Does the Bible condone slavery? Eventually, every thinking Christian must confront this question. For one thing, if you read your Bible on a regular basis, it is only a matter of time before you will run into passages that speak quite frankly of it, such as the laws in Exodus that govern slave-master relationships. The New Testament too has passages such as Ephesians 6:5: “Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ.” Paul convinced the fugitive slave Onesimus to return to his master Philemon, who was a Christian prominent enough to host a house church. We must all face the grim reality that texts like these have been used to justify even the vilest forms of slavery, such as that which was common in the American South before the Civil War.
This issue is much deeper than a question of intellectual curiosity, or of scoring points against the Bible’s critics who love to cite slave texts as a parade example of the Bible’s alleged ethical shortcomings. For the Christian, these passages, and others like them, are the inspired Word of God, which reveal his moral will to us. And so, the question may arise, “How can I love a God who finds it acceptable that one human being can own another?” Abraham Lincoln has been quoted as saying, “If anything is wrong, slavery is wrong.” If Lincoln knew this, why doesn’t God? And is such a God worthy of our love, adoration, and worship?
Here we will confront these issues head-on. Our purpose is not to explain away the relevant slavery passages in the Bible, but to attempt to understand them in their proper contexts. This is a somewhat daunting task, and so we will be as brief as possible, yet hopefully thorough enough to do justice to this significant issue.
Summary
In order to present an accurate picture of slavery in the Bible, we must delve in some detail into all of the most relevant passages. By the very nature of the beast, this requires a somewhat lengthy treatment. Though I have been as brief as possible, I realize that not every reader will want to read this entire treatment. For those simply looking for a brief overview, I offer the following points that will be fleshed out in the following essay:
Slavery in Old Testament Law
Out the outset, we must make an important distinction between the Old Testament passages on slavery and those found in the New Testament. The passages in the Old Testament that we will be considering are found \ in the laws of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. One of the primary purposes of these laws was to govern ancient Israel—a nation that enjoyed a special covenant relationship with God and lived under kings and rulers who were supposed to govern in accordance with these laws. The New Testament passages, by contrast, are written to Christians who lived in the Roman Empire, where slavery was an important, socially-embedded institution. In other words, while the Old Testament law was given by God to be the law of the land, the admonitions in the New Testament are given to people living under someone else’s law. Accordingly, we will treat them separately.
Getting the Terminology Straight
A major cause of confusion for contemporary readers is the assumption that the word “slave,” as it is found in Old Testament legal passages, meant the same thing in ancient Israel as it does for us today. The Old Testament was written in Classical Hebrew, and so it is not surprising that certain words do not have perfect equivalents in modern English. The difficulty felt by Bible translators in rendering the Hebrew terms relating to slavery is fairly well-publicized.[1] Strictly speaking, the Old Testament does not call an individual bound to the service of another a “slave;” it calls him an ʿebed (pronounced eved), and a woman in such a role is called an ʾāmâ. While these terms can connote very harsh slavery, comparable to that which was found in the Antebellum South (e.g., the Hebrews as Egyptian slaves), it often does not, as is the case in most of the words’ appearances in the so-called Old Testament “slave laws.” The most that can be said about in general about these two terms, especially the first, is that they are used to denote a social class that is relatively lower than another. Thus, it is common in Old Testament speech for people to refer to themselves as “your servant” (Heb. ʿabdekā) when addressing someone submissively.
General Observations
So just how similar was Israelite slavery to our conception of the institution that bears the same name? Not much. Consider first that Israelite slavery was voluntary. Exodus 21:16 says, “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” Found among the earliest cluster of slave laws, this speaks directly to the issue of slavery, and forbids anything resembling a slave trade among the ancient Israelites. This verse alone should make it clear that “slavery” in Old Testament law is vastly different than anything that we commonly associate with slavery. By contrast, Leviticus 25:39 and 47 speak of the poor Israelite as “selling himself” into servitude, suggesting what we will soon discover—that Israelite slaves were debt-servants, not human chattel deprived of freedom and basic rights. The fourth commandment even requires that slaves enjoy the Sabbath along with their masters (Exod 20:8–11). Thus, any passage that speaks of masters as “buying” Hebrew servants should be understood as referring to a voluntary act, in which the slave was not sold by another, but sold his own labor to another Israelite.
Another important law that should inform our understanding of what was legal in ancient Israel is Deuteronomy 23:15–16: “You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.” According to the law of Moses, it was actually illegal to return a fugitive slave.[2] In fact, this passage commands his fellow Israelites to allow him to dwell wherever he pleases. Effectively, Israelite slaves could break their service contracts simply by leaving. Slavery in Israelite law was entered into voluntarily and could be ended voluntarily. This stands in stark contrast to other ancient Near Eastern law codes of the day, such as the Law of Hammurabi (ca. 1792–1750 BC), which gives a drastically different perspective on runaway slaves:
If a man should harbor a fugitive slave or slave woman of either the palace or of a commoner in his house and not bring him out at the herald’s public proclamation, that householder shall be killed.
If a man seizes a fugitive slave or slave woman in the open country and leads him back to his owner, the slave owner shall give him 2 shekels of silver.
If that slave should refuse to identify his owner, he shall lead him off to the palace, his circumstances shall be investigated, and they shall return him to his owner.
If he should detain that slave in his own house and afterward the slave is discovered in his possession, that man shall be killed.[3]
Debt Slavery in Old Testament Law
Slavery, as it is described in Israelite law, was a way in which a family could deal with debt. Imagine that you are an ancient Israelite—the head of a household. You spend all day farming and keeping a small flock of sheep and goats, helped by everyone in your extended household. What do you do if you have a bad year, and are unable to feed your family? The answer is that you borrow from someone who has enough surplus grain (or some other commodity) to lend you. Under Israelite law, this loan would be interest-free (Lev 25:35–37), but you still need to pay back what you borrowed. But now imagine that you have another bad year, and so you need to borrow again. Year after year, your debt accumulates, and you have no way to pay it back. Unless your intention is to default on the loan—effectively stealing from the one who lent to you at no interest rather than selling his grain—your only option is to repay your debt with your only means available, the labor of the people in your household.
The term of service that an Israelite could serve another under these conditions was six years. In the seventh, he had to be released (Exod 21:2). This is an upper limit; smaller debts could presumably be paid in less time. As far as the nature of the labor involved, it is important to note that the Israelite slave would be doing essentially the same thing that he would have been doing in his family’s household: Working fields and shepherding flocks. Under the care of a wealthier family, he would have been better fed, better clothed, and able to engage in work that was probably more rewarding. Then, at the end of their six-year term,[4] Israelite slaves had two options:
They could return to their household. If this is chosen, the master would be obligated to follow Deuteronomy 15:12–14:
If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, sells himself to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him.
The Israelite slave was not expected to start over from scratch after he was released from service. Rather, his now former master, who had benefitted from his labor, was to provide him with “liberal” amounts of livestock, grain, and wine, in order to get him back on his feet, as part of Israel’s legal provision for the poor.
They could remain permanently in the house of their master. Exodus 21:5–6 reads as follows:
But if the slave plainly says,[5] ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children: I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.
Deuteronomy 15:16, which addresses the same situation, adds an additional reason why a slave might choose to stay: "Since he is well-off with you."
What is interesting about these passages is that they speak indirectly to the nature of Israelite debt-servitude, and speak to the reality that, for some (or many) Israelite slaves, life could have been significantly better with their masters than it would have been in their own households. There is a real “love” for the master, akin to the love for his own family (i.e., his wife and children).[6] If the slave desires to stay, then he and his master are to go to a public area (“to God” probably designates the tabernacle or temple), and to put a mark on his ear that would serve as permanent evidence that the servant publically declared his desire to remain with his master, and that he was not being exploited by being held against his will.
The passage at the beginning of Exodus 21 continues with a stipulation that requires some comment. Speaking of the debt slave introduced in verses 1 and 2, we read, “If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone” (Exod 21:3–4). At first blush, this seems misogynistic, denying the woman of the same rights given to the man in the previous verse. A man can be released after six years, but not a woman? This is emphatically not what is going on here. Notice that the woman in question was given to the male slave as a wife during his time as a slave. This woman would have been a female slave.[7] What this passage is teaching is that her term of service is not to be cut short simply because her husband’s ended before hers. In such a case, his options would have been either to wait for her to be freed or to ransom her, perhaps with some of the provisions that he received at the time of his release. As for the children, these would all be young, a maximum of five years old (assuming the woman entered service a year after the man and was married to him immediately), an age at which they need their mother, not their father. This law probably would have influenced how often marriage between slaves would have taken place and would have prevented women from foolishly entering into a marriage only to gain an early manumission.
