Question 1.
How does Webster define who we are?
I suppose you all are feeling pretty good about yourselves by now. You probably answered most of the questions correctly from our recently completed little exercise on perspective. That’s great. We certainly don’t want to damage your self esteem. However, now that we know who we are, let’s probe a little deeper. Over the next several weeks I want us to look at the nature of our job and its responsibilities, our relationship with the master, what we are like, what’s expected of us, our instructions, accountability (uh oh), etc. As I am sitting here trying to think how to introduce this next exercise, it just dawned on me that what we are going to do is develop a job description for ourselves. In your previous life (the one you lived between your first and second birth) you probably had a (secular) job description. Most companies-agencies-organizations/etc. write job descriptions for employees before they begin recruiting candidates and conducting interviews. Well what I have found is that the Bible contains a really good description of our new job in this new life.
Let’s begin by simply looking at what Webster (or other dictionary authors) says about stewards, slaves and servants. As an aside, I read somewhere recently that Webster was a born-again believer and he wrote the dictionary to help people understand the words God chose to use in His book. I don’t know if that’s true but it’s an interesting thought. Anyway, I want you to go get your dictionary now.
STEWARD: _____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SERVANT: ______________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SLAVE: _____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Do you notice any similarities among these definitions? How are they alike? How are they different? The Bible uses these words a lot and somewhat interchangeably. I started counting but when I got up over 600, I quit.