Tag: Slavery

Morning Musing: Exodus 21:20-21, 26-27

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“When a man strikes his male or female slaves with a rod, and the slaves dies under his abuse, the owner must be punished. However, if the slave can stand up after a day or two, the owner should not be punished because he is his owner’s property. . .When a man strikes the eye of his male or female slaves and destroys it, he must let the slave go free in compensation for the his eye. If he knocks out the tooth of his male or female salve, he must let the slave go free in compensation for his tooth.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the charges leveled against the Scriptures by critical scholars and skeptics is that they condone slavery. To a certain extent, this is an argument from silence. Because none of the various authors ever explicitly say slavery is wrong, and because there are several passages (like this one) in which the instructions assume on the existence and even continuation of the practice, therefore, they collectively support it. There are several reasons why this argument is flawed. LEt’s talk about some of them and what to do with what we see here.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 21:7-11

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“When a man sells his daughter as a concubine, she is not to leave as the male slaves do. If she is displeasing to her master, who chose her for himself, then he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners because he has acted treacherously toward her. Or if he chooses her for his son, he must deal with her according to the customary treatment of daughters. If he takes an additional wife, he must not reduce the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first wife. And if he does not do these three things for her, she may leave free of charge, without any payment.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There’s a memorable scene from the series, West Wing, when President Bartlett publicly embarrassed one of his critics. Bartlett is a Democrat (being the protagonist of a show developed by Aaron Sorkin, of course he is). The critic is a religious conservative who has a popular call in radio show where she has been critical of the President and his policies and has taken a conservative stance on a handful of social issues including homosexuality. In front of a roomful of reporters and supporters, Bartlett asks the critic what kind of price his daughter would fetch if he sold her into slavery. This is followed by a series of other questions whose purpose is to show that this critic’s traditional understanding of the Old Testament is silly, and thus so are conservatives. Well, this next law starts with the verse Bartlett cities about selling a daughter into slavery. Let’s talk about what this means, what it doesn’t, and why this doesn’t take away from our image of God’s character in the Old Testament.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 21:2-6

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“When you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for six years; then in the seventh he is to leave as a free man without paying anything. If he arrives alone, he is to leave alone; if he arrives with a wife, his wife is to leave with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children belong to her master, and the man must leave alone. But if the slave declares, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I do not want to leave as a free man,’ his master is to bring him to the judges and then bring him to the door or doorpost. His master will pierce his ear with an awl, and he will serve his master for life.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The United States has a pretty uncomfortable relationship with slavery. Like most of the rest of the western world, we practiced and explicitly racist form of slavery rooted in the idea that black people (Native Americans too, but mostly just black people) were not equal to white people in either worth or dignity. Unlike our neighbors across the Atlantic in England, though, we did not end slavery by popular vote or legislative fiat. We fought an ugly, bitter war over it. After that followed racism’s comeback, especially in the cultural south through what became known as Jim Crow laws. It’s all an ugly stain on our history. During that awful period, people claiming the banner of Christ were often supportive of slavery on the basis of passages like this one. So, does the Bible support slavery? Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 6:17-18

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“But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over, and having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter) 

Freedom beats at the heart of every person. This has always been the case. Freedom hasn’t always been as widely available in the world as it is today, but the freest people have always been the envy of the rest. In the ancient world, some longed for it but assumed they weren’t made for it. Today, there are occasionally national revolutions to obtain it, even as rulers try and deny it every way they can because they understand that the freer people are, the less power the ruling class has. But our longing is freedom. So, why would anyone want to follow a religion that calls its devotees to be slaves? 

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 6:20, 22

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“For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. . . .But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This is one of the more confusing arguments Paul makes over the course of his letter to the church in Rome.  First, he says Christians were slaves of sin before being saved, then, he says that Christians, once they have been saved and set free from sin, are slaves of God.  So we are saved from slavery only to enter into another kind of slavery?  What gives?  Why not just stay where we were at first? Read the rest…