<p>10:44 <i>And whoever would be first among you- </i>The&nbsp;<i>protos</i>&nbsp;(chief) amongst the disciples was clearly the Lord Himself. So again, the Lord may not necessarily be inviting His followers to seek greatness in the future Kingdom, but rather inviting them to focus upon His Lordship and achievement through His upcoming death. Instead He may have Himself in view- the One who is to be chief is to be the servant of the disciples, which the Lord did through His death on the cross. And it is His death there which is the context for this whole teaching, seeing He has just given a detailed prediction of it. However, the Lord's teachings often have reference to both Himself and to the disciples, and we have noted a number of times where He seems to have specific reference to Peter. For Peter was the&nbsp;<i>protos</i>, the chief disciple, according to Mt. 10:2 s.w.. And within the Lord's words there is the nod to Peter that he must learn the spirit of servanthood if he is to be worthy of that special calling as the leader of the pack which the Lord clearly had in mind for him. The Lord has just had a lot to say about the&nbsp;<i>protos</i>&nbsp;being last in the preceding parable of the labourers, using the word three times in 20:8,10,16. He is perhaps answering the question which arises from that parable: How practically can we be the last? The answer is by serving as He served, by identifying ourselves with the &quot;last&quot; labourers rather than the &quot;first&quot; who thought they were spiritually superior over their weaker fellow labourers.</p><p>The Lord Jesus was the supreme example of spiritual ambition in daily life.&nbsp;&nbsp; When the disciples debated about who would be greatest in the Kingdom, Christ said that &quot;If any man desire to be first, the same shall be... servant of all&quot; (Mk. 9:34,35).&nbsp;&nbsp; Christ was the &quot;servant of all&quot; because He&nbsp;<i>desired</i>&nbsp;to be the greatest in the Kingdom.&nbsp;&nbsp; It was this ambition which motivated His endurance of the daily cross of His life: &nbsp;&quot;Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>even as</i>&nbsp;the Son of man came... to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many&quot; (Mt. 20:27,28). He was drawing on the ideas of Hos. 13:1, where Ephraim exalted himself when he humbled himself to speak to God with the trembling of a true humility. The Lord Jesus was not esteemed by men in His death (Is. 53:3); the same word occurs in Dan. 4:17, concerning how Yahweh will exalt the&nbsp;<i>basest</i>, the least esteemed, to be King over the kingdoms of this world. That made-basest man was a reference to the Lord Jesus. He humbled Himself on the cross, that He might be exalted. Peter had his eye on this fact when he asks us to humble ourselves, after the pattern of the Lord, that we might be exalted in due time (1 Pet. 5:6).&nbsp; Christ desired greatness in the Kingdom, and so can we;&nbsp;for the brighter stars only reflect more glory of the Sun (1 Cor. 15:41).&nbsp;&nbsp; This very thought alone should lift us up on the eagle wings of Spirit above whatever monotony or grief we now endure.</p><p><i>Shall be servant of all</i>- Consider the influence of Christianity on the Greek language of humility. The Lord taught that the leaders, the great ones, in His Kingdom, would be the humble servants (Mt. 20:27). Christ spoke of himself as a humble King, which would have been a contradiction in terms to the first century Greek mind. Consider the following commentary by Alan Hayward: &quot;The ancient Greeks had no time for humility. In fact, their language didn't even have a word for it until well into the first century... the early Christians evidently had to coin a word for it. It's a clumsy, long word, made by sticking together the Greek word 'low-down' and the Greek word 'mentality'. The sudden appearance of this new word in Greek literature during the first century is generally attributed to the influence of the early church&quot; Alan Hayward,&nbsp;<i>The Humble King</i>, 'The Bible Missionary' No.131, January 1994.</p><p>See on Phil. 2:7. It is a great NT theme that we are the bond slaves of the Lord Jesus. And yet we are also to be slaves to all His people (Mk. 10:44), for the Lord Jesus <i>is</i> His people: they are His body. To serve our brethren is to serve the Lord Himself. The Lord Jesus <i>expects</i> us to relate to Him as bond slaves. He speaks of how a bond slave can be working in the field all day, come home tired, and then be immediately commanded by the master to prepare his meal and only then get his own meal- and the master won't thank him, but just expects it of him. And the Lord Jesus applies this to His relationship with us. The Lord of all grace is, by absolute rights, a demanding Lord. He commented that we call Him Lord and Master, and we say well, for so He is (Jn. 13:13). If we are truly the bond-slaves of the Lord Jesus, we have no 'free time' for ourselves. Neither will we expect to have time for ultimately our 'own thing'. The craze for personal and social freedom which sweeps the modern world will leave us untouched. Ultimate freedom and total independence is not for us.</p>