Help with Greek & Romans 1:1

[Nelka]

Romans 1:1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.

My Protestant friend says that his Bible reads slave and not servant.

The word Doulos?

He uses this word in his double predestination that a slave has been purchased and therefore has no choice. I believe it to be servant but would like to know the Greek word. Also if it does mean slave is it the old school meaning, that of a servant or what we think of as modern slavery?

Thanks.

 

[patrick457]

Romans 1:1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.

My Protestant friend says that his Bible reads slave and not servant.

The word Doulos?

He uses this word in his double predestination that a slave has been purchased and therefore has no choice. I believe it to be servant but would like to know the Greek word. Also if it does mean slave is it the old school meaning, that of a servant or what we think of as modern slavery?

Thanks.

Yes, doulos does mean a ‘slave’, a ‘bondman’. Not ‘slave’ as in the Southern plantation sense, but in the ancient Mediterranean sense: someone who was not a free citizen (an eleutheros) - a non-person even - and owned as property by another. Your friend is right about the connotation of this word - Paul calls himself a slave of, owned by the Lord - but IMHO he’s wrong to draw out any idea of double predestination from it.

(If you are going to say ‘servant’ without those connotations of ownership you have other words: diakonos. Doulos is the more stronger word of these two: a diakonos is just an assistant, free to come and go; but a doulos is indefinitely the property of the master unless of course freed or bought its freedom.)

 

[BartholomewB]

Greek had several different words for servant, employee, worker, or laborer, apparently reflecting the varying degrees of social status which were important in Greek society. Apart from doulos and diakonos, which Patrick has mentioned, there were at least three other terms: ergates, thes, and therapon. Ergates is the word Jesus uses in Matt 20, the parable of the workers in the vineyard. As far as I can see, I don’t think the other two are found anywhere in the NT. In Greece, therapon was a servant or employee who was attached full-time to a household, while thes was a laborer who was paid by the day.

With such a wide choice of terminology, Paul obviously meant what he said when he chose to describe himself as a slave, which is the exact meaning of doulos.

 

[ferdinanddoblon]

Our retreat master explained that doulos is greek word of slave. Although a slave in a sense is a property of his master and have no rights it is not appropriate to conclude Rom 1:1 as proof for double predestination that the person have no right to decide. The Doulos is a freed slave by his Master but freely waive his freedom to be bonded for a lifetime with his Master. Thus other translation use Bondservant. As a sign he or she (I don’t know if applied to females) wears an earing. Does our retreat master explained it right?

 

[John_Martin]

This first paragraph of Romans is an official introduction; it is official in that it is introducing Paul in an official capacity to the Roman Catholic Church.
Paul says he was set apart for the Gospel of God.
The word “Gospel” was only used in common Greek for governmental announcements, whether from Caesar or any high government or military person about official business of the realm.

So, Paul is paving a road of official notice to the readers and hearers of the letter, that he is a messenger of the King. He is not just a person you meet on the street passing on news, second hand, but an official “servant” (or “slave”) of the head of state (Jesus).

It was necessary to use the word δοῦλος (doulos) so that there would be no misunderstanding, where anyone would say Paul is speaking for himself and developing his own teachings. Instead, as a faithful servant or slave he was giving you only what he was ordered to give you in his writing, official news from the King.

To Paul, “Christ” is not a second name for Jesus; it is a Title, the anointed King, Messiah,
just as to the Roman people, Caesar was not a second name for Julius or Nero (Julius Caesar translated into modern English is “Julius the Emperor” or “Julius the King”. And it was that meaning for Paul about Jesus Christ, which translated into modern English is “Jesus the King” or “Jesus the Anointed Messiah”.

Since he worked as a messenger for a King, he could use the term Gospel.
If someone told a man, “your wife just had a baby”, that is “good news”, but it is not “Gospel”, it is not “Governmental Official News from the King”.

This introduction has nothing to do with doctrine, but with the authority to write this letter and be confident it would be obeyed (the “obedience of the Gentiles” for which Paul was set apart). “I am Paul; I am from your King; pay attention to and follow everything I say here; that is an order from your King”

 

[Muzhik]

Since he worked as a messenger for a King, he could use the term Gospel.
If someone told a man, “your wife just had a baby”, that is “good news”, but it is not “Gospel”, it is not “Governmental Official News from the King”.

This introduction has nothing to do with doctrine, but with the authority to write this letter and be confident it would be obeyed (the “obedience of the Gentiles” for which Paul was set apart). “I am Paul; I am from your King; pay attention to and follow everything I say here; that is an order from your King”

This is interesting to me because I’m trying to improve the office of Lector at my parish. To me, a Lector is not someone just idly reading the news or gossip out loud to everyone. He or She is a Herald.

Heralds were the official messengers of the King. (Think of the Christmas carol “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”) In some instances they carried rods. When they held the rod over their head, EVERYBODY within the sound of their voice would shut up. (“Oyez, oyez! Attend to me, all who hear my voice!”) That was because as long as he held that rod over his head, it wasn’t some pimply-faced 15-year-old speaking. It was literally the Voice of the King.

I want to impress upon our Lectors that they aren’t simply “reading” the scripture to the congregation; they are Heralds, the Voice of the King proclaiming a message to His people.

 

[ProVobis]

Your friend is right about the connotation of this word - Paul calls himself a slave of, owned by the Lord - but IMHO he’s wrong to draw out any idea of double predestination from it.

