Leading as a Bondservant

I've been leading a men's class on Tuesday nights based on a book by Steve Arterburn and Fred Stoeker titled "Every Woman's Desire." Though I've been the one facilitating our conversations, I've been the benefactor of great insights from the men in this class.

The past couple of classes dealt specifically with biblical leadership, and what that actually looks like. Taking their cue from Exodus 21:2-6, Arterburn and Stoeker argue for a bondservant model of leadership. According to this code, a Hebrew who, due to times of hardship, sells himself into slavery was to be released in the seventh year. If, during his years of servitude, he marries a wife and has children, they actually belong to his master. At the end of sevens years, he then has a choice. The man alone could go free, or decide to remain in slavery with his family. The text reads; "But if the servant declares, 'I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,' then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierve his ear with and awl. Then he will be his servant for life" (v. 5).

While many details of this text raise perplexing questions, heightened by the cultural differences between ancient Israel and contemporary North America, two relevant points stand out. (1) While prevailing circumstances coerced the man initially into slavery, bondservanthood was his choice. (2) The choice of bonservanthood was compelled by his love for his master and his family.

Arterburn and Stoeker, appropriately emphasizing mutual submission in marriage, use this text to underscore the true nature of biblical leadership. They apply the metaphor of "master" to the wife--the one whom the husband has been called to serve (just as Jesus served his bride, the church).

While Arterburn and Stoeker speak relevant truth using this structure, our conversations about this text revealed a subtle, but very important, distinction to their interpretation. The text makes the point that both the man and his family belong to the master. Neither the man nor the wife was "master." They both were owned by the one who purchased them. Therefore, the way he related to his wife and children was dictated by this construct of ownership. The way he treated his family reflected on his relationship to the master. To serve them, then, was an extension of his servitude to his master, whom he loves.

By analogy, we need to keep in mind that we are not our own; we have been bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19). Additionally, the special people in our lives are not ours, they equally belong to another. My wife and children (brothers and sisters in Christ), then, are my master's. To honor him, I must honor them. Biblical leadership, then, does not derive from one's position of power, but from one's recognition of belonging to another. From that position of servanthood, then, derives the biblical concept of leadership. As with Jesus, authority is expressed, not in being served, but in serving and giving one's life for others (Matthew 20:20-28; John 13:1-5). Such is the overarching paradigm for all leadership...in the home and the church. May God grant us true leaders who understand this basic biblical principle!