Murray J. Harris - Slave of Christ: A New Testament Metaphor for Total Devotion to Christ

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New Studies in Biblical Theology is a series of monographs that address key issues in the discipline of biblical theology. Contributions to the series focus on one or more of three areas: 1. the nature and status of biblical theology, including its relations with other disciplines (e.g., historical theology, exegesis, systematic theology, historical criticism, narrative theology); 2. the articulation and exposition of the structure of thought of a particular biblical writer or corpus; and 3. the delineation of a biblical theme across all or part of the biblical corpora.

Above all, these monographs are creative attempts to help thinking Christians understand their Bibles better. The series aims simultaneously to instruct and to edify, to interact with the current literature, and to point the way ahead. In Gods universe, mind and heart should not be divorced: in this series we will try not to separate what God has joined together. While the notes interact with the best of the scholarly literature, the text is uncluttered with untransliterated Greek and Hebrew, and tries to avoid too much technical jargon. The volumes are written within the framework of confessional evangelicalism, but there is always an attempt at thoughtful engagement with the sweep of the relevant literature.

This volume by Professor Murray Harris combines the meticulous scholarship for which he is known, and the careful unpacking of a biblical theme that is widely neglected. Doubtless the Wests involvement in slavery in centuries past has contributed to our reluctance to perceive what Professor Harris has made obvious: very often when our English translations speak of servant, the Greek writers are thinking of a slave. But serious Christians will not be satisfied with a cloak of euphemisms. They will want to grasp, so far as they are able, what the biblical writers were saying to their first readers. Professor Harriss study probes not only the linguistic matters but the historical, legal and social contexts that defined slavery in the first century and he does this in service to his careful and probing delineation of what it means to be a slave of Christ.