Slavery in the Bible isn't an overly complicated issue, but I want to give what I believe are the cliffs notes on it, along with some historical facts on slavery. It's worth understanding, because there is good and bad here. Good as in voluntary slavery, and bad as in involuntary slavery.
Just to make it clear, this isn't some kind of click bait to increase the traffic here at 20/20. This is a controversial subject and because of the false teachings surrounding it, and the irrational cry for reparations, one needs to address it.
A Bit of History on Bad, Involuntary Slavery
Slavery is by no means peculiar, odd, unusual or unique to America. For thousands of years it was considered as normal as breathing fresh oxygenated air.
Slavery has always been a part of life in all civilizations. Aristotle declared,
“From the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.”
In his day, there were more slaves than free males. Professor David P. Forsythe wrote in his book, The Globalist,
“The fact remained that at the beginning of the nineteenth century an estimated three-quarters of all people alive were trapped in bondage against their will either in some form of slavery or serfdom.”
Slavery has been practiced by the white man, the black man, the red man, the yellow man, and any other kind of man if there be.
That is a fact of history.
Bad slavery, as in involuntary slavery, was practiced by ancient and modern people — the Babylonians, the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Persians, the native Brits, the Dans, the Romans, the African kingdoms, the South American kingdoms, the Chinese, Indians, Nepalese, Burmese, Native Americans, Moslem nations, and more. Let's briefly consider some of these in chronological order.
The Babylonian legal text, the Code of Hammurabi, composed during 1755-1750 BC, discussed slavery soon after 2242 BC, which is the date assigned by Archbishop James Ussher to the Tower of Babel event.
Ancient Egypt is the first documented nation in the Bible to have practiced harsh slavery. Ham’s son Mizraim founded Egypt (while referred to Mizraim in Hebrew). This slavery would later be imposed on Joseph, the son of Jacob, in 1728 BC (according to Archbishop James Ussher). All the Hebrews would later become slaves while in Egypt for 400 yeas, until the time of Moses, who by the hand of God freed them.
Fast forward roughly a thousand years, and we find the Israelites once again enslaved, this time by Assyrian and Babylonian captors.
In the 4th century AD, slavery was common in Scotland and Ireland, and there we have the famous example of St. Patrick, who was kidnapped twice.
In the 8th century AD, Black Moors started enslaving “whites” during their conquering of Spain and Portugal on the Iberian Peninsula, which lasted for over 400 years. The Moorish and Middle Eastern slave market was quite extensive, with slaves taken as far north as Scandinavia.
Also beginning in the 8th century AD, Norse raiders of Scandinavia enslaved other European peoples and took them back as property.
Between the 8th and 11th centuries, the Vikings called Norse and Scandinavians, who lived in North Europe in modern Sweden and Denmark, conducted pirate raids. They raided throughout the British Isles, western and northern Europe. They traveled east as far as the Volga River in Russia where they sold white European slaves to the Moslems of the Ottomans, particularly white women for the harems (M.A. Khan, Islamic Jihad, pp. 322-323).
Large numbers of Christians were enslaved during the Ottoman wars in Europe, which took place between the 13th and 20th centuries. White slaves were common in Europe from the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages. It was only during the 17th century that the Atlantic slave trade began with Europeans assisted by Arabs and Africans.
Have you ever visited the iconic Taj Mahal? It was built in the 17th century A.D. by Shah Jahan wirh the help of thousands of slaves, who also had a harem of 5,000 concubines.
Blacks were slaves in America between the 17th and 19th centuries, and some argued Slavery as a positive good in the United States. No, blacks were not slaves to just white people. There were thousands of black slave owners, and many Indian owners of black slaves as well. Facts and truth is important, even if it hurts your sensitive soul.
The list could keep going, with many more examples of unbiblical, involuntary, harsh slavery from cultures throughout the world, and throughout the ages.
But I want to park on this last point, a bit longer. There is a lot of serious misunderstanding regarding slavery in America and in general, and of the Civil War, thanks in large part to the lies of the left, liberals who have rewritten a lot of history and indoctrinated absolute lies into the minds of the people, especially black people. Let's consider some facts before us, separating fact from fiction.
