Slaves to righteousness
Day 559, Saturday, Feb. 21
Romans 6:15-23
Our understanding of slavery is shaped by American history, where the enslaved person was forced into their condition through capture or birth, so discussion of offering oneself as a slave is foreign to us.
While there were slaves in Paul’s day who were born or captured into it, there was also some mobility into and out of slavery. A financially desperate person could sell himself into slavery or fall into it by taking on debt that could not be repaid. Sometimes people could buy themselves out of slavery. Some could attain a better life as slaves than they could as free persons.
We can understand much of Paul’s teaching on slavery to sin by looking at less literal forms of slavery where it is entered into, if not voluntarily, at least partially as a consequence of voluntary actions. We often compare addiction to slavery. The same comparison can be made to debt, bad relationships, bad work situations, immoral living or any situation we perceive as keeping us from making free choices.
We have choices about who and what to follow, and those choices have consequences. “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?”

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Saturday meditation

Psalms 81:6-16
“I removed the burden from their shoulders; their hands were set free from the basket. In your distress you called and I rescued you, I answered you out of a thundercloud; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Hear me, my people, and I will warn you—if you would only listen to me, Israel! You shall have no foreign god among you; you shall not worship any god other than me. I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.
“But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.
“If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes! Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

Prayer focus
Free us, Lord, for righteousness and obedience.