The following paragraph also prevents a puzzling case:
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do [that is, she shall not be released from her service at the end of six years]. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people since he has broken faith with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money (Exod 21:7–11).
It is clear that the woman in this passage has been given in marriage to the master’s household. The master here has either “designated her for himself” or “for his son” (vv. 8–9), and verse 10 gives the condition, “If he takes another wife for himself . . .” In ancient Near Eastern marriages, the groom customarily gave the bride’s family a bride price.[8] Here, forgiveness of debt would serve as that gift. The reason, then, that this female “slave”[9] is not given release is because marriage is for life, and doesn’t magically end after six years. If the notion of a father giving her daughter in marriage to man in order to pay off debt seems disturbing, it should be remembered that the practice of arranged marriage has been the norm in many cultures, even in our own day, and often results in marriages that are just as happy and fulfilled as ones that are not arranged. At any rate, such an objection is not to the institution of Israelite debt-slavery per se, but to the practice of arranged marriages.
The law under question is geared exclusively towards the protection of the woman’s rights, to protect her from exploitation at the hands of a more powerful family. Should the master desire to divorce her (i.e., “if she does not please her master”),[10] he is not permitted to sell her to a foreigner (v. 16). Since it was illegal to sell an Israelite to another Israelite (see above), only foreigners are mentioned here. In other words, the master couldn’t circumvent Exod 21:16 by attempting to turn a profit in selling his ex-wife to a non-Israelite. No Israelite could deprive another of their membership in the covenant people of God. Instead, he was to permit her to be redeemed (v. 8)—a provision which only needs to be specified here since a marriage is in view.
The second situation, mentioned in verse 9, is that if she has been given to in marriage to his son. Here she must be treated as a full-daughter, which means that her children would be legitimate heirs with full inheritance rights, not second-generation servants. In case it isn’t obvious, this was a very big deal.
Finally, in the event that a second wife is taken (polygamy was sometimes practiced in Israel, always with disastrous results), her status is not to be lower than the second wife. Any violation of the terms stated here result in her “freedom” (lit., her “going out”), and her family’s debt is forgiven, even if the marriage was short-lived.
If the idea of debt servitude strikes us a primitive, we need to remember that many of the options that are available to us today were not available in the ancient world, for better or for worse. And how preferable is the modern situation, where the poor grow ever poorer as debt grows and grows, until the only option for the poor becomes bankruptcy, which not only destroys the debtor’s access to credit, but also amounts to breaking one’s oath at best, and thievery at worst? This system in ancient Israel was intended to maintain incentives to lend to the poor, where interest is not an option and when the risk of default werenoften quite high. These are the kinds of situations addressed by Old Testament law in a society that differed greatly from our own. It isn’t a matter of whether these options would be good for us, living in twenty-first century America, but whether or not these were good for the ancient Israelites, living from 1200 to 586 BC.
Difficult Passages
The laws that we have considered so far have shown a high degree of concern for the rights of Israelite slaves, and for their dignity as human beings created in the image of God. Later in Exodus 21, however, there are two other laws that are much more liable to confusion. Yet, as we will see, any offense taken at these laws owes more to our unfamiliarity in reading biblical law than it does with anything inherently immoral the laws themselves. We will consider the latter law first, since a good understanding of it will have a bearing on how we understand the former.
In Exod 21:25–26, we read, “When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth.” The first thing to note is that many Old Testament laws begin with “when” or “if” clauses (i.e., conditional clauses, Heb. kî or ʾīm): “If or when someone does x, then do y.” An application of very simple logic reveals that such laws in no way condone what is contained in the when/if clause. If I say, “If a man robs this liquor store, don’t shoot him on sight; call the cops,” I’m not condoning the robbing of liquor stores. The situation is exactly the same with laws like this one. In fact, Jesus seems to address one such misreading of Deuteronomy 24 by the Pharisees in Matthew 19. Exodus 2 in no way sanctions physical mistreatment of slaves.
What this verse does do is provide release from servitude for any serious physical injury caused by a master. The mention of eyes and teeth here does not restrict this provision to only these two kinds of injuries, any more than it does in the “eye for eye/tooth for tooth” principle given in the immediately preceding verses (vv. 23–25).[11]
Exodus 21:20–21 says, “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.” Does this give masters impunity to beat a slave within an inch of his life? Absolutely not. As was the case with the previous example (vv. 25–26), we should not read an implied approval into the presence of a conditional (i.e., an if) clause. Actually, by allowing the slave’s death to be “avenged,” the law is treating the slave’s life on par with any other free Israelite.[12] Only eight verses earlier, murder is established as a capital crime (v. 12). The slave’s life is of no less value than his master’s.
Or is it? The truly tricky part of this law is verse 21. The ESV reads, "If the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged." This, however, is a misleading way to translate this verse, because the Hebrew literally reads, “If, in a day or two, he stands up . . .”[13] The NIV is helpful here: “If the slave recovers after a day or two.” That, in itself, doesn’t help us very much, until we take into account the law that immediately precedes this one in verses 18–19. This describes a situation that arises when two men fight and one is injured so that he cannot work. Verse 19 concludes with language very similar to our slave law in verse 21: “Then, if the man rises again and walks outdoors with his staff, he who struck him shall be clear.” So, the scenario painted here is of a slave owner who beats his slave but does not kill him, and this law prohibits a family member from exacting vengeance on the master for the mistreatment.[14]
But that’s not all. Recall that, according to verses 26 and 27 (see above), a master who beats his slave is required to release him. This would have been the case here, and explains well the otherwise troubling way this law ends: “For he is his money.”[15] In other words, the slave is his master’s capital investment (his “money”), and losing him under the law of Exod 21:26–27 is punishment enough; it hits him in the wallet.
The most difficult passage on slavery in Old Testament law is Leviticus 25:44–46:
As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.
Having observed the lengths to which the law goes to protect the rights and dignity of Israelites who sold themselves into slavery in order to pay off debt, it now seems that the same law denies these things to foreigners. There is a degree of truth to this. Most strikingly, while Exodus 21:16 forbade a slave trade within Israel, this passage permits Israelites to engage in the slave trade of other nations. Individuals acquired through these means do become “property,”[16] which can be passed down from generation to generation.
But this law does not exist in isolation, either from other passages regarding the treatment of foreigners, or from the culture to which it was given. It is quite easy to criticize a law from over 3,000 years ago from the comforts and standards of a twenty-first century liberal capitalist democracy, with a worldwide community that is more or less concerned about human rights. But we must remember that this was not the world into which God spoke when he gave Leviticus 25. Ancient Israel was a tiny part of a much larger world, were a robust and often ruthless international slave trade existed. Of course, one option would have been for God to have forbidden his people to participate in it, and that would have meant that those slaves would have been sold in other lands, where there was no understanding of the basic dignity of all human beings created in the image of God and where slaves were less than full persons. Such individuals would have often found themselves in conditions similar to the Israelites in Egypt, as human chattel forced into backbreaking and degrading labor, with no Sabbath rest, and no laws defending the worth of the sojourner and the alien, let alone those purchased from slave caravans.
