Slavery in the bible.

[DogmaHunter]

God is good because he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to be the Savior of the human race and to grant eternal life to all who believe in him. He did this despite the human race doing nothing to deserve salvation, having continually rebelled against his will.

That is why God is good.

I'm sorry, but at the risk of derailing the subject, I have to completely disagree with that.
The whole "son sacrifice" thingy, is the very opposite of what I would consider "good".

First, let's consider a couple premises:
- God created heaven and hell
- God created the rules by which souls are judged
- God decides who he sends to hell / heaven
- God can grant forgiveness to whoever he pleases, regardless of the whole Jesus thingy, since he is supposedly all-powerful

So you say that through Jesus, mankind is "saved". But saved from what, exactly?
==> from god himself. From god's very own judgement.

God COULD forgive anyone at any time for anything.

On top of that, the christian belief is that Jesus IS God in the flesh.
So basically....

God sacrifices himself, to himself, so that he can save us from himself.

Next, the "sacrifice" part.... what exactly is being sacrificed here? That human body? He could make a trillion more of those bodies with the blink of an eye.
His life? Not really, since he resurected and turned out to be immortal and then went on to continue being the immortal ruler of the universe.

It's like making the "sacrifice" of giving away 50 billion dollars while you have an infinite supply of money.

It makes absolutely zero sense.

I don't claim God is good in some abstract philosophical sense. You need to brush up on apophatic theology. We only know God by his actions towards us. We do not fully know God's nature.

Then you can't say that God is good.

There are many things God chooses not to reveal, and he is not obliged to do so. Due to God's nature being more dissimilar than similar to a human being, there are real limitations on how far reason can take us in trying to understand God.

From which follows, that you can't know if God is really the embodiment of "good", if God is really benevolent.

We do not deny that God has wrath towards sin, that he has reserved woe and destruction for all those who love evil.

Actually, he has reserved woe and destruction for all those who do not love him or even only believe he exists on bad reasons.

You don't need to "love evil" to be subject to his wrath. An atheist who dedicates his life to charity and never hurts a fly, will not be "saved", now will he? There's only one other alternative to "being saved", isn't there?

Furthermore, this whole "saved" business makes your earthly behaviour rather irrelevant as well. The very notion of "forgiveness" is the suspension of justice. It means that it doesn't matter what "crimes" or "sins" you have committed, since you will be "forgiven" and be able to enjoy an eternal reward nonetheless. Isn't that true?

Christians constantly tell me that "all you need to do is accept christ and repent". It doesn't matter that you lived a life of raping, pilaging, murder and what-not.

Meanwhile, the perfectly decent atheist charity worker gets an eternity of suffering.

If you choose to see God as harsh or evil, then we are not surprised that is what you find in God. God is not a cosmic Care Bear who has only nice things to say to everyone.

Indeed. He only has nice things to say to those who kiss his feet - no matter what kind of lives they lived.


Sorry for the off topic rant, but this is kind of pet peeve of mine.
The whole "jesus sacrifice and being saved" etc is probably one the most unsettling things in christianity imo.

 

[Radagast]

God is good because he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to be the Savior of the human race and to grant eternal life to all who believe in him. ... That is why God is good. I don't claim God is good in some abstract philosophical sense

Is that a specific Lutheran P.O.V.?

Both Catholics and non-Lutheran Protestants hold that God is inherently good, being absolutely perfect in Himself. Secondary to that, God is good to His creation.

 

[Radagast]

Paul is not really telling him what to do, he is telling him I'm returning your brother to you and treat him as you would me.

Paul says "Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus—that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus."

What Paul is talking about there (he could order it done, but instead he appeals) is the legal freeing of Onesimus.

In the New Testament we have the solution to slavery, it in no way institutionalizes it.

I agree 100%.

It is also worth noting that Paul is not recommending armed force to overthrow the slavery system (that was tried in 73 BC, and it failed).

Paul is instead encouraging people like Philemon to follow through on the implication of the fact that all Christians are brothers in Christ, and to use the legal mechanisms for turning slaves into free men and women.

 

[Radagast]

The whole "son sacrifice" thingy, is the very opposite of what I would consider "good".

What you consider good is not really the deciding factor.

