Matthew 20:25

Jesus called them unto him, and said Jesus points out the inversion of earthly ideas in the Kingdom of heaven. The gradation and contrast of the original are hardly brought out in E. V. In the Kingdom of heaven the ambition must be to serve not to reign; that Kingdom is in every way the reverse of the kingdoms of the world. In the latter the gradation of rank is (1) the supreme prince; (2) the nobles (the great); (3) the ministers or attendants; (4) the slaves. In the Kingdom of heaven he that will be the noble must be the minister or attendant; he that will be the monarch must be the slave. What Jesus teaches is the dignity of service in the Kingdom of heaven.

The bearing of such passages as this on the alleviation of slavery in the ancient world should be considered. The influence of this towards the abolition of slavery in modern times might have been still greater if the translators had used the word "slave" rather than "servant" in the E. V.