Of the designations Jude gave himself in Jude 1, he first and foremost said he was a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Jude 1 says, “Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James.” Many New Testament writers also called themselves bondservants. It happened in Romans 1:1, Galatians 1:10, Titus 1:1, James 1:1, 2 Peter 1:1, Revelation 1:1. The Greek word for bondservant is douvloß, or doulos. What is a bondservant? Is bondservant the same as slave? What do you think?
Historians say slaves were very common in the 1st century. Some say up to 1/3 of the population in a city were slaves. As you can imagine, a city simply cannot function without slaves. The city comes to a halt.
People become slaves primarily from losing in a war. Others sold themselves or their children to become slaves in order to pay off a debt. Walking into an unfamiliar city today makes us tourists, but doing the same thing in the 1st century was very dangerous. If you got lost in a city you didn’t know anyone, and if you were not careful, you may be snatched up to become somebody’s slave.
The most important thing you need to know about slaves is that they are properties of their masters. Think of the smartphone that is in your palm. You buy a good smartphone, you buy a screen protector for it, and you take good care of it, because you would like to be able to use it for many years, don’t you? If it breaks, you get it repaired. If it dies, you try to salvage it and see what little money you can get out of it, or you toss it out. Similarly, you buy a good slave and you take good care of him. If he gets sick, you take him to see a doctor. If he gets permanently disabled or he becomes too frail to do the work, you try to see if someone will buy him for pennies, or throw him out into the streets. In the same way a property has no rights, a slave also has no rights. When a person becomes the slave of his master, he has turned over all his rights to him. A slave is the property of his master.
Then, in a world full of slaves in the 1st century, there is something called a bondservant. What is a bondservant? Simply, a bondservant may never go free. He cannot say to his master, “I don’t want to be your slave anymore.” He can never be sold to another house. He will be his master’s slave for life. He will die in his master’s house. He is bonded to his master and to his house, thus the term, bondservant.
A bondservant becomes part of his master’s family. The master treats his own children and the children of his slave the same. If a visitor visits the home, he or she would not be able to tell which is which.
Bondservants are not known by their names but by who are their masters. The higher the social status of the master, the more important is the bondservant.
The most shocking thing to me about bondservants is that a slave becomes a bondservant not because the slave is such a good and effective worker that the master wants him to be his bondservant for life. It is the opposite. A slave asks his master he wants to be his bondservant for life. So the question is why would a person ask to become his master’s bondservant? Why would anyone choose to not become free, but choose to stay with his master for life? No one with a good mind would—unless one thing were to happen. A slave refused to go free, and became a bondservant if the master was an exemplary, an extraordinary master. His master was loving, caring, supportive, kind, and yet authoritative, discerning and wise. Only the best of the best masters would their slaves ask to become their bondservants.
When Jude identified himself as a doulos of Jesus Christ, it means he would never go free. He could not say he does not want to be his bondservant any longer. He would remain his bondservant forever. He would die as his master’s bondservant.
Jude had no rights. He turned over all his rights to Christ. He was no longer a visitor in Christ’s home. He was now family.
In the same way only the best of the best masters would their servants seek to become their bondservants, Jude sought to become the bondservant of the Supreme Master. There was no master more superior to Christ. Jude, by himself, was a nobody. But he became important once he became known by who was his master. When Jude became a bondservant of Christ, it was not possible for him to be any more important than who he already was.
Today, when we hear someone say he is a bondservant of someone, we have no understanding. Correction, no one says that to us. But when a person from the 1st century heard someone say he was a bondservant of someone, he knew exactly what it meant. Jude, Paul, and Peter used a word every person understood very well in the 1st century to let people know they were not bondservants of just any great master, but they were bondservants of the living Christ.
If we are honest, we don’t think much about it when we see Jude identify himself as a bondservant of Christ. We quickly read through that part of the letter. We think he was trying to say something nice. We think he was just being humble. Not so. He was saying, “I am important, and I have authority” because of who is my master.
You may not know this, but on the day you said you have understood what is the gospel, you have accepted that the gospel message is the truth, you became a bondservant of Christ. Perhaps we should learn to say to each other we are each Christ’s bondservants. We say to each other all the time we are each a follower of Christ, and we are. But we are also his bondservants. We turned over all our rights to him. We are family. We are important, we have authority, and we will die in his house.