Slavery was practiced through the states, and in the south, but only about 7% of the residents had slaves. Majority of slave owners treated their slaves with dignity and kindness, historical records reveal this factually, though those with an agenda have tried to hide this important truth from the public. There is much other truth and facts that have been censored or distorted, as revealed below.
Did you know that the U.S. Census of 1830 revealed there were 3,775 free Blacks who owned 12,740 black slaves! Wow, that goes against the woke, anti-white narrative doesn't it. Historian R. Halliburton Jr. writes, "There were approximately 319,599 free blacks in the United States in 1830. Approximately 13.7 per cent of the total black population was free. A significant number of these free blacks were the owners of slaves. The census of 1830 lists 3,775 free Negroes who owned a total of 12,760 slaves." (R. Halliburton Jr., Free Black Owners of Slaves: A Reappraisal of the Woodson Thesis, The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 76, No. 3 (Jul., 1975), pp. 129-142). There's even more.
The first legal slave owner in American history was a Black tobacco farmer named Anthony Johnson. Not the first slave owner, but the first legal slave owner.
William Ellison was a very wealthy Black plantation owner and cotton gin manufacturer who lived in South Carolina, and according to the 1860 census (in which his surname was listed as "Ellerson"), he owned 63 Black slaves. He was the largest of the 171 black slave owners in South Carolina that year.
The North American Indians owned thousands of black slaves and even ate some during hard times! The author of this linked paper references historian Tiya Miles book The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story, quoting that “the number of enslaved people held by Cherokees [were] around 600 at the start of the 19th century and around 1,500 at the time of westward removal in 1838-9. (Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, she said, held around 3,500 slaves, across the three nations, as the 19th century began.)” (source). The Cherokee Joseph Vann, expelled from his land in Georgia during the era of Indian removal, took at least 48 enslaved black people along with him to Indian Territory in 1837. Here is one incredible account of Indians owning black slaves, the well known black actor Don Cheadle finding out North American Indians owned his ancestors, that his family were slaves to an Indian tribe.
65,000 Southern free black slaves voluntarily served in the Confederate military.
There was widespread opposition to slavery from the time of the founding of the American colonies, and many of the Founding Fathers were opponents, but abolition became a groundswell movement during the Second Great Awakening, both in America and England. The culmination in America was the Civil War of 1860-65, after which slavery was officially abolished. But contrary to popular consensus, the Civil War wasn't fought to end slavery. First of all, the war wasn’t primarily about slavery, but about state sovereignty. Secondly, Lincoln wasn’t an abolitionist, and he vastly expanded and abused the federal government’s power. Thirdly, the confederate flag isn’t a racist symbol, but one of resistance to federal over reach. It’s in fact a flag of freedom. Slavery was diminishing, and would have been abolished eventually without the Civil War. But the intended result was a federal government that vastly overshadowed states rights. Don’t give into the cancel culture propaganda regarding slavery, confederate flags, statues and history. Research the truth for yourself.
The absolute evil and barbaric slavery in Islam, that is slavery by Moslems, which by far is the worse slavery there has ever been, but yet continues on to this day, requires further visitation.
Between 698-709 AD, Moslems defeated the black Berber tribes of northwestern Africa, selling 60,000 into slavery. “Islamic Spain became the hub of a vast new slave-trade. Hundreds of thousands of European slaves, both from Christian territories and from the lands of the pagan Slavs, were imported into the Caliphate, there to be used as concubines (if female) or to be castrated (if male) and made into harem guards or the personal body-guards of the Caliph” (Emmet Scott, Muhammad and Charlemagne Revisited).