For what it’s worth, in the Canon of the Mass, servus (an ordinary servant) is not used but famulus, which Cicero used in connection with the deity.

 

[John_Martin]

This is interesting to me because I’m trying to improve the office of Lector at my parish. To me, a Lector is not someone just idly reading the news or gossip out loud to everyone. He or She is a Herald.

Heralds were the official messengers of the King. (Think of the Christmas carol “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”) In some instances they carried rods. When they held the rod over their head, EVERYBODY within the sound of their voice would shut up. (“Oyez, oyez! Attend to me, all who hear my voice!”) That was because as long as he held that rod over his head, it wasn’t some pimply-faced 15-year-old speaking. It was literally the Voice of the King.

I want to impress upon our Lectors that they aren’t simply “reading” the scripture to the congregation; they are Heralds, the Voice of the King proclaiming a message to His people.

Maybe have a video of a press conference in the White House.
The White House Press Secretary speaking the message with (perhaps) president Obama standing beside or behind.

Let them understand that in this video they are seeing the “Gospel of the United States”. The Press Secretary is the Herald Evangelist, proclaiming this gospel of the US, with his king behind him, if Obama is also in the room. The Press Secretary is not proclaiming his own understanding of things, but speaking for his “king”, only what his “king” wants spoken, and he wants everyone to give an “official ear” to the “kings message or gospel”.

And now your lectors must understand they are announcing words of or from their King at Mass in the “Office of the Readings”. The Gospel of the King, Jesus. And around the US and the world, in many gatherings of Catholics, they are in unison with all the Lectors proclaiming loudly the identical message from their One King. The Gospel.

 

[Todd977]

Onesimus was Philemon’s slave (doulos) but he ran away from his master. If we are slaves of Christ, is it possible for us to run away from Him through apostasy or mortal sins?

 

[John_Martin]

Onesimus was Philemon’s slave (doulos) but he ran away from his master. If we are slaves of Christ, is it possible for us to run away from Him through apostasy or mortal sins?

I would say so.
Jesus said something interesting, though, in John 15:

No longer do I call you servants (doulous), for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

And Paul urged Philemon to receive Onesimus back in a different light: “For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.”

Onesimus was returning, with Paul’s letter, but to accept whatever fate Philemon might be in the mood or mind to do. So, a slave (or servant) can willingly be a servant (or slave), and even a friend and brother of his Master, while still performing his duties faithfully.

 

[pnewton]

Using Greek words is popular with Protestants, or it used to be when I was running in those circles. The problem though, and one I had a lot of laughs about, is how so many preaches would build giant constructs around certain popular Greek words. Then when one preacher would use it on TV, it caught on and everyone was using. Thus we get doulos, which is often used for a slave or bondsman. This has nothing to do with predestination though. Such a servant may very well be a servant voluntarily, or through actions of another. There is nothing in the word that makes a doulos someone who had to be a doulos. If you look in the Mosaic law, there was even a procedure whereby a servant indentured for a time, could reject his freedom when it was time to be free and choose to remain with his master. So in Paul’s usage, it is the ultimate act of freewill.

 

[BartholomewB]

… Thus we get doulos, which is often used for a slave or bondsman. This has nothing to do with predestination though. …

This, I think, is the real question that the OP was raising. His Protestant friend is reading too much into Paul’s choice of one Greek noun rather than another. In this verse Paul seems to have been translating into Greek, and adapting for Christian use, the Hebrew expression, found repeatedly in the OT, ebed Yahweh, the servant (slave) of God. When the Psalmist includes himself among the abdei Yahweh, the servants of the Lord, in Ps. 113:1 and again in 135:1, is he, also, providing evidence of predestination? I don’t think so. And yet ebed (plural abdim or abdei) has the literal meaning “slave” or “bondservant.”

biblehub.com/interlinear/psalms/113-1.htm

 

[Nelka]

Thanks for all the great answers.

 

[Sirach2]

I don’t know where others are getting the Greek translation of doulos as meaning “slave.” That’s not what I see here:
doulos δοῦλος servant

biblehub.com/text/romans/1-1.htm

If we type the original Hebrew scripture in Google Translate, we find the same word translated as, “servant.”

פול, משרתו של המשיח ישוע, שנקראה להיות שליח וספטמבר מלבד

 

[patrick457]

I don’t know where others are getting the Greek translation of doulos as meaning “slave.” That’s not what I see here:
doulos δοῦλος servant

biblehub.com/text/romans/1-1.htm

If we type the original Hebrew scripture in Google Translate, we find the same word translated as, “servant.”

פול, משרתו של המשיח ישוע, שנקראה להיות שליח וספטמבר מלבד

That’s pretty much the problem with traditional renderings.

Here’s Liddell and Scott’s (LSJ) definition of doulos:

I.properly, a born bondman or slave, opp. to one made a slave (ἀνδράποδον), Thuc.; then, generally, a bondman, slave, Hdt.: Hom. has only the fem. δούλη, ἡ, a bondwoman:—χρημάτων δ. slave to money, Eur.
II.as adj., δοῦλος, η, ον, slavish, servile, subject, Soph., etc.
III.τὸ δοῦλον ῀ οἱ δοῦλοι, Eur.: also = δουλεία, id=Eur.

And Thayer’s Greek Lexicon:



Plus, Paul would have written Romans in Greek, so there’s really no “original Hebrew scripture” here. The quote you provided is a translation.