Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel and today I am going to continue the conversation that I started last week, by talking about the opposite thing that I talked about last week.
Today, we're going to talk about slavery. And the reason that I'm doing this is because I think a lot of us can understand that what Jesus did was bring forward an upside down kingdom, we might say. And as such, when we're talking about things like dominion, we can, and I would argue that we should, talk about the opposites of those things because when you [00:01:00] talk about a Christian having dominion or rule, and of course we're having dominion and rule in Christ, then we're going to be demonstrating or conducting that rule through a very opposite and different way. At least often we will be. And so it's going to be really helpful to look at the idea of slavery, especially slavery in the ancient context.
And it's also the case that the New Testament talks a lot about Christians as slaves. It uses slavery as a very potent metaphor. And so we're going to be looking at a lot of these things today. And one of the primary books that I'm going to be drawing upon is a book by Murray J. Harris called Slave of Christ, a New Testament Metaphor for Total Devotion to Christ. This is one of the new studies in biblical theology [00:02:00] monographs, and I tend to like books in that series. It doesn't mean there aren't some duds in there, but this one's a pretty good book because it gives slavery in an ancient context, and it talks about it in the form of what we see in the New Testament in particular. And it tries to draw out what this metaphor is, and why it's used, and how it applies to us.
Another book I will recommend is called Slavery as Salvation, The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity. This one is by Dale B. Martin, and he focuses on 1 Corinthians 9, and a few other passages, and talks about Paul's use of the metaphor and why Paul is able to use this metaphor in a positive way when that seems quite strange. Like, why would being a slave be a positive [00:03:00] thing?
Another book you might want to check out is called Metaphor of Slavery in the Writings of the Early Church. This is by I. A. H. Combs. But I'm probably not going to be drawing too much of that material in today. Now, I'm not going to be talking about slavery from a modern construct. I'm not going to be bringing in anything like liberation theology or systematic theology from a modern construct.
What I want to do is look at slavery from the ancient perspective. And I want to say right now that that's very complex, and it's very difficult, because slavery was not some monolithic institution in the past. It wasn't even a monolithic institution within the Roman Empire or within the Greek states. They were very different, very varied in how they treated slaves, how they understood [00:04:00] slavery. So there's going to be some nuance and things, but we can't really help but kind of broad brush things to a point here.
Okay, so we're going to get into some historical facts, some historical attitudes. Some metaphors and a lot of stuff from the New Testament, but again, keep in mind that we're doing so because in the framework of how a Christian should conduct themselves within society and within community, this is going to play a part in how we should see ourselves here.
Now, last week, I mentioned in Genesis 3, the first time that we see the serpent, he doesn't seem to be in a position of authority. Now, of course, if you see him as a throne guardian, there is a level of authority there, right? But it's not the kind of authority that has dominion over anything but the throne of God. [00:05:00] And if Eden is the throne of God on earth, and Adam and Eve were put in the garden to tend it and to keep it, then the serpent does not have an authority in the garden that Adam and Eve do not have, right? And he is not presenting himself in the position of authority here. He is being a threat, in fact, but we do see Satan as a tyrant, right? And so before I get into the topic of slavery in general, I kind of want to address this for just a moment.
In Ephesians 2, verses 1 and 2, it says, quote, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, end quote.
So, the [00:06:00] prince of the power of the air. That's generally understood to be Satan. And obviously the term prince is one of authority.
Okay, so then we have John 14 verses 30 and 31. This says, quote, I will no longer talk much with you for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here. End quote.
Okay, so again, the ruler of this world being interpreted as Satan is the most common idea. Now, Satan has no claim on Jesus, and yet he's still called the ruler of this world. But how can that be when we have a situation in the garden, and the serpent tempts the people, and they partake, and he gets cursed? [00:07:00] Where is this authority coming from?
Well, again, humans have dominion, and if the serpent had any dominion, it would have been in the form of being a throne guardian, which is not dominion over the whole world, but perhaps dominion over the Garden of Eden, or some portion therein.
But let's read the curse in Genesis three verses 14 and 15, it says, quote the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you will go and dust you'll eat all the days of your life. And I will put between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. End quote.
