery stemming from having very cruel masters, including watching other slaves be hanged and being forced to lash another slave with a bull whip under the master's close eye. He does his best to stave off despair, and finally, after 12 years, he is rescued and returned to the North and to his family and home.
It's based off a true story, and though all the details of the man's life are not known, he wrote a book about his experience and was highly active in the war against slavery. But what really got me thinking for the last few hours is how Paul refers to himself in the greeting in many of his letters, namely a slave of Jesus Christ. (The word sometimes translated bondservant is DOULOS which is actually a straight up slave) Think about it with me---Paul's identity is completely interwoven and meshed and melded together with the idea that he is in total servitude to Christ.
So the master had the right to do literally anything he chose to do with his property. There weren't the laws regarding the ethical treatment of slaves; OSHA wasn't around to protect the working force. Although if I remember correctly, animals actually had more legal protective rights than slaves, at least at some point during the time period. But the master had the right to kill, torture, or anywise beat and discipline a slave he thought to be insubordinate. There were laws that went that direction--woe to the slave who thought to raise a hand against his master, even if said master was strikingly cruel.
But my point is this: God owns us. When we accept him into our hearts and lives as our Savior and Lord, he become our master and we become his slaves, willingly. Which is why the term "bondservant" is sometimes used, to commemorate the willingness with which we place his foot upon our necks. I think of Friday in Robinson Crusoe, who takes the man's foot and places it on the back of his bowed neck. We willingly give our freedom to the one who saved us from death and damnation.
And the super incredible part? Wait for it ... ... ... he gives us our freedom back! He gives us, our freedom, back to us. But not only that; remember the verse in Galatians 5:4? He redeemed us, that he might give us adoption AS SONS.
There was a bible translation I heard about awhile ago that tried to be politically correct when it came to biblical terminology, and so they translated this verse "adoption as children," which is still awesome enough in and of itself, but thinking historically, remember that the sons were given the inheritance. So male, female, it doesn't matter, as a child of God, you have been given the inheritance along with Christ as sons.
Unfathomable grace. And what was that word I read earlier?
Oh yeah, ineradicable.
Because the covenant isn't up to us to uphold, God be thanked. And so the promise is ineradicable. Hey, I thought it was an awesome word.
But back to thinking, the undeserved blessings that God gives to us in return for the nothing we can give to him, well, it's hard to quite grasp the chasm that separates us in our unworthiness for them. It's like the guy in the movie; he was under an especially cruel master, and in the end he clawed his way from the grasp of the torturer into the arms of his rescuer (sorry for the spoiler). It would be like if he were to take the new clothes they gave him and on the trip back home, he jumped down off the carriage or train and rolled around in some pig muck, then sauntered back up to the group of gentlemen who had rescued him and with a smile on his face, asked if they were ready to keep going yet.
Well, isn't it? Look me in the eye and tell me it's not. Or, you know, type me an honest message, since I can't see your eyes at the moment.
Do we not treat our Father's grace thus? Especially every time we sin knowingly or willingly (which we all do), that's exactly what we do. We take the clean new robes of his righteousness and we get down and play in the muck puddle of sin. Which reminds of what Lewis said in Mere Christianity about how we think so small. Each of us is like a small child who is content to go on playing and splashing in his little mud puddle because he has no comprehension of what is meant by a holiday at the sea.
So what are my thoughts tonight? I don't really know, I guess. I mean, I want to please Christ and I want to live like him, and I'm trying to read his love letter more consistently and spend increasing time with him in prayer, but I continue to groan along with Paul, "I do the things I know I shouldn't do and I don't do the things I know I should do. O wretched man that I am--who shall deliver me from this body of death?" And therein lies the true unfathomableness of God's loving grace--he gives grace to those who have trampled on the grace he already gave to them. To us.
To me.
So I suppose just a word of encouragement, if to no one but myself. To again quote the apostle, "For the love of Christ constrains us, because we judge thus: that if one died for all, then all died; and he died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again."
And my final thought; it's about the word "constrain." Etymologically, most people don't quite grasp its meaning. It has a similar picture to the word restrain, but in the opposite direction. Let's say you're trying to walk forward, but I've got my arms around you from behind and I'm not letting you go. That's restraint.
But let's say you're trying to stay put; maybe you're afraid, maybe you're lazy, maybe you just plain don't want to. But again I've got my arms around you from behind, and with all I've got I'm pushing you forward to what we both know you should do. That's constraint. And that's what the love of Christ does.
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