Between 712 and 1193 AD, Moslem armies raided India in subsequent waves of attacks. They demolished temples, robbed, murdered, raped, and enslaved millions. Estimates range as high as 50 million Indians murdered in cold blood for refusing to bow to the Satanic god of Islam. Concerning slavery, for instance, in 1001 AD Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni took 500,000 slaves from Jayapala, including thousands of children. In the days of Mughal ruler Babur (r. 1526- 1531), slave markets were set up at Kabul and Qandahar “where caravans came from India carrying slaves (barda) and other commodities to sell at great profits” (M.A. Khan, Islamic Jihad, p. 216).
Beginning in the 8th-century AD, Moslems took over the ancient African slave trade that had existed since the Egyptian pharaohs. “The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth). . . . Four million slaves were exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean” (Elikia M’bokolo, “A Hundred and Fifty Years after France Abolished Slavery,” Le Monde diplomatique, April 1998). Arab traders on the Swahili Coast in east Africa bought Zanj (Bantu) captives from the interior of Africa (present-day Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique) and sold them to Moslems in Egypt, Arabia, Persia, India, and elsewhere. Eventually tens of thousands of slaves were captured and sold every year. “A 10th-century caliph of Baghdad had 11,000 slaves at his palace” (“Human Cargo,” New York Times, Mar. 4, 2001). Wow. 11,000!
The Moslem Ottomans were major slavers. An estimated 1/5 of the population consisted of slaves. Most towns and cities had a slave marketplace called an Esir. "It is estimated that over 28 million Africans were enslaved in the Muslim world in the past 14 centuries” (“A Focus on the African Slaves in the Arab World,” African Echo, Sep. 18, 2015). Another four million white Europeans were enslaved (Robert Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters). An estimated three million Europeans from the region of the Black Sea were enslaved between the 14th and 17th centuries by the Ottomans (Alan Fisher, “Muscovy and the Black Sea Slave Trade,” Canadian American Slavic Studies, 1972, Vol. 6, pp. 575–594).
In the 19th century AD, under Omani Arabs, as many as 50,000 slaves were passing through Zanzibar each year (“Swahili Coast,” National Geographic, Oct. 17, 2002).
Moslem Barbary prirates operated in North Africa, throughout the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic from their bases in Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. These states were a part of the Ottoman Empire, and the Sultans in Constantinople received a portion of the slaves and stolen wealth. They were “the recognized overlords of the Mohammedan world” (Brian Kilmeade, Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates, p. 36). From the 16th to the 19th century, they captured an estimated 1 to 1.25 million white Europeans (Robert Davis, Christian Slaves), which didn't include those captured by Morocco and other raiders. It was called “Christian stealing.”
Today, slavery is still very much alive in majority, if not all, Islamic nations of the Middle East and Islamic nations in Africa such as Sudan, Darfur and Mauritania. In Mauritania, slavery has existed since the Arabs conquered it in the 12th century. Though abolished in 1981, the law is not enforced. Estimates of slaves in Mauritania today “range from 100,000 to more than a half-million.” Slaves “are used for labor, sex and breeding. The property of their masters, they are passed down through generations, given as wedding gifts or exchanged for camels, trucks, guns or money. . . . According to a Human Rights Watch/Africa report, routine punishments for slaves in Mauritania--for the slightest fault--include beatings, denial of food and prolonged exposure to the sun, with hands and feet tied together. More serious infringement of the master’s rule (in American slave-owning parlance, ‘getting uppity’) can lead to prolonged tortures known as ‘the camel treatment,’ in which the slave’s body is slowly torn apart; the ‘insect treatment,’ in which tiny desert insects are inserted and sealed into the ear canal until the slave is driven mad; and ‘burning coals,’ a torture not fit to describe in a family newspaper” (“Arabs Have Black Slaves Today,” Israel National News, Mar. 29, 2013). Slavery, in its most barbaric form, still exists in the Arab world and there is no Exodus in sight either.
Capt. Walter Croker witnesses Islamic slavery of Christians in North Africa in 1815.
Child slaves on an Arab slave ship intercepted by the Royal Navy, 1869.
The Tintin series often explored non-PC plots that Hollywood is terrified of. Here Tintin and Captain Haddock encounter Arab Islamic slave traders of black Africans (from The Red Sea Sharks, 1958).