So again, in a plain English reading, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of dominion here that the serpent is [00:08:00] given. But we see later drawn out the idea that this serpent, this snake, this Satan, is the lord of the underworld. Being cast down, being on his belly, is not just a demonstration of what a snake looks like, but it is a metaphor for Satan being cast down into the pit.
We see this in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. And you can argue that one or both of those is actually about Adam rather than the serpent.
But Isaiah 14, 15 says, quote, Nevertheless, you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit.
And before that, Isaiah 14 talks about the kings and the nations. There's a whole lot of language of authority and rule here.
In Ezekiel 28 17. It says, quote, your heart was lifted up [00:09:00] because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground. I put you before kings that they may see you. End quote.
Alright. This episode isn't about exegeting, Satan's dominion here, but I wanted to mention these things and point them out and say that through time, the theology had been developed by the time of the New Testament to suggest that Satan, who is also known as the Dragon or the Serpent, has this authority and dominion and power.
And it's not like he just has carte blanche across all of creation, but specifically he is in charge of the underworld. He has the power of sin and death. And because we sin and we die, we are under that dominion and we are under that authority. I've talked before about Paul in Romans and how he [00:10:00] personifies sin as a concept that has dominion over us. We see Satan personified in many ways, many places in the New Testament in very similar language.
Okay, so again, I'm not exegeting all of that right now. I'm just laying it there to say that we are already under a foreign power, a foreign dominion, and that we exist as slaves to sin and death and all of these concepts, right? And we are under the power of Satan.
Jesus comes and he rescues us from that, right? We are delivered from that. And yet we're still called slaves, so we're going to talk about that. Now our relationship with Christ should be the basis of our relationship with each other. I mean, that seems obvious. And slavery and servanthood, at least occasionally, is used as a metaphor [00:11:00] for leadership. It's an upside down reality that we're kind of used to seeing if we really look at these things in the New Testament and its context.
Now, slavery is a big question as to why it's there in the Bible, because we think it's wrong and ethically it is a negative thing, right? We shouldn't own other people. So, why does the Bible presume this aspect? Now, I will point you to next week's episode where I'll touch a little bit more about those kinds of topics. But for now, I will say that Harris, in his book, Slave of Christ, he gives a few rationales for why we don't see slavery entirely dismantled in the New Testament.
These are just a few ideas, and we can't really know, and it's probably layered ideas, right? More than one reason. A couple of those reasons have to do with [00:12:00] economy and society and the fact that Jesus didn't come to upend all social institutions entirely, immediately upon his incarnation. That doesn't mean that they are not supposed to be upended and that they won't be dismantled through time. But again, there's that " through time" bit.
And really considering the importance of slavery to the economy is kind of important here, I think, and it relates to our ideas of interacting with the world ourselves, right? Because we ought to be a little bit concerned with the economy, because the economy is what provides food on the table, and you improve the economy, and you improve people's actual lives, which I would argue is important to God.
Now, another thing to keep in mind is that there is no divine culture. There is no divine society. There is no divine [00:13:00] government in the sense that God gave this government and culture and society to the people and said, Here you go. All of this has my stamp of approval on it.
And so we're going to have to be able to navigate this world of description in the Bible and decide what is descriptive and what is prescriptive. And it's also important to note that slavery is used in relation to God and humans, and also in relation to humans with humans.
This isn't the only, or even necessarily the main metaphor to see as our relationship to God and with Jesus, but it is one of them. And I think it interacts really interestingly with other metaphors and theological constructs.
I think that if we have slavery in our heads in relation to the work of Christ, which many people are going to call [00:14:00] the atonement. If we have slavery in our heads when we're thinking about that, I think it's going to help with the language that is used of things like payment and redemption. Which makes a whole lot of sense because the exodus was a liberation from slavery and that is the primary story of the Old Testament. God's liberating his people caused his fame, his glory to spread to the point that even conquest was a non event compared to what it could have been. And you look at the episode with Balaam and the donkey. And so I think if we don't understand the metaphor of slavery in our head, it does make things hard to understand.
But it's uncomfortable, and a lot of Bible translations will refrain from using the word slave anywhere, right? They'll use different words to kind of soften that feeling of, Oh, we [00:15:00] don't want to be called slaves.
And, of course, this whole conversation is not all about dominion and rule, but that is a contrast. If we're slaves not just to Christ, but also to one another, then that does display that there is rule and hierarchy there. But it's obviously very particular and very upside down.
