The Servant’s Mindset

Cover Article

by Michael Jones · Week of May 24, 2026

Picture a room full of grown men jostling for the best seat at the table, each one certain he deserves the place of honor. That is the scene in Mark 10:35–45, where James and John ask Jesus for the thrones on his right and left. Into this tangle of ambition Jesus drops a phrase that lands like a thunderclap: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mark 10:43–44). In Matthew 18:1–4, he set a child in the middle and declared, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Not powerful. Not prestigious. Dependent. Trusting. Small. That is greatness in God’s kingdom. Paul echoed this truth: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves” (Philippians 2:3). The whole trajectory of Scripture bends toward one counter-cultural conviction: God’s economy runs on service, not status.

Then Jesus did not merely teach it—he performed it. John 13:3–5 paints a scene so vivid you can almost hear water splashing into the basin. “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.” Imagine the silence. The one through whom all things were made (Colossians 1:16) kneels on a stone floor, cradles a dusty foot, and begins to wash. No one else had stooped to do it. So the King of glory picked up the towel himself. “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:15). He was not staging a ritual; he was unveiling the shape of the transformed life. Paul captured the full arc of that descent in Philippians 2:6–8: Christ “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant… he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross.” From the throne of heaven to the wood of Calvary—that is the measure of a servant’s heart.

Here is what changes everything: Jesus never asks us to go where he has not already gone. He touched lepers (Luke 5:13), sat with sinners (Luke 15:1–2), and wept at a friend’s grave (John 11:35). At the end, he stretched out his arms on a cross and gave everything—“the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18). That is the servant’s mindset carried to its breathtaking conclusion. Our culture measures life by a different yardstick—followers, titles, influence. We chase significance the way the disciples chased thrones. But God’s eyes sweep past the spotlight and rest on the person scrubbing dishes in the church kitchen on a Tuesday night. “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). The widow who dropped two tiny coins into the temple treasury gave “more than all the others,” Jesus said, because she gave out of her poverty (Luke 21:3–4). God’s scoreboard is upside down from ours—and that is very good news for servants.

I think of the people who have most deeply shaped my own faith—and not one held a title anyone would envy. A man who worked a quiet job for thirty years and spent evenings visiting shut-ins. A woman who cooked meals for every grieving family in the congregation, because she believed Romans 12:13: “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” They understood that transformation happens in the steady rhythm of showing up, becoming more like Christ one act of service at a time. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). But the servant’s mindset is not passivity. Jesus overturned tables when corruption infected the temple (Matthew 21:12). Servanthood means channeling your strength for others. “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:10). So here is the invitation that still echoes from that upper room: pick up the towel. Kneel beside someone who needs you. The One who “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20) will multiply your faithful service beyond anything you planned. That is the servant’s mindset—and it will change you from the inside out.

Other congregations are welcome to reprint this. It may be reproduced in another congregation’s bulletin or newsletter without asking permission. An acknowledgement of Orange View Church of Christ is appreciated but not required.

Bible Questions & Answers

Is cremation acceptable for Christians?

This question carries genuine anxiety: will a cremated loved one miss the resurrection? Does cremation dishonor the body God created? These sincere concerns deserve a careful, Scripture-grounded answer. Let us begin with what the Bible teaches about the resurrection body. In 1 Corinthians 15:35–38 Paul writes, “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed. But God gives it a body as he has determined.” The seed analogy is critical. The seed that goes into the ground is not the plant that comes up. There is continuity—God knows whose body it is—but there is radical transformation. Paul makes this explicit in verses 42–44: “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” The Greek word for “spiritual” here is pneumatikos, meaning governed by the Spirit—not immaterial, but Spirit-directed and glorified. The resurrection does not reassemble the old body; it creates something far greater.

This matters enormously. If God’s resurrection power does not depend on reassembling original molecules, then how those molecules disperse—by decomposition or cremation—is not a limiting factor for an omnipotent God. Paul declares, “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). Christ’s resurrection is the guarantee of ours. He adds, “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’” (1 Corinthians 15:54). Paul never conditions this promise on a particular burial method. The promise rests on God’s power, not the preservation of remains. Genesis 3:19 reminds us, “For dust you are and to dust you will return.” Every body eventually returns to dust; burial slows the process, cremation accelerates it. Throughout history, faithful believers have perished at sea, in fires, or been torn apart by animals in Roman arenas. No one questions their resurrection. God, who “calls into being things that were not” (Romans 4:17), is able to raise any body regardless of its earthly disposition.

What about the biblical pattern? Burial was the standard practice in both Testaments. Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah to bury Sarah (Genesis 23:19). Jacob gave instructions to be buried in Canaan (Genesis 49:29–30). Most significantly, Jesus was laid in a tomb (Matthew 27:59–60), and his bodily resurrection from that tomb is the cornerstone of our faith (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). Burial carries deep precedent and a rich theology of “sowing” the body in hope of resurrection. However—and this distinction is vital—precedent is not the same as command. Nowhere does Scripture issue a binding directive that burial is the only acceptable method. When the men of Jabesh-gilead burned the bodies of Saul and his sons and then buried the bones (1 Samuel 31:12–13), the act is recorded without condemnation. The early church avoided cremation to distinguish itself from Greco-Roman paganism, but that was a cultural decision, not a doctrinal requirement.

What does matter theologically is that we affirm the goodness of the physical body and the reality of bodily resurrection. Paul insists that the resurrection is real and physical—we are not Gnostics who view the body as a prison to escape. “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44). We will have real, glorified bodies in eternity with God. Cremation does not deny this truth; it simply changes the speed at which the body returns to its elemental state. The key principle is found in Romans 14:5, 12: “Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind… each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.” This is a matter of conscience, not salvation. If burial feels right, bury with full confidence. If circumstances or conscience lead you to choose cremation, do so without guilt. Neither choice affects the eternal destiny of one who has died in Christ. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons… nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39). If you have already cremated a loved one and carry unease, take comfort: God’s promise of resurrection does not depend on us. It depends on him. And he is faithful (1 Thessalonians 5:24). — MJ