Francis Bok: Story of an escaped slave from Sudan is the story of a black African captured as a slave by Arab Islamic slavers in 1986. That's 1986, not 1886. This is going on today as it always has, witnessed personally by this author in servitude to kings and princesses and others of the Arab Middle East. Islamic slavery has not ended.
Most speak today about slavery focuses on American history, most of which is wrongheaded and falsehood, while the Arabic nations are continuing the practice of forced and evil slavery to this day (another example). Moslems have always treated their slaves with awful cruelty and wickedness, unlike, and totally opposite of Christian Americans. So where’s the outcry? People make much ado about American slavery, even though its been abolished for over 150 years, but not one word about the present day slavery of black and asian people by the Moslem Arabs. NOT Christian Arabs, but Moslem Arabs. The distinction is critically important. So wheres the public exposure? It doesn’t exist because Satan's push in this world isn’t against evil or demonic ideologies like Islam (who he has in his back pocket, considering Allah of Islam is Satan himself) but against those of the truth or more in line with the truth.
It is also a historical fact that black African chiefs enslaved their own people, marched them to the west coast of Africa, and sold them to Arab, Jewish, Portuguese, English, and American traders. When the white slavers refused to pay the black slave traders’ asking price, the chiefs simply refused to sell. They knew how to get their price. It’s called patiently waiting. The white slavers pouted in their ships just offshore as their food and water dwindled. Eventually, they capitulated and paid the asking price. The slaves were then distributed all over the world, not only in America.
Although far more whites have been enslaved than blacks, that makes little difference today in our woke (deplorably evil) times, except for the record.
Now where would Moslems, universally, get such an idea of evil, debased, involuntary slavery, especially of Christians, whom they hate with the hatred only possible from this Satanic ideology?
The Bible condemns involuntary slavery as sinful and evil, in no uncertain terms. It is man stealing, aka., kidnapping. The Quran on the other hand makes slavery acceptable in Islam, thus Islam is a slaving people since Mohammed, who would take one-fifth of the slaves for himself. Moslems turned slavery into a major industry for over a thousand years. Its what's been called, a “Moslem gold rush.”
“Slave taking rapidly burgeoned into a major industry” (Robert Davis, Christian Slaves, p. 140)
The Qur’an has Allah telling Muhammad that he has given him girls as sex slaves:
“Prophet, We have made lawful to you the wives to whom you have granted dowries and the slave girls whom God has given you as booty.” (Sura 33:50)
That would further explain the demented and evil attitude of Moslem men toward women in general, including their own wives and daughters. They don't value them as much as a dog, and Islam hates dogs.
Thus, Muhammad bought and owned slaves:
“Jabir (Allah be pleased with him) reported: There came a slave and pledged allegiance to Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) on migration; he (the Holy Prophet) did not know that he was a slave. Then there came his master and demanded him back, whereupon Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: Sell him to me. And he bought him for two black slaves, and he did not afterwards take allegiance from anyone until he had asked him whether he was a slave (or a free man).” (Muslim 3901)
“Allah’s Apostle was on a journey and he had a black slave called Anjasha, and he was driving the camels (very fast, and there were women riding on those camels). Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Waihaka (May Allah be merciful to you), O Anjasha! Drive slowly (the camels) with the glass vessels (women)!’” (Bukhari 8.73.182, Narrated Anas bin Malik)
The Bible talks about slavery, both good and bad. While slavery has always been with us, there have been forms of both righteous and unrighteous slavery, mostly of the latter. Evil slavery, as in man stealing, involuntary compulsion, has always been the result of one group taking advantage of another for the first groups’ benefit. Evil, involuntary slavery, which is kidnapping, has been a reality since the early days of civilization for a simple reason: men are inherently wicked. The Bible calls it sin that came down to us through our parents, and ultimately from Adam and Eve. That is also a fact of man’s wretched history, and it is a reflection of man’s fallen condition. The Lord Jesus Christ tells us where kidnapping and all other sins and evils stem from, and since He is the Creator of all and everything, He knows us better than we ever will:
"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man." (Mk 7:21-23).