Alright, so again, a lot of our Bible translations do not use the word slave for the most distinctive Greek term that maybe should be translated as a slave. This word is dolos, and apologies for pronunciation. Some translations will translate it as a bond servant, which kind of gets some sort of the idea across, right?
It has the idea of authority, power. And when you think of a bond servant, you might actually be thinking of an upwardly [00:16:00] mobile slave that reflects the status of the master. Because the concept of slavery could either be a concept of self abasement or a sign of status that is attached to the master.
Now, regarding the metaphor at large, how do we determine what are the appropriate parts of comparison and what aren't? Because that's what a metaphor does. A metaphor takes a concept and inputs it into a different situation, and you aren't supposed to take every single element of the initial word into the new metaphor, right? So in other words, I'm asking, how much of the concept of slavery do we import in with this metaphor?
Within the umbrella of slavery, we have the ideas of exclusive ownership, total availability for service, and complete [00:17:00] dependence.
Those aren't negative things when we're talking about our relationship with God, right? What we shouldn't be importing into this metaphor of slavery is the idea of enforced obedience, loss of freedom, or cringing subservience.
When we go into the book of Genesis, we see Hagar as a slave, and she is an Egyptian! How interesting, because this is before the people go into Egypt and are enslaved in Egypt. And so Hagar seems like kind of a foil for the entire situation in Egypt. But for Hagar, it is the Egyptian who is the slave. She has no say over whether or not she gets to have Abraham's child and that's kind of an uncomfortable situation. Does God condone it?
Does God condone all of Abraham's actions? [00:18:00] And I would say no, even though the text itself seems to be a little bit neutral on it in a lot of ways. Right? It doesn't just come out and say, Abraham, what the heck are you doing here? But it does seem to be the case that Abraham is in that situation of taking for himself, right? He's taking God's promise in the way that he wants to do it.
We don't see any slavery mentioned until we have the introduction of tyranny, and domination, and dominance. And that is what we aren't to do in relation to ruling over other people.
Then there is so much we could say about the exodus in regards to slavery. Moses himself was raised as a slave in the construct of that world, to be a leader. But Moses is also not the best person ethically either, right? He has some issues.
So [00:19:00] already from the context of the Old Testament, we have situations that are difficult and hard to parse, and many, many people have said that these things are proof that God endorses slavery.
Well, we move into the New Testament and people are called slaves all over the place. The term Slaves of God is mentioned several times. And I'm going to be using the 1995 NASB translation for some of these.
Acts 2 18 says, quote, Even on my bond slaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of my spirit and they shall prophecy. End quote.
So my bond slaves, we are slaves of God.
Acts 429. Quote. And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that your bond servants may speak your word with all confidence. End quote.
Harris brings out the [00:20:00] story in Act 16, where we have the female slave with the Spirit of Divination who follows Paul around and shouts out, These men are slaves of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.
That's a strange episode, right? If she is announcing that they are the slaves of the Most High God and telling people how to be saved, why do they cast out the demon in her? And in fact, why would a demon want her to say things like this? Well, it's a hard question and there's no really obvious answer. Harris suggests in large part, it's because she is being abused in an economic fashion. Her owners are using her in order to gain money and they aren't particularly happy when they can no longer do that because her spirit of divination has been cast out.
All right, 1 Peter 2 16, quote, act [00:21:00] as free men and do not use your freedom as covering for evil, but use it as bond slaves of God. End quote.
So we're acting as free men, but we are bond slaves of God. And there's a whole bunch of uses of slavery in the book of Revelation, which is quite interesting to me. But let's go back to the gospels for a minute.
Luke 1 38 says, quote and Mary said, behold the bond slave of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. End quote.
In the book of Titus, Paul calls himself a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. James calls himself a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's the idea of slavery or servanthood.
Matthew 6, 24 says, quote, No [00:22:00] one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. End quote.
You see the concept in regards to God versus idolatry.
1 Thessalonians 1, 9 says, quote, For they themselves report about us, what kind of a reception we had with you and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God. End quote.
