Slavery and the Bible

Christians do not like to talk about slavery because it invites criticism of the Bible. Too bad. Knowledge of all the facts would make a wonderful apologetic for Christianity, showing the marks of excellence of our Judeo-Christian heritage over every other pretender.

There are three words for “slave” in the Bible. One refers to a “servant,” and that could include something as exalted as an officer of the king or some other “public servant.” The second (in descending order of rights and freedom) is best rendered “bondservant,” and describes a temporary attaching of oneself to a master, usually for the purpose of working off a debt (a nice alternative to jail). The third variety is the one we typically think of, a relationship involving property ownership.

A Hebrew could not legally be made to fall lower than the second category and had to be released after six years; slavery in the sense of possession could only be levied on a foreigner (a nice alternative to execution of prisoners of war). Even at that, for the slave’s protection, limitations were placed on the physical contact allowable between a master and slave: If even a tooth was knocked out, the slave had to be set free (Exodus 21:26–27). The bottom line of all this is that slavery was ubiquitous in the ancient world, but the Old Testament curbed its worst excesses (as it did for divorce).

Where does antebellum American slavery fit into this schema? Nowhere. It was neither the condition of the respectable servant, nor temporary bondservant—nor even the ancient slave with his legal protections. It was barbaric and unbiblical, as is the sex-trafficking of women and girls today.

The New Testament writings, at first glance seemingly uninterested in the issue of slavery, were actually the subtle and time-released undoing of it. In Ephesians Paul told slaves or bondservants to obey their masters—and with heart, not just eye-service (6:5–7). But then comes the sleeper bomb that would gradually undermine slavery over the next centuries:

“… knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord. Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him” (Ephesians 6:8–9, ESV).

Here is the question: If a Christ-follower takes this command seriously, how can slavery long survive as an institution?

Then comes the book of Philemon, that odd little one-chapter postcard that packs a theology of social relationships. A slave named Onesimus has run away from his master Philemon. While on the lam, he hears Paul’s message and gets saved. Paul sends him back to his friend Philemon, but “no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother.”

More than that, Paul astonishingly evinces affection for the man, and such affection as is more fitting of a good friend than of chattel: “I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart.” Then Paul says something culturally outrageous: “Receive him as you would receive me.”

From here on in, ladies and gentlemen, that giant cracking sound you hear is the tremors in the foundation of a loathsome institution that, in the beginning, was never natural or God-ordained or meant to be.

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