Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host of The Daily Challenges and today is Tuesday, so it’s the day we take the topic we’ve explored this week and we try to see what the Bible has to say about. Yesterday I talked about how following Jesus means a reset to everything in life, including our attitudes around our work. That can be hard because work is such an overwhelming aspect of our lives. It can drive so much of what we do and say in life. We spend most of our waking time working. Even if it’s unpaid work, it’s still work that we find ourselves engaged in day to day. We need a sense of how do followers of Jesus see work a little differently than others. It’s going to come from an unlikely source. It comes from a letter than Paul wrote to Christians in a city called Colosse. It’s called the letter to the Colossians and as part of that letter, directly addressed what he called bond servants.

Here’s what he had to say. Bond servants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service, as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, hearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your bond servants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. Well, bond servants isn’t really a term we use very much today. For us, it’s probably analogous to employees, but back then, bond servants were sort of a blend of what we would know as employees and what we would call slaves today. It’s hard because slavery has changed over the centuries.

When we think of slavery in our culture, we generally think of North American slavery and the horrors and oppression of that mode of slavery. No kind of slavery is all right, but we just want to understand a little bit of the culture that Paul was writing to. It was a culture where slavery was very much a reality. It may have been an unquestioned reality for people. It was just the way of the world worked. What Paul does is he undermines a little bit. He subverts it. You can hear him speaking directly to the bond servants, the slaves. Those who, for one reason or another, found themselves wholly owned by someone else. What he does is he tells them they are not wholly owned, even though that’s what it may say on paper, even though that’s what people may assume in their culture.

Those who happen to be followers of Jesus are being told directly by one of Jesus’ first followers, one of his apostles, that they are not wholly owned by their earthly masters. He distinguishes between the earthly masters and their Heavenly Master. They are actually wholly owned by their Creator, by God. Although in this world, the kingdom of this world, there maybe people who think they wholly own other human beings, they are not. Can you imagine the freedom that comes from knowing you are not wholly owned when everybody you know thinks you are and when the legal system thinks you are wholly owned by someone else. Imagine the freedom that that gives to someone in a system that oppresses them, knowing that they are free.

Now, unfortunately, this passage and others like it, have been used to condone horrific abusive forms of slavery like those we’ve seen in North America in the last few centuries. Those need to be condemned and they have been condemned by Christians. Unfortunately, there are those who have found in the Bible words that they could twist and use to justify terrible crimes. That’s happened. It continues to happen and Christians need to continue to read the Bible as a whole to wrestle with God’s words in the whole of the Bible about the dignity of human beings and speak out when that kind of oppression happens at all and especially when it’s justified using the words of the Bible twisted for people’s selfish gain. One of the biggest hints that this passage can’t really be used to condone slavery where people are wholly owned and abused and oppressed is that Paul addresses his passage to the bond servants and to the slave owners. What he wants the slave owners to know is that they need to remember the dignity in every human being. That those who work for them are not wholly owned by them. Those slave owners will have to answer to God some day because He is the one who created us all and who owns everything on this earth including the atoms that we were put together with. They are all His and although we have care of it for a time, what we could call stewardship, like an investment advisor takes care of somebody’s money, we take care of God’s creation.

We need to remember that we are not our own and we are especially not in any position to own and control and abuse another human being. He wants both slave owners and the bond servants to have the same attitude of seeking out first the kingdom of God where all humans have equal dignity, where all humans are equal in the sight of God, where all humans have a responsibility to care for one another, to be generous with one another. There is a lot of great material in this passage, obviously, and it’s culturally hard for us to catch because it does speak about bond servants and slave owners and that’s hard for us to understand today. Tomorrow we’re going to try to enlighten what this has to do with our modern working life. In the meantime, I want you to try to think about that. Your question for today, which I hope you’ll share with others, maybe start a little discussion group, is this, what might this say to employees today? Is there any way that we, today, can be owned by our work?

Well, I hope you have a great discussion. This one is certainly a topic that can get people going, so I really hope you do share this with somebody. Remember, we’re reading the Bible in sync as a community. If you’ve been following us for a little while, make sure you’re reading our daily Bible passage as well. It’s just another way that our community tries to stay in sync even though we’re not meeting together in person very often. We can continue learning to follow Jesus as one community in scattered mode so our gathered mode is all the more exciting when it happens. Have a great day. I will see you tomorrow.

