Four weeks ago we began to walk through Paul’s letter to Philemon. In that letter Paul calls on his brother in Christ to receive back his runaway slave, Onesimus, as a fellow brother in Christ. By receiving Onesimus as a brother in Christ, God’s intention is to correct a deficiency in the faith of Philemon and restore a broken relationship.
The vehicle by which this all occurs is through slavery. Slavery is an issue that gets brought up a lot when dealing with people that question, is God really good? “If God is good,” the question goes, “then why didn’t he command slavery to be done away with?” Philemon gives us an opportunity to deal with the issue of slavery, because we should always deal with hard issues, so that we might have a deeper understanding of how God works.
So last week we began to work through God’s approach to slavery. In it we discovered there things: First, slavery wasn’t a part of God’s original design and comes about because of a curse through sin. Second God is pro-freedom and works within a sinful society to elevate slaves towards greater dignity and freedom, because at the time, slavery was a social need to deal with things like debt. Finally, God gives us principles to live by, which, if we follow them, should return us back to God’s original design.
With that refresher in our mind, we can now turn to the passages from Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy which deal with slavery. And as we delve into these passages, we must remember one more thing we talked about last week: God works within the human capacity. So as we read, we’ll be seeing two things at work: God’s elevation of slaves to greater dignity and freedom, and God’s working within a sinful people. This is illustrated by Jesus in Matthew 19. When asked about divorce, Jesus brings the questioners back to God’s original design of lifetime union under God. To this the questioners respond in verse 7, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?(19:7)” And it’s here that we get an insight into how God deals with sinful humanity, “He said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. (19:8)” This is profound because it teaches that God acted in certain ways, not because of his original design, but because of the hardness of hearts, the sinfulness, of humanity, which Jesus equated to his current audience as well.
With that in mind, we can read from Exodus 21, where we’ll read only the verses pertaining to slaves.
1 “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.
7 “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money …
16 “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death …
20 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money …
26 “When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. 27 If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth …
32 “If the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.”
To our modern ears, ears that are steeped in hundreds of years of Christian morality, the chattel slavery of the 1600-1800s, and the continued social ills that it caused, the biblical words that God first used in dealing with the institution of slavery seems immoral. But again, we must remember that God is dealing with people that have no qualms about slavery.
Putting this into perspective, in the ancient Near Eastern the laws were things like this, “If A. breaks the contract and leaves B.’s house and declares thus: ‘I am not a slave-woman and my sons are not slaves,’ B. shall put out the eyes of A. and her children and sell them. (https://core.ac.uk/reader/217424590, pg. 1667)"
Another law concerning runaway slaves was, “The mayor and five elders shall swear the oath of the gods … If they swear and afterwards he discovers his slave …they are thieves: their hands are cut off; they shall give 6000 (shekels of copper to the Palace). (https://core.ac.uk/reader/217424590, pg. 1673)”
Even into the era of the Greco-Roman world, we can see the station of slaves did not improve. In Ancient Greece, Aristotle defended slavery by asserting that slaves were fated to be slaves by their character … (https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/teachings-about-slavery-in-the-bible-and-by-the-early-church-fathers/)
Scholar Mark Cartwright in his article on “Slavery in the Roman World,” wrote, “Slaves were the lowest class of society and even freed criminals had more rights. Slaves had no rights at all in fact and certainly no legal status or individuality. They could not create relations or families, nor could they own property. To all intents and purposes they were merely the property of a particular owner, just like any other piece of property - a building, a chair or a vase - the only difference was that they could speak. (https://www.ancient.eu/article/629/slavery-in-the-roman-world/)"
Speaking about runaway slaves, Laurie Venters writes, “The punishment of Roman slaves was not concerned with rectifying wrongs but re-establishing domination. (https://studenttheses.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item:2659945/view)"
So though we might hear words that make us go, “why such harsh treatment?” The first hearers would have responded with, “why such leniency?” In God’s first words on the subject, he has restricted what can be brought into and excluded from the contract. If a slave came in with things, he leaves with them. If he is given things, he can make a free choice to keep or reject them.
A daughter sold for the purpose of marriage for a son, she was to be treated as a daughter to the master and receive all benefits from that position. If she doesn’t meet the desire for that purpose, she is to be redeemed and not resold. On top of that, if another wife is taken, she cannot be diminished in her standing.
If a slave is stolen and sold, the man who is found in possession of the stolen person, shall be killed. Notice it wasn’t simply the thief, but the one in possession of the stolen person, who is also killed.
