Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The 'Cover-Up': What It Really Means to Be a Christian


The truth is, to be a Christian is to be a slave of Christ, according to an evangelical author.

That may not sit well with a lot of people, especially in America where the image of slavery is undoubtedly ugly and regrettable. But John MacArthur suggests in his new book Slave that it's the most accurate way of truly understanding what it means to be a Christ follower.

The image of a slave, however, has escaped many Christians today, likely because of what MacArthur argues are mistranslations of the New Testament.

The Greek word for slave is doulos and it appears 124 times in the original text, he said, citing Murray J. Harris' Slave of Christ. But almost every modern English translation has substituted the term with the softer "servant."

"Ironically, the Greek language has at least half a dozen words that can mean servant. The word doulos is not one of them," he said, again quoting Harris.

MacArthur, considered one of the most influential evangelicals in the country, came upon this discovery just a few years ago, though he has been studying Scripture for more than half a century.

To read more, click here.

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