Proverbs in 365 Devotions
Proverbs R AylorIt’s probably easy to read this verse and all of a sudden hone in on how Solomon says it’s better to have a servant… and start making inferences and judgments against Gods word while missing the truth.To have a servant in an acceptable way biblically can be found a number of ways. Heres a few: * A servant who works as an apprentice. (Elisha to Elijah) In this situation the servant would have a desire to show respect to their mentor.* A servant who is working off a debt. * A servant might have been someone who had no land in Israel and was willing to be hired out as a servant to have a place to live and food to eat.* In all these examples the one who has a servant does so because he was gracious to the one who serves him. The text calls him lowly… He is a humble person. * We see this in the first example as a mentor in teaching his apprentice. * The second by letting someone work off a debt instead of putting them in jail. * And the third in hiring someone who needs a place to live and food to eat.This verse is strange in one sense. It says the one who has a servant is the lowly one… You might think the lowly one would be the servant. But from the examples given for good reasons to have a servant we see that the master of the house is the one who is willingly and intentionally making himself lowly. He is the real servant here. In his case to have a servant is to be the real servant.As I read this text, I am reminded of Jesus… the King of Kings, Creator of all things… the one who holds the fabric of the Universe together by the word of his power… He came as the lowest of servants, even to the giving of his own life on the Cross.Matthew 
Though he was the greatest of all men he did not play the “great man” like our text says some people do. The Master came to serve and he gave himself as our example.Philippians pray