If a slave is struck, and is killed, there should be retribution for that murder. Here we might say, “Why should he even strike the person?” To that God adds verse, 26, in which he seeks to deter striking altogether by stating that if a salve suffers life altering damage by the strike, they are to be set free. In this way, God is giving pause to the master’s hand, to think through what he is actually doing. Why strike in the first place if there is a chance he could lose the slave altogether.
Finally, even if the slave is killed by an animal, there should be compensation for their life. We might not like that slavery existed, but God worked in a world that didn’t care two licks about slaves, by seeking to elevate the enslaved in a world of sinners.
Now, we need to jump over to Deuteronomy which is a restatement of the law found throughout Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, hence why it’s called Deuteronomy, which basically means second law.
In Deuteronomy 15:12-14, we get an additional law about the length of slavery, which reads, “12 If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. 13 And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. 14 You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress.”
A Hebrew slave may only be a slave for six years. Thereby giving a definitive end to the contract by which the slave entered in.
Verses 16-17 of the same chapter deal with the slave desiring to stay with his master, and gives a way to solidify that contract.
In Deuteronomy 23:15, we are given an alternative to the Near Eastern law of runaway slaves, which reads, “You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. 16 He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.” That is a monumental stance on runaway slaves, which flies in the face of what the surrounding people believed, and would speak to the future issue with Philemon.
Finally in the book of Deuteronomy, we go to Deuteronomy 24:7, “If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.” This statement entirely outlaws the stealing of slaves from within the nation of Israel themselves, which is taking the broad theft of people from Exodus 21:16, and here adding to it, the selling of the person.
But it doesn’t stop there. There are a few chapters in Leviticus that we need to look at as well.
Leviticus 19:20-22 reads, “20 If a man lies sexually with a woman who is a slave, assigned to another man and not yet ransomed or given her freedom, a distinction shall be made. They shall not be put to death, because she was not free; 21 but he shall bring his compensation to the Lord, to the entrance of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering. 22 And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord for his sin that he has committed, and he shall be forgiven for the sin that he has committed.”
This one might sound strange, but the purpose is to deal with an ambiguous situation. A woman slave could not give consent to sexual activity. So instead of carrying capital punishment as the law stated (Deuteronomy 22), she was consider guiltless. Since the woman slave was technically property, by social standards the man couldn’t be charged with a crime, but God wanted to show that this was still wrong, so the man had to give an offering to recognize his sin for sexual activity outside of God’s ordained marriage. Rather than being strange, in fact this dealt with the situation as charitable as could be.
Two other passages from Leviticus, chapters 22 and 25 have some interesting information. In speaking within the Levitical priesthood, God states this in Leviticus 22:10-11, “10 A lay person shall not eat of a holy thing; no foreign guest of the priest or hired worker shall eat of a holy thing, 11 but if a priest buys a slave as his property for money, the slave may eat of it, and anyone born in his house may eat of his food.” Understand that the Hebrews were allowed to buy slaves from outside the nation of Israel, which is told to us in Leviticus 25:44-46, and these slaves could become generational slaves. However notice something that happens to such slaves. In the context, God says this about the holy things, “Say to them, ‘If any one of all your offspring throughout your generations approaches the holy things that the people of Israel dedicate to the Lord, while he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord. (22:3)” So no one who is not a Levite may touch the holy things, yet God puts in a stipulation that any slave bought from outside the Hebrew nations may eat of the holy food. So a true Israelite cannot touch anything holy, but a Levite slave can ingest holy food. That’s an elevation of the foreign slave.
In addition to this elevation, Leviticus 25:6-7 reads, “6 The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, 7 and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food.” God provides a promise that when the people let the land rest for its sabbath year, he will provide food for everyone under a household, which includes any slaves. This lets us know that God is not only mindful of the slave, but also of giving them equal rest, as he did with the weekly Sabbath.
In some of the final covenantal words of God to the people of Israel, God tells them this in Deuteronomy 28:58, “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting.”
A part of those afflictions is verse 68, “And the Lord will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”
If the Israelites do not hold to the restraint of what God has said, then they will end up as slaves themselves. In other words, God is telling the Israelites that if they are not mindful of what God has done for them, bringing them out of the slavery of Egypt and giving them his commands, then they will end up like the very slaves they treat poorly. Spoiler, this eventually does happen.
