The job · 1 of 2

Son or servant: what’s the difference?

A servant and a son can live under the same roof and do the same work. The difference isn’t in what they do. It’s in where they stand with the father.

Jesus put it plainly while arguing with people who were sure of their place in God’s house. The word he uses is the one for a slave: someone who works in a household without being part of the family.

The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.John 8:35

A servant is there on terms

A servant has a job, and a job can end. He is measured by his work, paid for it, and never quite sure whether he has done enough. Plenty of people in church live like this for decades. They serve faithfully, and underneath it they are tired and unsure.

A son is there by birth

Paul wrote to churches in Galatia that were drifting back into a servant’s way of relating to God. He reminded them that the gospel had changed their standing, not only cleared their record.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.Galatians 4:6-7

A son still works, often harder than a servant. But he works from belonging rather than for it. When he gets something wrong, he is corrected as a son, and he stays in the house.

Sons are meant to grow up

Paul also said something that is easy to miss. A son who stays a child is, in practice, no different from a slave.

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything,Galatians 4:1

God’s goal isn’t only that we are adopted. It is that we grow up, carry the family’s name well, and share in what the Father is doing. Helping people grow like that is what a church is for.

Back to the journey Next: The son who never left home