Paul, Bond-Slave to the King! Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul designates his highest office as bond-servant (doulos). He puts that before his office as apostle. Paul calls himself a bond slave of Christ Jesus. The case classification is genitive of possession. The apostle is proud of the fact that he is a slave belonging to his Lord. There were certain individuals in the Roman empire designated "Slaves of the Emperor." This was a position of honor. One finds a reflection of this in Paul's act of designating himself as a slave of the King of kings. He puts this ahead of his apostleship.  You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (ESV) We are not our own, and Paul was proud of that fact. Instead of seeing Christianity as a system of do's and don'ts, he saw it as the privilege of privileges. His was a position of honor. Who you are in life is largely a result of how you see yourself. We tend to value our life on the basis of our job, our possessions, our influence, our friends, our activities. Paul saw his value by Whose he was. He was a servant of the King of Kings. Who are you? When you lay in bed at night, do you fret about your health, the things you need to do, the things you didn't do? If you are a slave of the King of Kings, you have no rights over tomorrow, over your body, over your job. He has total control. There is no need to fret, no need to worry, no need to be concerned. Only the need to praise Him, draw closer to Him, wait patiently upon Him.  He was a slave first, an apostle second. The adjective comes from the verb kaleō, "to call" in the sense here of "to call to assume an office." Paul was a called apostle in the sense that God summoned him to that position and placed him in it Most translations say called to be an apostle, but actually the greek simply says (κλητὸς ἀπόστολος) "kletos apostolos", called apostle. Paul heard the call of Christ on the Damascus Road, and in answering that call and seeing His Savior, he was placed as one of Christ's Apostles. He took the place of the son of perdition-Judas. What enabled the violent, self-possessed Saul to become the slave Apostle of the one he admittedly wanted crucified?  Paul allowed himself to be set apart for the Gospel of God! But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, Galatians 1:15 (ESV) But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. Acts 9:15 (ESV) Paul became a chosen instrument, a chosen vessel for Jesus Christ! Was he forced to comply on the Damascus Road? It may seem that way. Blinded by a strange light, hearing a strange voice-he could have resisted and kept on kicking against the Lord. Or he could have made a profession, but inwardly resented the Jesus. In any case we never would have heard from old Paul again. He would have been a pothole on the pavement of life. But something happened to this fiery little dynamo. All his training, his intelligence, his passion for the Law and the ways of the Jews melted away when he gazed upon the one whom he had been persecuting. Yes, Paul was made to realize that he had not only been maiming and murdering 'Christians', but he had been doing the same to the very Son of God, the Messiah whom he professed to love so much. We can't begin to fathom what the Holy Spirit was doing in those three days after his experience on the road to Damascus. But whatever it was, when Saul gave his life to Jesus Christ, he was changed completely. He was a new man, he was set apart no longer to just Jehovah. He was set apart into the GOSPEL of GOD! (ἀφωρισμένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον Θεοῦ (aphōrismenos eis euangelion Theo). Set Apart Into the Gospel  aphōrismenos (aphorizmo) He was set apart into the Gospel, because the set apart is the word aphoridzo which pictures marking an area with boundaries, with a wall or fence. So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous Matthew 13:49 (ESV) The Gospel of God is a natural divider of man. It will be the divider in the end times. People, you can either believe God or you can chose not to.