Now, here's an interesting one. So people are called slaves of God, but they're also called slaves of Christ. And Harris doesn't bring out enough information about this and emphasize this point enough that being called a slave of Christ is calling Christ a deity. It is pronouncing that Christ is Lord and that He is God because [00:23:00] they're not going to be slaves to anybody else. I mean, of course, okay, we have the context of us being slaves to one another, right? But that is within the umbrella of being a slave of Christ.
Ephesians 6. 6 says, quote, Not by way of eye service, as men pleasers. But as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. End quote.
Interesting also that slaves are mentioned in relation to overseers and deacons In Philippians 1 1 quote Paul and Timothy bond servants of Christ Jesus, to all the Saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi Including the overseers and deacons. End quote.
So we are to work as slaves. Colossians four 12 says, quote, [00:24:00] Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers that you may stand perfect and fully assured in the will of God. End quote.
2 Timothy 2. 24, says, quote, The Lord's bond servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. End quote.
That could kind of be our theme verse for this whole episode, really. Being the Lord's slave and acting in these particular ways, including correcting people who are in [00:25:00] opposition for the reason that God would grant them repentance and escape the snare of the devil, being captive by him. Right? So the idea here is you release captives from the devil, and you give the captives to God, and we are still in his service, in that same frame of mind that being a slave to God produces good fruit versus otherwise. I mean, these are not ideas you don't hear all the time, just in normal sermons, right? So this isn't some complex reality.
Acts 20, verses 19 to 21, quote, Serving the Lord with all humility, and with tears, and with trials which came upon me through the plots of the Jews, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, [00:26:00] solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. End quote.
Romans 12, 10 through 13 says, quote, Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality, end quote.
Now, again, it sounds like, this is stuff in sermons all over the place, and some of it sounds a bit fuzzy and fluffy, I think, like, oh, we're just supposed to be really kind to one another. And, I mean, not to say that that's not what we're supposed to do, but ideally that happens within a circumstance of community where we are all [00:27:00] serving God and being slaves of Christ. That doesn't mean we don't correct people and firmly establish boundaries as well. I mean, Paul's letters entirely show that you can be firm in correcting other people and having a stance of firmness, even as you are being a servant of Christ.
Alright, let's get into the nitty gritty of detail in the slavery in the Roman Empire in the first century. We don't have as much coded law in the first century as we would like to see in order to understand slavery as an institution.
But we do have Justinian's Digest of Roman law that comes from 533 AD, which again this is old and it's post christian, but it can hold some of these older ideas that hang on. And it says that slavery is, [00:28:00] quote, an institution of the law of nations, by which, contrary to nature, a person is subjected to an alien domination. End quote.
That's how it defined slavery. And it says that it's contrary to a person and their nature, because slavery initially resulted from war. Like, war captives. Instead of killing everyone, they would take some of them captive. And, ironically, that was seen as a kindness to them. Well, at least you're not dead.
A modern definition of slavery might be a permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons. That came from Harris in his book. The idea of domination and social death could accompany the concept of [00:29:00] being a slave because slaves were denied kinship and are outside society. Now again, this is pretty broad brushing the whole thing.
A simpler definition that Harris gives is slavery as someone whose person and service belong wholly to another. Now, that doesn't fully fit Jewish slavery because they had a little bit of particularity to Jewish slaves versus Gentile slaves. But still, there is the concept of ownership, control, and subjection.
And there is a Roman legal term, Dominion, absolute ownership. This is as opposed to Possessio, which is possession, or partial or temporary ownership. And it's also not potestas, which was [00:30:00] absolute power.
The slave was not free to choose action or movement. We really don't have a whole lot of discussion on how people entered slavery, or how service was rendered, whether it was voluntary or involuntary, or how long it usually lasted. But often slaves would be freed. Sometimes slavery was violent, and sometimes it was about social alienation and dishonor. But it wasn't always either.
Unfortunately, nobody was really concerned about preserving details of the institution of slavery. So, a lot of the description and material we have might actually be exceptions and really extreme examples.
Now let's talk a little bit about Jewish slavery.. The Jewish economy was not based on slavery. Slaves were [00:31:00] usually used for unskilled household tasks, so they were known as domestics. Although there is forced labor in places like 2 Samuel 12 31. We do have suggestion also of temple slaves in Ezekiel 44 verses 7 through 9.
