This principle of voluntary slavery was pictured graphically in the Old Testament law. Exodus 21:5, 6 describes the process by which one could choose to make himself another’s servant: “If the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,’ then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.” The Israelites were permitted to keep fellow Jews as slaves only for six years. On the seventh year they were to be set free. But if one voluntarily chose to continue serving as a slave, his master would literally put his ear against the doorpost, take an awl, and drive it through the ear. The hole in the slave’s ear was a sign to all that he was serving out of love, not because he had to. Paul was saying he had voluntarily relinquished his freedom in order to serve all men. In a spiritual sense, Paul had perforated his ear on behalf of the unsaved. “Though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more” (1 Cor. 9:19)...