Some burning questions

Hi! I usually aim for something light and hopeful in this column, but this subject weighed on my heart even before the recent news about a Florida church's controversial plan to burn the holy book of another religion. For comment on that, I commend a column by Christian author and pastor James Watkins: http://www.jameswatkins.com/toptentopten.htm#5.
Now, my thoughts....

The magazine’s cover photo is compelling: a woman in Laos cradling her charred Bible. The accompanying story in the September 2010 Voice of the Martyrs explained how villagers who opposed her faith ransacked her home for Christian materials and burned them.

This is not a feel-good magazine. It’s full of reports of people paying dearly for being Christians. This woman is from the Khmu tribe, considered the original inhabitants of Laos but called by other Laotians the khu, a condescending term that means “slave.”

Even though the world looks down on slaves, the Bible exalts slavery as symbolic of living for Christ. The Greek word doulos, which means “slave,” is found more than a hundred times in the most authoritative Greek manuscripts, many times referring to Christians.

Hold on with me. This will get a little technical, but you’ll be glad you did. Translation is a complicated science. Even within language families, the variations and rules are diverse. For example, we might look at the sky and say, “See the bird.” But go a few more layers. What is its specie? How is it flying? Is it male or female and in a certain cycle of life? Would you need the specific word, for example, that names a male red-winged blackbird that soars in mid-sky but is now chirping in the cattails for a female to mate with? Some languages can get that picky.

While serving with another mission group years ago, I remember hearing of a well-meaning but naive elderly woman who wanted to help Bible translation efforts among tribal groups. She said if they’d just send her the dictionary for a language, she’d sit down and translate from her beloved English-language Bible. It just doesn’t work that way. Languages have different grammar rules and layers of words for concepts.

That’s especially true in translating New Testament Greek into English. The King James Version, for example, uses only one word, “servant,” for several very different Greek words, depriving us of a deeper understanding of the text. Some words it translates “servant”:
*diakonos--one who serves or ministers (like the helpers who drew water in John 2’s water-to-wine miracle).
*therapon—derived from therapeuo (“to serve, to heal”—origin of our word “therapy”) and considered a term of dignity and freedom, used only once of Moses, faithful as a servant of God (Hebrew 3:5).
*huperetes—an “under-rower, underling” (like the high priest’s guards in Mark 14).
*oiketes—a “house-servant” (“a servant can’t serve two masters”--Luke 16:13).
*doulos—one who serves under bondage, a slave. Doulos comes from the verb deo, which means “to bind, be in bounds, knit, tie or wind,” and used of those bought for a price. The closest words in English are “slave,” “bondman,” or “bondservant,” all used in newer translations. The First Century doulos held a lowly position, serving completely at the will of the master. Its frequent use in the New Testament reflects how slaves comprised half the population of the Roman world.
The Voice of the Martyrs article suggested that the first translators of the New Testament (from Greek to Latin) toned down the shocking term “slave” for the more socially acceptable “servant." Even today, servant is a more pleasant term, making us think of Fifi the laundress, Helen the cook, or Jeeves the chauffeur.

But doulos-servanthood is more intense, costly, even darker, a difference you won’t catch unless you read a Greek New Testament or do a word study. It’s also the role believers assume in love for Christ, who paid the price for them on Calvary. In the Upper Room before His crucifixion, Jesus told the disciples to expect persecution, as no servant (doulos, or slave) is greater than his Master (John 15:20). In many of his letters, the apostle Paul referred to himself as “Paul, a doulos of Christ Jesus.”

For the Khmus, persecution is losing homes, being beaten, having Bibles burned. Asked how they felt about that, they said their persecution is just what Jesus said would happen in the Bible, and their suffering proves He is God.

What more can I say, except ask if my faith hears the call to be a doulos for Christ?