You became a slave through capture, through birth, through purchase, debt default, the sale of minors, or through inheritance.
The Old Testament is very similar to ancient Near Eastern legislation at large, although it distinguishes Jewish and non Jewish slaves. Non Jewish slaves could be chattel or property, as we see in Leviticus 25, verses 44 through 46. The Israelite was to be treated as a hired hand and not treated as a slave, as we see in [00:32:00] Leviticus 25, verses 35 through 43. The master in the Old Testament has the rights over the slave's work, but not the rights of the person. And there's a rationale given for that because they themselves were rescued from slavery.
Occasionally, apparently, slaves stayed with the family, as we see in Exodus 21. Slaves were to be seen as part of the family, and they participated in Sabbath and the feasts. Israelite slaves were to be released after six years, unless they wanted to stay. And when they were released, they were to be given adequate resources to lead to self sufficiency. If they were injured by their master, they were to be set free.
Okay, so now let's talk about setting slaves free. This is otherwise known as manumission, which is the act of freeing the slave. We [00:33:00] do have manumission contracts in both ancient Rome and ancient Greece, and there's two forms of these. One is a verbal manumission, where there is a verbal promise made to free the slave. The other is written, where the formal contract is written out.
Manumission is about individual slave freedom. This is as opposed to emancipation, which is a policy that frees all enslaved people in a particular specific region or country. And then you have the concept of abolition, which is the legal process of ending slavery entirely in a society, not just freeing the slaves, but ending the institution.
So, before Jesus, we did have slave revolts and things that happened in Greece and in the Roman environs. Now, every time they would have a [00:34:00] slave rebellion, and the slave rebellion would be successful in some sense, slavery would never be ended. Nobody was going after the institution itself. In fact, usually, when slaves gained their freedom, they would often then go and own slaves themselves.
Now, as far as Greek slavery, the Greek people had freedom as an inherent value, and it was a characteristic of the citizen. Citizens were free to act according to their own will. But that doesn't mean that they just didn't like slavery in general because it was quite often the case, the cities that had the most freedom and freedom as the highest value, had the most slavery.
Plato said that only legitimate slavery was to the laws as they embodied the goal of ideal human life. But again, that's not [00:35:00] really being against slavery as a whole. Aristotle said, The slave is a living tool, and the tool a lifeless slave. And he wasn't using the term tool in a pejorative way, but really you need tools for life.
All of the Greek city states had their own laws. Usually slavery was industrial and not agricultural, which means that slaves were usually skilled workers in the cities. Many of them lived apart from their owners, many of them pursued trades, and gave their owners a percentage of their earnings, but their owners would be the ones who would draw up the contracts.
Greco Roman slavery basically rejected Aristotle's defense of slavery, which was a supposed natural division of man based on certain traits and things.
The Stoics believed in [00:36:00] freedom for all and equality, and they said that slavery comes from avarice. And the real slave was a person without wisdom. Now that sounds awfully positive, right? But you have to keep in mind that they also said things like, you could be a slave in physical form, like in your body, but be free according to mind and spirit. So again, they weren't necessarily out there trying to outlaw slavery.
There are some inscriptions that give us an idea of how restricted slaves would be. They had to be legally represented by a master. A freedman was not subject to seizure as property, but a fugitive slave was. A freedman could do as he desired, but a slave does as he is ordered. And a slave does not have free choice of living quarters, but these [00:37:00] could be divisible, which means that they could be free in one or more of these, but still retain an obligation in other ones. For instance, the restriction on action or movement or place of living, like the skilled tradesmen could live apart from the owner. And so it seems like there was really a fluidity of status from slavery to freedom, and that might explain the absence of more slave revolts.
Now the Roman conception of slavery is the most complex before modern times. They had slavery everywhere. At the end of the first century BC, it is estimated that there were two million slaves in Italy out of five to six million people, and that's a pretty high ratio.
The number of slaves that somebody would have in their house would reflect their wealth or status. A poor [00:38:00] citizen would have one to two slaves. A senator would have 400. Caesar's household had 20,000 slaves and Freemen caring for the administration of the empire.
The cost of a slave would be from 500 to 600 denari for an unskilled male adult. And a denarii was about a laborer's average daily pay. So, they're pretty expensive. For a skilled worker, they could be as much as 2, 000 denarii.