Knowing all of this, we can now look towards the New Covenant of God where the language of slaves takes on a new tone. Jesus states in Mark 10:44, “… whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” In Matthew 20:27, Jesus states, “… and whoever would be first among you must be your slave …” This elevates the position of slave as a servant of servants; which every Christian, especially those in leadership, should strive towards.
In John 8:34 we’re told, “Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.’” Here we learn that there is a deeper slavery than that of physical bondage. Spiritual bondage is something that all of humanity is in, and therefore needs to be dealt with first, which in turn will lead to a release from physical bondage.
For Philemon, there was still a spiritual point of bondage, which God was dealing with through the physical problem of slavery. Making the question, who was really in bondage?
Paul would write to the Romans in Romans 6:16-18, “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”
We’re going to be slaves, either to our own sin or to the work of Christ. Sin’s slavery results in continued physical bondage and leads into eternal death, whereas slavery to Christ leads to spiritual freedom with the implications of physical freedom as well.
This is why when God’s principles are put into practice we get passages like Ephesians 6:5-9 which reads, “5 Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, 6 not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, 7 rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. 9 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.”
There is an uplifting because of Christ of both the slave to work for Christ where they find themselves and for the master to be kind towards the slave as to Christ.
It’s when biblical principles are put into practice that we get statements like this from an early church father John Chrysostom (kris-tis-tum), “If you have any care for your slaves, do not employ them in serving your own needs; rather, when you have purchase them, then teach them trades so they can support themselves, then set them free. https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/teachings-about-slavery-in-the-bible-and-by-the-early-church-fathers/#_edn14)”
Scholar Bruce Strom, reflecting on the early Church’s view on slavery writes, “But the Apostolic Constitutions do not regard slavery as a natural condition, the freeing of slaves is encouraged, and when a slave owner free his slaves, this was seen as a type of forgiveness of sins. (https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/teachings-about-slavery-in-the-bible-and-by-the-early-church-fathers/#_edn14)"
But it is here that we must stop and be truthful about the history of the Church. When the Church became a political force within the world in the 300s A.D., it failed to hold to biblical principles and slavery continued. That continuation led to the chattel slavery of the 16-1800s. People used and misused Scripture to condone slavery, and slavery where people are stolen from their land and sold to outsiders. This type of slavery was outlawed in Israel, and yet we, the Christianized West allowed for it to happen. Any results of that deplorable sin, is heaped upon us as a society now, as it is among other western nations.
We can thank God for people like Angelina Grimké who called on Christians to stand against slavery when she wrote, “It is because I feel a deep and tender interest in your
present and eternal welfare that I am willing thus publicly to address you … To all of you then, known or unknown, relatives or strangers (for you are all one in Christ,) I would speak. I have felt for you at this time, when unwelcome light is pouring in upon the world on the subject of slavery; light which even Christians would exclude … You can do much in every way: four things I will name. 1st. You can read on this subject. 2d. You can pray over this subject. 3d. You can speak on this subject. 4th. You can act on this subject. (https://americainclass.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Grimke_Appeal-to-the-Christian-Women-of-the-South-excerpts.pdf)”
But let us not kid ourselves, it took far too long to react slavery within the wester world, and even now, we too easily overlook the slave trade that is happening through the stealing of people today.
There are issues around us that we must stand up against that have plagued the Church and have marred the image of Christ to the world. The sex trafficking that occurs throughout the world. The exploration of immigrants. The legal murdering of babies through abortion. The injustices of our justice system. The rampant drug use and homelessness. The sexualization of children and the embrace of sexual and demonic media.
There is so many things that when we look back at the sins of our past, the past looks at us and would see an even worse society than that which condoned slavery for too long.
As believers today, we must understand God’s desire to move people out of bondage, and we must work, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to address each of those places of bondage. For the world is still shackled in slavery, both physically and spiritually, yet Jesus tells his people, “14 You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)”
God is calling us to walk in his holy light, to speak up for the defenseless, to buck the bondage that is all around us. That begins with ourselves. We need to have God’s light work in us and destroy the points of bondage that we keep allowing to hold us hostage. Then we need to seek God to see where he would have us work alongside of him.
My challenge for you this week is to first seek God to bring freedom in any places of bondage you have. Second, to seek God in one of these four areas: sex trafficking, exploitation of immigrants, abortion, or drug use. Seek to know where God would have you work against the bondage. And to put Angelina Grimké’s call into action: Read on the subject, pray on the subject, speak on the subject, and act on the subject.
Let us not be passive in the bondage of other people, both spiritually and physically. Instead let us be the people of God who work in our Father’s heart of freedom. Amen.
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