John 13:12-15

‘So when he had washed their feet and taken his outer clothes and again sat down, he said to them “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord and you say well, for so I am. If I then the Lord and Master have washed you feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet, for I have given you an example that you also should do what I have done to you”.'

Having washed their feet, Jesus first act was to take His clothes and reinstate Himself as their ‘Teacher and Lord'. Then, having done so, He brought home to them the lesson of what He had done. As He had humbled Himself on their behalf, so must they be willing to humble themselves on each other's behalf, and on behalf of all the people of God. For while only God could fully bathe them, they must be ready to wash each other's feet.

In other words no task was to be seen as too lowly for them in ministering to God's people and to each other. His people would in the future need constant attention and ministry in order to maintain their walk with God. And this was a personal and humbling task, to be carried out by the meek and lowly. The servant of God was not to stand above His people, but to kneel before them. For once a so-called servant of God begins to feel his own importance, he is failing in his task. He has ceased to be (even if he still calls himself so) the servant of all. (We note here that the meaning given for the act to the disciples as a whole refers to washing each other's feet. Thus it cannot be referring to the original bathing of salvation).

Some Christians believe that Jesus' command here is binding on the church in a literal sense. They practise foot-washing as an ordinance of the church along with water baptism and the Lord's Supper. But Christians through the centuries have believed that Jesus meant that His disciples should follow His example by serving humbly rather than by specifically washing each other's feet, and nowhere else in the New Testament do its writers treat foot-washing as another ordinance.

1 Timothy 5:10 speaks of it as an example of humble service along with a number of others, but not as an ordinance of the church. It was the attitude of humility that disciples should have toward one another that was the point that Jesus was making, not simply the performance of a ritual which loses its point with modern clothing. Furthermore Jesus called foot-washing an example (Greek hypodeigma - a pattern) implying that there were to be other examples of the same attitude. It was an appropriate example of humble service in a culture where people wore sandals and soiled their feet easily in the heat of the day.