It is also a fact of history as to who was at the forefront of the war against evil and unBiblical slavery. It wasn’t the Moslems, who relished in slavery of the most evil kind and are the greatest practitioners of it to this day. It wasn’t the Hindus or the Buddhists or the Anamists or the Atheists or the Humanists. It wasn’t Roman Catholics. It wasn’t the black African nations or the Asian nations or the South American nations or the Eskimos or the North American Indians. It was almost predominantly WHITE Protestant and Baptist Christians in England and America. Thats who finally put an end to the practice of involuntary slavery.
To make slavery in America centre piece of the world, is a monstrous travesty of truth and justice. America is where bad slavery ended. And that should be celebrated every 4th of July, not only in America but throughout the free world, since involuntary (bad) slavery continues on alive and well in essentially every Islamic hell-hole governed by Sharia law upon the earth.
With all the irrational discussions about reparations, an honest history of slavery makes the left uncomfortable and dishonest. The lefty liberal woke liars love to promote “reparations”—but only up until the point where history and truth run counter to its simplistic narratives about the past. For instance, back in September of 2022, CNN’s racist woke liberal Don Lemon (who loves to play the race card), was taken aback in an interview with British royal commentator Hilary Fordwich when he demanded the royal family to pay reparations. He got an answer he wasn’t expecting on racial reparations, and it plainly shut him up. She said that looking to the British monarchy for reparations is the wrong place to go. Instead, proponents of reparations should look first to “the beginning of the supply chain”—that is, to the African kingdoms that initially enslaved Africans and sold them—rather than the British, who were a key force in eliminating slavery globally. “Which was the first nation in the world that abolished slavery?” Fordwich asked rhetorically. It was the British, she answered.
“In Great Britain, they abolished slavery. Two thousand naval men died on the high seas trying to stop slavery. Why? Because the African kings were rounding up their own people. They had them [in] cages, waiting in the beaches. . . . I think you’re totally right. If reparations need to be paid, we need to go right back to the beginning of that supply chain and say, ‘Who was rounding up their own people and having them handcuffed in cages?’ Absolutely, that’s where they should start."(You can watch the viral clip by clicking here).
The kind of slavery before the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation and the series of constitutional amendments ratified after the Civil War doesn't exist any more in America. Maybe that history of slavery is still a concern to unbelievers, but it shouldn't matter to a Christian. The slavery issue is a distraction from what the real problem is. Born again Christians shouldn't cooperate with that distraction as often occurs today, so that they will appear to be "woke," while "woke" is deplorably evil.
The lefty, liberal demented and evil beasts ruling our nations (illegitimately for the most part) are attempting to destroy history and rewrite it through cancelling culture, critical race theory, the Black Lives Matter wickedness, Indian land-stealing and affairs, and other means. One of the ways they are doing this is by gaslighting and destroying white people for being white, their history, their culture, their people, which are and have been our leaders, on the back of anti-colonialism (which is absolutely nothing wrong with) and this subject of slavery. It is their little gold nugget, or so they think. In Canada, people like John A MacDonald, Canada's first prime minister, have been cancelled. In America, its been George Washington, Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and others. Back in 2019, the shoe company Nike canceled its Betsy Ross Flag Sneaker, which had a rendition of the flag of the original thirteen states on its heel.
There's more slavery coming in the near future. A new slavery. Every unsaved, unrighteous person in the world that accepts the mark of the beast and will worship the beast, is a slave. A slave to Satan. To the Antichrist. When you choose to disobey him, it'll cost you your head. Read Rev 13 and 14.
