The Bondservant's Life

When I first received my copy of this book to review, I thought Oh no, It's huge. It's heavy-looking. I wasn't sure I was up to reading something like this right then.

I'm not thinking that anymore. It is physically huge and mentally heavy -- in fact, I'll confess I haven't even finished reading it yet. But that's because I'm slowly  digesting the thoughtful insight and wisdom in this wonderful work.

This is a big, broad study of what is involved in taking on the covering of "bondservant" of Christ. It analyzes scripture in depth; it describes ancient covenants and the different covenants in scripture; and ultimately (I see by the table of contents) gets into spiritual warfare.

Now, this is not light reading or easy reading. This is one to plot out a half hour every day starting in the new year to read, meditate over, and pray through. And I highly recommend doing that. For the serious believer wanting a serious relationship with Christ, I can't think of anything more beneficial than to truly understand and absorb the principles related here.

The Bondservant's Life was a book that not only challenges your understanding of what it means to follow God but also lays the foundation in helping you understand the Bible as a whole. This book defines what it means to be a bondservant of God. The key verse of this book is Revelation 1:1 where Jesus is revealing the things that are to come to his servants. The author then explains how the book of Revelation is written to God's servants and until we understand what it means to be a servant of God, then we will not be able to understand the prophesies in this book. The author then explains in detail what a bondservant is all about. To do this, he goes back to the Old Testament law and describes bondservants in the nation of Israel. Bondservants were people who willing stayed and served their masters because of their love for their masters. Every Christian is then called to serve God, our master, out of our love for Him. A bondservant's life will be characterized by pursing God through his word, live a life of complete obedience to God and walking totally dependent upon the Holy Spirit. Every single Christian is called to this radical commitment to God.

What does it mean to fully follow and abide in Christ? When you truly call Him Lord, just what are you saying? John Brenner Chandler details what a life like that entails in The Bondservant's Life.

Chandler uses the term bondservant to describe what I've usually heard as being wholly devoted. I had heard of being a slave to Christ, but Chandler uses the stronger term of bondservant, which denotes a person choosing to remain a slave, and to remain with his master.

After explaining what a bondesrvant is and chooses, Chandler goes into detail about the life a bondservant of Christ lives. He talks about many aspects that our Christian lives should contain: prayer, giving, and even fasting. He tells about how we will be opposed when we try to live right, and what the destination of our lives will be.

What does it mean to fully follow and abide in Christ? When you truly call Him Lord, just what are you saying? John Brenner Chandler details what a life like that entails in The Bondservant’s Life.

Chandler uses the term bondservant to describe what I’ve usually heard as being wholly devoted. I had heard of being a slave to Christ, but Chandler uses the stronger term of bondservant, which denotes a person choosing to remain a slave, and to remain with his master.

He uses both individual verses and passages from the Bible, and focuses on people that illustrate what a bondservant is. Chandler has quotes from various other writers and teachers, and there are some of them I don't know, and a few that I have questions about. However, the quotes he uses do not appear to be Biblically wrong as far as I can tell.

I won't deny that this is a long book, it is one of the longest I've read. But it needs to be long to hold all of the information that it does. I don't recommend trying to sit down and read it all the way through. Not because of it being long, but because you need time to think about what is written. No matter how long it takes to read it, I believe it is time well spent.

I received this book from BookCrash in exchange for this review.