The Old Testament’s emphasis on the loving treatment of the foreigner is apparent from several important passages. Leviticus 19:33–34 instructs, “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” Notice that this verse clearly extends the category of “sojourner” to slaves, using the same word (gēr) to refer to the status of the Hebrews when they lived in Egypt (also Deut 10:19). We should not miss the language: He or she shall not be “wronged” (oppressed), and he shall be treated as a native Israelite. In fact, the same wording is used for this person as is used for the “neighbor” in the second greatest commandment, quoted by Jesus (Matt 19:199; 22:39; Mark 12:31; also Rom 13:9; Gal 5:14; Jas 2:8), which is found originally in Lev 19:18: “You shall love him as yourself.”[17]
It should also be noted that the land of Israel was given to tribal clans for perpetual ownership (Joshua 14–21; Num 26:52–56), and therefore could not be permanently sold outside the clan to whom it was designated. This is why land—even land that had been sold—was to be returned to its owners in the years of liberty (i.e., every forty-ninth year; Lev 25:13–17, 23).[18] The reason for this was to prevent the oppression of poorer Israelites by opportunistic landowners. Refusal to observe these laws becomes the object of prophetic rebuke later in Israel’s history (e.g., 1 Kgs 21:3; Isa 5:8; Mic 2:1–2). For this reason, foreigners could not be easily assimilated into Israel’s agrarian and pastoralist socio-economic system, although there are plenty of examples in the Old Testament of non-natives who were. Examples of this include Rahab, Ruth, and Uriah the Hittite (who lived within eyeshot of David’s palace), as well as lesser-known examples such as Obed-edom the Gittite (2 Samuel 6), Ittai the Gittite (2 Samuel 15), and Araunah the Jebusite (2 Samuel 24). Given these considerations, we can see how slave purchase provided a place for individuals enslaved in other countries to be integrated into Israelite society, and to be blessed by the Lord as a part of the covenant community. God constantly reminds the Israelites that they are not to mistreat slaves as they were mistreated in Egypt (Exod 22:21; 23:9; Lev 19:34; Deut 5:15; 10:19; 15:15; 16:12; 24:18, 22). And we should also bear in mind that nothing in the prohibition against returning fugitive slaves (Deut 23:15–16) restricts the law to Hebrew debt servants.
Slavery in the New Testament
The situation with New Testament slave texts is significantly different than what we find in the Old, and it is not hard to see why. As noted earlier, the Old Testament law was given by God to govern his people Israel, and it expresses the moral will of God for a specific people at a specific time and for a specific purpose. It was given in order to provide the national law for Israel, a theocratic nation under the sovereign rule of God. The New Testament, by way of contrast, speaks to God’s people, the church, as subjects living within an already-existing political entity (the Roman Empire), whose laws and norms were the result of human political philosophy, not God’s moral will. In the New Testament, God is not at work establishing a political entity, but is rather redeeming a people for himself, called out from every nation. Accordingly, God gives his people instructions on how to live in already existing social structure.
Christian slaves are addressed directly in Ephesians 6:5–9, Colossians 3:22–25, and 1 Peter 2:18–25. In all these passages, emphasis is placed on obedience towards masters and serving faithfully as an act of obedience to God. Ephesians 6:9 and Colossians 4:1 also address masters, both stressing fair and just treatment, and an understanding that we all have the same “master” in heaven, the Lord Jesus.[19] The passage in first Peter is geared specifically towards slaves who are treated unjustly by apparently non-Christian masters, and is part of Peter’s exhortation to endure suffering in the footsteps of Jesus.
The short book of Philemon is addressed to a Christian slave owner whose escaped slave, Onesimus, had come into contact with Paul while Paul was in prison. During the course of their interaction, Onesimus became a Christian and had been discipled by Paul. Paul then sent Onesimus back to Philemon, carrying the letter, in which Paul tactfully exhorts Philemon to receive Onesimus back, “no longer as a bondservant, but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother” (16). Not only does Paul not want Philemon to punish Onesimus; he wants him to accept him as a full member of the Christian community, and even promises to pay from his own pocket for any of the damages Onesimus’ flight may have cost Philemon (18–19). Due to the diplomatic way in which Paul makes his requests in this letter, it is not entirely clear if Paul is urging Philemon to free Onesimus. But he does seem to imply this when he states that he wishes Onesimus would remain available to him in order to help in his ministry (13–14).[20] Moreover, it has been argued (persuasively, in my judgment) that reception of Onesimus “as a beloved brother . . . both in the flesh and in the Lord” amounts to a direct request for his manumission.[21]
Greco-Roman Slavery
In order to address some of the questions that arise from these passages, we need to observe some aspects of the deeply-embedded and exceedingly common institution of slavery in the Greco-Roman world. Some estimates place the number of slaves in Rome itself at up to 90 percent of the city’s total population.[22] In this culture, people became slaves either to pay debt, because they had been captured in war, or because they had been born into the slave class. An individual could also sell himself into slavery in order to live an easier life than he had as a freedperson, and even to advance socially.[23] Following the precedent set by earlier Greek law, slaves differed from freedpersons in four primary ways:[24]
In Roman society, slaves could own property and other slaves, they were not enslaved based on the color of their skin (it was not a racist institution), and slavery was often temporary. While there were certainly very degrading and dehumanizing forms of slavery in the Roman world (e.g., mining), many served in more dignified positions, such as tutors, professors, estate managers, bookkeepers, and doctors, or as artisans. Roman Emperors used slaves to manage imperial estates and often placed them in charge of important tasks, such as lighting, tailoring, wine-keeping and tasting, and cooking. The slaves addressed in Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3, as well as Onesimus in Philemon, would have been household slaves, as is evident by the placement of these texts amongst advice to household members (i.e., husbands, wives, and children).
The conditions of a slave’s life depended highly on the disposition of their master. Some were brutally abused, while others enjoyed very kind treatment, such as was shown by the centurion who sought Jesus on behalf of his slave who had fallen sick (Luke 7:1–11). Of course, fair treatment of slaves was not purely altruistic; masters benefitted from slaves who were content.[25]
The New Testament Response
As modern readers, it is common to wonder why the New Testament writers don’t speak more forcefully against slavery. Many feel justified in criticizing Paul, or Peter, or Jesus, for that matter, for not being staunch abolitionists. However, such objections reflect modern sensitivities and a lack of appreciation for both the historical realities in the first century and the transformative nature of the gospel.[26] If we are to gain understanding, we need to allow these texts to speak first into the culture to which they were originally written. The possibility of wholesale abolition was not available until much later in history, and then it was the result of the theological convictions of Christians, based on the very texts in question.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that at least twice in the New Testament, the institution and practice of slavery is condemned. In 1 Timothy 1:10, Paul lists “enslavers” (Gk. andrapodistai) among “the lawless and disobedient, the ungodly and sinners,” who practice “what is contrary to sound doctrine.” In Revelation 18:13, the trading in “slaves, that is, human souls” is listed among the evils of Rome (called “Babylon the great” in v. 2).
For us, living in a post-Enlightenment, “post-Braveheart world,” freedom appears to be a basic value—indeed the fundamental right without which happiness and fulfillment cannot be attained. But we need to realize that this is a modern conviction that may have not been obvious or desirable at earlier points in human history. Moreover, it was well-understood that freedom in the Roman world often meant a lower standard of living for freed slaves. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus (himself once a slave) writes of the common experience of freed slaves:
“'If I shall be set free, immediately it is all happiness, I care for no man, I speak to all as an equal and, like to them, I go where I choose, I come from any place I choose, and I go where I choose.' Then he is set free; and forthwith having no place where he can eat, he looks for some man to flatter, some one with whom he shall sup: then he either works with his body and endures the most dreadful things; and if he can obtain a manager, he falls into a slavery much worse than his former slavery; or even if he is become rich, being a man without any knowledge of what is good, he loves some little girl, and in his happiness laments and desires to be a slave again. He says, 'What evil did I suffer in my state of slavery? Another clothed me, another supplied me with shoes, another fed me, another looked after me in sickness; and I did only a few services for him. But now a wretched man, what things I suffer, being a slave of many instead of to one.'”[27]
We must also realize that the early Christians did not enjoy the kind of political influence they do today. They lived under a powerful authoritarian state, and were virtually powerless to change government policies. Were any of the New Testament writers to incite slaves to rise up against their masters, they would essentially have been compelling them to death, probably by crucifixion, as was the fate of the 6,000 who revolted with Spartacus a century earlier. There were also laws restricting manumission, such as the lex Fufia Caninia, instituted by Caesar Augustus in 2 BC, which set limits on the number of slaves that masters could free: only two out of three, half of between four and ten, and a third of between eleven and thirty. Nevertheless, Paul does have words for those slaves who were able to gain their freedom: “Avail yourself of the opportunity” (1 Cor 7:21).
The most important dimension to the New Testament’s stance on slavery, however, is the gospel’s transformative power, beginning in the hearts of individuals. Application of the ethics of the kingdom of God to the community of believers resulted in a counter-culture that transcended, and in some ways abolished, social hierarchy. This is exemplified in texts such as Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (also Col 3:11). Jesus himself assumed the role of a slave, and this in turn influences the way Christians related to one another. Several texts that employ slave language are illustrative of this important point:
After washing his disciples feet, Jesus taught his disciples: “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (John 13:12–17).