 

[FireDragon76]

Is that a specific Lutheran P.O.V.?

Both Catholics and non-Lutheran Protestants hold that God is inherently good, being absolutely perfect in Himself. Secondary to that, God is good to His creation.

I am not a doctor of divinity but I do know we do not share Roman scholastic theology. Our theology is Jesus-centered. We do not like to speculate about things that are not clearly revealed in the Scriptures. Speculating about the goodness of God apart from his acts in history doesn't seem consistent with our theology. It's delving into the hidden things of God, where human reason has limited utility.

Yes, we do believe God is good in creation (because the Bible says God created the world, and declared it good), however we cannot discount the noetic effects of sin that obscure our understanding of that goodness.

As a Lutheran, if people wanted to know about God I would always first direct them to Jesus... not to philosophical theism. Atheists are quite right at times to object to this sort of deity. He helps no one. He saves no one. He exists only as a foil for meaningless arguments about abstractions.

 

[mark kennedy]

Is that a specific Lutheran P.O.V.?

Both Catholics and non-Lutheran Protestants hold that God is inherently good, being absolutely perfect in Himself. Secondary to that, God is good to His creation.

What may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:19-20)
​

People do know about God's divine attributes and eternal nature, God has made that known to them. The problem is the human condition suppresses the truth in unrighteousness.

 

[mark kennedy]

I'm sorry, but at the risk of derailing the subject, I have to completely disagree with that.
The whole "son sacrifice" thingy, is the very opposite of what I would consider "good".

First, let's consider a couple premises:
- God created heaven and hell
- God created the rules by which souls are judged
- God decides who he sends to hell / heaven
- God can grant forgiveness to whoever he pleases, regardless of the whole Jesus thingy, since he is supposedly all-powerful

You consider the gospel to be some kind of a 'thingy', and you expect to be taken seriously among Christians, really?

So you say that through Jesus, mankind is "saved". But saved from what, exactly?
==> from god himself. From god's very own judgement.

From sin, that is what separates us from God. It's that whole righteousness of God thingy.

God COULD forgive anyone at any time for anything.

On top of that, the christian belief is that Jesus IS God in the flesh.
So basically....

God sacrifices himself, to himself, so that he can save us from himself.

Next, the "sacrifice" part.... what exactly is being sacrificed here? That human body? He could make a trillion more of those bodies with the blink of an eye.
His life? Not really, since he resurected and turned out to be immortal and then went on to continue being the immortal ruler of the universe.

It's like making the "sacrifice" of giving away 50 billion dollars while you have an infinite supply of money.

It makes absolutely zero sense.[/quote]

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness (1 Cor. 1:20-23)

Then you can't say that God is good.

Sure we can since that is what the word literally means.

You don't need to "love evil" to be subject to his wrath. An atheist who dedicates his life to charity and never hurts a fly, will not be "saved", now will he? There's only one other alternative to "being saved", isn't there?

God judges everyone according to their secret motives, the thoughts and inclinations of the heart. That's what will be revealed on the last day and some who were previously atheists might be saved and some pretty devout Christians lost. It all depends.

Furthermore, this whole "saved" business makes your earthly behaviour rather irrelevant as well. The very notion of "forgiveness" is the suspension of justice. It means that it doesn't matter what "crimes" or "sins" you have committed, since you will be "forgiven" and be able to enjoy an eternal reward nonetheless. Isn't that true?

No that's not true, you must be the righteousness of God in Christ are you are doomed to the fires of perdition.

 

[DogmaHunter]

What you consider good is not really the deciding factor.

Then what is the deciding factor? The bible?

Then slavery is moral.


And so the merry goes round and round.

 

[DogmaHunter]

You consider the gospel to be some kind of a 'thingy', and you expect to be taken seriously among Christians, really?

I said the "son sacrifice thingy". Not the "gospel thingy".
And if you are going to discount my rant based on a figure of speech, then do you expect to be taken seriously?

From sin, that is what separates us from God. It's that whole righteousness of God thingy.

What does it mean, to be "saved from sin"?
Sounds like punishing a skapegoat for the crimes of others.

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness (1 Cor. 1:20-23)

Doesn't address the point.

Sure we can since that is what the word literally means.