Slavery According to the Bible
To answer the question, the title of the article, no, slavery is not wrong. It is Biblical. At least a certain form of slavery, which is that regulated by God in His Word, something man of course has corrupted over the course of history. In summary fashion, dived into more detail below, the following are some reasons why slavery is not unscriptural or wrong: (1) Slavery itself is regulated by God in the Old Testament (OT) (Lev 25:42-55) and never de-regulated in the New Testament (NT) but kidnapping someone and making him a slave is a violation (Ex 21:16), hence involuntary slavery is wrong and slave trades prohibited; (2) Slavery is actually a big part of the Bible, the noun form of "slave" (doulos) occurs 127 times in the NT, and its verb form 25, and entire epistles are written about slaves (Philemon) and Jesus gave examples of it, without condemning it (e.g. Matt 18:23-35), as did Paul (e.g. 1 Cor 7:21-23; Philemon); (3) Ending slavery is not a target for local independent churches (the only type of churches in the Bible), even as it wasn't for Jesus and Paul; they didn’t try to stop it but rather both approved of it; (4) If you are a slave, be the best slave for Jesus Christ. Thats the message of the Bible, noted clearly in the Book of Philemon and 1 Cor 7:21-23.
God's Word is clear that slavery is not wrong, but its important to understand what Biblical regulated slavery is, vs ungodly slavery practiced often by men, as noted in the previous point. Lets consider this in greater detail.
1. Firstly, slavery itself is acceptable to God.
The Bible doesn’t command or exhort slavery, but it does regulate it. God approves of and regulates slavery in Lev 25:42-55. The Jew is never to be sold as a slave, for they are the slaves of the LORD God.
“For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. . . . For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” (vv. 42, 55).
Biblical slavery is governed by Scripture, where masters are commanded to show kindness and respect to their slaves/servants. The Israelites that had slaves, were commanded to release them on the year of the jubilee, which is the seventh year (Lev 25). Many of the passages referring to slavery, such as Lev 25, come from the standpoint of Jews having Gentile heathen slaves, but never justifies any race-based form of slavery. God-regulated slavery is reminding the Jewish masters that they too were once slaves, and thus to treat slaves or servants in a way that they would want to be treated. This is after all the second greatest of commandments, God's golden rule,
"thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself:" (Lev 19:18; Matt 19:19; 22:39)
Biblical regulated slavery is more inline with a longterm employment contract, then to kidnapping or involuntary slavery. also prescribed when someone sells himself, voluntarily, to another, such as Jacob in Gen 29. It was a contract for a price or person that the person was interested in. Anyone has the freedom to sell himself as a slave, for whatever agreement is made between bondman/bondmaid and slave owner. Who would want to be a slave to man? Someone that is poor, or someone that wants to be a servant to a king and his family and his subjects (like myself), or someone that wants a mans daughter to wed (like Jacob), or someone that desires to be an evangelist amongst the involuntary slaves (like the Moravians in the West Indies).
But kidnapping is always wrong, which is capturing someone against their will and making him a slave, for that is a violation of Scripture and punishable by death:
"And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." (Ex 21:16)
Kidnapping is involuntary slavery, which is the sinful slavery that has been the predominant type of slavery over the course of the ages. Kidnapping is people being sold against their will, for the financial benefit of both kidnapper and slave owner. According to Ex 21:16, the kidnapper should have been but to death.
So Ex 21:16 prohibits a slave trade.
Furthermore, adding a racial component to slavery is wrong, because the Bible teaches against racial superiority. Everyone is equal in essence in the sight of God, for He "hath made of one blood all nations of men" (Ac 17:26). All the other regulations of slavery would fit the regulations in scripture for how anyone treats another human being. The hierarchy of slavery isn't wrong. An earthly master isn't better than his slave, but he has authority over him. All men are created equal, like Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence. Submission to someone in authority over you doesn't mean he is better than you. His position is greater even as God the Father is greater than God the Son.
Jesus gives a parable where slavery is not considered to be unacceptable to God, the parable of the merciful king and his unmerciful servant in Matt 18:23-35, which servant and his family belonged to the king and whom the king wanted to sell with his family (v. 25). Not at any point here or anywhere else does Jesus speak out against slavery.
Paul wrote an entire epistle about a slave (Philemon). The point of Philemon was that Paul required Onesimus to go back to Philemon, because Onesimus was owned by Philemon as a slave.