There were many jobs that were held by slaves. They could be city employees. They could be business managers. They could work on farms, they could be a criminal slave in a chain gang. Slaves could be cooks, or cleaners, tutors, or doctors, or sexual partners. It was so prevalent that [00:39:00] a slave was not identifiable by appearance, by race, by speech or by job.
Scholars have kind of categorized slaves in different ways. One of those ways of categorizing slaves is rural or agricultural slaves versus urban or administrative slaves. Urban slaves would see their masters more and probably form closer relationships. Rural slaves didn't share so much in status, but the urban ones did, and the imperial slave had prestige if not privilege.
There were five status groups in Caesar's household. There was the Emperor's freedmen, his immediate slaves, the freedmen of the freedmen, the slaves of the freedmen, and then the slaves of the slaves.
Another way to categorize [00:40:00] the slaves was to see them either as a manager or a laborer. This had to do with whether or not they had any social mobility. Often, a slave might have a higher standard of living from a free citizen. So slaves didn't form just one class.
According to Roman law, slaves were chattels, which means they were property. They were bought and sold. You had dominium, over a slave, or the right to dispose of them as you wish, or absolute ownership. Why were they property? It was because this was probably tied to military conquest because they were often captured by force of arms. So generals would have captives saving them instead of killing them.
A slave technically didn't have any rights because they were an object or property. They can't own [00:41:00] property for the most part, although there is some little nuance and fuzziness there. A slave couldn't serve in the army, but their personhood was probably not denied entirely. They did have some privileges. They had common law cohabitation, which wasn't the same as marriage. The child born to a female slave would belong to the owner, regardless of who the father was. Slaves could be members of religious or social clubs with the master's authorization. And they were often allowed money. This would be how some of them at least, would earn their freedom.
Now, here's an interesting point. When they were freed, when they were manumitted, they would take an oath, which was basically a religious obligation to adhere to the promise of works for their former master [00:42:00] who was now their patron. So they go from master slave relationship to one of patron client relationship, and that should be ringing some bells for us as far as the concept of grace in the New Testament, right?
Grace is in this Roman formulation of patron client relationship. The client doesn't necessarily deserve anything from the patron, the patron would give freely, but the client was absolutely expected to reciprocate.
Lots of other details I could get into here. If you want some more of those, I suggest the books I've mentioned at the beginning of the episode. Now, let's talk about the New Testament attitude toward slavery. There are many slaves that are mentioned, and in fact, slaves are in no less than 13 of Jesus parables.
[00:43:00] Slavery wasn't seen as an evil entirely, but that doesn't mean it's sanctioned. This is just the status quo of the empire. And there would be obligation in a Christian formulation that a master and a slave would relate to one another within a Christian formulation, right? So no tyranny and injustice.
The metaphor of slave versus free is seen quite frequently in the New Testament. I've already given some of those examples, but let's look at 1 Corinthians 12, 13, that says, quote, For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we are all made to drink of one spirit, end quote.
Okay, so there's multiple passages that are similar to this in the New Testament. Does this [00:44:00] mean that all distinctions are erased?
Well, if you go to Galatians 3, 28, which says, quote, 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. End quote.
Yeah, that seems to suggest we're not erasing distinctions necessarily, but wherever you are in these complete categories of human existence, you can be in Christ.
Now, if there was only positive imagery attached to the concept of slavery in the New Testament, then we might be able to infer that the New Testament sanctions slavery. And there is no doubt some positive imagery. We are slaves of God, slaves of Christ, slaves of one another. We are to be in humble [00:45:00] service, which is a trait associated with slaves. We are to be in mutual humility, such as in 1 Peter 5, 5, where we put on humility as an apron. And that apron might symbolize the lot of a slave.
The slaves and the poor wore a tunic with one sleeve that left one shoulder bare, and over that, slaves would wear an apron. So this might be pointing to that. In a midrash of Genesis 21 14, Abraham wrapped Hagar's shawl around her waist so that people knew she was a slave. So yes, I said earlier that you can't distinguish a slave in a crowd necessarily. Well, that's not really going to be entirely true, right? Well, again, we're broad brushing history a little bit to some point here, and surely there were status markers for people. There are always status markers for people.