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt 20:25–29).
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:5–11).
The ethic taught in these passages would have applied to masters’ conduct towards slaves as well as slaves’ towards their masters.
Another dimension to the radical transformation that takes place within the Christian community is the leveling of all individuals to the level of brother and sister. This language is so common in the New Testament that we pass by it without thinking twice, but there would have been profound implications for slaves and masters regarding one another as brothers and loving one another with sincere “brotherly affection” (Rom 12:10; 2 Pet 1:7), as Christ first loved us. Indeed, Paul’s appeal to Philemon on behalf of Onesimus is nothing less than revolutionary, that he might “have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord” (Phlm 15b–16). The appeal (which seems strange to us) to “greet one another with a holy kiss” (Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 2 Cor 13:12; 1 Thess 5:26) is another strong example of the affection and egalitarian spirit that pervaded the early church. Marianne Thompson sums up the situation well: “It should be noted that for Paul manumission was not the highest good or goal; belonging to Christ was—and that had implications for both the master and the slave. If a Christian owned a slave, the highest duty to which that master could be called was not to set the other free but to love the slave with the selfgiving love of Christ.”[28]
Although for centuries they were relatively powerless to change Roman society from the top down, the early Christians changed it from the bottom up. Following the example of Christ, they plowed a counter-culture based not on worldly social stratification, but on oneness within the body of Christ. Even leadership within the church was to be based on Christian maturity, rather than connections and impressive worldly credentials. The second century church father Ignatius of Antioch even makes an intriguing reference to an individual with familiar name who served as the bishop of Ephesus: “I received, therefore, your whole multitude in the name of God, through Onesimus, a man of inexpressible love, and your bishop in the flesh, whom I pray you by Jesus Christ to love, and that you would all seek to be like him.”[29]
When you acquire a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years; in the seventh year he shall go free, without payment. If he came single, he shall leave single; if he had a wife, his wife shall leave with him. If his master gave him a wife, and she has borne him children, the wife and her children shall belong to the master, and he shall leave alone.
“But if the slave declares, ‘I love my master, and my wife and children: I do not wish to go free,’ his master shall take him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall then remain his slave for life.
“When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not be freed as male slaves are. If she proves to be displeasing to her master, who designated her for himself, he must let her be redeemed; he shall not have the right to sell her to outsiders, since he broke faith with her.
“And if he designated her for his son, he shall deal with her as is the practice with free maidens. If he marries another, he must not withhold from this one her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights. If he fails her in these three ways, she shall go free, without payment.
“When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod, and he dies there and then, he must be avenged. But if he survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, since he is the other’s property.” (Exodus 21:2-11, 20-21).
Deuteronomy: A More Humane Version
Compare this so the parallel text in Deuteronomy:
“If a fellow Hebrew, man or woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall set him free. When you set him free, do not let him go empty-handed: Furnish him out of the flock, threshing floor, and vat, with which the Lord your God has blessed you. Bear in mind that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I enjoin this commandment upon you today.
“But should he say to you, ‘I do not want to leave you’ for he loves you and your household and is happy with you–you shall take an awl and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall become your slave in perpetuity. When you do set him free, do not feel aggrieved; for in the six years he has given you double the service of a hired man. Moreover, the LORD and your God will bless you in all you do.” (Deuteronomy 15:12-18)
The later, Deuteronomic text is more humane than that of Exodus; this is moral progress. I would now like to take this discussion a step farther. To the texts concerning slavery in Exodus and Deuteronomy, I will now add the laws of manumission in Leviticus 25:39-55.
Leviticus Goes Further
“If your kinsman under you continues in straits (lit. if your brother becomes poor) and must give himself over to you, do not subject him to the treatment of a slave. He shall remain with you as a hired or bound laborer; he shall serve with you only until the jubilee year. Then he and his children with him shall be free of your authority; he shall go back to his family and return to his ancestral holding. For they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt; they may not give themselves over into servitude. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly; you shall fear your God.”
“If your brother becomes poor” is the crucial clause. Even in early Israelite tribal society, “brother” was not only the son of your parent (“Am I my brother’s keeper?” Genesis 4:8-9) but also a kinsman (Genesis 13:8; 14:14; 29:12 etc.). Just as an Israelite was obligated to protect, redeem, and avenge his brother, he also had these obligations to a kinsman (Exodus 2:11; Judges 14:3; Isaiah 65:20).
No Such Thing as an Israelite Slave
Here in Leviticus 25, however, the term “brother” means all Israelites. This is a breakthrough of earthshaking proportions. I am my brother’s keeper and all Israelites are my brothers. If one of them falls into destitution, I must do everything I can to raise him out of his desperate straits.
No Israelite may become a slave. All Israelites are servants of God. God took the people out of the House of Bondage in Egypt to be free, not to be slaves. Just as the earth is the Lord’s and is not ours to possess, so all Israelites belong to God and may not be possessed by other human beings, not by other Israelites and especially not by non-Israelites.
Leviticus is very clear: There is no such thing as an Israelite slave.
Why These Differences?
Deuteronomy, it would seem, is more humane than Exodus but less humane than Leviticus. Deuteronomy, for instance, states that the owner should give provisions to the freed servant, whereas Exodus does not have anything about this. In Deuteronomy, however, there is such a thing as the permanent bondage of an Israelite. Deuteronomy does not seem to have the same anti-slavery ideal as Leviticus.
This is not the moral trajectory that we would prefer. We would rather have Deuteronomy, the later text, as the more abolitionist text.
[Biblical scholar] Sara Japhet shares our concern [in an article in Scripta Hierosolymitana Studies in Bible] that Deuteronomy seems to be a step backwards from Leviticus. She wonders “…what might have prompted Deuteronomy, with its emphasized humane tendencies, to retain permanent bondage.” Japhet explains that Deuteronomy is more realistic about life and society, that it takes “into account the exigencies of real life.”
[Another scholar] Jeffrey Tigay. makes the crucial point that while Exodus and Deuteronomy require the manumission of servants after six years of service, Leviticus only requires the release of slaves in the Jubilee, the 50th year. Why would Leviticus not have the system of seven-year cycles?
Leviticus seems to care less about the individual than the family. At the end of the 50 years, the family would go free. The descendants of the individual would benefit and would regain their property. Leviticus is concerned that the clan’s land should be returned to the clan. This is why a kinsman of the man in debt is allowed to buy the land earlier than the Jubilee.
From Tribal to National
In these texts, we see the move from tribal to national consciousness. The Book of the Covenant in Exodus 21-23 reflects a tribal society. Leviticus is still concerned about the family. By the time of Deuteronomy, the nation-state has replaced the family/clan/tribe as the key entity.
To review the outline of Israelite history: David and Solomon changed the tribal inheritances into federal districts, the northern tribes split into a second kingdom, many from those northern tribes were transplanted to Assyria. What was left, at least according to biblical history, was the kingdom of Judah.
What we need to understand in this context is that these events created a profound change that is reflected in the laws of Deuteronomy. This text asks: “Now that all Israelites are responsible for one another, now that we have seen our co-religionists and co-Israelites taken off to a foreign land, how will we respond? How will we keep the nation and the people intact and alive? How do we deal with the issue of slavery?”
Leviticus seems to be more humane than Deuteronomy, but in fact it is not. Following Tigay, Deuteronomy is the more humane text. The main issue is not status but time. Fifty years, to emphasize the obvious, is a very long time. If one becomes a slave at the beginning of the cycle as an adult, he would be a slave for the rest of his life. Six years as a hired laborer is manageable; 49 years is not.
Returning to Japhet’s appeal to Deuteronomy’s sense of reality, I will refer to the release of all slaves in 597. There was a brief emancipation of all slaves in this time of crisis. The Babylonians were at the gates. The slaves were released, apparently to help fight off the enemy. As soon as the crisis was over, the slaves were enslaved again. Jeremiah deplored these developments (Jeremiah 34).
This incident reflects the reality of slavery in the ancient world. Given this reality, given the human propensity to indebtedness, Leviticus looks like an impossible dream. Deuteronomy humanizes the Covenant Code (in Exodus) and works for significant reforms given the realities of its time.
