Okay now, the hand is very prominent here. The hand of power. We see here
that faithful slave service to the master is the road to dominion. That's
true in all of life. Anybody who's ever worked for anybody else knows that it's
very easy to get an attitude when you're under somebody else's authority of doing
the minimal to get by. If you do that, you don't acquire dominion. If you do the
best possible job, trying to do a good job to the Lord, you do acquire dominion.
That's just true in all of life. People chafe under authority. They go get a job and then they chafe. They don't like being told what to do. And they squirm around. And then, as a result, they lose dominion and authority. I used to see this in the military all the time. Guy is always doing the least. Now the Bible says serve your masters not just with eye service but unto the Lord. And Joseph is a great example of that. We don't see Joseph chafing under slavery. We see him as a slave doing the best possible job. Serving his master. Jesus says ‘Those who would be great among you must be slaves of all. Those among the Gentiles love to lord it over them.’ Faithful slave service is the road to dominion. Revolution is not the road to dominion. Defying authority is not the road to dominion. Letting the government know how much power you have as an individual is not the road to dominion. Service is the road to dominion. Now that makes sense because in service you learn how to conduct dominion. You don't learn how to do dominion by defying authority, by asserting your rights. You learn how to do dominion by working. Forget your rights. Christians don't have rights. There is no place in Christian theory for a doctrine of rights. Christians have duties. There is no place for a doctrine of human rights and Christian faith. If you're created by God, you don't have rights. You don't have inalienable rights. You don't have any kind of rights. You have duties. One of the sicknesses in American political theory from the beginning was the adoption of the rhetoric of pagan thinking. Only God has rights because only God is self -contained. Men don't have rights. They have duties. It's best not to use the word "rights," best not to think in those categories. Why don't we do some things the government tells us to do, because we have rights? No, because God commands us to do certain duties. And God's command of those duties takes precedence.
- James B. Jordan, Studies in Genesis, chapter 39