[00:46:00] Okay, so we have some positive imagery regarding slavery in the New Testament, but we also have plenty of negative imagery. We are in bondage to sin in John 8, 34 and Romans 6. We're in bondage to depravity in Galatians 4, 3 and verse 9. We're in bondage to our passions and pleasures in Titus 3, 3. In bondage to false gods in Galatians 4, 8. To drink in Titus 2, 3. To the fear of death in Hebrews 2, 15. to the law in Galatians 5. 1, to other people in 1 Cor 7 23 in and creation is in bondage to decay in Romans 8. 21.
So slavery is not necessarily a positive thing.
What we can say is that there are some new [00:47:00] attitudes being brought forward in scripture, and that is the case in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. The Old Testament and the New Testament scriptures both provide a way to look at the world and their social construct in a way that kicks against the usual attitudes around them.
They are to reject exploitation for money, as we see in Acts 16. They were to treat slaves justly and fairly, as we see in Colossians 4. 21. And refrain from threats, as we see in Ephesians 6. 9. The New Testament flat out rejects kidnapping in 1 Timothy 1, 9 11. So, while the practice of slavery is not fully equated with the practice of kidnapping and dealing with slaves, that is a major aspect of it.
The New Testament brings forth the idea that we have obligations to [00:48:00] be fulfilled rather than just standing up and asserting our rights. And the New Testament dignifies slaves. Slaves are recipients of apostolic directives along with their masters . There is the motivation for right conduct, which is Christological in formulation.
In 1st Peter 2, 19 through 23, slaves endure suffering to enjoy God's approval and to follow the example of Christ. This is one that I would sit on for a while to think about right there. I think there is a lot packed into that passage. A lot that we can say about what Christ did, and why, and our relationship to that.
Slaves are said to be in Christ, just like anyone else. We have the same heavenly master. Slaves were accepted for baptism, and the Lord's Supper, [00:49:00] and fellowship, which is a really big deal. There should be no favoritism in brotherhood of God's family.
Now, when we're talking about slavery, we're thinking of the lack of freedom, right? We think of freedom as slavery, as being opposites, and they are defined in contrast to one another. But often the New Testament presents them as complementary.
To the New Testament authors, freedom is not a strictly political concept. Freedom from sin was obviously a really big deal. Freedom was dependence on God and voluntary surrender to His will. You get freedom from self desire, freedom from spiritual death, in John 5, 24, freedom from self pleasing, In 2 Corinthians 5. 15, freedom from people pleasing in [00:50:00] Galatians 1. 10, from slavery to sin in John 8. 34, and so on and so forth. There's a really long list of things that we get freedom in.
Now from one concept of slavery as this social ill and this social negative, if we're coming at the concept from that in particular, then it does seem very strange that we have the concept of slavery in the New Testament as a positive image. But keeping in mind that Christ is Lord, and that we give our lives to him, then it makes all the sense in the world, right?
We are now devoted to Christ as our new owner. He has freed us from previous bondage to bring us into freedom, as freedmen who have that patron client [00:51:00] relationship with Jesus himself. I mean, if you picture it in earthly terms, right? If you had a slave who was being subjected to bad treatment by some lower citizen, and Caesar comes along and frees that slave and makes him a freedman within the context of Caesar's household, then you are now brought up into the world in a social way, even.
Like, you are given privilege in ways that you were not before. You are given a higher status in order to serve the empire or the kingdom better. So, I think it's really fascinating that we have the context of Roman slavery as it existed in the first century. Because, when you take those ideas, which are state run, negative things that you don't really want in your society, and you [00:52:00] transfer those ideas in positive ways, not transferring the negative things again, into what Christianity is, then suddenly all of those things that were bad in a secular society, are actually positive things inside a Christian community. So now we live our lives for Christ. We are in Christ and for Christ.
One way of viewing baptism can be as a right of transfer of ownership to God. We are in the name, or into the name, of the Triune God. That's how the actual grammar works. And a slave is marked, and so the combination of baptism, with the indwelling of the Spirit in the Christian marks us as slaves to God. As baptized [00:53:00] members of Jesus's actual body of Christ, we bear his name.
Okay, so let's take this concept, a metaphor, into Christian belief and following Jesus. People became slaves in four ways and we can evaluate these ways in relation to the Christian becoming a Christ follower.
