Exodus 21:1-6: a reflection

1“Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them: 2“If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything. 3If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. 5But if the servant shall plainly say, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free;’ 6then his master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.

Among the laws about Hebrew servants is a striking provision. A servant was to serve six years and then go free. But if a servant genuinely loved his master and his family, and did not wish to leave, he could choose to stay permanently, and his master would pierce his ear at the doorpost, marking him as a servant forever. The point is the motive: this was not forced servitude but freely chosen, out of love. I love my master, the servant would say; I will not go out free. He bound himself, by choice, out of love.

Notice what made this lifelong service beautiful: it was freely chosen out of love. The servant was free to go; he could have walked away. But love for his master moved him to stay and give himself in lifelong service, not from compulsion but from devotion. His bondage was the fruit of love, freely embraced, a giving of himself to one he loved.

That is a picture of the highest kind of service to God. We can serve God from duty, obligation, or fear; but the deepest service is like this servant's, freely chosen out of love. Paul called himself a bondservant of Christ, one who, though set free, gladly gave himself in lifelong service to the Master he loved. God does not want grudging, forced service, but the free devotion of a heart that says, I love my Master; I will not go free. Serve God not from mere duty or fear, but from love, freely giving yourself to him as one who delights to belong to him. Let your service be the glad, chosen devotion of love, not the reluctant labor of obligation.

Lord, the servant who loved his master could choose to give himself in lifelong service, not from compulsion but from love: I love my master; I will not go out free. Teach me that kind of service to you. Keep me from serving you merely from duty, obligation, or fear. Move me to serve you out of love, freely giving myself to you as one who delights to belong to you, like Paul, who gladly called himself your bondservant. You do not want grudging, forced service, but the free devotion of a heart that loves you. Bind me to you, not by compulsion, but by love, so that I say with the servant, I love my Master; I will not go free. Let my service be the glad devotion of love.