Servant First

“Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, …” (2 Peter 1:1)

I once heard a seminary professor say to “always look at the greeting” in the Epistles of Scripture.  How the apostles addressed their audience was important.  Reading the Apostle Peter’s second letter recently, I noticed this – he identified himself first by name, then identified himself a servant, then an apostle.  To truly understand what a revolutionary idea this was, we need to first look at the context and the culture of that day.  Human beings were not considered of equal value in the Roman culture in those times. 

Women and children had virtually no rights, and as such were often used and abused.  Men had all the rights, and within the men themselves, there was a class structure and strictly adhered to hierarchy.   Men even decided whether children lived or died.  After the birth of a baby, the midwife would place the baby on the ground.  If the father picked the baby up, it signaled that the baby was accepted into the household, but if he did not pick the baby up, the baby was taken to the outskirts of the town and left to die.  This frequently happened to female babies or a baby with some type of deformity.  Early Christians would often rescue these children, reinforcing the idea that every life had value, every life was made in the image of God. 

The thought that in the matter of salvation, there is “no male or female in Christ” was also quite an unorthodox concept (Galatians 3:28).  The idea that husbands were commanded to love their wives “as Christ loved the Church and gave his life for her” (Ephesians 5:25), would have been a belief that was totally contrary to ideas about marriage, where men had all the power. 

It is into this culture that Christianity seeped and then began to percolate.  The Christian idea of equality and value of every human being began to spread, eventually becoming “baked in” to the foundations of the West.  So, back to Peter – who identifies himself as a servant first.  Over and over in Scripture we are reminded to humble ourselves, first before God, and then before each other.

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you” (1Peter 5:6).  

The Apostle Paul instructs us to, “Submit yourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21).

“The greatest among you shall be your servant,” says Jesus (Matthew 23:11).

When Peter began his letter the way he did, I wonder if he was thinking about the time Jesus took on the role of servant and washed his disciples’ feet.  When you are at someone’s feet, you are in the lowest possible position before them.  Feet are also the part of the body that come in contact with the earth, the part of the body that presumably gets the dirtiest.  When we take on the role of servant, sometimes we have to get our hands dirty, to be exposed to the muck and the mire.  Being a servant is being willing to do that. 

With the title of Apostle came power – the power that Jesus gave the twelve to heal and cast out demons and care for “The Church,” his Bride.   

Peter chose to put the “servant” descriptor before the Apostle title.

May we follow his example.