Doulos

The last part of today's sermon struck me. :0)

It's like a drop of water on the parched dry ground of my soul. I guessed i've been dry spiritually for the past 2 or 3 weeks.

Pastor William, during the last part of his sermon, suddenly talked about the word 'doulos' and what it meant.

According to Pastor William and from Wikipedia,

Doulos may refer to:

In ancient Greece, a slave (δοῦλος)
Biblically it is commonly translated as bond-servant or servant, but literally the word meant slave.

And he said that we are slaves to God when we enter His kingdom. This is both a strong and provocative statement. I always sees it as bondservants, but he used the word "slave", which in turns provokes me to think more about my standing with God.

In further search of the definition of "doulos", i realised there's more to it than the meaning of 'slave'. It also depends where it's used (whether in ancient Rome or ancient Greece). From differing political viewpoints (depending on whether it's Athenian democracy or ancient Greek cities eg. Sparta), there also seemed be a disparity in definition of 'doulos'. In Athens, there was a distinction between 'doulos' and 'sklavos' (which is a more accurate translation of slave) but not so in Sparta. There are also different classes of 'duoloi' and treatment of 'duoloi' differed greatly in different places.

The search hasn't ended...but no matter what, i have a feeling that there's no exact pointing of the finger to a single definition. It can have a different meaning at a different place at a different time zone. And even so, i thanked God for the renewed realisation of how wrecked and worthless my status as a 'slave' to the world & myself in the past, but how God has bought me with a price (the great price of His Son) and Jesus (giving His life as payment for my life), so that He can make me not just his slave or servant but His friend, child and co-heir with Christ.