How NOT to Misread the Bible (Part 5): Dignity from Slavery

One of the red-hot issues in the area of where people misread and misunderstand the Bible is the Scriptures’ apparent condoning and support of slavery. People, sometimes furiously, question Bible verses like these:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
Ephesians 6:5

Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them,
Titus 2:9

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.
Colossians 3:22

These are New Testament verses. Before that the Old Testament clearly legislated the use of slavery in the nation of Israel, as we will see below. One atheist meme referencing the Old Testament’s ban on eating shellfish scoffs:

“God could have banned shellfish or slavery.
He chose shellfish.”
atheist meme

Why didn’t God simply say, “You shall not have another person as your slave,” and just put an end to the horrible practice? How does this fit into the idea, which storyofgrace blog has promoted, that the Bible is a story of delivering people from brokenness to restoration? Abraham Lincoln has been quoted as saying, “If anything is wrong, slavery is wrong.” If Lincoln knew this, why doesn’t God?

The answer is that the Bible set the foundation for abolishing slavery, and without this foundation, the widespread abolition of slavery would not have been possible. In “How NOT to Misread and Misunderstand the Bible (Part 5),” we will look at how God fundamentally broke the power of one human being owning another human being. In the follow-up blog: “How NOT to Misread and Misunderstand the Bible (Part 6),” we will see how the New Testament sowed the seeds for the worldwide abolishing of slavery.

The Story of the Bible

“The central task of the universe today is extending the kingdom of God into every corner of human life, one follower at a time, one conversation at a time.”
Michael Henderson

Previously, we have seen that the story of the Bible has been broken up into six acts. In Act 1: World’s Beginning, God created humanity in a world with flourishing beauty and life-giving abundance without anything to spoil it. In Act 2: Humanity’s Rebellion, we saw people have rebelled from this original divine artistry and purpose. They traded life-giving abundance for a world governed by self-centered brokenness. In Act 3: Israel’s Quest, God stepped in to save his story and set in motion a plan to restore the world from this place of brokenness by God taking one nation (from the descendants of Abraham) and setting them apart to be a light and guide to other nations. This was the dawn of this restoration from brokenness. At the height of this story, in Act 4: The King’s Arrival, God sent Jesus to the earth: truly God and truly man who lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, and rose to vanquish sin and the darkness of evil. His death, burial and resurrection is the central act of God offering hope and restoration from the brokenness in the world. In Christ swings the hope and destiny of humanity’s freedom. In Act 5: The Kingdom Coming, with the inheritance of Israel’s example (good and bad) and the Good News of Jesus, the church on mission expands life-giving freedom and dignity to all of humanity. As Michael Henderson expresses,

“The central task of the universe today is extending the kingdom of God into every corner of human life, one follower at a time, one conversation at a time”

In Act 6: God’s Homecoming, we will see how God will restore all that is broken. In this post we will see how God laid the foundations for the removal of slavery in the Old Testament with the nation of Israel.

Slavery: From Brokenness to Freedom

Act 1: The World’s Beginnings Slavery, as is the case with any exploitation of one human or group of people by another, was never part of God’s plan. Slavery, today, is impossible for us to comprehend in our post-Braveheart world, as it should be. We in the 21st century have inherited considerable economic comforts and legal rights afforded by free democracies. These qualities of life have been won through long and very hard-fought battles by men and woman who believed: “All men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” In fact, these rights are the fruit of Christianity’s long spread influence through much of the world.

Act 2: Humanity’s Rebellion As the world descended into brokenness, economic abundance and the protection of human dignity was not the world surrounding Israel when they escaped as slaves from Egypt. Slavery was widespread and far-reaching. It was a powerful and entrenched social and economic system. One-half the population of certain sectors of a society were slaves. During the days of Sparta, the slaves outnumbered free citizens 7 to 1. At the time of Jesus, it is estimated that 30 to 40% of the Roman Empire was part of a permanent economic underclass. Egypt, from which Israel came, was masterful at enslaving people who had been its captives of war.

There were many reasons for slavery, but the primary reason for its prominence is that it was an economic necessity. In the ancient context the majority of people scraped by on a subsistence level. Families, as a social unit, would spend all day laboring to keep a small flock of livestock, like sheep and goats, and maybe some crops just to provide the basics of survival. There were no other jobs available for the most part. Your property and your family labor were your only means of an “income.” If a family had a bad year, they were unable to feed their family. What then would they do? They would borrow from someone who had enough surplus grain or some other commodity. This had to be paid back. Imagine now, that there is another bad year with the necessity to continue borrowing, year after year, with debt accumulating and no way to pay it back. You would have to default on the loan, effectively stealing from the one who lent to you. The only means available to repay would be the labor of your household. This was the economic reality of survival for farming societies. Because of this, the lender would not just own a person’s labor but would own the person himself, often creating a permanent class of slaves from the slave’s descendants, who could never find a path to economic freedom from their economic destitution.

