Back in bible times, people had slaves. Slavery was legal.
This is a weird and troubling idea for a lot of Christians. In the United States, slavery was based on white supremacy, we consider it immoral (well, unless we’re white supremacists), and it’s now illegal. So it’s troubling to read about slavery in the bible as if it’s normal or okay.
Especially considering our history with slavery. We fought a whole war over it, y’know. Many southerners are in denial about that, and claim the War Between the States was really about states’ rights and local sovereignty… even though slaveholders were plenty outraged when northern states claimed states’ rights and sovereignty and refused to return fugitive slaves. Nope, history reveals Confederate politicians and generals proudly declared they were fighting to retain their peculiar institution of slavery. Because unlike southerners today, they didn’t consider slavery to be immoral. Hey, it’s in the bible!
Thing is, American slavery wasn’t at all like biblical slavery. What Americans practiced was
But there was, and Americans were in fact guilty of violating a biblical command:
Exodus 21.16 NIV - “Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.”
Slave traders, slave buyers, slaveholders, their descendants, and every northerner who looked the other way and permitted the southerners to do their thing: All of them were complicit in the divinely-condemned capital crime of kidnapping. As Abraham Lincoln speculated time and again, our Civil War was likely God’s judgment upon us. Southerners who pretend the war wasn’t about slavery and racism, who claim it was really about heritage and self-governance and a noble “lost cause”: Their pride and willful blindness is just risking more judgment upon them and their people.
Because chattel slavery is kidnapping. It’s entirely immoral. God said so. Had American slaveholders properly interpreted their bibles, they’d discover every last one of them deserved to die. The Civil War is still the bloodiest, deadliest war in American history—and if it was God’s wrath, we got off light.
So yeah, keep in mind American slavery isn’t at all what the bible depicts. It’s far closer to what we do with our prisons—’cause convicts aren’t free either, and are sentenced to various forms of forced labor. Well, in bible times they didn’t have anything close to our prison system. How did convicts serve their time after they committed a crime? Slavery.
Penal slavery.
Any form of involuntary service is what we mean by
I know; some people are gonna object to that definition because they feel they work against their will, yet don’t consider themselves slaves. Like a guy with a job he hates. Is he a slave? No; he can leave that job whenever he wants. He may hate the alternatives—unemployment, poverty, loss of healthcare and benefits, etc.—but he has free will; he can leave. Now if you don’t have free will, ’cause there’s a guard blocking the door, that’d be slavery.
So yeah, your work might feel involuntary, ’cause you sure don’t wanna do it. Like an overworked mother whose husband won’t do his fair share of the chores. and she feels she’s gotta do his chores or they’ll never get done. She actually doesn’t gotta. But just because you feel you have no other options, doesn’t mean you truly have no other options. If it’s truly involuntary, it’s slavery. Got that?
So who works against their will in our society? Convicts.
Y’see, slavery didn’t begin just because one person decided it was okay to own other human beings and work ’em to death. It was invented to punish evildoers. Fr’instance two tribes might fight a war, and one side won. What do you do with the losers? Kill them all? Well yeah, sometimes that’s exactly what they did. But more often they’d just enslave the losers.
So when one person injured another in bible times, part of making things right was involuntary servitude. The perpetrator had to serve the victim. Or serve the king who sentenced them. There were no jails nor prisons back then—other than as temporary holding cells for people who were gonna be executed. (In Roman times there were islands to which convicts might be exiled, which served as prison colonies. That’s as close to our prison system as the ancients got.)
Since human nature is vengeful, punishment seldom truly fit the crime. Ancient slavery might be for life. Or till they, or their family members, could gather enough money to buy back their freedom. A lot of ancient slavery was the result of debt: You owed money, so you sold yourself to pay your bills. Or worse: You sold your children to pay your bills. Some forms of slavery were entirely unfair.
And let’s not be naïve: Still are. The United States has a higher percentage of our citizens in prison than any other developed nation. Way too many of those citizens are black, because our courts, for the very same crimes, tend to give black convicts jail time, and white convicts community service. Our voters often demand three minor crimes, or “strikes,” should jail habitual criminals for life; or demand drug addicts or the insane oughta be jailed rather than treated. We got problems.