Leviticus says that there is no such thing as an Israelite slave. Deuteronomy understands that there will be slaves and they must be treated well until they will be released. Combining the laws of the Covenant Code with the antipathy for the enslavement of an Israelite in Leviticus, Deuteronomy forged a compromise that was workable for its time.
1. Citizens of Israel sold themselves as servants voluntarily—due to poverty
(Lev. 25:39-40, 47) If a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave’s service 40 He shall be with you as a hired man, as if he were a sojourner; he shall serve with you until the year of jubilee… 47 Now if the means of a stranger or of a sojourner with you becomes sufficient, and a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to him as to sell himself to a stranger who is sojourning with you, or to the descendants of a stranger’s family.
Note a few things about this passage: First, there was no such thing as “filing for bankruptcy” in ancient culture. Bankruptcy is a modern phenomenon. If you fell into debt, you needed to work it off. Second, this service was voluntary (“he sells himself to you”). Third, this was not for the profit of a slave trader; instead, it was because the person was destitute (“becomes so poor…”).
2. Debts were released every Seven Years
(Deut. 15:1-2, 7-8, 12-15) At the end of every seven years you shall grant a remission of debts. 2 This is the manner of remission: every creditor shall release what he has loaned to his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother, because the LORD’S remission has been proclaimed… 7 “If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother; 8 but you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks… 12 If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, then he shall serve you six years, but in the seventh year you shall set him free. 13 When you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed. 14 You shall furnish him liberally from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your wine vat; you shall give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.
In this passage, we learn a number of things. First, the ideal of Israel was no poverty. If you can help your brother, then you should. Second, however “if your kinsman… is sold to you,” you are to set him free on the seventh year. Remember, case laws are not ideal situations (“If your kinsman… is sold to you”). However, if someone is truly impoverished, the law prescribed that a person should hire them as a servant, but they were to release him after six years of service. Paul Copan writes, “Keep in mind that many—perhaps most—servants were young people who were parceled out by destitute parents to more prosperous families who would feed, clothe, and shelter them.”[3]Today, we might call this adoption—not slavery. Third, the Jews were supposed to be sensitive and empathetic to servants, because they had been slaves in Egypt (v.15). God heard the cries of the slaves in Egypt, and this is why he rescued them (Ex. 2:24). Fourth, if the antebellum South applied these principles in Deuteronomy 15, this would have virtually abolished slavery. The problem with the “Christian” slave-owners in the South was not that they were applying the Bible too much—but too little.
3. Servants could voluntarily stay on with their master
(Deut. 15:16-17) It shall come about if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he fares well with you; 17 then you shall take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also you shall do likewise to your maidservant.
A servant could voluntarily choose to stay with his master—not because he was afraid of him—but because he loved him (cf. Ex. 21:5).
4. The poor were given free food to survive
(Lev. 19:10) Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the LORD your God.
(Deut. 24:20-21) When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not go over it again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow.
(Deut. 14:28-29) At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and shall deposit it in your town… the alien, the orphan and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.
Many provisions were given to the poor in Israel. By modern day standards, we might call this welfare or food stamps. Provisions were made so that the destitute would not need to volunteer as servants (cf. Lev. 23:22).
5. The poor weren’t charged interest on loans
(Ex. 22:25) If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest.
(Lev. 25:36-37) Do not take usurious interest from him, but revere your God, that your countryman may live with you. 37 You shall not give him your silver at interest, nor your food for gain (c.f. Ezek. 18:13; 22:12; Ps. 15:5).
When we contrast this with our modern standards, we find that ancient Israel was incredibly humanitarian. In our modern society, we find “check cashing” buildings often in poor neighborhoods, which keep people in the cycle of poverty. This thinking was considered sinful in ancient Israel.
6. Slaves were given considerable time off
Slaves participated in the religious holidays in Israel. Willard Swartley writes, “Servants took full part in religious ceremonies, all of which awarded vacation days, which in a 50-year period totaled 23 years and 64 days of time off (Ex. 20:10; 23:12; 12:44; Lev. 25:4-6; Deut. 12:11-12).”[4]
7. Kidnapping a man and selling him into slavery was a capital crime.
(Ex. 21:16) He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.
Hebrew scholar Walter Kaiser notes, “Kidnapping is not a property offense since no property offense draws a capital punishment, and this law is not listed under property laws. Instead, it is the theft of a human being.”[5] If this OT law was applied to the antebellum South, slavery would have been largely abolished (cf. Deut. 24:7, Amos 2:6; 8:6; 1 Tim. 1:10). How could slavery have originated or persisted in the absence of the slave trade?
8. Families were commanded to harbor runaway slaves
(Deut. 23:15-16) You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. 16He shall live with you in your midst, in the place which he shall choose in one of your towns where it pleases him; you shall not mistreat him.
When we contrast this practice with the ancient Near East, we find stark differences. Paul Copan writes, “Hammurabi even demanded the death penalty for those helping runaway slaves.”[6]
9. Masters and servants had the same Master
(Job 31:13-15) If I have despised the claim of my male or female slaves when they filed a complaint against me, 14 What then could I do when God arises? And when He calls me to account, what will I answer Him? 15“Did not He who made me in the womb make him, And the same one fashion us in the womb?”
Job believed that he would be called to account for how he treated his servants. Note: Job most likely lived before the nation of Israel existed (see Introduction to Job). Therefore, even in the most ancient of times, there was a sense of human dignity in the Judeo-Christian worldview for servants. Muhammad Dandamayev writes, “We have in the Bible the first appeals in world literature to treat slaves as human beings for their own sake and not just in the interests of their masters.”[7]
10. If a master injured a slave, they had to release them
(Ex. 21:26-27) If a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave, and destroys it, he shall let him go freeon account of his eye. 27 And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go freeon account of his tooth.
Concerning this section of Exodus, Kaiser writes, “This law is unprecedented in the ancient world where a master could treat his slave as he pleased.”[8] Again, if this principle was applied to slavery in the antebellum South, it would have largely destroyed that cruel and inhumane system.
11. Abusive masters received punishment
(Ex. 21:20) If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished.
Clearly, these OT case laws were designed to help servants—not to hurt them. When we compare these regulations with the other ancient Near Eastern cultures, the contrast is unmistakable. Slaves were abused, tortured, and generally treated as subhuman in the surrounding cultures. Paul Johnson writes, “These dreadful laws are notable for the ferocity of their physical punishments, in contrast to the restraint of the Mosaic Code and the enactments of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.”[9]
Conclusion
It is safe to conclude that the OT did not approve of chattel slavery. Bauckham writes, “The legislation accepts the fact of slavery but treats it as an abnormality to be minimized as far as possible.”[10] Moreover, as we read through the OT, we see that God even punished Israel’s kings for allowing chattel slavery. For instance, God punished King Ahaz for enslaving captives (2 Chron. 28:8-15), and Jeremiah spoke against the people not granting freedom to servants, as the Pentateuch requires (Jer. 34:8-20). Samuel’s argument about getting a king in Israel is based on the oppression of tyrannical kings in ancient Near Eastern culture (1 Sam. 8). By insisting on a king in Israel, Samuel argues that they would become the slaves, which would be clearly wrong (1 Sam. 8:17).
If the antebellum South applied these biblical principles, this would have virtually abolished slavery. The problem with the “Christian” slave-owners in the South was not that they were applying the Bible too much—but too little.
What about Slavery in the NT?
We now move to slavery in the New Testament (NT). Does the NT enforce slavery or call for its abolition? Skeptics often note that white slave-owners used Scripture to support slavery in the 19th century. For instance, in 1864, John Henry Hopkins wrote,
The Bible’s defense of slavery is very plain. St. Paul was inspired, and knew the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, and was only intent on bodying it. And who are we, that in our modern wisdom presume to set aside the Word of God, and scorn the example of the Divine Redeemer, and spurn the preaching and the conduct of the apostles, and invent for ourselves a ‘higher law’ than [the] holy Scriptures? …Who are we to virtually blot out the language of the sacred record, and dictate to the majesty of heaven what HE shall regard as sin and reward as duty?[11]
While this might shock Christian readers, the NT authors do claim that slaves should be submissive. For instance, Paul writes, “Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth” (Col. 3:22; 1 Tim. 6:1; Titus 2:9; Eph. 6:5). Likewise, Peter writes, “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable” (1 Pet. 2:18). How should believers understand these passages, and why do the NT authors seem to be passive in regards to slavery?