It doesn't. The word "good" is in my vocabulary and I have no use for God to define, understand and use it.

God judges everyone according to their secret motives, the thoughts and inclinations of the heart. That's what will be revealed on the last day and some who were previously atheists might be saved and some pretty devout Christians lost. It all depends.

If being a christian is not a requirement, then what is the point of the religion?
And is Jesus not quoted as saying that "nobody gets to the Father, except through me"?

No that's not true, you must be the righteousness of God in Christ are you are doomed to the fires of perdition.

So whenever christians tell murderers that they need to accept christ and repent, it doesn't actually make any difference to the murderers' fate?

 

[durangodawood]

What you consider good is not really the deciding factor.

It is, actually.

Above all of it, above scripture, above the church, above everything, there's your own conscience which has to decide whether or not the whole thing is worthy.

(Or else youre just God's robot, or a slave to your culture, or similar)

 

[Par5]

You consider the gospel to be some kind of a 'thingy', and you expect to be taken seriously among Christians, really?



From sin, that is what separates us from God. It's that whole righteousness of God thingy.

God COULD forgive anyone at any time for anything.

On top of that, the christian belief is that Jesus IS God in the flesh.
So basically....

God sacrifices himself, to himself, so that he can save us from himself.

Next, the "sacrifice" part.... what exactly is being sacrificed here? That human body? He could make a trillion more of those bodies with the blink of an eye.
His life? Not really, since he resurected and turned out to be immortal and then went on to continue being the immortal ruler of the universe.

It's like making the "sacrifice" of giving away 50 billion dollars while you have an infinite supply of money.

It makes absolutely zero sense.

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness (1 Cor. 1:20-23)



Sure we can since that is what the word literally means.



God judges everyone according to their secret motives, the thoughts and inclinations of the heart. That's what will be revealed on the last day and some who were previously atheists might be saved and some pretty devout Christians lost. It all depends.



No that's not true, you must be the righteousness of God in Christ are you are doomed to the fires of perdition.[/QUOTE]
It may be off topic, but I too don't go a bundle on the so-called sacrifice of Jesus. I find the whole thing rather distasteful. Why could this supposedly all-powerful all loving god not just have forgiven everyone instead of sending his son(himself?) to suffer an agonising death?
And anyway, what was the sacrifice when he was up and about a few days later? It's as DomaHunter said, what sacrifice is there in giving away billions of dollars when you have an infinite supply of the same?
Lots of young men quite recently sacrificed their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. A real sacrifice. No one told their loved ones not to worry as their son/husband would up and about good as new in a couple of days.
Sorry to wander off topic, but it is just something I had to say.

 

[Everybodyknows]

And an incredible letter it is. Let me paraphrase and summarise it:

Dear Philemon,

Greetings! I thank God in my prayers that you're such a kind and loving man. I am sending this letter with my very dear friend and helper Onesimus, who used to be your slave (and legally still is). In Christ, I could order you to set him free, but I know that (being a kind and loving man) you'll do the right thing on your own. He is your brother in Christ, after all.

And, by a happy coincidence, I'll be coming to visit you a few days after you get this letter. Not to pressure you or anything, but I know that you'll have done the right thing by then.

Love, Paul

I'm wondering if there is actually anything new here in regards to a change in attitude towards slavery compared to the OT. Paul seems to be simply saying that it's not right for a brother in Christ to be a fellow Christians slave. This is just a new application of the law that Hebrews weren't to enslave each other. Paul doesn't really say anything in regards to the morality of the institution of slavery.

 

[YouAreAwesome]

- God created heaven and hell

Heaven is where God's Presence resides hence Luke 17:21 where Jesus explains that the kingdom of heaven can even be within a person. There is a reasonable amount of debate within christianity about the nature of hell. The traditional view of hell is that it is a place of eternal fire but some use Revelation to justify this belief--which is taking Revelation out of context (the fires in Revelation are with regard to burning the temple in 70AD). Annihilationists on the other hand argue fire burns things up, fire doesn't burn things forever; and that the actual meaning of burning forever is "to the vanishing point". When Jesus talked of it in the New Testament these argue that he was referring to a real place just outside of the city where things burned up, they didn't burn forever.

- God created the rules by which souls are judged

It's a simple rule, we can choose to live with Him forever, or reject.