Rom 14:4, though a different Greek word is utilized to translate "servant," the idea of slavery seems to be present especially as we note the usage of "master" translated from "kurios," which is also translated as Lord and carries the idea of belonging to a person or thing. Again, slavery appears completely acceptable to the Lord:
"Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand."
In Acts 12 when Peter had been released out of prison by the angel of the Lord, we read of him knocking on the door of the house of Mary, the mother of John, and "a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda." (Ac 12:13). The word "damsel" is translated from "paidiske," a Greek word that means a female slave, specifically one who was in charge of the door. There is not even one hint anywhere in the text that slavery is wrong but rather that its acceptable. Again, the right form of slavery, which is a voluntary contract where one individual gives up his own rights to be a bond-servant of a new master.
An excellent and popular example of this in Scripture is Jacob in Gen 29, and his willing slavery to his uncle Laban for seven years for his daughter Rachel. When Laban tricked and beguiled Jacob and wed his daughter Leah to Jacob, Jacob extended his slavery contract for another seven years. After marrying Rachel he extended his contract yet for another seven years, to continue working for Laban, whom God greatly prospered because of His blessings upon Jacob.
In one instance, we see God allowing for involuntary slavery, with a very specific infraction for this to take place, a punishment for thievery (if he cannot repay).
“If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him. If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.” (Ex 22:2-3)
This by the way would be a very effective law to get rid of stealing, if our dishonest, selfish, narcissistic, and diabolical politicians were actually interested in decreasing or abolishing crime. Following and applying God's law is ALWAYS the best rule of law.
Thus slavery is regulated in the Bible by God and violating His regulations is sinning against Him.
2. Second, Slavery is actually a big part of the Bible.
One does not need a modern dictionary or Greek dictionary to know the the word "servant" in the KJV means "slave" in its ordinary usage. In the NT, the noun form of "slave" (doulos) occurs 127 times, and its verb form occurs 25. Scripture doesn't hide the fact of slavery. It occurs there over and over again. Eph 6:5-9 for instance reflects the employer-employee relationship but it starts with slaves being obedient to their masters in v. 5. Believers are slaves of Jesus Christ. Yes they are for they are bought with a price and they are not their own (1 Cor 7:21-23). Every person is a slave to something or someone (Matt 6:24). Paul said you were either a slave of sin or a slave of righteousness (Rom 6:18-20)—you are either one or the other permanently (unless true conversion occurs) and never both at the same time. In one sense, everyone is owned by God as a submissive slave, or as a rebel against Him, following his own way. On the other hand, believers are voluntarily slaves of Jesus Christ, like Jacob was to Laban.
Doulos means slave. That's what a servant is in the NT. It isn't a British butler, like a modern employee. This is a person who has given up his life, what is the description of the slave. He is not his own. He is bought with a price (1 Cor 7:21-23). His body and spirit are God's. All blood-bought born again believers have been bought with a price. They belong to God and are His servants. They are His slaves, voluntary slaves that is.
“For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.” (1 Cor 7:22-23)
“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” (1 Cor 6:19-20)
Is it the servant or the slave that has been "bought with a price"? (1 Cor 7:23). I think we all recognize that a servant that is bought is actually a slave.
Who would want to be a slave to God? Someone that wants to be saved.
Paul openly admitted he was a slave for Christ.
“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” (Eph 6:18-20)
Believers do not do well to cooperate with a general dislike of the concept of slavery. We must encourage slavery to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If someone doesn't acquiesce to the Lordship of Christ, he'll be a slave nevertheless but to a different master, an evil and dark taskmaster of the world, the flesh, and the devil and then meet a damnable end.
Everyone is a slave to either God or mammon and sin. When we were lost, we were slaves to sin. Under its bondage, control and dominion. The sinner cannot stop sinning on his own. He is in bondage to it. He is a “servant to sin,” that is bondage like a slave, which is what the word doulos means. They can't stop sinning, which is the meaning of bondage. They continue in sin, because the seed does not remain in them (1 Jn 3). Someone who is a servant of sin, isn't just doing sinful acts out of his will, but he is in bondage to the corruption and can't escape it except by the grace of God, which leadeth to salvation (Ti 2:11). When we got saved, we received a new Master (Matt. 6:24), and we become slaves to Him. Yea, happy slaves!
