21 ¶ He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at the length.
Matthew Henry and John Gill had this meaning that if you treat a servant too kindly and give him an easy life he will start acting like your child and eventually will not think of himself as a servant. However, there are some interesting verses in the Bible that one could easily link to this one for a slightly different outlook.
Galatians 4:1 ¶ Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; 2 But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. 3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: 4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Therefore, under the Law, and to the Pharisees among my fundamentalist brethren, under your strict and unyielding convictions of how one ought to dress and behave, and even vote, we are servants but under grace we become sons, or children. Saved mankind goes from being a servant to being a son as God moves from the harshness of the Law to the nurturing and admonition of grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Even more so, the duties of a man toward His Maker go from being outward in the flesh and human will to being inward in a changed heart, a born again spirit, and being moved by the Holy Ghost. God has delicately brought us up. If we submit to His words in His Bible He will gently change our hearts, our dispositions, our likes and dislikes, and what we think of as our needs. I am not saying that salvation isn’t accomplished all at once when we are born again by faith and trust in Christ, but the process of being set apart for God’s use, sanctification, does take us from a servant to a child.
Do you obey God as a servant or as His child? I believe that you should go to church as often as you are able given the exigencies of health, distance, work, financial ability, and family responsibilities to worship and to spend time with your brothers and sisters in Christ. But, why do you go? Why are you there? Are you there because of duty to a demanding master or because of the affection you feel for a loving father? Do you go because that’s just what Christians do or do you go because you feel drawn to it as a child is drawn to be with those whom he or she loves? Where are you in your Christian life? Still only a servant or more, a child of God?
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