How should we interpret the commands for slaves to submit to their masters?
Whenever we interpret any text, we should try to understand the historical and cultural backdrop in which it was written. For instance, when Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn, it was considered controversial, because it advocated friendship between a black man and white boy. However, because the book regularly uses the N-word in the book, today Huck Finn is considered to be a racist book by many public schools! In the same way, we need to interpret Paul’s commands in light of his first century context.
Slavery was an unquestioned institution in the first century
In ancient Greece, it was thought that the gods took away the dignity and value from a person he became a slave: “Zeus… takes away half his worth from a man, when the day of slavery comes upon him” (Homer, Odyssey 17.322-323.). By the 4th century BC, philosopher Aristotle wrote of slaves as subhuman. If one could hold an inferior in slavery, it only made rational sense to do so. He writes,
“[Slaves] are as different as the soul from the body or man from beast—and they are in this state if their work is the use of the body, and if this is the best that can come from them—are slaves by nature… For he is a slave by nature who is capable of belonging to another—which is also why he belongs to another—and who participates in reason only to the extent of perceiving it, but does not have it” (Politics, 1254b).
Aristotle (4th century BC) described slaves as human property (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 5.6.8) and equivalent to a lifeless tool in the hands of a slave master (Aristotle, Politics1.2.4-6; Nicomachean Ethics 8.11.6). Moreover, Diogenes Laertius (3rdcentury BC) writes that slaves were fated to be slaves: “They say that he was once scourging a slave whom he had detected in theft; and when he said to him, ‘It was fated that I should steal;’ he rejoined, ‘Yes, and that you should be beaten.’”[12] Thus, to philosophical thinkers in the ancient world, slavery was quite fatalistic and deeply embedded into the culture and worldview of the Greco-Roman world.
In the Roman Empire, roughly half of the people were slaves,[13] and chattel slavery (i.e. treating people as property) was an unquestioned institution. W.L. Westermann writes,
The institution of slavery was a fact of Mediterranean economic life so completely accepted as a part of the labour structure of the time that one cannot correctly speak of the slave “problem” in antiquity. This unquestioning acceptance of the slave system explains why Plato in his plan of the good life as depicted in The Republic did not need to mention the slave class. It was simply there.[14]
The first-century Stoic philosopher Seneca writes, “We maltreat them, not as if they were men, but as if they were beasts of burden… I do not wish to involve myself… to discuss the treatment of slaves, towards whom we Romans are excessively haughty, cruel, and insulting” (Seneca, Moral Epistles47.5, 11).[15]
Was Roman slavery similar to antebellum slavery in the United States?
Yes and no. In both systems, slaves had no legal rights, slaves could be arrested on a whim, slaves needed to follow the orders of their masters, and slaves had to live where they were told.[16]Additionally, in both systems, slave masters physically and sexually assaulted their slaves (Juvenal, Satires14.15-24). With this being said, and “as degrading as such slavery was, it must be realized that it was not the same as the slavery that existed in the United States.”[17] Several key differences should be noted:
First, Roman slaves “came from various nations and more than likely their appearance was no different from that of freedpersons.”[18] Antebellum slavery was based on skin color.
Second, Roman slaves could buy themselves out of slavery later (Iustiniani Digesta 40.12.7; 13.1). They were “under contract” until their time was up (Dio Chrysostom, 15thDiscourse: on Slavery and Freedom2.23). To buy one’s freedom, a slave needed to be at least 30 years old, he needed to be owned by a Roman citizen, and he needed to have manumission from his master (Gaius Institutes 1.17). Some freepersons voluntarily sold themselves into slavery.
Third, Roman slaves had access to food, clothes, shelter, and medical care, while freepersons did not (see Epictetus, Arrian’s Discourses of Epictetus 4.1.37).
Fourth, Romans slaves had access to training and education. Some slaves became tutors to children (Gal. 3:24), while others became “professors of higher education (litterator, grammaticus, rhetor), and others, physicians.”[19] Indeed, Epictetus became a philosopher after being enslaved (Gellius, Attic Nights 2.18).
Should the early Christians have revolted against the institution of slavery?
How could the early Christians hope to topple such a stolid system of dehumanization? If Christianity called for immediate, empire-wide abolition, the Christian movement would have drawn the wrath of Rome. Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, but this doesn’t justify the abuser (Mt. 5:39). The NT authors were “concerned that Christians not use their moral freedom in a way that brings condemnation on the infant church for subverting social order.”[20] Such a position would’ve resulted in widespread persecution and death.
This isn’t simply speculation; we find concrete examples of this at the time. For instance, when the Jews rebelled against the Roman Empire in 66 AD, there was complete slaughter. Josephus states that the Romans killed 1.1 million Jews and enslaved 200,000 people,[21] and they decimated the Temple (70 AD). Eventually, the Jews were exiled from Israel (after the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135 AD). Instead of pushing legal reform in the Roman Empire, the NT authors pushed for internal heart change for slave masters, who had come to faith in Christ. Moreover, the Spartacus revolt in 73 BC led to the 6,000 survivors being crucified. Rebelling against Rome was not a possible solution to defeating slavery.
The NT Strategy for Ending Slavery
While the NT authors didn’t explicitly call for an empire-wide abolition of slavery, they did weaken its foundations to the point that it eventually fractured and fell apart.
First, the NT decries slave-trading.Paul calls slave-traders “lawless and rebellious” (1 Tim. 1:9-10). The term “kidnappers” (andrapodistēs) means “one taken in war and sold as a slave… one who acquires persons for use by others, slave-dealer, kidnapper.”[22] Thus the ESV and NIV have properly translated this word as “enslavers” or “slave traders.” If antebellum slavery had come to terms with this passage, slavery would have been largely abolished.
Second, the NT urges slaves to get their freedom. Paul wrote that slaves should get their freedom, if it was possible. He writes, “Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so… do not become slaves of men” (1 Cor. 7:21, 23 NIV). However, the problem was simple: it usually wasn’t possible! While Paul desired the liberation of slaves, this wasn’t a realistic endeavor.
Third, the NT affirmed the worth and equality of all people. Aristotelian thought openly argued against the equality of all persons. According to Aristotle, women and slaves were weak, so they should be placed in submission. However, the NT disagrees because all people are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27; Jas. 3:9), and God loves all people (Jn. 3:16; Gal. 2:20). This gave a worldview basis for undermining dehumanizing institutions like slavery. Thus, Paul writes, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28; c.f. 1 Cor. 12:13; Col. 3:11).
Did Jesus speak against slavery?
Critics of the Bible often claim that Jesus never spoke against slavery. For instance, in their book What the Bible Really Says, skeptics Morton Smith and R. Joseph Hoffman write,
Slave-owning was the order of the day and, so far as we are told, Jesus never attacked the practice. He took the state of affairs for granted and shaped his parables accordingly… If Jesus had denounced slavery, we should almost certainly have heard of his doing so.[23]
There is an immediate problem with this claim: Jesus did speak against slavery! He said that God had commissioned him “to set free those who are oppressed” (Lk. 4:18). Thus this criticism is patently false.
While Jesus didn’t speak on this topic often, he didn’t speak on many topics very often. He never addressed torture, rape, or incest. Thus this is an argument from silence. That is, while Jesus never addresses these actions, this doesn’t mean that he supported them.
Moreover, Jesus didn’t explicitly mentioned slavery, because it wasn’t popular in Israel at the time. Peter and Paul, however, mention slavery more than Jesus, because they were writing to Gentiles—not Jews. As we have already seen, OT slavery was not an oppressive system. Instead, it was humanitarian and lightyears ahead of its surroundings in the ancient Near East. Thus Jesus may not have spoken about slavery, because he never saw it as a major abuse in his historical and geographical setting. Other issues in his time were far more pressing. This would be similar to arguing that our President isn’t a good humanitarian, because he doesn’t speak on the topic of child labor laws. The President doesn’t give much “air time” to this topic, because it isn’t one of the major issues in our culture. Such an accusation would be unfounded.
The NT strategy to end slavery: God’s love
By spreading the message of Christ to slave owners, this gave a basis for slavery to be abolished. Without the life and worldview changing power of the gospel, slave owners would have no moral basis for change. This is why Paul urges slaves to submit to their masters: namely, so that they can reach their masters with the gospel.
