Paul said, "...do not become slaves of men." Why?

Pavel Mosko · Jul 26, 2020

2PhiloVoid said:
Yeah, I agree. The context is important. In the case of what we find in 1 Corinthians 7:20-24, it seems Paul suggests that Roman slavery should be avoided if possible, and we have to wonder why he says this if he actually thinks Roman slavery is 'ok.'

Oh that's kind of easy.

1) It is product of the Fallen World

2) It fits in with other things that were sort of just tolerated there are some parallels to things like people having multiple wives. That sort of thing was allowed in the Bible because of the near east culture etc. but was also shown to be problematic as far as jealousy etc. and so was not recommended to be the norm for church leaders, but it didn't take long for realize what was good for church leaders was also good for church members, and that especially was true when the Church gentile population became the majority or the norm, but even in Judaism I seem to recall it was only the rich Jews who could afford to have multiple wives and all the extra kids that would come with that and even their that practices would mostly die out except in Islamic regions like Spain, Mesopotamia etc.

2PhiloVoid · Jul 26, 2020

Pavel Mosko said:
Oh that's kind of easy.

1) It is product of the Fallen World

2) It fits in with other things that were sort of just tolerated there are some parallels to things like people having multiple wives. That sort of thing was allowed in the Bible because of the near east culture etc. but was also shown to be problematic as far as jealousy etc. and so was not recommended to be the norm for church leaders, but it didn't take long for realize what was good for church leaders was also good for church members, and that especially was true when the Church gentile population became the majority or the norm, but even in Judaism I seem to recall it was only the rich Jews who could afford to have multiple wives and all the extra kids that would come with that and even their that practices would mostly die out except in Islamic regions like Spain, Mesopotamia etc.

Ok. Those are some additional things to think about in relation to this passage of Paul's. But do you think Paul thought Roman slavery could be contended with or even preached against for the sake of social liberation from the whole institution of Roman slavery? I'm just asking what you think about this because a number of skeptics seem to think that Paul (and Jesus) could have [should have] preached against the presence of slavery in the world.

Pavel Mosko · Jul 26, 2020

2PhiloVoid said:
Ok. Those are some additional things to think about in relation to this passage of Paul's. But do you think Paul thought Roman slavery could be contended with or even preached against for the sake of social liberation from the whole institution of Roman slavery? I'm just asking what you think about this because a number of skeptics seem to think that Paul (and Jesus) could have [should have] preached against the presence of slavery in the world.

I don't think so, but this is one of those kind of silly academic type questions/issues from atheists etc. Israel and the Church were under subjugation by Rome. They were already putting up with lots of stuff like being heavily taxed where some of the people in the lower classes sometimes suffered from malnutrition, the law that allowed a Roman soldier to order any non citizen to carry his equipment etc. for a mile. The laws of slavery were just one more thing, on a list of things. Think about this for one moment.....

Christians were against the gladiatorial games but it took over 100 years before they would get around to out right banning them once Christian emperors took over!

Also what critics don't realize is their were a few different forms of slavery in Rome based on the epoch and the further you went in history the better the rights they got.

Several emperors began to grant more rights to slaves as the empire grew. Claudius announced that if a slave was abandoned by his master, he became free. Nero granted slaves the right to complain against their masters in a court. And under Antoninus Pius, a master who killed a slave without just cause could be tried for homicide.[65] Legal protection of slaves continued to grow as the empire expanded. It became common throughout the mid to late 2nd century AD to allow slaves to complain of cruel or unfair treatment by their owners.[66] Attitudes changed in part because of the influence among the educated elite of the Stoics, whose egalitarian views of humanity extended to slaves.

Slavery in ancient Rome - Wikipedia.

2PhiloVoid · Jul 27, 2020

Pavel Mosko said:
I don't think so, but this is one of those kind of silly academic type questions/issues from atheists etc. Israel and the Church were under subjugation by Rome. They were already putting up with lots of stuff like being heavily taxed where some of the people in the lower classes sometimes suffered from malnutrition, the law that allowed a Roman soldier to order any non citizen to carry his equipment etc. for a mile. The laws of slavery were just one more thing, on a list of things. Think about this for one moment.....

