“You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”—Jesus, in Mark 10:42-45 (adapted from NRSV, NIV and ESV)
In imperial propaganda, the emperor was simply the princeps, “the first” (see 10:44); but while he lavished benefactions on the Roman people, he was no one’s slave (10:43), and no Roman hearer could exclude the emperor from the verdict of 10:42. The contrast with 10:45 was an absolute ideological challenge to the dominant ideology of the empire—yet in a form that offered no threat of uprising (cf. 12:16-17). So long as elites were not compelled to believe it, they might welcome all the greater submission among those they considered foolhardy enough to embrace it.
Jesus came to change the world from the bottom up—not by power in human terms, but by humbly serving and dying for others. Who is ready to follow his example?
