Slave or Servant : Which one are you?

Mohammedans believe that they are slaves of God, which I believe was a word used to demonstrate their total obedience and humility to Allah. Christians believe that on a minimum, we are servants of God. To add insult to the injury, by the specially crafted and divinely arranged amazing grace of our Lord and Saviour Yeshua Hamashiach, we also believe that we are not just servants of God but equally children of God, which Muslims find as heresy and extremely blasphemous. From the lens of a layman, being a slave or a servant might mean the same thing. In all trueness, both words shows that someone (a lesser and inferior being) is subservient to another bigger, stronger, wealthier, smarter, mightier and greater being. This post is not to mock or abuse the other faith, or cause strife when truly there is no need for one. The intent of this post is to do a check on which of the stances are right, and why the Christian disposition might be more conducive for a greater present-life and afterlife experience. Thus providing adequate information to support our decision-making process.

Let me start with the story of the servant (Matthew 8v8-12) who was so sick but yet loved by his master that his master had to collect data, get up and painstakingly searched for Jesus Christ with the sole purpose of securing his healing. The question to ask here is, would the centurion have done the same thing for a slave? Which provides an avenue for a definition review of what it means to be a slave versus being a servant.

According to the online dictionary definition, a slave is defined in term of a noun and a verb. If you are expecting a pronoun then you are almost already enslaved to the system of the descendants of the fallen angels.

As a noun, a slave 
   1.a person who is forced to work for and obey another and is considered to be their property; an enslaved person.
   2.a device, or part of one, directly controlled by another.

As a verb, a slave is to: 
   1.work excessively hard.
   2.subject (a device) to control by another.

Meanwhile, according to the same Oxford dictionary, a servant is only defined as a noun (once again no pronouns), as a person who performs duties for others, especially a person employed in a house on domestic duties or as a personal attendant.
Additionally, as a person employed in the service of a government. Or a devoted and helpful follower or supporter.

From the above stated definitions, one commonality between a slave and a servant is that both are engaged in the service of a master. Tasked with duties based on the need of their master. By comparing these two definitions, we can observe two distinguishing factors. These are:

   1.we can clearly see that a slave can be a person (noun) or a thing (verb). Meanwhile, a servant is always a person.
   2.From the definition, we can also observe some differences in reward or expectation of rewards between those two people. Slaves are not rewarded financially for their efforts, safe for the food (leftovers, crumbs and swine food) they eat and the tattered rags they put on. The expectation of reward could result in execution like a poultry commodity. Meanwhile, servants are otherwise called hirelings, meaning they are obliged to fair trade and financial rewards, because by law (divine and human) a labourer is worthy of his wage (I Tim 5v18).