But throughout history, from ancient times to today, people don’t care if punishment doesn’t fit the crime: That’s just your lot in an unfair world. And the reason chattel slavery came to exist was because people took advantage of penal slaves and enslaved their children as well. They’d invent castes and races, and claim ’em as justifications: These people were born inferior, and slavery is all they’re good for. They’d keep ’em in bondage forever, like the ancient Egyptians did with the Hebrews, or Americans with native Indian or imported African slaves. They were declared subhuman, their human rights ignored… and so they were abused, murdered, and raped as their kidnappers pleased.
Mitigating slavery in the scriptures.
Slavery wasn’t created by God. He never declared, “When a person sins in this way or that, make a slave of them.” Slavery was created by humans, and slavery existed as an institution before the L
But what we see in the scriptures is how the L
Hebrews who sold themselves into slavery were to be treated as employees, and no worse.
Yes, women slaves were treated differently. Most of that has to do with the way
Most significantly: Male slaves were to be freed on the sabbath year.
These commands were a huge contrast with the way the pagan nations round Israel, or with the way ancient Greeks and Romans, treated their slaves. Or with the way Americans treat our convicts. (Or debtors.) We sentence many of our convicts way longer than seven years. If the idea of freeing everyone after seven years bothers you (“Wait, did they adequately serve their time?”) bear in mind if we bothered to follow God’s commands today, we’d definitely dedicate those seven-year sentences to making really sure convicts worked off their sentence and were ready to re-enter society. Not merely sticking them in a cell for decades, and teaching them to adjust to life behind the walls.
True, there’d be people in this system trying to game or abuse it. There always are, in every system. But we need to bear in mind God doesn’t want people to be in bondage forever. Jesus came to set captives free.
Luke 4.16-21 NIV 16 [Jesus] went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read,17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,- because he has anointed me
- to proclaim good news to the poor.
- He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
- and recovery of sight for the blind,
- to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”Is 61.1-2 20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus never specified which type of captives he meant—whether captives because they committed crimes, captives because they went into debt, captives because they were defeated by foreign powers, captive to sin: Jesus came to be gracious to all. Including convicts.
True, when a convict has done great harm, their victims are gonna object. They’re gonna want revenge, and I don’t entirely blame them. Well, I do if they’re Christians, and should know better—that they have to forgive, and “I forgave but they still owe society a debt” is a cop-out. When Jesus told us to forgive others, lest God not bother to forgive us,
Slavery in God’s kingdom.
In writing about slaves, Plato of Athens wasn’t sure whether they were any good for anything other than working for their masters. Politics 1.1259
The apostles obviously assumed otherwise. Slaves (and convicts) are human beings, same as the apostles. Not inferior to them, for in Christ there’s neither slave nor free.
Colossians 3.22-25 NIV 22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.25 Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism.Ephesians 6.5-8 NIV 5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people,8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.1 Timothy 6.1-2 NIV 1 All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered.2 Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves.Titus 2.9-10 NIV 9 Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them,10 and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.1 Peter 2.18-20 KWL 18 Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.19 For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God.20 But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.
Though Paul taught you weren’t gonna automatically change your life situation just because you became Christian, he did teach slaves that they oughta get out of slavery if they could, and stay away from it. For Christ called them—and us—to be free. We’re to be Christ’s slaves, and no one else’s.
And just as Christian slaves had to be like Jesus, Christian slaveholders had to be like Jesus too.
Ephesians 6.9 NIV - And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
Philemon 1.15-18 NIV 15 Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever—16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.17 So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.18 If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me.
Paul’s letter to Philemon shows us particularly how we’re to consider slaves or convicts: As sisters and brothers in Christ. And for that matter, we oughta adopt Paul’s example: If there’s any way we can take care of a convict’s penalty—say, get it reduced, or help pay off fines—we should help free them if we can.
Yeah, I realize that’s gonna outrage unforgiving, grace-deficient people who insist convicts oughta pay their own way. But there’s plenty of precedent in the scriptures. In the Law, the L
Hence we should pay his grace forward by freeing our sisters and brothers in Christ when we can. Practice a little radical forgiveness, and join with him in setting captives free. That’s good news.