This method is beautifully illustrated in the book of Philemon. Paul tells Philemon that he could command him to do what is right in forgiving Onesimus—his slave (Phile. 8). Instead, he trusts that Philemon’s moral convictions would cause him to show mercy on Onesimus (Phile. 14). He urges Philemon to take Onesimus back “no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother” (Phile. 16).
By affirming the equality and dignity of all people and the love of Christ for us, the NT authors attacked the moral foundations of slavery. This eventually brought down the giant edifice of slavery. Richard Bauckham writes,
[Slavery] was a form of oppression affecting virtually every dimension of life for both slaves and their masters. It could have been abolished as an institution only strong political action accompanied by radical restructuring of society and the economy and required widespread public support. Because early Christians could not and did not attempt this, they could be accused of tolerating slavery. But what they really did was to promote liberation from slavery in those dimensions where it was possible: in the psychological and immediate social dimensions. Even the slaves of pagan masters found a kind of liberation from the psychological dehumanization of the slave condition: they recovered the dignity of human equality in a community where they were treated as Christian brothers and sisters.[24]
In Christian history, we see this strategy in action. As historian Bruce Shelley writes, “Some Christians also held slaves but they treated them kindly and allowed them to have the same rights within the church as anyone else. At least one former slave, Callistus, became the bishop of Rome.”[25] Thus this strategy of bringing a Christian worldview to this horrific institution was the means through which God lit the long fuse that eventually toppled chattel slavery in the Western world. As one author explains, “If Paul does not make a full frontal attack on slavery, he is certainly putting a time-bomb under it.”[26]
Secular moralists did not end slavery—Christian moralists did
As a result of the spread of Christianity in the West, slavery was largely abolished. J. Gordon Melton details the events as follows:
The Clapham Sect was a diverse but influential group of evangelical Christian social reformers that emerged in England at the end of the 18th century. The group became best known for its support of William Wilberforce’s activity in Parliament to end British participation in the international slave trade… After several decades of work, the group was initially rewarded with Parliament’s passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, which banned the trade throughout the British Empire. Their efforts culminated in the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, which eliminated slavery throughout the British Empire. They were less successful in their efforts to eliminate slavery worldwide. Many contemporaries looked upon the Clapham Sect as a bunch of do-gooders whom they called pejoratively ‘the saints.’ In the light of history, however, the group has been looked upon as moral pioneers.[27]
In 1845, the issue split the convention, with Baptists in slave-holding states forming the Southern Baptist Convention. This separation occurred just as Baptists were in the midst of a concerted effort to convert African Americans in the South, both slave and free.[28]
Moreover, the first protesters of American slavery were Christians. Mark A. Noll writes,
The first known American protest appeared in 1688 from Quakers and Mennonites at Germantown, Pennsylvania… Such voices were very few and far between in the first century of British colonization.[29]
To the extent that a protest existed at this time, it was mounted by religious leaders.[30]
One of the most effective antislave agents was Theodore Dwight Weld (1803-1895), a convert under revivalist Charles G. Finney who worked throughout the 1830s and 1840s with equal zeal to convert and liberate America. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was the daughter of the revivalist and social reformer Lyman Beecher and the wife of a Congregationalist minister. Her immensely influential novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) exerted its great impact at least in part because the book was such a forceful summation of Christian revivalism, Christian domesticity, and Christian abolitionism.[31]
The major consequence of intradenominational strife over slavery was to weaken cultural ties between North and South. The result was a break at the Mason-Dixon line between not just large and influential religious bodies but also between significant forces for social cohesion.[32]
A deep longing for the millennium also played its part in heightening the stakes of sectional conflict. Visions of the End of the Age, when Christ would rule the world in a 1,000 year kingdom of righteousness and peace, drove revivalists and social reformers to unprecedented personal sacrifices in pursuit of converts and social righteousness.[33]
Thus it really isn’t fair for a skeptic to ask, “Why didn’t Christianity abolish slavery?” This is because it dideventually do so. Really, the only objection left is this: “Why didn’t Christians end slavery earlier than it did?” While we agree that Christians should have abolished slavery earlier, at least they led the way in abolishing it at all. Remember, it was not secularists who rose up against slavery in the Western world; it was Christians like William Wilberforce and Theodore Dwight Weld. At least within the Christian worldview, we have a basis for the equality of persons, because they are made in the image of God (Jas. 3:9; Gen. 1:26-27). However, under an atheistic worldview, what is the objective basis upon which we could have true human equality and liberation in this sense? (We have tackled this question in chapter 1 of our recent book Evidence Unseen: Exposing the Myth of Blind Faith).
Conclusion
Before we conclude, we must note that Jesus became a slave to all of humanity (Phil. 2:5-11)—just as he commands us to be slaves of others (Mk. 10:42-45). The God-man had all the powers of deity, and yet, he surrendered himself to torture, humiliation, and death, so that forgiveness could be procured for the world. Thus the One who calls on us to endure slavery for the sake of the gospel was the same one who became a slave to purchase the gospel for us. The same One who tells us to endure the suffering of slavery is also the same one who became a slave to us!
Jesus isn’t asking us to do anything that he didn’t do for us first.
A Global System of Slavery
Flee from the midst of Babylon, and every one save his life! Do not be cut off in her iniquity, for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance; He shall recompense her. Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord's hand, that made all the earth drunk. The nations drank her wine; therefore the nations are deranged. (Jeremiah 51:6-7)
Literally, the original Hebrew of the first half of verse 7 means, "A golden cup is Babel in the hand of Yahweh, intoxicating the whole earth." Jeremiah sees the material splendor of Babylon, but the "wine" that she makes the nations of the earth drink will result in God's wrath coming down upon them. As God's hammer, Babylon was strong, and as His cup of gold, she was rich and beautiful—but neither saves her from ruin. Jeremiah therefore admonishes everyone to flee this perverse, world-ruling system.
The global scourge of slavery is the essence of the Babylonian slavery system that the prophet Jeremiah warned about. It exists in its zenith in the last days. Babylon's perversion, audacity, and pride represent the height of direct defiance against almighty God. This humanly devised governmental, religious, educational, and economic system controlling the world today originates from Satan's initial rebellion against God. Satan, the Adversary, has done a tremendous job of enslaving the whole world under his system of slavery.
God reveals Babylon and its influence in Revelation 17:1-5:
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, "Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication." So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
This system and the source of its influence is a mystery to the world. Yet, her abominations and spiritual filthiness have kept human beings in a perpetual state of slavery to sin, governments, taxes, war, famine, pestilence, disease, and especially religious confusion.
Modern Slavery
Beginning in the twentieth century, human trafficking, modern slavery, and forced labor have been on a global rise. Earlier, with the demise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the nineteenth century, the world was told that chattel slavery—outright ownership of slaves—was over in the "civilized" world. However, debt bondage and contract slavery began to take its place with little notice from governments, law enforcement, and international organizations.
In reality, there are more slaves now than at any other time in history. Foremost among the victims of human trafficking are women and girls forced into the commercial sex trade, followed by agricultural slavery and domestic slavery. Individuals and groups at risk are often the result of irregular migration due to extreme poverty, internal conflict, natural disaster, and globalization. Victims are kept enslaved through fear, violence, and fraud.
There are no clear distinctions between different forms of slavery. The same families and groups of people are often the victims of several kinds of modern slavery—for example, bonded labor, forced labor, child labor, or child prostitution—with extreme poverty as a common, linking factor.
The most widespread type of human trafficking is debt bondage. The most common contemporary form of slavery is bonded labor, which accounts for more than 20 million victims. Human slavery statistics from the Giving Children Hope Organization and Anti-Slavery International, a British-based human rights organization, in addition to other sources, tell the grim story of this horrible injustice against human life.
International Statistics
» There are at least 27 million slaves worldwide.
» Worldwide at least 1.2 million children are trafficked every year, and at least 800,000 people are trafficked across borders each year.
» Human slaves are cheap. In 1850, the average slave cost $40,000 in today's dollar. Presently, a slave costs $90 on average.
» At the extreme fringe, children are kidnapped, held in remote camps, and chained at night to prevent their escape. They are put to work on road-building and stone-quarrying. Such child labor, often hard and hazardous, damages health for life, and deprives children of education and the normal enjoyment of their early years.
