Considering Slavery

It is not unusual for someone who is not a Christian, when urged to accept the Bible as an authoritative text, to raise the challenge, “Doesn’t the Bible condone slavery?” It is not an unfounded objection. Slavery is present throughout a good deal of the Bible, even in the New Testament, the portion of Scripture that seems more reasonable to contemporary ears than the Old.

I think it’s accurate to say that the Bible does not condone slavery, but acknowledges it’s existence and regulates it. There are a number of directives in the Mosaic law regarding the just use of slaves, and in the New Testament the apostles tell masters to treat their bondservants “justly and fairly.” (e.g. Colossians 4:1) Additionally, slavery was not part of the created order but a product of sin, and the repeated calls for stewardship in all areas of our life points to using any authority we possess in a manner that benefits others. That might not satisfy the objector, but the protest might be due more to the knowledge he or she has of the institution as it was justified and so inhumanely practiced in this country, rather than the Bible. While slavery always involves the owning of one human being by another, it has not always involved the dehumanizing of the one who is owned.

But Paul’s concern in 1 Timothy 6:1-2 is not slavery per se, but the attitude and witness of the one who is subject to a master. It is possible to interpret his remarks as addressing the effect the gospel might have had on those who found freedom in Christ. Considering that those who “were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” and are therefore “Abraham’s offspring” and “heirs according to promise,” a status in which 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” (Galatians 3:27-29), it is not difficult to imagine that some might have construed such egalitarianism as negating all existing differences in station or role. Newly minted Christians might buck against the authority of their masters, whether Christian or non-Christian, because God revealed that the gospel is needed, and believed on, by all manners of people. 

 Paul does not want such behavior to persist, however. Why? Might not his reason be the disrepute it would bring upon the gospel in a society that was not ready for such a profound shift in the culture? And are there not resources in the gospel to sustain the one in servitude as he or she endures their bondage? Do they not follow the one who came not to be served but the serve? (Matthew 20:28). Such thinking might very well have shaped Paul’s teaching. He is not indifferent to the plight of slaves (nor should we), but he is also smart enough to recognize the insignificance of the church as an institution at the time that he was writing. While they did not have political power, they did have power that changes lives. And it would be changed lives that would allow masters and slaves to walk in unity, despite differences in station or role, for he who is Master of both, “is in heaven, and . . . there is no partiality with him.” (Ephesians 6:9)