Christians were against the gladiatorial games but it took over 100 years before they would get around to out right banning them once Christian emperors took over!

Great point, Pavel!

Also what critics don't realize is their were a few different forms of slavery in Rome based on the epoch and the further you went in history the better the rights they got.

Click to expand...

Several emperors began to grant more rights to slaves as the empire grew. Claudius announced that if a slave was abandoned by his master, he became free. Nero granted slaves the right to complain against their masters in a court. And under Antoninus Pius, a master who killed a slave without just cause could be tried for homicide.[65] Legal protection of slaves continued to grow as the empire expanded. It became common throughout the mid to late 2nd century AD to allow slaves to complain of cruel or unfair treatment by their owners.[66] Attitudes changed in part because of the influence among the educated elite of the Stoics, whose egalitarian views of humanity extended to slaves.

Slavery in ancient Rome - Wikipedia.

Interesting. But I think critics will just say that we see humanity applying gradual, rational considerations to the whole idea of economy and human significance and was working this out anyway. Moreover, they're going to likely say that God should have said flat out something like what Jesus did when He said He "came to set the captives free..." (Luke 4:18) ... or something to that effect.

Of course, then I guess everyone will have to wonder what Jesus even meant by that quote of His ... :dontcare:

Pavel Mosko · Jul 27, 2020

2PhiloVoid said:
Interesting. But I think critics will just say that we see humanity applying gradual, rational considerations to the whole idea of economy and human significance and was working this out anyway. Moreover, they're going to say, likely, that God should just have said flat out something like Jesus did when He said He "came to set the captives free..." (Luke 4:18) ... or something to that effect.

Of course, then I guess everyone will have to wonder what Jesus even meant by that quote of His ...

That's the problem when people judge the past by the standards of the present, the past will always come up wanting. (And the same thing would happen if the reverse was true. The people of earlier generations would be shocked at what we tolerate. e.g. abortion, inappropriate contentography, apostasy, divorce, homosexuality, blasphemy, etc.)

It reminds me of this Far East Literature class, I took at UC Santa Cruz. in 1988. For whatever reason, that was also in Woman Studies too, but I took it to meet one of the esoteric requirements to graduate, and I liked the Indian professor who played it as a straight ancient literature class. The TA who ran the section groups however was a pure straw feminists and tended to want everything in the class to be discussed by that dynamic. And well that in many ways really defeated most of the purpose of the class for me, which ideally should have been to appreciate these old pieces of Indian and Chinese poems, plays, epics etc. on their own terms, and to learn about the culture who gave them rather than just beating the same dead horse of how women are oppressed that you can do at any time. I mean "know duh" will women conform to rigid roles, cultural stereotypes etc. in ancient work their is no democracy, and feminism will not be invented for a few millennia more.

Anyway when atheists do this sort of thing, I'm thinking the only thing to do is to point out how ludicrous it is as far as self fulfilling prophesy type things..... Other than put them on ignore that is. Adding a little cartoon like this might be an extra touch. Anyway this is a very narcissistic way of dealing with the past etc. not to mention other non-western cultures (This is suppose to be something progressives etc. care about aka multiculturalism)

Nihilist Virus · Jul 28, 2020

2PhiloVoid said:
Right. Paul gave the imperative, "...do not become slaves of men." Now, why would he say this, and why might it be something important to consider as a point of contention against the idea that Jesus and the Apostles somehow "advocated" slavery as some skeptics now say they did? How might we discern Paul's intended meaning overall?

Discuss!!!

Paul wants you to be a slave to Christ, not a slave to mammon or the flesh. I don't know who said Jesus or the apostles support slavery. Paul supports chattel slavery, as does the Old Testament.

