I’ve been looking for a word and I can’t find it. More specifically, I’ve been looking for a word in the Bible and I can’t find it. Yet it’s a common word. And it’s a word often used to describe members of a church. I’ve used it myself, quite recently, and many of you will have used it too. But, as far as I can tell, it’s nowhere to be found in the Bible. The word is ‘volunteer’.
Voluntary organisation
Isn’t that striking? We often say that ‘the church is a voluntary organisation’ or ‘the church is made up of volunteers’, usually meaning we can’t force people to do what we think they should be doing! But I cannot find any reference in the Bible where the people of God are called ‘volunteers’.
However, although the word itself is not used, perhaps the idea is? My dictionary defines a volunteer as ‘someone who enters any service, especially military, of his own free choice’. Doesn’t that describe what happens when we become a Christian? In one sense it does, although the Bible teaches us that we recognise Jesus and submit to him as our Commanding Officer only because the Holy Spirit has opened our eyes to see him as he really is.
