Personal Identification

When we read the Scripture, we are often reading words read on a previous reading.  Unlike other books, the Scripture is read not once, but many times.  As we begin such a reading, it is easy to race deeper into the text that is unfolding so that we can get to the important part, or the part we anticipate reading.  This lends to not paying attention to what is on the page in front of us.  Of course, this phenomena of not paying attention is practiced in many other parts of our life so it is a deeply ingrained pattern.   

If we carry this deeply ingrained pattern with us in our reading of the letter Paul wrote to the Romans we miss an important word.  The letter begins with a word of personal identification on the part of the Apostle as he began his letter with the words, "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ..."  (Romans 1:1)  To read the other letters of the New Testament is to see that such a beginning formula is not uncommon or unusual.  When we learned to write letters, we learned to put our name at the end instead of the beginning, but normal was different in Paul's first century world.   

So upfront he tells those who read that he is Paul.  This means he is the one once known as Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of those who followed Christ.  And secondly, he is a servant of Christ.  Actually, the more correct rendering of the Greek word translated servant is "slave."  The word "servant" is more palatable than "slave."   A slave lives to do the bidding and the pleasure of the master.  The slave lives under the authority of the master.  The slave has nothing except the fact of belonging to the master.  Paul had chosen to live in such submission to Christ and if we walk deep enough into Romans, we hear such as call as well.