2PhiloVoid · Jul 28, 2020

Nihilist Virus said:
Paul wants you to be a slave to Christ, not a slave to mammon or the flesh. I don't know who said Jesus or the apostles support slavery. Paul supports chattel slavery, as does the Old Testament.

"Supports"? Whatever do you mean ... ?

Yeah, I'm sorry. I can't let this assertion of yours slide.

Paul obviously didn't "support" chattel slavery any more than Jesus did ... he especially didn't support Roman slavery. But as Laura Robinson pointed out in the OP vid on my other thread, what could someone like Paul actually 'do' about it on a practical scale without drawing undue attention to himself or to others and risk personal safety ...............................................................

Nihilist Virus · Jul 28, 2020

2PhiloVoid said:
"Supports"? Whatever do you mean ... ?

Yeah, I'm sorry. I can't let this assertion of yours slide.

Paul obviously didn't "support" chattel slavery any more than Jesus did ... he especially didn't support Roman slavery. But as Laura Robinson pointed out in the OP vid on my other thread, what could someone like Paul actually 'do' about it on a practical scale without drawing undue attention to himself or to others and risk personal safety ...............................................................

So... suddenly Paul was averse to risking personal safety? I thought he was imprisoned and eventually executed for the gospel. Is that suddenly false?

Occasionally I press Christians on the issue and ask, "How did Paul go to prison for the sake of the gospel and then proceed to write half the New Testament while in prison? Why would the Romans place him in prison for sedition and then let him write and send out seditious literature?" Suddenly we learn Paul was actually under house arrest and was not being regularly tortured in prison.

Why don't we start with clarifying that?

2PhiloVoid · Jul 28, 2020

Nihilist Virus said:
So... suddenly Paul was averse to risking personal safety? I thought he was imprisoned and eventually executed for the gospel. Is that suddenly false?

Occasionally I press Christians on the issue and ask, "How did Paul go to prison for the sake of the gospel and then proceed to write half the New Testament while in prison? Why would the Romans place him in prison for sedition and then let him write and send out seditious literature?" Suddenly we learn Paul was actually under house arrest and was not being regularly tortured in prison.

Why don't we start with clarifying that?

................................what? :doh:

Didn't Paul, like Peter, say earlier in his ministry that there were times that he feared for his life. It wasn't until the later part of his evangelical life that we see a stronger indication (in Acts?) that Paul was dead set to go to Rome and "take one for the team."

You're confused. Of course, for those who apostasize after having come out of some of today's more fundamentalistic churches, it's no wonder you would be.

Nihilist Virus · Jul 28, 2020

2PhiloVoid said:
................................what? Didn't Paul, like Peter, say earlier in his ministry that there were times that he feared for his life. It wasn't until the later part of his evangelical life that we see a stronger indication (in Acts?) that Paul was dead set to go to Rome and "take one for the team."

You're confused. Of course, for those who apostasize after having come out of some of today's more fundamentalistic churches, it's no wonder you would be.

Didn't answer my question. And if he was ready to "take one for the team" then why not unequivocally condemn slavery?

2PhiloVoid · Jul 28, 2020

Nihilist Virus said:
Didn't answer my question. And if he was ready to "take one for the team" then why not unequivocally condemn slavery?

Well, if you don't like my answer, then maybe you'll think about this brief one by Lee (Ron) Martin McDonald:

Was Paul Indifferent to Slavery? « Biola Magazine

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Paul said, "...do not become slaves of men." Why?

Pavel Mosko

Arch-Dude of the Apostolic

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2PhiloVoid

Get my point, Web-Maker ???

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Pavel Mosko

Arch-Dude of the Apostolic

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2PhiloVoid

Get my point, Web-Maker ???

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Pavel Mosko

Arch-Dude of the Apostolic

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Nihilist Virus

Infectious idea

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2PhiloVoid

Get my point, Web-Maker ???

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Nihilist Virus

Infectious idea

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2PhiloVoid

Get my point, Web-Maker ???

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Nihilist Virus

Infectious idea

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2PhiloVoid

Get my point, Web-Maker ???

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