Last week in Solo Por Hoy, we started to walk through the book of James verse by verse. I have felt the need to do this in my personal life for some time and thought it might also be helpful for some of the guys as well. As I prepared for this weeks’ lesson, I stopped after reading the first verse of chapter 1 where James mentions being a servant to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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I decided to dig into that a bit further today and this is the lesson that I will be sharing tonight:

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (James 1:1)

A servant is defined as a person who is working in the service of another. In another version (NASB) it uses the term “bondservant”. A bondservant is someone who is bound to another as a servant. It is a picture of the servants’ close ties with his master. He belongs to him. He is obligated to him and he wants to do his will. The will of the bondservant is consumed by the will of the master. A bondservant willingly devotes himself to his master. This is not a forced relationship. It was often a choice or an agreement.

Here in the first sentence of James’ letter we see him defining who he is. He is stating his status and that is that he is a servant or a bondservant of God. He is saying that he has fully surrendered to God and to his will. James understood that as a person who has been redeemed his life was no longer his own.

“…for you were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20)

“You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.” (1 Corinthians 7:23)

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for w many.” (Mark 10:45)

In Mark, we see James and Paul’s motivation for writing these verses. The one they followed – the one they were bondservants to – is stating that he came to serve, not to be served. James is saying that he is the property of his Lord, Jesus Christ – the one who when he was on earth was his half-brother. He doesn’t even mention this fact in the introduction of his letter. This dedication was important to James – more important than status or the opinions of others. If I was writing this letter I would have no doubt mentioned the fact that Jesus – the savior of the world, the son of God himself – was my half-brother.

Another reason James mentions this word – servant or bondservant – is to make the connection between his life before and after Christ. Before Christ, he was a slave to sin. But Christ reached into his life and rescued him from death and separation from God so now he had dedicated his life to Christ.

We are all servants to someone or something even if we don’t realize it. That someone or something either brings us life or brings us death. If we are not a servant to one, then we are a servant to the other. The questions James is presenting his readers are the same questions being presented to us – what are you a servant of and does this master bring you life or does it bring you death?