Other glaring differences are :
   1.Slaves are expendable (despite their numerous size, they are nothing but commodities, grossly lacking in quality of knowledge and relationship to their master), slaves are ignorable (irrespective of their wealth of knowledge they are nothing but mere nonentities, and dares not speak unless asked to speak, even when asked to speak, the depth of their speech is limited to the master's benevolence.
   2.Despite born with a name, slaves are not known by name, only by numbers. But servants are known and called by their names (Isaiah 43v1). A perfect example about this is the slavery that ravaged the African continents, during a trip to the gold Coast in Ghana, you would discover that the demand was too high for the slave traders that they didn't even have enough food to offer their enslaved dark-skinned distant cousins, not to talk of noting the names of the ill-termed illiterates who couldn't read or write alphabetically disregarding and destroying their transgenerational tête-à-tête knowledge transfer system. 
   3.Slaves cannot be trusted with weapons. Abraham chose 318 servants and not slaves (Gen 14v14-16), because slaves can easily betray you for their freedom. The loyalty of a slave are as reliable as pulling a car with a thread of cotton. Such a slavish mentality was what nominated Judas Iscariot as the recipient of the award of betrayal after Lucifer and his minions.
   4.Inheritance: a slave have no inheritance. A servant (steward) not a slave almost inherited Abraham's hard-earned money (Gen 15v2). For by some unknown laws a servant can also share in the inheritance of his or her master. 
   5.Slaves are limited in terms of involvement or engagement. Abraham sent his servant to go find a wife for his son (Gen 24). Slaves cannot be sent the errand of a son for his quality orientation is of subpar level. If Abraham had sent a slave to find a wife for his son, I don't think he or she would have been diligent to the requirements or the quality expectations of their master. They might be so lazy to go to the exact land which Abraham asked them to go.
   6.Ownership and the sense of ownership. Slaves have owners, servants have masters. Slaves are owned and directed to deliver whatever whenever summoned, thus having no sense of ownership for their efforts. Meanwhile, servants are trained to produce quality outputs befitting his expectation of rewards. Thus can take pride in their labour. 
   7.Based on historical proofs, slaves are pronouns branded with the logo or brand-name of their owners. 
   8.Relationship with the master. Both slaves and servants have masters. Alarmingly so, a master that owns a slave can also have in his service a servant. The different as mentioned earlier is the arrangement of reward and the relationship with the master. Based on the depiction of the centurion in the book of Matthew, the relationship between the centurion and his servant warranted him to go all length to seek his healing. I repeat again, would he have engaged in such trip for a slave? 
   9.Offspring : Yes! A slave and a servant are both fertile and can both expand their family nomenclature. However, the offspring of a slave would be born into slavery and subservient servitude (talking about generational curse or the mistakes of the fathers), as the property and disposables of the master. While the offspring of a servant are born frees. 
   10.Citizenship and Protection: Slaves are not citizens of the land of their masters. In short, their sense of citizenry is in the past, and whatever is left would soon be erased by the lashes of the slave master. In addition, slaves are not protected by any laws. Laws are developed to protect servants and not slaves. I know in our day, there are several anti-slavery laws and fictitious laws to protect slaves or deter the emergence of such occurrence. However, if the recent slavery issue in regions held by ISIS and other terrorists, Libya and Mauritania is anything to go by, then we can boldly say that slaves are not protected by any laws except the laws of servitude outlined by their masters.

As mentioned in the word of God that there is hope for a dead tree for at the scent of water it will spring again. Therefore, there is also hope for a slave to be truly liberated. Looking at the journey of Joseph, which was divinely choreographed to illustrate to us earthlings that until one gives up, no condition is truly permanent. Joseph was born a prince with a colourful garment, which in today's English means golden spoon or golden stool as royalties in the Ghanaian culture have. He was betrayed and sold into slavery, bought by smart businessmen, advertised on the slave e-commerce platform, sold to the highest bidder on the slave auction, and taken home by Potiphar in an environment-polluting and destiny-degrading plastic bag of shame. However, by providence and excellent spirit which emanated from his royal upbringing, he was set apart to lead other slaves, although as a slave (the blind leading the blind). All his efforts as a slave meant he was never rewarded, except for the rags he wore and the perfectly un-square meals he received daily. After his promotion to the role of ‘the blind leading the blind,’ came the jezebel in her master's wife, whose role was too shameful that her name was blotted out in the Bible. Her wicked request engendered a sharp decline of Joseph's stock price in the stock market of slavery. Once again, the spirit of excellence in him was so much that the spirit of servitude and slavery couldn't hold him bound. More reason why we must teach and train our children in the way that they should grow, for when they grow up they will not depart from it (Prov 22v6). Though Joseph was physically robbed off of his coat of many colours, it was a little too late for his destiny to be deprived and derailed, because he already had the coat of many colours in his spirit and soul. Thus affirming Gal 6v17, from henceforth, let nobody trouble me for I bear in my body the mark of the Lamb of God. Boldly imprinted on Joseph was an excellent spirit, and history based on the word of God and archeological findings in Egypt proved that of a surety a slave after several phases of trials could sit on the seat of royalty led by divinity to save humanity.

To cap this post, a slave or servant, which one are you? The intent of this post is to inform us all that if you are presently a slave, you don't have to die as a slave. If you are a servant, you can also move to the realm of sonship. As for me and my house we have chosen to be servants of God, hence children of God, and hence joint heir with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Shalom aleichem brothers and sisters.

Babasile Daniel I