THE THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PHILIPIANS 2:7 ASSOCIATED TO SERVICES METHOD BY NARIPAN SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH BANDUNG

Abstract

The author examines about how “Jesus emptied himself”, “taking the form of a servant” and “became alike with man” in the perpective of Naripan church members, along with the implementation of its context contained in this paragraph towards the church members themselves. This study is specifically made for the Naripan church. As this study are contained of four indicators, which are: (1) “Jesus emptied Himself”, (2) “Jesus taking the form of a servant”, and (3) “Jesus in the likeness of man”, and with (4) the implementation of these three things in the service at church. This study is divided into two parts, both theoriticall and respondent statisticall survey. Theoritically, the study resulted with “Jesus emptied Himself” over His divinity attributes, He humbled Himself and does not boast His Godliness,  instead “He took the form of a servant” and serve the people. Humbly He serves everyone who seek Him, then “He made himself to be alike with humans”, which means He tansformed Himself into an ordinary man, experiencing life as a simple man, and enjoyed His lifetime as a human being in this world. So that through His humanity He can reach each person. Therefore, every servant needs to emptied themself in order to reach widely. The statisticall research made by the author is divided into six parts, namely: (1) “Jesus emptied himself”, (2) “Jesus took the form of a servant”, (3) “Jesus likely became human”, (4) “self-emptying and its relation to service”, (5) “the relation between service and taking the form of a servant”, and (6) “being equal and it relationship to service.” The statisticall test are process  through questionnaires filled by 30 Naripan church members. The data produced states that all respondents understand well enough about “Jesus emptied Himself”, proven by its average value which is 4.20 including some members who disagree on this statement. The church members did understand very well about “Jesus taking the form of a servant” shown by its statement average score of 4.80. Differently, the church members hesitatation are shown with the score of 4.14 regarding to the statements about ”Jesus likely became human”. On the other part, church members has a very good undersanding about “the relation between self-emptied and service”, scoring the average value of 4:41. As well as “taking the form of a servant and it relation to ministry," the church members did have a well understanding demonstrated  by the average questionnaires score of 4,51. The score of 4,43 pictures how the church members have a very good understanding aboout “the relationship of being equal and service.” The data processed are taken from the Naripan Seventh-day Adventists church Bandung, and concluded that the Naripan church members has a pretty good understanding in this theory. But still there is a point needed to be understood that “Jesus Christ came to this world as a limited human being”, the power provides within Him was the power to help others. As a conclusion to this writing, Jesus Christ emptied Himself of all His divine attributes, He became a servant that served humans because He came as it is, and He lives the same as ordinary people with limitations. The existing problem founded by data is the understanding within the Naripan church members. Explaination and deeper understanding needs to be given in order to build good conception and ability in applying these three things by the church members at their services.