The God of Israel will change slavery to a voluntary debt-service which offers a pathway to economic freedom. Israel will offer something totally different among the other nations which was revolutionary.

Act 3: Israel’s Quest As Israel emerged as a nation under Moses, they came from slavery and saw it widely practiced around them. One option to the issue would have been for God to forbid his people to participate in it. He could have stated, “You shall not enslave another person.” (We will see that God effectively did.) Had that happened, that would have meant that those who fell into economic servitude (loan default) would have been sold as slaves to other nations where they would have been treated as human chattel with forced conditions of backbreaking labor, no rest, and no laws defending the worth of the sojourner and the alien.

So, what God does is take this broken system, and he begins a process of restoring dignity and freedom to people who fall into economic bondage. The God of Israel will change slavery to a voluntary debt-service which offers a pathway to economic freedom. Israel will offer something totally different among the other nations which was revolutionary. Israel did NOT have slavery, especially as we think of it. It had a debt-service.¹

It would be voluntary and never forced.
It would only be for a person’s labor, not the person.
It would have a six year limit.
It was given provisions so that the condition would never become permanent.
It was given rights and protections.

First: Slave trade was completely forbidden. There could be no forcing of a person into service against his or her will. Such activity was punished by death.

“If someone is caught kidnapping a fellow Israelite and treating or selling them as a slave, the kidnapper must die. You must purge the evil from among you.“
Deuteronomy 24:7

This was a sweeping change in contrast to the nations surrounding them. Further, runaway slaves (servants) were not to be returned to those who they were in service. If they were seeking to leave their service, they were to be protected. This debt-service was entered into voluntarily and could be abandoned voluntarily:

“If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them.”
Deuteronomy 24:15-16

This verse was used commonly by abolitionists.

Second, “slavery” in Old Testament law is vastly different than anything that we commonly associate with chattel slavery where people are deprived of basic dignity and freedom. As already stated, they were more like debt-servants. They sold their labor and not themselves:

“If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves.”
Leviticus 25:39

Many early colonists in America and Australia served terms of indentured servitude to escape debtors’ prison.

Third, slavery was voluntary and limited. When a man or woman sold themselves into debt-service, it could be for no more than six years. Smaller debts could presumably be paid in less time.

“If any of your people—Hebrew men or women—sell themselves to you and serve you six years, in the seventh year you must let them go free.
Deuteronomy 15:12

Fourth: provision was to be made at the end of the time of service for the servants to be sent away by the person they worked for, along with enough resources to restart their lives in freedom and not have to go back into slavery again:

“And when you release them, do not send them away empty-handed. Supply them liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to them as the Lord your God has blessed you. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today.“
Deuteronomy 15:13-15

The motivation according to this scripture is that God had redeemed them to freedom from Egypt and did not want any of his people to become a permanent underclass once again.

Fifth: the fourth commandment requires that servants enjoy the Sabbath along with their masters. This gave the assurance that they were included with all of the rights and protections of everyone else.

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.
Exodus 20:8-10

For those servants working in this new household who found a better life than the one they came from, they could choose to remain a permanent member of the family. Under the care of a wealthier family, they may have been better fed, better clothed, and able to engage in work that was more rewarding. One could continue as a member of that family:

“But if your servant says to you, ‘I do not want to leave you,’ because he loves you and your family and is well off with you, then take an awl and push it through his earlobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life. Do the same for your female servant.“
Deuteronomy 15:16-17

God extended this spirit of freedom and dignity to the foreigner residing in the Jewish land:

“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
Leviticus 19:33-34

Israel was to be distinct and set apart from all of the other nations by never reducing anyone to a permanent economic underclass again. By the time of Jesus, slavery as an underclass of society was extinct in Israel. The Old Testament laws of debt-service had advanced a pathway to economic liberation in a way no other nation experienced. Israel was free of slavery, though the nations around them in the Roman Empire practiced it widely.

So, does a fair reading of the Old Testament lead one to conclude that it condones and supports slavery? Becky Little, in an article for the History Channel, talks about the Bibles which were given to slaves during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. She writes:

Most of the Old Testament is missing, and only about half of the New Testament remains. The reason? So that the enslaved Africans in the Caribbean islands of Jamaica, Barbados and Antigua couldn’t read or be read anything that might incite them to rebel.

If someone does NOT Misread and Misunderstand the Bible, he will clearly see that the Scripture promotes human freedom and dignity. There are other texts from the Old Testament that can be addressed regarding this topic. In How NOT to Misread and Misunderstand the Bible (Part 6), we will look at how the New Testament sowed the seeds for the worldwide eradication of slavery.