The false position where someone is allegedly saved without Jesus being Lord or without having submitted to Jesus Christ as Lord, and, therefore, someone not being a slave, which is what it is to be a servant of Christ, defies Biblical repentance. In this position someone can remain in rebellion against Jesus Christ and be saved. That is a false heretical gospel, a "damnable heresy" (2 Pet 2:1).
In one sense, everyone is owned by God as a submissive slave, or as a rebel against, following his own way. On the other hand, believers are voluntarily slaves of Jesus Christ. Believers do not do well to cooperate with a general dislike of the concept of slavery. We want to encourage slavery to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. If someone doesn't acquiesce to the Lordship of Christ, he'll be a slave anyway to the world, the flesh, and the devil and meet a damnable end.
3. Ending slavery is not a target for Biblical pillars of the truth, i.e. true local churches, even as it wasn't for Jesus and Paul.
Eph 6:5-9,
"Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."
This passage very clearly teaches slavery, providing instructions on the slave and master relationship.
Both Jesus and Paul approved of it, clear from the examples in previous points and here. If slavery was wrong, why didn't Jesus or Paul try to stop it? The book of Philemon is about a slave. One (Onesimus) that belonged to his master (Philemon). Isn't the point of Philemon that Paul required Onesimus to go back to Philemon because Onesimus was owned by Philemon as a slave? If he was just a modern servant and not a slave, what is v. 16 talking about? This would be nonsensical. Biblical regulated slavery is for Philemon to treat his slave Onesimus with kindness and dignity, to love him as himself.
Most of the society in which Jesus and Paul lived, violated scripture. Missions of each local church superseded stopping what was wrong in the culture. The priority was the kingdom of God over all temporal, short-term human institutions. Thus the focus was the permanent perfection of everything under the reign of Jesus Christ. The nature of change is important in scripture, so the successful long term changes of a society or culture depend on saving faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course the world doesn't understand this, because its narrow-zoom focus is on the 70-100 year lifespan upon the earth. However, not to God. Jesus or Paul didn't attempt to upheave social institutions, which include marriage and government.
Although neither the Lord Jesus or the Apostle Paul tried to stop slavery, they did require Christians to regulate it though, according to Scripture.
4. If you are a slave, be the best slave for Jesus Christ.
If you are wife to an unsaved husband, be the best wife for Jesus Christ. Follow the instructions of 1 Pet 3:1-6 and you may well win your husband to Christ by your "chaste conversation [i.e. conduct] coupled with fear." If you are under an oppressive government, be the best citizen of the state for Jesus Christ. By the best slave you can be for your employer, your master (Eph 6:5-9), even if its involuntary.
The Bible treats this life like the short life that it is. We ought to ask Jesus to “teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” (Ps 90:12). I don't assume that living according to scripture won't turn the world into the best possible place even in the short term. The permanent though should never be sacrificed on the altar of the immediate.
The Bible teaches that Christians have their identities in Jesus Christ. They aren't Jew or Gentile, but Christian. They aren't male or female, but Christian. They aren't bond or free, but Christian. Which brings us back to slavery. The Bible teaches slavery. True born again believers are slaves of Jesus Christ. Every person is a slave to something or someone. Paul said you were either a slave of sin or a slave of righteousness (Rom 6) — you are either one or the other as your nature, and cannot be both at the same time.
A person who rejects the true gospel of Jesus Christ will go to the eternal lake of fire, to Hell. Hell will be worse for everyone than any other form of slavery that exists, or has ever existed, or will exist in the future on earth. Rescuing people from sin and Hell must far outweigh any other cause. Nothing is worse, not even evil, involuntary slavery that violates biblical regulation of slavery.
Again, the best kind of slave is the one that is a submissive slave to the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you His happy slave? Please read here on how you can be born again by submission to Jesus Christ as Lord, and become His bondservant.