John MacArthur’s latest, Slave: The Hidden Truth About Your Identity in Christ 
To be a slave is to have a single aim in life, to please the Master. MacArthur notes that for the New Testament, Jesus “is the Master and Owner. We are His possession. He is the King, the Lord, and the Son of Go. We are His subjects and His subordinates.”
To become a slave of Jesus means being dislodged from networks of identity and placed into a new defining relation. MacArthur quotes a historian who says “Like a slave, the convert experienced the violent psychological force of personal upheaval, the social dishonor of turning away from one’s family and traditional culture, and the natal alienation of losing one’s whole past identity – getting a new name, having to learn a new language and worldview, and forming new kinship relations.”
To be a slave is to be confident that you will have all you need from the Master. He quotes another historian:
“The material life of the slave in the Roman world, as in later slave societies, was determined . . . by the degree of responsibility with which the master met his (or her) material obligations to the slave . . . . In comparison with the free poor, therefore, slaves may often have been a something of a material advantage: given that they were to some degree provided for, they must in many cases have enjoyed a security in their lives that the free poor could never have known.”
To be a slave of a great Master was to be in a place of privilege.
Though MacArthur doesn’t develop it much, the notion that “Christians” ( Christianoi ) were those who belonged to Christ contained a political theology, contrasting with the members of Caesar’s household who considered themselves Kaisarianoi .
Despite two chapters on “from slaves to sons,” I wonder if MacArthur gives enough attention to the “no longer slaves but friends” thread of Jesus’ teaching. Even when he talks about sonship, it is more in terms of the blessing of being in God’s family (which is great, of course) and less on the fact that the King’s sons are princes who share in His rule, sons whom the Father consults and relies upon. Further, his discussion of sonship turns into a brief on perseverance that ignores the apostasy passages of the New Testament.
All in all, Slave is a punchy books that resurrects an important biblical theme.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
