Slavery

[General Mung Beans]

I've skimmed through the various epistles and Paul mostly says that slaves should be content with their position and obey their masters. There is also a disputed passage which either means that slaves should gain their freedom if they can or they shouldn't gain freedom even if they can (Corinthians 7:21). Also there are numerous cases of believers owning slaves including believing slaves. Does this mean God doesn't mind slavery if there is no abuse of slaves or does this mean He merely tolerated slavery because the Classical world's economy depended on slavery?

 

[DrFrank]

Most of those who oppose the Christian faith do so in their doubts about the divinity of Jesus.Seldom are His teachings criticized but occasionally questions are raised about His apparent acceptance of slavery.Actually the Bible does not record Jesus commenting on the morality of slavery.Here is one of His few comments on the subject,using it as a parable: " No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."(Luke 16:13) Hardly an endorsement of slavery! But the fact remains that Jesus never condemned slavery.Why not? Since literally tens of thousands have been killed and literally hundreds of thousands have had their bodies permanently maimed because the military convinced them to devote their lives to "fighting for freedom" don't you think it's finally time to question Jesus' position on what has literally become a life and death issue?

The lack of concern about slavery that Jesus showed is extremely important for Christians to understand because it can prevent then from obtaining salvation should they fail to do so.While trying to survive in this the Age of Church Apostasy when it is common to see ministers preaching hate and support for the violence and even the crimes against humanity of warfare while standing next to the American flag in their pulpits,it is absolutely essential to understand that Christianity as opposed to political Churchanity, teaches and demands a separation from the world and its problems;an essential truth to internalize as we enter the political election season. In God's mind the problems of the world are not only irrelevant within His eternal time perspective, but even more important,by focusing on them ( ie.the "war on terrorism") we fill our minds with hate,the desire to retaliate and the deep anxiety the false god NATION creates for us. Rather we need to become mentally preoccupied with the love,forgiveness and peace that the real God will give us if we keep our minds focused on Him rather than on one of the false gods that abound in our country or the problems of the world which tragically are about to become exponentially more severe and even absurdly outrageous as we travel still further into the Tribulation period.

 

[singpeace]

Hi.

Paul is saying that in Christ, we are all equal. In him, we are free from slavery to our old ways and are now slaves to Christ. However, slavery to Christ translates to complete freedom from hell and the wages of sin.

Here is the same verse from the New Living Translation.

I Corinthians 7:21-23 (New Living Translation)

21. Are you a slave? Don’t let that worry you—but if you get a chance to be free, take it. 22. And remember, if you were a slave when the Lord called you, you are now free in the Lord. And if you were free when the Lord called you, you are now a slave of Christ. 23. God paid a high price for you, so don’t be enslaved by the world.

Galatians 3:28
There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

 

[TeachMe]

Hello General.


Ironically, this is one of the questions I had to answer when it was posed to me a few months ago by a philosophy graduate.


I liken slavery to polygamy and divorce. Not the original design, but tolerated because we live in a fallen world.

If you go to the first five books in the bible (known as the Pentateuch or the Torah) you will notice that God set up laws for the protection of slaves and for the protection of those who get divorced. Slavery that was allowed by God (although I certainly would not go so far as to say ENCOURAGED) was by far and away a different type of thing that is seen in recent history.

As for the accounts in the Pauline writings, it is my opinion that Paul was neither saying that slavery was good or commendable. He was merely saying that whatever station of life we are in when we come to Christ, we must serve Christ by doing our earthly tasks as He would do them, in all humility, compassion, patience and love.

for more information go to Answers in Genesis and do a search on their site for "Slavery and the Bible" (type those words into the search engine) there should be an excellent article written by Paul Taylor, AiG-UK and Bodie Hodge, AiG-US, who go into the issue in-depth.

 

[Pete_Martinez]

Keep in mind also that in those days there was no middle class. You were either rich or a servant of the rich. Or you would try to scrape your existence together by being a trade professional. But that was risky, as you would go to the marketplace and stand there waiting to be hired. If you weren't hired, you didn't eat.

See Matthew 20 for reference.

While slavery nowadays is considered intolerable, back then it was a necessary evil. Although to be honest I would argue slavery is still around. From sweat shops to emotional and spiritual slavery.