Read the Bible in Sync Today

Ryan Sim - April 28, 2014

Monday - 2014 Status Update - Growth in Discipleship

Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host for the daily challenges. Normally, we follow a weekly rhythm that helps us explore a different topic, and how following Jesus impacts that topic. This week’s going to be a little different. We’re going to be taking an opportunity to just see where we are as a community. Now, you probably know us as a mobile app and website for busy commuters, but we’re also trying to become a church community. As we explore what it means to follow Jesus as individual people engaged in a busy lifestyle, we want to make sure that we’re not completely disconnected from one another, and that even though we’re usually quite scattered as a community, we want to take time to gather as well. As a gathered community, we want to make sure that we are committed to some of the same things in common. That’s why through this week, this week alone, it’s going to be kind of a special week. We’re going to be looking at each of the things our community is committed to one by one, and see how we’re doing as a community, by hearing the stories of individuals who are a part of our growing online community or our in-person courses who are seeing their lives changed. We hope that will inspire you to see some transformation in your own life as well. Now, the five things that we’re committed to as a community start with being committed to growth in discipleship. We have some common content to learn together. We also want to be committed to God in worship, committed to generosity in our resources, committed to grace in our lifestyles and witness, and finally, committed to groups and community. We’re going to be looking at each of those points one by one this week. Today, the Monday, we’re going to start by looking at growth in discipleship. Each day, we’re going to tell you the story of somebody, a real person, who is in one of our courses as a community or engaging in our online content. The firs story we have is about somebody who came to us through our Christianity one on one course. After having discovered it online, and taken a few of the courses through the app, she decided that she wanted to come and try that in person when we offered a course in Whitby last fall. After the course was over, she met with me for coffee, and told me that she decided to do something really important in her life. Back when she was in her early 20s, she decided that she was an atheist. She very publically cut all ties that she had to the church, to her family’s Christian faith and to God himself. She made it very clear that she was an atheist now. She said after taking the Christianity 101 course, she decided she wasn’t an atheist anymore, and is looking for a way to make that public, just as public as she made her atheism back in her 20s. What happened? What made her say those words and decide to take public action declaring such a significant change? Why would she go back on her words like that, and risk the embarrassment of letting everybody know that she was wrong? Well, as a follower of Jesus, I believe that it’s the Holy Spirit who can grab hold of our hearts, and transform them to be open to hearing the good news of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit works behind the scenes, and sometimes very publically, in this kind of transformation in a story like the one I just told you. I’m sure the particular content of our courses had some impact, but through it all, the Holy Spirit was guiding, and directing, and teaching, and helping just open her ears to hear the good news, and opening her heart to actually be transformed by it. The Holy Spirit is behind every story of transformation that we hear from in the Bible or in life today. The Holy Spirit uses all sorts of resources in his work. That includes things like routine and just learning some habits of discipleship. One of those that we use in our community is this daily, weekly rhythm of discipleship that our daily challenges follow. Every Monday, we introduce a new idea. Every Tuesday, we study the Bible. Every Wednesday, we allow it to grab our hearts and transform us in some way. If we’re trying to live differently on Thursday, and Friday is our day of reflection, this whole rhythm and routine comes from the way monks and nuns used to order their lives as a community. Even if they were a part, even if they were traveling, they knew they were in sync with the rest of their community because they had this regular rhythm of prayer and learning that they were engaged in, whether they were gathered or in scattered mode. Now, the story I told you today is just one story that I happen to know because I met her in person, but there have got to be other amazing stories out there. What’s your story? We know that the mobile app for Redeem the Commute has been installed on mobile phones and tablets over 1,200 times. We know that hundreds of you are using and accessing our content each month. We’d love to hear from you and hear your story. How is God speaking to you? How is God’s Holy Spirit working in your heart, in and through the rhythm we’ve developed as a community, or through the content that you’ve been hearing, or watching or reading on Redeem the Commute? Well, I’d love to hear your story. There are a number of ways you can communicate that. One, come out and meet me at the Coffee Hours, or check the app or website live events listings to see when our next Coffee Hours are. It’s a great opportunity to just connect with me, tell me what you’ve been experiencing, see if I can have any help or advice for you. Another way would be to fill in some of the one-question surveys we’ve got going on right now. When you open the app, it’s going to be asking you a simple question. I’d love to hear your answer because we’re trying to get a bit of a read on our community, our people being transformed by the contents that they’re hearing. We’d love to hear what you’ve learned, and what questions you still have to see if I can help you find answers to any of those questions still. We’d love to hear if this is content that you’re hearing and exploring for the first time in your life, or maybe if you’ve explored Christianity before, and you’re just looking at it in a new way at a later point in your life. We’re not trying to become a church community that gathers together people from other churches. We truly want to become a community of people who are exploring Christian faith for the first time, and those who are committed to helping other have that kind of experience. We’d love to know if you’ve been part of a church community before, or if maybe this is your first time being part of a church community, outside of maybe attending a wedding or a funeral. Each day in this one-week series, we’re going to have a challenge for you to take on. Like I said, we’ve got some one-question surveys going on right now, where you can answer all those questions at once in the survey that you’ll find at the bottom of today’s challenge posting. Please, answer some questions for us. Tell us how we’re doing in developing as a community of people learning to follow Jesus, and how we can help you take the next step. Make sure you leave your email address, so we can follow up if you’d like a bit of coaching. Have a great time putting that into practice. If you are working with a group of people who are learning alongside you, maybe share with them your answers to the survey questions that we’ve put at the bottom of today’s post. Well, have a great discussion. Don’t forget, we’re reading the Bible in sync as a community. The way to really get connected in our community would be to take our parenting course that we’re offering just at the end of April. It’s going to be held at the Ajax Public Library, and costs just $50. It includes a delicious dinner each night for five weeks. You can find more information in the live event listings in the app or website. I hope to see you there. Bye for now.

Related Topics: Discipleship, Growth | More Messages from Ryan Sim | Download Audio

From Series: "Status Update"

Ryan shares some stories from Redeem the Commute users, and looks for feedback from others.

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