- God decides who he sends to hell / heaven

No, this is the Calvinist approach. We are the ones who have the decision to make, to accept Him or to reject Him, our judgment has to do with our heart. Is our heart open to accept Him, or hardened?

- God can grant forgiveness to whoever he pleases, regardless of the whole Jesus thingy, since he is supposedly all-powerful

Yes, He has granted forgiveness to EVERYONE! This is the good news known as the gospel! Everyone has been forgiven and anyone can accept His forgiveness. The message christians are encouraged to spread is "Guess what! God has forgiven us!" And you are right, Jesus came to end the Old Covenant with it's laws and regulations and then He introduced a New Covenant of forgiveness. So by law He forgives.

So you say that through Jesus, mankind is "saved". But saved from what, exactly?
==> from god himself. From god's very own judgement.

Saved from death.

God COULD forgive anyone at any time for anything.

He has.

God sacrifices himself, to himself, so that he can save us from himself.

The sacrifice ended the covenant between man and God. Jesus had to come as a man to do that. Then, rather than sacrificing animals over and over Jesus did it once and for all. (See Romans 7:1-4)

Note Hebrews 10:8...

First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them"—though they were offered in accordance with the law.​

It seems God was not impressed with sacrifices, burnt offerings and sin offerings even though the law required them etc. Again, these were not what God ever wanted -- the Law was not what God wanted either. If you read Hebrews 10:1-18 you will see that Jesus died as a covenant sacrifice to bring in the new covenant, to put an end to the old law, and so that everyone is forgiven all people in the world can be called His chosen people rather than a small group.

Next, the "sacrifice" part.... what exactly is being sacrificed here? That human body? He could make a trillion more of those bodies with the blink of an eye.
His life? Not really, since he resurected and turned out to be immortal and then went on to continue being the immortal ruler of the universe.

It's like making the "sacrifice" of giving away 50 billion dollars while you have an infinite supply of money.

It makes absolutely zero sense.

You are right, it was the sacrifice of a human body, but not just any human body, it was the body of the covenant partner -- as seen in Romans 7 mentioned above. The death of the covenant partner ended the covenantal agreement, so that the better covenant could be established.

By the way, the sacrifice of the lambs under the old law was never to remove sin. God forgave their sins based on the faith manifested in killing the lamb; this faith reached forward toward the messiah who would come. Even under the old covenant system they were saved by faith in God, relationship with God. Through the sacrifice they were coming together to restore and renew the relationship. The killing of animals is a pretty normal part of life when it comes to food, and the sacrifice was to institute a feast of relational communion--not just for the sake of killing, which is often thought. It was a celebration of God's forgiveness.

Then you can't say that God is good.

We know God is good by His actions.

Christians constantly tell me that "all you need to do is accept christ and repent". It doesn't matter that you lived a life of raping, pilaging, murder and what-not.

Meanwhile, the perfectly decent atheist charity worker gets an eternity of suffering.

All need to be forgiven and enter a relationship with God. Good works, bad works, these things help or hurt our world we live in. God is interested in that too, but primarily He wants us. Sometimes the worst person knows it. And they want to be free of the guilt. Who are we to deny their forgiveness? Without forgiveness, we would all be doomed.

 

[YouAreAwesome]

if the authors could be wrong about 1 thing, they could be wrong about many things. They could be wrong about everything. So now, we need a methodology on how to decide which parts are correct and which aren't. And this methodology must be independent / objective. It can not be based on our emotions, beliefs, likes or preferences....

If some disciples were around when the gospels were being formulated, the formulation could be critiqued. I need to read more about this, but it seems tome that because there is no mention of the temple being destroyed anywhere in the bible, that most, if not all were written prior to AD70. So I have no problem trusting these. Disciples, as eye-witnesses to Jesus, are trustworthy sources of knowledge on Jesus and His teachings. So I trust John, 123 John, Revelation. Also Peter's books. Paul associated with the disciples and learned from them so he also is trustworthy etc etc. I realise this isn't a "formal methodology" but I don't see why this method is "wrong". I'm not sure creating a formal-methodology would be helpful actually, but I could be wrong. We weigh the entire set of writings against itself and look for the overall message. Each book can contain errors, especially in the sense that if something written in one book does not match the rest of the bible, it is to be questioned.