People became slaves by birth. Now we are not made Christians by being physically born. But we are born in the spirit, right? We have a new birth.
Second way that people become slaves, by selling themselves. And what's interesting is that amongst the ancient Near Eastern law codes, only the Old Testament mentions voluntary slavery. And we don't really sell ourselves to Christ. We were purchased by Him, as [00:54:00] Revelation 5 9 says, but we do voluntarily enter this relationship.
Okay, so third way that people become slaves is by capture. Are we captured by Christ? Well, we're not supposed to kidnap people. But, in Philippians 3, 12, Christ laid hold of him. And Jesus leads in a triumphal procession. Paul mentions fellow prisoners several times, like in Romans 16, 7.
The fourth way a person becomes a slave is through purchase. And we have a lot of purchase language in the New Testament, don't we? 2 Peter 2. 1, we have the master who bought them. Revelation 5. 9, we are bought from slavery. 1 Corinthians 6. 20, you have been bought with a [00:55:00] price. We do not belong to ourselves, and there is a transfer of ownership. 1 Corinthians 7, 23, again, bought with a price.
We do not become slaves of men. So when we are freed, we become free men, which is a particular category. And we retain an obligation in that situation.
In Acts 20, 28, it says, The Church of God was purchased with His own blood. The grammar there means that it is the blood by which the acquisition was made, and that's not the price of purchase, but the means of it.
Alright, so again, there's so much I could wrap up into this. There is a lot here to talk about with slavery and this imagery. I could just bring out passage after passage, and again, this really sounds like a very normal [00:56:00] kind of a sermon, right?
This isn't something that is really unheard of or earth shattering as far as something you've probably never heard in church before. But here's a couple of interesting points that I think are not brought out enough.
Number one, Christ is said to be a slave to the Father himself. And I had so much to talk about in this episode that I didn't even get into what that means for the incarnation, right? And Christ being a slave, right? How does Christ end up a slave himself? If Christ can be a slave, then none of us should be complaining about being called a slave or having this metaphor used, right?
But when you have Christ as The slave, and that is part of his incarnation experience, which means that that is part of him becoming embodied. Then you see us, [00:57:00] followers of Jesus, and we are the body of Christ, and the way that we relate to the world and each other should be in the same way that Christ is doing things.
Then somehow in all of that, the self serving attitude of a slave is how we should be interacting with each other. Now, does that mean that there is no firmness in stance? Because I think that is the difficult part in this, in my opinion. We can come to these kinds of thoughts and think of ourselves as being so humble and so subservient that we can no longer be ourselves or assert ourselves.
And I would say, that if you are in a situation where there is dominance to the point where you can't feel like you can be yourself and assert yourself and say [00:58:00] something that you think is true, then probably there is some form of tyranny and not self giving servitude in that situation. Now, the Christian life is a life of discipleship, which means that we are in control of ourselves and it is our responsibility to check ourselves. Are you doing so in that whole relationship of servanthood?
And I don't have a really good answer to you as to how that always looks. This is why we do it in community, because we can have those checks and balances within a community, whereas you might not have that within your own self.
All right, I'm going to wrap this up by saying that belonging to Christ is the essence of the Christian faith. 1st Corinthians 3 23, you belong to Christ. And Christ belongs [00:59:00] to God. He doesn't belong to us. So let us go out and bear the name of Christ well. Be slaves of Christ in all of the ways and all of the places that you have been set.
Sometimes I think it would be easier if God had just given us that divine culture and divine government and divine everything that we have. Now some people do think that we have more in that vein than other Christians think, right? It just depends on where you are in the stream of tradition of Christian history. But none of us can go wrong if we put ourselves in the framework that Christ gave us as slaves to Christ, working to be slaves to Christ and his body.
So I will leave that for you here, and I will thank you guys for listening. [01:00:00] Thank you guys for sharing these episodes with other people who might enjoy them. I really appreciate all of you who do that. Thank you for rating the podcast and for giving me feedback and new questions to answer and look at here in this podcast.
I really appreciate you all, and thank you especially to all of you who help support me financially. You can find out ways to do so on my website at GenesisMarksTheSpot. com And really, even a little bit helps. It helps a lot. So I really appreciate you all. I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.
