“…truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” (1 Jn 1:3b)
There is something rather warm and heartening in the term “fellow.” A man who is my fellow is, at some level, my neighbour and certainly a peer. A man whom I choose to describe as a fellow anything is a man with whom I confess an intimacy that is unknown to my typical daily contacts. “Fellows” have common experiences, ambitions, and hopes. The prophetic reference in Zechariah 7:14 is made all the more doleful by the inclusion of the simple word of commonality, “fellow.” So it is that when we come to the term “fellow servant(s)” in the New Testament, we find instruction and illustration around the particular theme of shared Christian service.
The other servant
The first lesson about fellow servants is simple and obvious; it comes from the term itself. In 1 Kings, we read of Elijah, a dispirited prophet who complains bitterly that he alone remains a faithful man of God. It is a very patient God who listens and then reminds Elijah that he is most certainly not alone, that there remain yet 7,000 faithful. God, both then and now, has designed much of His service to be done not in isolation and solitude but with the assistance, support, and encouragement of other godly believers. The first lesson of fellow servants is simply that there are fellow servants. These are servants of God who may not be immediately evident to us as we bend our backs to the work we’ve been given, but they are servants who are nonetheless available and eager to labor alongside us when God calls them. If the work God calls us to requires more hands, we may be assured that they will arrive when—though perhaps not before—they are needed.
Of course, shared work and shared goals in a fallen world mean that there will, of necessity, be friction and misunderstanding. After all, very few fellow servants will perform the work in the way that we imagine it should be done! Some will perform at a higher level and provoke jealousy or adulation; some will perform at a lower level and fairly earn (in our eyes) our indignation or rebuke.
The worshipped servant
In Revelation 22, John was shown a future day in a far better place than he had ever dared imagine. He saw the eternal state where the curse is lifted and the Father and the Son dwell with mankind in uninterrupted harmony and fellowship. What was his response? “I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things” (Rev. 22:8).
To worship the one who had shown him the sorts of things no man had ever seen before was a natural enough reaction, and perhaps we can sympathize. But John’s reaction was rebuked in the subsequent verse with these words: “Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book; worship God.” In case the lesson is lost on us, we have a similar scenario unfolded in chapter 19. In both cases, the angel identified itself as a “fellow servant” who was unworthy of the worship that is due to God and God alone.
In application, we have our second lesson of fellow servants: it is possible if we have our pantheon of Christian heroes. Those who led us to the Lord have rightly earned our appreciation at a minimum. There are those who have shown us wonderful things we might never have imagined or seen if not for their leadership. It’s good to appreciate men and women who have been guides and helpers, but we must never forget they are simply fellow servants. If what they have shown is wonderful, it is only wonderful because God graced them with an opportunity to share His wonders, not their own. The angel’s repeated words should ring in our ears and often be on the lips of true Christian leaders: “Do not do that!”
The scorned servant
Starting in Matthew 18:23, we have another account of a servant falling at a fellow servant’s feet. Here we read of the far more common problem of an unforgiving spirit. After having been forgiven an impossibly large debt, we find the forgiven servant seeking out a fellow servant who in turn owes the first servant a much smaller amount. But where there was kindness and forgiveness shown from the Lord to the first servant, there is no such spirit evident in the first servant’s treatment of his peer. In fact, we read that he took him by the throat, demanded what was owed, and ultimately cast him into prison until the debt could be satisfied.
We noted earlier that friction was unavoidable in shared service, even divine service for the Lord is no exception to that unhappy rule. We may only rarely find a fellow servant we are tempted to worship, but we will most certainly find many fellow servants we would like to throttle and of whom we would make demands that really serve only our own pride and greed. But, that being the case, there are two immediate effects of an unforgiving spirit among fellow servants that ought to capture our attention and inform our behaviour:
A hindrance to fellowship with other believers.
“So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done” (Mt. 18:31). When you fail to treat your fellow servant as a peer and instead treat him as an object of scorn and abuse, you dispirit not only your antagonist but also all the other fellow servants who are unfortunate enough to learn of your conduct. If you want to take the joy and life out of your home assembly, an unforgiving spirit will do the job very efficiently indeed. It will also—as verse 31 notes—make you the subject of some rather pointed prayers.
A hindrance to fellowship with the Lord.
Verses 32-34 tell us the standard of forgiveness between fellow servants is not based whatsoever on our peer’s worth or merit but rather on the nature and depth of the forgiveness we ourselves have already received from the Lord. The peril of failing to forgive our peers is not that they will one day gain the upper hand and return the favour. Rather, it is that we will answer to God Himself.
We then are to understand that we must not think too highly or too poorly of our fellow servants; both these perils rob God of his rightful due in either worship or gratitude.
The faithful servant
We turn finally to happier examples:
“Epaphras…is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf” (Col. 1:7).
“As to all my affairs Tychicus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bond-servant in the Lord will bring you information” (Col 4:7) NASB.
In both of the above, we have a beautiful commendation from Paul as to the character of his fellow servants. Paul identifies himself fully and without regret with both Epaphras (who has already brought information to Colossae) and with Tychicus (who has yet to arrive). But whether Paul looks back to words already spoken or ahead to what someone might soon say, Paul is utterly and completely identifying himself with his peers. He knows them to be faithful, and he knows as well that the work is not his own but God’s. Though space prevents a full reprinting here, there is in the verses surrounding both commendations the most amiable spirit of fellowship imaginable. As we consider the manner in which we speak of our brothers and sisters who are not present, may we take Paul as an example.
In closing, we turn to the peerless servant for our final admonition. One day we will appear before the great Lord, but not one who cannot understand what a servant must do and endure. Instead, we will face the greatest Servant there has ever been or ever will be, One who understands what humility is to a far greater extent than any of us will ever know. As we deal with our fellow servants here and now, let us do so for His glory rather than our own.
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Php. 2:5-8)