"Would you rather be a master or a servant?" If that question were asked of a hundred people in the so-called developed Western world today, the vast majority would probably say master! The world does not generally give the role of servant very good press. And yet there are countries in the world where being a servant is still considered an honorable profession, where the attitudes inherent in being a servant are greatly valued. Are these attitudes something from which the developed world can benefit? Perhaps, even more, can the Church of Christ, Scientist, benefit from them? What does the Bible tell us about being a servant?
Moses, more than anyone else in the Bible, is called the "servant of the Lord." And yet Moses, one of the most outstanding leaders ever of the Jewish people, is rarely thought of as a servant. Is there perhaps some relationship between this servantship of Moses and the great leadership he brought to Israel? Servantship and leadership seem to be opposites, and yet with Moses they were coincidental.
Let's consider for a moment Moses' face-to-face meeting with God at the burning bush, recounted in Exodus. At this point, Moses was working in the wilderness as a shepherd for his father-in-law, after having fled in fear from Egypt. God tells Moses that He is going to send him back into Egypt to lead the children of Israel out of captivity. Immediately Moses is full of a sense of his own responsibility; he says (emphasis added): "Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? ... Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?"