So, how do you know it was actually a vision, and not just a hallucination or a meaningless dream or something?

Because it reminded the people of Jesus' prediction about the destruction of the temple and therefore helped to save some number of christians.

 

[Radagast]

It is, actually.

Above all of it, above scripture, above the church, above everything, there's your own conscience which has to decide whether or not the whole thing is worthy.

No, God tells us what to do; we don't tell God what to do.

 

[durangodawood]

No, God tells us what to do; we don't tell God what to do.

Really? You dont get to choose whether to be a Christian or not?

I dont get to either?

 

[Gulielmus Beta]

Faith groups and individuals that deny the full, eternal deity of Jesus Christ or His incarnation whereby He, as God, took on human flesh (becoming fully God and fully man in one person), are considered non-Christians at CF.

Okay. I have no problem with that.

 

[Norbert L]

Where in the bible does it say that?



But it's not a point of this god/the bible leaving it upto humans... It's a point of this god/the bible downright making no issue of it and simply saying, uncondotionally, that it's fine to keep slaves.

You might have a point here, if the bible didn't mention slavery AT ALL. But it doesn't. It does touch upon the subject. And it says that's just fine to practice it.



But the bible doesn't deal with cosmology, nore is it the subject of discussion.



Not necessarily. The point is just that God / the bible said that it's fine to practice slavery. And the bible makes no mention of any of the excuses you are giving here. It doesn't say "for the time being". That's just you, adding to what the bible actually says.

"The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent." Acts 17:30 ESV By implication God overlooks things, it can be said that He allows certain types of behavior to continue within the framework of the social conscience. Similarly as I mentioned in my first comment, when Jesus talked about marriage and Moses allowing divorce, "He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." Matthew 19:8 ESV. Both imply that God did adjust His commands in dealing with ancient Israel. The pattern of behavior in both instances shows God adapting to that society. It's also should be rather evident to you that a large part of the entire world today still has not obeyed the former command. Would have a command of "thou shalt not keep slaves" have met with similar resistance back then?

Here's another way of dealing with the institute of slavery in history, why it's not as simple as slavery is bad, God condones slavery, therefore God is bad.

That time didn't have social security or medicaid as part of their market place, their economy was structured very differently. Famine, pestilence and war was much more brutal in impact back then. Like the saying desperate times call for desperate measures, how can anyone today fairly judge the moral values that were in place at that time? I would say it's a lot like apples and oranges, yes both are fruit but to flatly superimpose our values today onto a society back then, does not make an apple out of an orange. That's why it's not that simple and that's why for that time the judgments found in the Bible were appropriate for circumstances found within that civilization.

 

[Archie Dupont]

Exodus, where God kicked pharaoh's butt big time for enslaving his people after Moses asked the petulant god-king to "let my people go".
That is a pretty important book in the scheme of things. One would think that it would be pretty hard to miss.

You are right on the money there with the quote "let my people go". He was kicking the pharao's butt because he enslaved Moses' and therefore Gods people. With the emphasis on the latter, not on the slavery part. If God was feeling bad about slavery he would have kicked the butt of all slaveholders worldwide to this day. He did not. slavery was allowed to endure for thousands of years, as long as 'his' people was saved...

So I see no reason to suspect God was against slavery. He was merely a protector of his followers.

 

[Gulielmus Beta]

So I see no reason to suspect God was against slavery. He was merely a protector of his followers.

What an awful thing to say.

How could the Father of fathers, Who created everything, condone such a savage and unspeakably cruel institution and practice? Do you have any idea how those slaves were packed into the guts of ships, like sardines, in the cold and in the dark, shackled, naked, hungry, thirsty, torn from their families, their children, being subjected to GOD only knows what, to ride over the ocean, for MONTHS, shackled and packed like an unfeeling object, day after day, night after night, only to be unpacked, shown off, treated like cattle, like beasts, and forced to spend their lives toiling so that their fat, coddled, over-fed, spoiled rotten "masters" could have an even EASIER life than what they were already used to! No. You DO see a reason, and a damn good one, why GOD was (AND IS) against slavery.

God bless you, and may Christ's living blood be with you.