{"id":2679,"date":"2012-08-08T13:33:20","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T17:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/?p=2679"},"modified":"2012-08-08T13:33:20","modified_gmt":"2012-08-08T17:33:20","slug":"empty-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html","title":{"rendered":"Empty Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-2680\" title=\"TomWVC\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/104\/2012\/08\/TomWVC-150x150.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/p>\n<p>One of the most fascinating passages in the New Testament is found in Philippians 2. There, Paul says that Jesus, although God,\u00a0&#8220;emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jesus emptied Himself of divinity out of love for us.\u00a0<\/strong>The Greek word for &#8220;bond-servant&#8221; is\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/concordances.org\/greek\/1401.htm\">doulas<\/a><\/em> which translates into English as &#8220;slave.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When used literally, it means someone who belongs to another, who has no rights of their own. Metaphorically, it refers to giving\u00a0ourselves\u00a0up to the will, control, or dominion of another.<\/p>\n<p>God took the form of a slave.\u00a0He voluntarily emptied himself.<\/p>\n<p>And Paul urges the church at Philippi to grasp that same reality by putting on an attitude of selfless love.<\/p>\n<p>In this message, I explore some of the realities of becoming empty like Jesus. Why is God so present in our sufferings? Where is God when his people are hurting? What does it mean to become empty&#8211;like a slave&#8211;to a world in need?<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/47174173\">http:\/\/vimeo.com\/47174173<\/a>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most fascinating passages in the New Testament is found in Philippians 2. There, Paul says that Jesus, although God,\u00a0&#8220;emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orphans","category-the-poor"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Empty Jesus - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Empty Jesus - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the most fascinating passages in the New Testament is found in Philippians 2. There, Paul says that Jesus, although God,\u00a0&#8220;emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-08T17:33:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/2012\/08\/TomWVC-150x150.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Empty Jesus - Red Letters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Empty Jesus - Red Letters","og_description":"One of the most fascinating passages in the New Testament is found in Philippians 2. There, Paul says that Jesus, although God,\u00a0&#8220;emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html","og_site_name":"Red Letters","article_published_time":"2012-08-08T17:33:20+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/2012\/08\/TomWVC-150x150.png"}],"author":"Tom Davis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html","name":"Empty Jesus - Red Letters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/2012\/08\/TomWVC-150x150.png","datePublished":"2012-08-08T17:33:20+00:00","dateModified":"2012-08-08T17:33:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/2012\/08\/TomWVC-150x150.png","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/2012\/08\/TomWVC-150x150.png"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2012\/08\/empty-jesus.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Empty Jesus"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/","name":"Red Letters","description":"Christian, Christian Inspiration, Christian News, Christian Activism News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92","name":"Tom Davis","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","caption":"Tom Davis"},"description":"Tom Davis currently serves as CEO of Children's HopeChest (www.hopechest.org), a global orphan care ministry headquartered in Colorado Springs. A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2679"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2685,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions\/2685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}