» Forcible recruitment of children into military service occurs in many parts of the world. The consequences are devastating. Many have died or been disabled in armed conflict, while others have been interrogated, tortured, beaten, or kept as prisoners of war. An estimated 300,000 child-soldiers, some younger than 10 years old, are involved in over 30 areas of conflict worldwide.
» Some children between 7 and 10 years of age work 12 to 14 hours a day and are paid less than one-third of the adult wage. In addition, 126 million children work in the worst forms of child labor—one in every 12 of the world's 5-17 year olds.
» Child domestic servants not only work long hours for a pittance, but are particularly vulnerable to sexual as well as other physical abuse.
» Worldwide, the multibillion-dollar sex-trade industry involves an estimated two million children—including Cambodia, Thailand, and Costa Rica, where "sex tourism" is big business. The average age of women entering into prostitution is 14. The profits to be made are immense when 12- to 15-year-old children can be purchased for $800 to $2,000—and used for five to ten years before they are cast away.
American Statistics
» The United States is principally a transit and destination country for trafficking in persons. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates that 50,000 people are trafficked into or transited through the country annually as sex slaves, domestics, and garment and agricultural slaves, of which 80% are women and children.
» Research conducted with Free the Slaves found documented cases of slavery in over 90 U.S. cities. States with the greatest concentration of trafficked persons are New York, California, and Florida. Washington, DC, also has a large trafficked population.
» Between 100,000 and 300,000 children in the U.S. are at risk for sex trafficking each year. As many as 2.8 million children live on the streets, a third of whom are lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home. The average age of a person's entry into pornography and prostitution in the U.S. is between 12 and 14.
» Forced marriage is another form of slavery, and at least 200 "matchmaking" organizations operate in the U.S., arranging prospective "brides" for male clients.
These statistics paint a sickening picture of one area of the evil that is prevalent in the last days under the Babylonian system. Most people would deny that they have any involvement or guilt in such slavery, but those who turn a blind eye to the suffering, employers who do not pay employees fair wages, leaders who do nothing to stop the trafficking, those who dabble in pornography, and many others share in the guilt of this slavery and abuse of woman and children.
Babylon's Fall
Because of this serious neglect of responsibility, more of this enslavement will come upon the U.S. and other Israelitish countries for their sins against God. He gave these nations His inspired Word in the form of the Bible, so they are without excuse for their wickedness (see Amos 3:2). Revelation 13:10gives this condemnation in the form of an immutable principle: "He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity."
Physical slavery will end when Mystery Babylon falls, which occurs when Jesus Christ returns to rule with His righteous rod of iron. Prophecy tells us that the ultimate downfall of this world-dominating system involves merchandizing, and slaves are a major part of the commerce of this system at the end time. Human slaves are included on the list of merchandise sold under the Babylonian system mentioned in Revelation 18:11-13:
And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her [the Babylonian system], for no one buys their merchandise anymore: merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and purple, silk and scarlet, every kind of citron wood, every kind of object of ivory, every kind of object of most precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble; and cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and bodies and souls of men.
The merchants, who gained wealth and perverse pleasures from this world's system of religion and commerce, cry and lament because it satiated their greed for materialistic acquisition and their lust for self-pleasure. As the Babylonian system incorporates every expression of corrupt government, so its prostitution includes every corrupt economic system and idolatry. Even human beings are reduced to cargo, traded as slaves to drive the engines of production, prosperity, and sinful pleasures.
Sadly, the modern descendants of Israel have promoted and become part of this self-serving, perverse world system. Sin inevitably brings its own punishment, and there are always consequences to disobedience. Thus, when today's Israelites go into captivity in the last days, they will have no excuse for their sin and no freedom whatsoever.
Ezekiel 5:11-13 prophesies that two-thirds of them will be killed and one-third scattered because of their sins: A third part is destroyed in war; a second third will die by pestilence, famine, and disease; and the remaining third is scattered to the winds. Israel's history shows that when her people are scattered, the majority of the men, women, and children go into slavery—into captivity. As we saw earlier, "He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity."
The reality of that penalty for corporate sin is beginning to form now. Long ago, God warned the children of Israel about what would happen if they committed idolatry, mistreated one another, and shunned Him.
And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And there you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days. . . . (Deuteronomy 4:27-30)
He promises the latter-day remnant of the descendants of Israel that, if they genuinely seek to submit to Him, He will save them from their scattered condition and bondage.
We have all been enticed by this anti-God, anti-Christ system of slavery to some degree or another. God urges us to take action:
And [the angel] cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury." And I heard another voice from heaven saying, "Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities." (Revelation 18:2-5)
God always gives people an opportunity to repent of their ways and forsake the world. His people may live in this world, but they must not live as the world does. So God commands us to flee for our lives from Babylon the Great to avoid being lured into sin by her evil ways and caught in her looming destruction.
As God sees things, we are in fact Christ's slaves and more, and the way God sees things is what matters. Technically, we are no longer working to advance our own interests. We are to fulfill our labors at all times and in all cases to Christ and to our human employer with energy, enthusiasm, and above all, service. The world denigrates Christian works as being valueless, and they do this partly because they misunderstand Paul's statement that a person cannot earn salvation by means of works. We have become slaves of Christ. Our redemption has made us so tightly identified with Him that He sees us as members of His own Body. Our reality is that we are working for Him regardless of our day-to-day job, whether as a housewife, welder, salesman, or corporate administrator. Juxtaposed against "the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men" is another group: "every slave and every free man" (Revelation 6:15). Who are they? What role do they play in the caves? To understand, we first need to deal with those repeated words, every:"every slave and every free man." Does John mean that every slave and every free person in the world is addressing "mountains and rocks," asking that they fall on him? Does every free individual and every slave know about the Day of the Lord and about the Lamb at this point? That would be a lot of people. Revelation 9 clearly indicates that the cave-dwellers represent only a segment—perhaps a small segment—of humanity. Many other people have refused to foreswear idolatry, not yet understanding what the cavemen know about God and His imminent anger:
So, the occurrences of "every" in Revelation 6:15 do not refer to every slave and every free person in the world. Rather, the phrase "every slave and every free man" is a merism, a rhetorical device wherein a single entity or action is described by opposites, as in "looked high and low" or "on-and-off enthusiasm." "Every slave and every free man" refers to a small subset of people, to a single class of person, one who is both free and bond. The merism may refer to God's people—who are free and slave concurrently. Christ promises that, if we remain in His Word, we are free: "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Similarly, the apostle Paul writes:
Yet, the same apostle calls us slaves, bought by God:
Paul also tells the Roman church: "But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life" (Romans 6:22). Peter provides yet further witness to our being God's slaves: "For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men—as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God" (I Peter 2:15-16). In some ways, God's people are free, and in others, slaves. We could look at this merism a bit differently. "Every slave and every free man" could refer to true Christians, those who know the truth and are therefore free (John 8:32) in God's sight, but who have become enslaved by man through end-time religious persecution. Slaves are expropriated and disenfranchised individuals, having lost personal and property rights. The Jews, taken in the Nazi pogroms, were slaves, told by their masters, "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work makes free"). Currently, chattel slavery is not a legal institution in Western civilization. However, under increased Islamic influence, it could become legalized and widespread as the result of religious persecution. So it might happen that God protects His people in caves, arranging to have them taken there as slaves in service to others. Israel's experience in Egypt and in the wilderness is an object lesson that God desires us to reflect on frequently. These lessons are most forcefully brought to the fore during the spring as we begin rehearsing God's plan of salvation in the annual holy days. Once freed from their slavery to Egypt, it took the Israelites but seven days to cross the Red Sea, breaking completely clear of Egyptian control. In dramatic contrast, it took them forty years to walk the remaining few hundred miles! During this trek, every man of war numbered in the first census after leaving Egypt—with the exception of Joshua and Caleb—died without reaching the Promised Land. Will we allow ourselves to match this miserable record by failing to maintain our liberty? What a costly expedition! Hebrews 3:16-19 clarifies the cause of their failure more specifically:
Clearly, they did not make the right efforts to defend their God-given liberties. Instead, they exacerbated their circumstances by failing to discipline themselves to submit to God's rule over their lives, even though He freely rescued them from their slavery. They were unwilling to pay the costs of directing their lives as He commanded, despite knowing, through the many manifestations of His power, that He acted exactly as Moses had said He would. |
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